I met my wife for the first time in Charleston, South Carolina fourteen years ago.  We loved the town so much that, two years after that, we held our wedding there and made everyone fly in for the ceremony (we were, after all, in a long distance relationship and not only was Charleston beautiful, it was also neutral territory).

Since that time, we’ve only been back to Charleston once, and that was several years ago.  Even then, we could see the town beginning to change - at its heart, Charleston is a college town filled with small, independently owned shops that compete for space with majestic homes and hotels.  But on that visit, we saw that some of the shops on King Street were starting to yield to nationally recognized franchises like Starbucks.

We’ve got a small list of spots that we want to hit, some of them old standbys and others that have cropped up in the intervening years of our absence.  The very first thing on the list is the Wild Wing Cafe, which takes the concept of a college town buffalo wing joint and turns it up to 11.  Then there’s Jestine’s Kitchen, a small soul food restaurant that serves up killer chicken, fried green tomatoes, and Coca Cola cake.

As it turns out, Robert Stehling, this year’s winner of the James Beard award for Best Chef in the Southeast region, is in Charleston, cooking at Hominy Grill.  I spent yesterday afternoon studying the menu, and it all looks awesome.  Reservations were easy to come by.

So, we’re getting on the plane tomorrow and won’t be back until Monday.  If I have internet access in the hotel, I’ll try to post content from the road.  Otherwise, it’ll just stockpile on my hard drive and updates will resume a week from today.  Given that I can’t do many of these places justice without pictures, I may decide to wait anyway.

If I’m really motivated, I’ll create a Twitter account for The Best Food Blog Ever and give quick updates with my greasy buffalo wing and fried chicken coated fingers.

UPDATE: I was, in fact, really motivated and now have a Twitter account for The Best Food Blog Ever.  It’s over on the column to the left.  Twitter updates will show up here, and you can click on the little RSS icon to subscribe to the Twitter feed.

Is it possible for a restaurant to break your heart?

Seven years ago, or thereabouts, a tiny storefront tucked away off of Philadelphia’s eclectic South Street was transformed into Django, a BYOB that would go on to revolutionize small bistro dining in a city notorious for its ridiculous markups on wine.

Owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Bryan Sikora and Aimee Olexy, Django enchanted diners with its homey atmosphere, superb service, and Sikora’s outstanding and innovative cuisine.  Django reaped the rewards, garnering Best New Restaurant and Best Chef in Philadelphia Magazine that year, along with a mention in Gourmet magazine, which contributed to regional and national recognition of the restaurant.  The best thing about this was that none of these accolades were hype - it was all very much deserved, corroborated by Sikora’s ability to turn out excellent fare and Olexy’s masterful command of cheese selection and front-of-the-house management.  Whenever you see a cheese plate in Philadelphia today, it’s because of her influence.

As word spread and the restaurant became more and more successful, weekend reservations became harder and harder to secure, and Django instituted a 30 calendar day rule for reservations, prompting many to hover over their redial buttons at 10am each morning, waiting for the magical window to open.  Even when we were successful at getting through to a live person, by the time we had reached the reservations desk the only available openings were frequently either 5:30pm or 10:30pm, which we gladly accepted.  Despite having countless other amazing restaurants in the city to choose from, whenever we had to schedule a special occasion dinner, or had out-of-towners coming to visit, there was never a question where we would go.  Over the next few years, we racked up a nice collection of anniversary and birthday dinners at Django, and made it a point to stagger reservations across each of the four seasons, just to see what changes would come to the menu.

Then one day, Sikora and Olexy sold Django and left Philadelphia.  On the heels of the birth of their first child, they had decided to give up the daily hustle of the Philadelphia restaurant scene, cashed in their chips, and rode off into the sunset.  It was a classic Michael Jordan move, retiring at the top of your game.  Our hearts crumbled, with our remorse only magnified by a visit to the restaurant after the deal was done, when we discovered that Django the Great had, with the departure of the original owners, become Django the Very Good.  Sikora and Olexy were the heart and soul of Django, and when they left, much of that heart and soul went with them, and the establishment felt more like a business than the personal experience that it once was.  It was still a very good bistro, but there hung a very palpable void in the absence of Sikora in the kitchen and Olexy in the front of the house.  Lacking the personal touch that was the hallmark of the “old” Django, the restaurant soon faded into the rushing waters of the BYOB scene that it had originally pioneered.  Today, I’m sure that it’s still a good bistro, but in a town now filled with BYOB bistros, it no longer stands above the fray.

