Ravioli made slowly.

I put together a real fancy filling with taleggio, fontina, fresh herbs, fancy ricotta etc. When i tested it inside dough it wasn't right. So i started over with supermarket ricotta, reggiano, a lil asiago, an egg and parsley. Yes, yes keep it simple my brother.

The dough sheets from Talutto's were perfect thickness and did not require any further rolling.

Spring Garden Market

Wow a really sharp market on Spring Garden between 4th & 5th. It's like Hung Vuong but brighter, more open and it smells a lil fresher. Some good deals too. live lobsters were 8.99 lb, for chix. I was at Reading Terminal later and chix were 13.99lb ! These beautiful clams were writhing with life $5.99 lb.

Getting my goat

Italian mkt was so crowded today. Claudio line looped thru the place!



<---Ya goatfish

Trifle

My sister made this pear trifle with Poire Williams. The only thing better than the trifle was the straight Poire Williams.

The Oysters

Yes they were delectable. 1/2 were Oysters Rocky the other half i baked with ginger and rice wine and topped with sushi tuna and spicy sauce.

This lovely tuna from WholeFoods Market was superb.

Christmas Cooking (preparing for)

Chef's market, the only spot open on Christmas Day, was were clever enough to post signs saying that they were open on the closed doors of Superfresh and Wholefoods. Seems they misplaced their own day-old sign for the rolls. Starbucks was open too. Starbucks coffee was better than nothing as was the roll.

The flute man on South st sounded extra festive puffing out holiday tunes in the sunshine!

Oysters Rocky

Oysters Rocky is baked oysters made with ingredients I grabbed as i ran up 9th st. - spinach, garlic, fontina, provolone, cappacola, etc.

<---This was a tester for tommorow's hors d'oeuvre.







These are 3 dz Wellfleets from WholeFoods Market. Seafood nearly always sparkles there. I sampled one, then ordered yesterday. Taste was super, firm texture, clean and strong briny flavor, and decent size shell for baking.
They were ready on time, shucked, iced and packed nicely. 1.29$ pp. Outstanding service.

Yes, Gaetano, there is a Santa

While shopping the Italian Market for ideas/ingredients for baked oysters, I saw Santa up ahead.

Pastey Puddin'

It's kind of good. The adzuki beans are delectable, and the rice is good too. It needs to be creamier..... maybe milk instead of light cream and no convection in baking? Def be good with some fruit ice.

Luxe lefties

Rabbit sausage and truffled cannelloni were leftovers from yesterday and better than 1st X around. Unexpectedly delish, yet curious!

The Pudding

I had already soaked the beans and steamed the rice, so that eliminated trying some of the online wild rice pudding techniques that required starting out with uncooked rice. Instead I soaked the beans in rum and splashed a custard with some bergamot EO. I put all in a dbl boiler, and it's in the oven now.

B Square Installation 9th St

JOHN HOBBIE

Italian Market holiday cooking

We don't do the 7 fishes in my family. So i wasn't looking for anything finny on Friday. I picked up some egg pasta sheets from Talluto's. Then I went into D'Angelo's, and the sausage choices were crazy! I grabbed some Sicilian and a pound of rabbit. I had some l/o Sottocenere al Tartufo and Polly-o mozz. I figured cannelloni are festive, so I needed some ricotta. There was no bread on 9th. So I popped in WholeFoods market, I got the Ricotta there (a little dry for my purpose, nice flavor), bread (sad) , and 365 marinara. WFM marinara is a good base for making a quick and favorful tomato sauce - fair price, sugar is way down on the ingredients list and tomato flavor is almost bright .
The dish was tasty with a bottle of Shiraz. Sonny's Sicilian was brilliant in the NY style, nice flavor and not too salty. The rabbit sausage had nice flavor. The truffled cannelloni were nice, but they were definitely overpowered by the sausages and tomato sauce.

The other pic is boned out turkey breasts Sonny was stuffing with proscuitto, portabellos and sage. He truly has mad knife skills.

Superfresh on south -- the veau is whoa

At times the veal here is a steal. These veal cutlets/scaloppini were $9.99/#. A total deal. Ochs slices beautiful veal but for $27/#. Gf sauteed the veal and made fusilli with spinach and truffled pecorino (leftover from party). Delish. Raspberries also Superfresh 2.99 (Mexico fragrant, ripe, firm and flavorful.