After their departure, months passed, and there were rumors here and there, of Sikora and Olexy relocating to New Jersey, or perhaps clear across the state to Pittsburgh.  Their absence from the Philadelphia BYOB scene was quickly filled by more and more new and upcoming bistros offering homey atmospheres served by small kitchen staff, profiting on the template that Django had originated.  Still, after having tried a few, we were still not swayed from our opinion that Django did it first, and Django did it best.  We had all but written off seeing the duo back on the food scene when, to my surprise, I heard that Sovana, a small bistro in the heart of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, mere minutes from Philadelphia, had acquired a new chef named Bryan Sikora.

So, on the occasion of my wife’s birthday two years ago, or thereabouts, we trekked through the lush valleys of the Mushroom Capital of the World, along small winding country roads and shot straight past Sovana, which is located in a small shopping center, facing inward.  Turning the car around, we managed to find it fairly quickly and arrived shortly after the 4:30 start time for the dinner service.  Sovana does not require reservations, and the outgoing voice message states that they would always honor walk-ins, although it would be possible to make a reservations request.

My first viewing of the menu felt like a culinary homecoming.  I saw menu items that I thought I would never see again after the end of the Sikora/Olexy era at Django.  Goat Cheese Gnocchi, Wild Boar Ragu, the best dishes that ever graced the menus of Django were now at Sovana, and largely retained the same qualities that made them such standout successes at Django.  The space, with a high-ceilinged industrial vibe, took some getting used to, but the meals that we had enjoyed with such enthusiasm were still there.  To be sure, there was definitely a different feel to Sovana than Django, as Bryan Sikora was now an employee, not an owner, Aimee Olexy was nowhere to be seen in this new endeavor, and the staff went about their duties with businesslike efficiency.  The no-reservations policy did yield some visits when we were relegated to waiting at the bar for over an hour, but overall our experience at Sovana was good, though not as good as Django.

We managed to have three meals at Sovana before the wheels of change turned again.  A subsequent call to the restaurant some months later yielded a hostess, obviously new to the position, who was unfamiliar with Sikora’s name.  She checked, and there was no “Bryan Sikora” working at Sovana, not anymore.  And the void came rushing back, although, seeing that Sovana never came close to achieving the approachability of the original Django, it hurt far less this time around.

This time, though, it was not too long after Sikora’s departure from Sovana that there were some news items regarding the next chapter of their endeavors - a small gourmet shop in downtown Kennett Square, right on Main Street, in a location that formerly housed a shoe store.  Delays and the usual hassles of opening a business meant staring at an “under construction” version of the shop’s website for weeks past the anticipated opening date.  But waiting for the shop to open was better than not having any news at all.

In 2007, on a blustery winter day when the warm rays of summer are a mere memory, and the thaws of spring not even a thought on the horizon, Bryan Sikora and Aimee Olexy debuted their new gourmet shop named after their daughter, Talulah’s Table.  Like Deadheads following the band, we just had to go and check it out, especially since the shop is only a pretty 30 minute drive through the countryside from where we live.

One of the things that’s particularly appealing about Kennett Square, and about small town centers in general, is the fact that the main drag is not a collection of franchises like Burger King and Starbucks.  Main Street in Kennett Square consists of a variety of small, independently owned shops and eateries, and makes for a nice strolling afternoon, provided it’s not 20 degrees out.  Which, on this particular afternoon, it was, and we had to hop over mounds of ice and snow to get to the front door from the car.

Talulah’s Table falls in line with the general Kennett Square aesthetic, and the first thing that you notice when you walk into the shop is that comfortable, homey feeling about the place, with a preponderance of wood floors and shelves and the smell of fresh-brewed coffee.  This effect lasts for all of about five seconds, before you dive headlong into exploring all that Sikora and Olexy have to offer in their latest spot.  In general, the merchandise is displayed on wooden shelves lining both sides of the room, with the coffee/pastry bar and register taking up the front of the rectangular space, with small coolers offering cold drinks and grab-and-go sandwiches next to it.  There are sections of the store dedicated to jarred items, chocolate, dried pasta, various oils - the typical items that you would expect to find in a gourmet shop.  It’s a place where you could stop by every so often to stock up on high end items, or find yourself there every morning grabbing a coffee and danish before heading off to work, or even every evening, picking up the components for dinner.

Things get more interesting as you head towards the back of the store.  On one side of the room are display shelves stocked with various breads and rolls, and next to that is a tap for olive oil - yes, you can bottle your own here.  A freezer case holds frozen house-made pasta and pasta sauces, and then as your eye follows the room in a counterclockwise fashion, you come upon the cheese display and your budget just flies out of the window.  I am so completely not kidding.

The display case at the back of the store, where Aimee Olexy’s hand-selected cheeses share space with her husband’s prepared food options, is the kind of display case that you would put on your desert island list, if your desert island had electricity, trees made from bread and crackers, and was surrounded by an ocean of red wine.  If she’s available, Olexy is more than happy to answer your questions about the cheeses, and will solicit your unique likes and dislikes in order to tailor her recommendations to your taste.  One of the best things we we ever did was to take the day off from work, drop by the shop, give Olexy a budget limit and just have her create a picnic basket of charcuterie and cheese.  That, and a baguette, made for one of the best lunches in the picnic area outside of Longwood Gardens.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned is the large oak table that resides in the center of the store.  When Talulah’s Table first opened, it had been announced that the table would be made available for private dinner functions, after the shop had gotten established and found its groove, and that was all that was said about that.  It would serve as an opportunity for Sikora to continue the tradition of a dinner service, but without the pressure of serving hundreds of courses each night.

Little did we know that, within a few short months, a seat at that table would be the hardest reservation to get in the United States.

Next Week: Part Two, Chasing Talulah’s Table

I had my first foray into home gardening about a year ago, which was great for herbs, but the leafy greens came to an untimely end.

This year, I got smart and we’ve had a fence around the garden from the beginning.  As a result, well…we’re going to be eating lettuce throughout the rest of the summer, as you can see.

The sage and thyme survived through last winter and got an early start on growing this season.  Both had grown enough to begin blooming, but, seeing as the bloom season seems to have passed, I’ve clipped both down considerably, leaving one or two stalks for the benefit of the bees.  Also making a reappearance was the oregano which, like mint, grows like a weed, but I’ve left it alone because it’s more versatile than mint (which was dug out of the garden and now rests peacefully in its own pot).

Leaving the sage, thyme, and oregano meant that I had about 90% of the square foot garden left to play in.  I set out to complete the herb set, so I picked up some basil and a tarragon plant (new for this year).  I haven’t used either of them in my cooking so far, because I want them to grow a little more before harvesting.  On a whim, I picked up a lemon verbena plant and potted it next to the garden, and the few weeks of warm weather have perked it up considerably.  I also added chives and scallions to one corner - the chives are thriving, and I have three good scallions.  Both, I believe, are perennial, so I may never have to buy chives from the store ever again.

As far as crops go, I learned my lesson from last year and decided not to plant carrots this time around.  Instead, I again planted lettuce and spinach (the lettuce took off, and the spinach has been hard to cultivate this year) and tried my hand at broccoli rabe.
In the cool days of late spring, the broccoli rabe wasn’t very active.  The next thing you know, it’s waist high and has already bloomed, which may or may not have affected my ability to eat it - I haven’t tried any of it yet.  It is tempting, though, to consider sauteing a mess of broccoli rabe in garlic and olive oil, roasting a pork shoulder in the oven until it’s falling apart, and slapping all of it onto rolls paired with some painfully sharp provolone.

I really enjoy the level of self sufficiency that we attain during the summer months with our garden.  At this point, food shopping consists only of picking up the meats that we need from the store, and everything else that I need to make a dish pretty much comes from what we grow.  If only our homeowners association would allow me to raise chickens and cattle, I would never have to go to the store at all.

Yay - Excellent food, superb bottled beer selection, and friendly servers and staff.

Meh - Layout, at least at dinner, is somewhat confusing, ‘market’ area needs more variety of items.  Some food items are priced appropriately, while others court the realm of ‘ridiculous Main Line markup’.

Summary - Definitely recommended for the food and beer, although it would be wise to keep an eye on the prices, as the bill tends to go high quickly if you aren’t careful.

*******************************************************************

We recently had an opportunity to stop by the Maia Market and Restaurant in Villanova for dinner.  Having previously experienced the talents of chefs Terence Feury (Striped Bass in Philadelphia) and his brother Patrick (Nectar in Berwyn), we were looking forward to seeing what the two would do together on this Main Line collaboration.