Pizza, smoke and narcs

If someone mentions that a pizza place in town is good we check it out. We've been doing that for a few years. Nothing has changed. We still go to the NE for pizza. We have tried Gianfranco, Slice, Lorenzo, Paolo, 2 street, Gianna and ya we go to the Northeast. Today we popped into this spot on Mkt at 69th. Even though it smelled foul (smoking allowed) the pizza was better than any spot in town that I know of except maybe Osteria and Pizzicato. The ambiance is unique in that Upper Darby's five-0 is pictured on playing cards in all kinds of poses. One guy is in a Weaver stance!
The pizza is 1.85/slice and better than most everything in CC.

WholeFoods Market mini-tasting

Genji made some rolls using those ingredients in pic as an alternative to sticky rice. Tasty yes, but I wouldn't want millet or barley with toro or uni. Who would?

Still it's 100X better idea than WFM cinnamon scented pine cones*.


*Also available at Walmart

Reading Terminal Springerle

As i was eyeing up these crafty cookies an in-the-know shopper of Germanic descent confirmed that these are the real deal.

Reading Terminal Deli

Wow Hershels was* really good. We shared a Corned Beef Special, a bit on the fatty but the best i've had in Philly. Last time there Dr. Ed Schwartz was in front of me in line ordering nova, hmm he's probably in the know so next time testing out salmon.

*Update: 2nd sampling at Hershels not so delicious. Still good CB special but stodgy rye bread and nix the knish, also chicken soup broth seems derived from salty flavor crystals.

Also Iovine with the variety and good prices.

Party summary

The party went real well. Tom at Claudio sold us so much stuff ....... yikes. It was all delicious. He sold us a fennel salami from Cali that was spectaculare and a 3x creme from France that was unbelievable. I cured and grilled the gift turkey. The biggest hit was the buffalo shrimp. My gf made them in batches they were delish and the guests went seagull over them. People brought good stuff too. A batch of seaweed salad, mac & ch, shepherds pie, crab cakes great cooking by all! I dropped a whole pizza! There was other tasty goods too!

We shopped at Hung Vuong for bahn trang, roasted pork and greens.

Ridin my train

On the way to Reading Terminal market today I saw these trains in the Headhouse lobby. One of the trains just left WholeFoods Maket, the one loaded with gold.

Red Beans & Rice

This stuff from Essene Market. I want to try and combine these 2 for a sweet dish.

Say not to tots

We just eat too many tots. Here we have salad, tots & strip steaks all from WholeFoods Market all deliciously irrestible. Wine AAA -- we opened a skunked bottle first both from PLCB.

Solstice Party Menu

Menu is the word on everyones lips in my family. We invited friends to come by next Thursday and celebrate the season. Some will be bringing their specialty dishes!

We expect about 30 guests. We decided on a menu with dishes that 1-we know how to make 2-used ingredients that are a good value*, available and prime 3-Did not create chaos in the kitchen. So we have an oven dish - Clam Pizza, 2 pre-made dishes: goi cuon, and Antipasti (a chance to use that gift turkey in my freezer*), and a pan fried dish -Buffalo Shrimp.

Maybe check out HeadHouse Market tomorrow for more ideas.

For the actual family holiday cooking I will be requested to bring one dish for 15-20. Haven't gotten any direction yet from my sister who manages this holiday meal.

More Soup

We don't have the quaint crocks to stick under the salamander but these mugs work fine. Made with chicken stock, better than expected!

Cheesesteaks

Checked out John's last Friday. The most amazingly attentive and friendly people working there. Cheesteak pretty good maybe a B. Roast pork better B+. They are better than 99% of the competition on hospitality and the rolls were real good too. I'll admit that i also visited Steve's yesterday and it was good but they switched up the roll and it is not such a good match with their sandwich. Still nice roll and nice steak but not a perfect marriage anymore.

Berries for a Buck

Iovine at Reading Terminal Market always has a few steals. 1/2 pints a dollar each for blackberries and raspberries. Both firm, no mold and good flavor, decent sugar in the blackberries both Mexico.

Iovine: limes 10 for a dollar
WholeFoods Market citrus -- bring gold.