Maia occupies two floors, with the first floor dedicated to a grab-and-go gourmet market and bar area and the second floor reserved for tablecloth-and-good silverware fine dining.

When we first walked in, the sense of the space was overwhelming.  We were greeted by the hostess and told her that it was our first time visiting, and we wanted to walk around and check the place out.  We wandered through the first floor, stopping to check out the coffee and pastry bar, and slipped through the bar area to the ‘market’ portion of the restaurant.

The Maia Market consists of display cases containing a number of varieties of charcuterie, pates, and cheeses.  You can see the potential there, but it needs a bit more diversity before it can reach the status of ‘market’.

The overall feel of the market area of Maia evokes a showroom type of atmosphere, with a handful of the very finest ingredients, displayed in quiet reverence behind glass, with a Maia employee behind the counter who is very eager to speak about the goods in the finest detail.  Three loaves of bread, baked on-site, displayed on a shelf, are dusted with flour to exhibit a monogrammed ‘M’.  I can see how one could call this a ‘market’, but it’s a market dedicated to Main Line folks who don’t cook.  Ever.  The kind who spend $50K outfitting a kitchen with the best of everything, but who will never turn a single burner on.

When I think of an upscale market, I tend to think about DiBruno Brothers House of Cheese, or Tallulah’s Table out in Kennett Square.  I like diversity.  I like variety.  I want to be able to pick from dozens of cheeses and other specialty items.  Granted, Maia has a worthy selection of pates (most impressively, a truffle and sweetbread one) and a moderate selection of meats, but as far as cheese goes, they’ve got a cheddar, something from the gruyere category, and a couple of bleu varieties.  Again, it’s a food market for people who don’t cook.  It’s all top quality, but it’s just not that many items.

If there is one shining superiority about Maia Market, though, it is the selection of bottled beers in the cold case.  It is stunningly vast, consisting of local selections such as Victory, somewhat local breweries like Ommegang out of New York, and extending to wonderful imports from around the globe.

Time to talk about the restaurant portion of Maia.  After looking at the menus for upstairs and downstairs, we decided to grab something to eat from the first floor and just sit at a table to enjoy our dinner.  We stood at the spot under the sign that said ‘Order Here’ and watched as servers and other employees rushed past us in all directions.  After a few moments, we thought that we were doing something wrong (ASKING FR FUD - UR DOING IT WRONG) and stopped one of the employees to ask if someone could take our order.  He looked at us in a puzzled sort of manner, and then spoke to someone else, and then said that someone from behind the counter would take care of us.  We waited a bit more without much success before I resorted to going up to the nice girl at the hostess station.

As it turns out, we were doing it wrong.  The ‘Order Here’ sign, and the menu posted next to it, was only for lunch.  If we wanted to eat dinner, we’d have to be seated with menus.  Some of the lunch menu items, such as the burger, are unavailable for dinner.  Others, like the hot pastrami, are available, but at a higher price.  Food-wise, my only complaint about Maia Restaurant is that while most of the dishes are priced appropriately, like $8 for the pate starter and $19 for the steak frites entree, other dishes seem far overpriced for what they are, Main Line notwithstanding.  The pastrami sandwich, officially labeled the ‘House Smoked Snake River Farms Kobe Beef Hot Pastrami Sandwich’, is $14.  A neighboring table ordered it, and I snuck a peek - it looked like a decent hot pastrami, but even with Kobe beef, asking $14 for it is kind of a stretch, especially for an item that doesn’t necessarily reflect an outstanding level of artistic skill on the part of the kitchen.  And I speak from the point of view of someone who’s smoked a lot of barbecue.

We ordered the Maia House Country Pate as a starter, and the Choucroute and Roasted Hangar Steak Frites as entrees.  Enough of my bitching about the confusing layout and inventory of the market -  the food in the restaurant, from our experience, absolutely shines.

The Country Pate ($8) was a nice thick slice of pate served with a frisee salad and mustard.  It tasted as a good pate should, very rich with a good mix of flavors that paired very well with the sharp tang of the mustard.  And, as could be expected, all of this paired nicely with a glass of Ommegang Hennepin.

My Choucroute ($15), consisting of knockwurst, bratwurst, and frankfurter, was not at all what I expected, but in a good way.  Instead of a large platter of sausages, I was presented with a smaller plate, with a small crock of wursts nestled in what I would describe as the very best sauerkraut I have ever tasted.  Next to the crock was a smaller container of whole grain mustard, and next to that were a few poppy seed rolls, split.  I believe the intent was to eat the wursts hot dog style on the rolls, but I went the route of slathering mustard on each bite of wurst and kraut, using the rolls as a palate cleanser.

My wife’s Steak Frites ($19) was a perfect example of what steak frites should be.  The steak was presented, sliced and fanned, with a dash of butter and fries.  Steak frites should not be the most tender thing you’ve eaten - it should have a little bit of chew to it and a lot of flavor, and this describes what we had exactly.

Our server was good, and seemed to enjoy his work, which makes all of the difference between great service and acceptable service.  Plates were cleared promptly, glasses were refilled without asking, and an offer for a second plate of bread was gladly accepted after we had finished the first.  Overall, each of the employees that we met were really good at making eye contact, and seemed content in their tasks.  Good training makes a big difference.

We decided against seeing the dessert menu, because I wanted to grab coffee and croissants from the pastry area.  Unfortunately, when we got there, the pastry selection was a little lacking, and there were no croissants to be found.  We ended up not getting anything else, and instead stopped at Rita’s for custard on the way home.

We picked up a menu for the upstairs dining room, and from what I can see, it looks like the Feury brothers are taking all of their experience with seafood and going all out, which should translate to off-the-charts awesome.  Of the ten entrees on offer that evening, only two weren’t seafood.  The prices are in-line with upscale Main Line dining, and it definitely looks like something that would be on our radar in the future.

Here’s something you may not know about me - I don’t like to cook when it’s just for myself.

So, when my wife was out of town for two nights this week, I needed to come up with a way of feeding myself that didn’t involve too much effort, since I was already disinclined to be in the kitchen anyway.  On the first night, I stopped at the supermarket and picked up a hoagie for dinner, and a small chicken.  I ate the hoagie the first night, and the second night I made this dish.

When I was growing up, my mom used to always refer to this as “Chicken in Water” which is pretty much what it is.  It’s more technique-based than ingredient-based, but the charm of this preparation is that it requires almost no effort beyond boiling water, and results in absolutely foolproof, perfectly cooked chicken.  The key is to let the chicken steep in the hot stock long enough so that the heat penetrates the bird throughout, bringing the temperature up so that the meat is fully cooked.

Chinese White Cooked Chicken

1 small chicken, rinsed
A pot of water, enough to fully submerge the chicken
Ginger
Garlic
Chinese rice wine (optional, but good if you have it)
Salt

Bring the pot of water to a boil.  While you’re waiting for the water, slice a knob of ginger into four or five pieces, and smash three or four cloves of garlic, and add both of these to the water along with a cup or so of rice wine.

When the water is at a full boil, add a splash of salt (as you would for pasta, about that much).

Carefully lower the chicken fully into the boiling water, making sure the water fills the cavity of the bird, and bring the water back to a gentle, bubbling boil.

For small chickens, let this cook for about 10 to 15 minutes.  Put a lid on the pot, and turn off the heat.

That’s it.  Now all you have to do is let the chicken sit in the water for at least an hour, and it will be fully cooked.  You can even let it sit longer and it won’t dry out.  Plus, you’ll end up with a nice pot of chicken stock that you can use for soup later on.

To serve
Use a pair of tongs and fish the chicken out and onto a platter.  Remove and discard the skin, and use forks to pull the meat from the bones.  A good pairing is to serve this over buttered rice topped with a little bit of soy sauce or sesame oil, and scallions or chives.

We’re coming off of our first heat wave of the summer, four straight days of 98 degree weather which culminated in violent thunderstorms last night that finally brought some relief.

On Monday, it was so hot that I had absolutely no desire to cook anything, nor did I want to venture out into the heat to pick something up.  Whatever I made, I wanted it to be cold and really easy to make with things that I already had in my kitchen.

My solution was cold peanut noodles (you may see variations of this recipe as cold sesame noodles, but seeing as the bulk of the recipe is peanut butter…).

A quick search on the internet turns up lots of recipes for cold peanut noodles, and they all basically read the same.  Some of the recipes can get complex, but especially when I’m in a rush, I’m going for the most straightforward preparation possible.

Here’s a quick and dirty mockup, based largely on a Tyler Florence recipe that I found on Epicurious.  Feel free to adjust proportions and add items as you please.

Cold Peanut Noodles for Hot Summer Weather

3/4 lb of spaghetti

2 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs rice vinegar
1 Tbs sesame oil
1/2 Cup peanut butter
1/2 Cup water or stock

Protein of some sort - tofu, cooked chicken, cooked beef, really anything

Put a pot of water on to boil.

While you are waiting for your water to boil, put everything else into a small saucepan and set it over medium heat.  Whisk everything together, bring to a simmer, and turn off the heat.  Sauce is done.

Make your spaghetti.  Drain it, and run some cold water over the noodles to cool them down.  Tumble the pasta into a serving bowl and toss it with the sauce, adding your protein if you are using it.

This is good at room temperature, or even cold right out of the refrigerator.

Additional Hints:  I like to make this super spicy, which you can do by adding hot sauce, or sambal if you have it on hand.  It’s a spicy red chile mash that you can find in Chinese grocery stores, and some supermarkets.  Other neat additions would be chopped cilantro or cucumbers.

The first time we ever had Shanghai soup dumplings was in a little dive of a restaurant in Chinatown, NYC.  It was one of those places that has the names of the dishes written, in Chinese, in black marker on sheets of white copy paper taped to the walls.  For those among us who don’t speak or read the language, a much less interesting selection of items was provided by way of the formal printed menu.

Anyway, this place had an article about soup dumplings taped in its window, and they sounded interesting enough to take the $3 gamble.  Basically, Shanghai soup dumplings are steamed orders of dim sum that contain a volcanic-hot filling of pork, sometimes crab, and broth.  Once you learn the art of eating them without burning your lips off, they are absolutely amazing.

So, for the time that we lived in New Jersey, we would find ourselves in Chinatown every so often, and we’d always stop by the restaurant and overorder on soup dumplings.  After moving to Pennsylvania, our trips into NYC became less frequent, as did our intake of dim sum.

We’ve since found some excellent soup dumplings at Margaret Kuo’s in Wayne, but given how it’s kind of a high-end place, it’s not the kind of place you just happen to drop in whenever you have a hankering for dim sum.

Imagine our delight, then, to find that Dim Sum Garden, down by the Convention Center in Philadelphia, had Shanghai soup dumplings.

It is a rule of thumb that the worse a Chinese restaurant looks, generally the better the stuff that comes out of the kitchen.  Dim Sum Garden does not disappoint in this regard.  It is located in the tunnel that runs underneath the Convention Center on 11th Street, right next to the bus depot where all of the cheap NYC to PHL Chinatown buses collect and drop off passengers.  You need to walk through a cloud of exhaust fumes to get to the restaurant’s front door, and when you walk in, it looks like your average Chinese takeout joint, with a few tables and some counter space, all under bright white florescent lights.

We sat down and were pleased to find that there was table service, as a waitress said she’d be right with us.  Each of the tables has three small mugs - one for “dumpling sauce”, one for “ginger sauce” and one for “chile sauce”.

We ordered one order of pork soup dumplings and one of the pork and crab, along with a few other items for sampling - pork and chive dumplings, some siu mai, and an order of fried rice.  The food took a while to come out to us, which is a good sign - means they’re making everything to order, and nothing waits around.

The chive dumplings, siu mai, and fried rice debuted first.  The dumplings came across as fairly standard, and maybe I am confusing them with potstickers, but I expected them to be a little crisper - still, the chives were good and fresh, and we were starving, so it all went down easily.

The siu mai were not the typical pork-kind.  Instead, they were large pieces, stuffed with a mixture of meat and sticky rice.  All in all, they were delicious and made even better with the addition of either the dumpling sauce (thicker and sweet) or the ginger sauce (thinner).  Neither of us touched the chile sauce, as it was basically a vat of red pepper flakes floating in oil.  The fried rice was kind of bland, which was easily resolved with more sauce, but I wouldn’t order it again.

Finally, the soup dumplings arrived, and met our expectations completely.  The waitress asked us if we had eaten them before, obviously prepared to deliver a warning about popping one whole into your mouth and burning your esophagus.  We said that we were soup dumpling veterans, which seemed to make her happy.

Here’s the technique for eating a soup dumpling - using chopsticks, tongs, or your fingers, lift a dumpling and place it into the well of a Chinese soup spoon.  It’s going to be mad hot, so if you have tongs, all the better.  Now, carefully nibble a hole into the top doughy twist of the dumpling dough, so that you can let the steam escape.  If you want, you can dribble some soy or other sauce into the hole.  Blow on it and resist the urge to eat the dumpling until it cools off a little, because otherwise you’ll burn your tongue and not be able to taste anything for the rest of the meal (yes, been there, done that).  When it’s sufficiently cooled off, pop the thing into your mouth.

The soup dumplings were really great, especially after quite a long period of soup dumpling drought on our part.  While the dough could have been a little thinner, the fillings were especially top notch, especially the crab, which was far more delicate than I would have expected from a hole-in-the-wall bus station dive.

So, if you find yourself downtown for a convention and craving Chinese food, while everyone else goes into Chinatown proper, you can scurry the other way into the tunnel and treat yourself to Shanghai soup dumplings.  Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but to my knowledge I know of no other restaurant in PHL Chinatown that serves soup dumplings.

As much as we would have liked to get away last weekend for Memorial Day, it just didn’t seem worth the price of gas to book it down to the beach.  Given the fantastic, utterly perfect weather, we maximized our long weekend at home by picking up some perennials and planting them into the flower bed in front of the house.

Oh yes, there was something else, involving pork.

On Saturday, my neighbor held a small Memorial Day weekend gathering to inaugurate his new grill.  Seeing the opportunity to smoke some ribs without the production of having a lot of people over at our own place, I offered to bring barbecue.  The offer was gladly received, and on Friday we picked up about four racks of spareribs.

Here’s the thing about true barbecue - you need time and heat, and the actual mechanics of the process are more art than science.

Last summer, I treated myself to the only smoker that I will ever need to buy - a 200lb behemoth of welded steel, with an offset firebox and enough cooking area to feed a large party.  At the start of spring, I went and picked up a couple of boxes of hickory, and a recent Costco run yielded a nice double-pack of charcoal.  To say that I was ready for barbecue season would be an understatement.

On Friday, I filled a contractor’s bucket with water from my garden hose, and sunk about 8 logs of hickory into it.  For barbecue, it’s important to soak your wood before you begin, because if the wood is too dry, it will burst into flames instead of smoldering gently, which is what you need it to do in order to get a decent smoke going on.  I also whipped together a double batch of my rub, which is a mixture of cane sugar, paprika, garlic and onion powders, and a few other things which I am conveniently forgetting to list here.

On Saturday morning, I woke up and took the spareribs out of the fridge to let them rest on the kitchen counter (you don’t want to put cold meat into a hot smoker, because there’s a chance that creosote, a black tar-like substance, will condense onto your meat).  I took some time to clean out the smoker from the last session, emptying it of ash, and lit a bunch of charcoal in my chimney starter.  When the charcoal was ready, I dumped it into the firebox, opened up all of the vents, and let the smoker come up to about 225 degrees.

While the smoker was warming up, I cut the sparerib racks into manageable pieces (I would prefer to leave them whole, but with so many ribs, I had to use rib racks to hold the smaller pieces upright).  A heavy dusting of rub on both sides, and they were ready.  I carefully moved them into position in the smoker and closed the lid with a thud.

The best part of barbecue is the first addition of wood to produce smoke.  I fished out a nice-sized piece of hickory from the water bucket and put it on top of the charcoal in the firebox.  Within moments, faint wisps of blue smoke started piping from the smoker’s stack.

Put simply, smoking barbecue meat requires a sustained temperature of 180 to 220 degrees, fired by wood and charcoal, for several hours.  It’s a nice day spent at home, that’s for sure.  So, for most of the day on Saturday, I tended to the smoker, adding charcoal when the temperature got too low and wood when the smoke subsided.

By the time we delivered the final product next door, the ribs had gone for about seven hours, and were so tender you could pull the bone out with a gentle tug.

In case you are wondering about the picture, another thing that benefits barbecue is a good baste, or mop.  This time, I decided to make a mop of cider vinegar, onion, garlic, and Victory Hop Devil beer.  Good times.

I took the day off from work today.

After mowing the lawn, watering the garden, and refilling the bird feeder, I decided to treat myself to one of the most basic, yet misunderstood, of food preparations - the scrambled egg.

If your exposure to scrambled eggs has only been in restaurants, or at brunch buffet lines, then you probably do not understand my enthusiasm for the dish.  After all, it’s only eggs and butter, something to be whipped up quickly and in mass quantities for a crowd, right?

But that’s the problem - our society has taught us to interpret scrambled eggs as a dish that’s to be made as quickly as possible.  Here’s the real truth - haste is the enemy of scrambled eggs.  High heat makes for tough, dried out eggs, and result in the short-order scrambled eggs that you find in diners, and the egg jerky that you find in buffets that’s been sitting over a sterno flame for an hour.

Preparing perfect scrambled eggs requires the exact opposite of the process to make an omelette.  When sauteing an omelette, you want to work quickly, tilting and swirling your pan to coat the bottom with egg, over the highest possible heat so that the egg sets and you can roll it around whatever filling you’ve chosen.

For scrambled eggs, you want to cook them as gently as possible, over the lowest heat possible, to yield the most delicate structure that you can.  Perfect scrambled eggs should take a long time to make, and should just barely hold together.  It’s a spot-on dish for a day off from work.

This is my recipe for Perfect Scrambled Eggs.  You can jazz it up a number of ways, which I am sure will show up here soon, but today we’re starting with the basic master recipe.  As with all recipes with fewer than five ingredients, the better the quality of your ingredients, the better the final product.  Find the best eggs and butter you can get your hands on.

Perfect Scrambled Eggs

Butter
3 eggs, preferably organic or at least free range
Salt
Freshly ground pepper

Take a nonstick pan and set it over medium heat.  Place about 2 Tbs of butter into the pan, and keep an eye on it while you whip your eggs up.  You want to let that melt, and tilt the pan so that it gets an even coat of butter.  Once your butter is melted, turn the heat to the lowest possible setting. [note - all of my recipes presume gas cooking; if you are working off of electric burners, have one set to low and transfer the pan over to that one]

Crack the eggs into a small bowl, and use a whisk or fork to stir them up until you have a uniform beaten egg mix.  Pour the eggs into the pan.

Take a nonstick spatula or spoon, and give the eggs a good stir.  Wait a bit.  Stir some more.  What you’re doing here is incorporating the bits of egg that have cooked into the bits of egg that haven’t yet cooked.  As the eggs heat up, they’ll start to slowly firm up - the key is to reach this point in as much time as possible.  Avoid the temptation to turn up the heat - the eggs will cook faster, but they will be nowhere near as delicate, and you will have missed the fun train.

When the eggs are done to your liking, tip them into a serving bowl and top with a fresh grinding of pepper and some salt.  Welcome to the world of real scrambled eggs.

This is not a pretty dish. The picture above is merely for the purposes of illustration.

This all started with oregano, which I have an abundance of in my garden. Oregano behaves much like mint does, in that it gets everywhere and doesn’t ever die off. Since I have more use for oregano than mint, though, I let it live, since it seems to happily coexist with my thyme and my insane sage plant.

So, I have this fresh oregano, and I snipped a bit of it out of the garden. The last time we went grocery shopping, I picked up a can of green chiles without a specific plan on what to do with them - at worst case, they’re really good stirred into a batch of scrambled eggs.

I had forgotten to take any meat out of the freezer, so I was stuck with frozen chicken thighs and breasts. I decided to go with the thighs, but since they were frozen I knew that I’d have to cook them for a while to ensure that they were completely done. That ruled out any sort of roasting or grilling, so my thoughts turned to stew.

In the pantry, I found an unopened bag of Great Northern beans. Despite the fact that I didn’t soak these overnight, it wasn’t a problem since I have a pressure cooker.

So, to sum it all up, I had oregano, green chiles, chicken thighs, and white beans.

This is what I made:

Canola oil
4 chicken thighs, preferably thawed
2 to 3 Tbs oregano, chopped
1 can green chiles
8oz Great Northern beans, or other white beans
White wine
Garlic, chopped
Chicken stock

Get your beans ready - if they are dried, cook them according to the package instructions, and if they canned, open the can, drain them, and rinse them off.

Heat a thin layer of oil in a wide pan until shimmery. Lay each chicken thigh, skin side down, into the pan, and saute without moving for about 7 minutes, then turn each thigh to cook for another 5 minutes. Remove to a clean plate, and pour off the excess oil/fat in the pan, leaving about 2 Tbs.

Throw your garlic into the pan and fry that up, until golden. Take some wine and deglaze the pan, scraping up all of the chicken bits. Add about 2 cups of chicken stock, then the beans, chiles, and oregano.

Place the thighs back into the pan. Add more stock so that the liquid level comes up about 1/2 to 3/4 up the thighs.

Bring to a simmer, cover, and turn the heat to low. Cook for 1 1/2 hours.

Before serving, take the thighs out and remove the meat from the bones. Add the meat back to the pan.