The Lunch Encounter

It’s the eight (or ten) hours of waiting until I can go home. Ha ha.

Typical comment when I tell someone what I do for a living, “That must be so much fun!”

Fun is not the word I would choose, but I never say that. So many jobs look like a blast to me and I would be crushed to have anyone burst those bubbles. Don’t want to know that my imagined version of glamour is sometimes a grind.

My job is real interesting. Lots of nice edible perks. And I never wear pantyhose. Course no one much does anymore these days. From what I can tell on the streets, office workers now go to work in their flip flops. I’m an industrial clog girl. Strap on that apron and I’m ready to go. Oh, and some of that expensive Dr. Hauschka lipstick. (One stop shopping. I get it at Whole Foods. Too bad they don’t sell underwear and socks there, too.) Someone forgot to style me before they snapped this pic.

Zukay Live Foods

These foods are probiotic. Never heard of that? Me neither. Or either.

A teaspoon a day keeps the grim reaper away (my claim, not theirs).

Don’t know what to think of it. How do they get that stuff in there? And if we need it so bad, is there some way that we are getting it already if we eat nourishing food?

Look out! Your relish might escape if you don’t keep an eye on it.
IT’S ALIIIIIIVE!!!

Or, better put (seen on a roadside attraction):

ALIVE AND LIVING!!!! GIANT FROGS!!!!!

That would be me. Alive and living that is. I ain’t no giant frog (that I know of).

The Sublime Miss M’s account of the “tempting, tiring” Fancy Food Show.

How could I have lived so long without this ever coming onto my radar screen?

What in the name of Luther is this?!?!?
Holy Mother of Jelly Doughnuts, they are Lutherburgers!

From the NY Times (Right. I could not make this up.)

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP »
The Krispy Kreme Burger
There’s the obesity crisis, and then there’s the “Lady’s Brunch Burger” — a half-pound beef patty topped with bacon and egg fried in butter, served with glazed donuts in lieu of a bun if you like. It’s one of the “recipes courtesy Paula Deen” on foodnetwork.com:

No comment.

Aah, hell, I have to comment. Blech. I am no stranger to porklust, fried dough desire, and egglove, but this repulses me. I believe it started with the burger. I believe more strongly that the burger, in this incarnation, should be 86’d. Deep six that patty and leave us with a nice breakfast.

Keep on Toastin’

R Crumb

In addition to sausages, one of my most popular items is Peameal Bacon. It is a boneless porkloin, brined with a touch of sugar, then rolled in coarse ground cornmeal, then sliced as thin as possible, panned fried in browned butter. Melts in your mouth!
John Kudla, Avenue Boy

Avenue Boys Smokehouse
6633 Sheetram Rd.Pendleton, NY 14094
716.695.4853

I had a smoked Polish, cold, before 7 am (okay, I admit it) and it was delicious. Cold is not good for bringing out the best in most foods, but it was cold or nothing, seeing as the car I was supposed to be in was pulling out of the driveway. Heading home from Buffalo. Was NOT going to miss my ride. The package says in plain English, GREAT SNACK.

Natural casing. Can’t beat pig intestine for snap and slap. Mm-hmm.

These guys sell at the Market at Lafayette Church, a year-round Buffalo farmer’s market. Presence at a farmer’s market during a Buffalo winter screams dedication.

Website coming! Stay tuned.

In the meantime, they will ship if you email or call.
avenueboyssmokehouse@hotmail.com

SMOKED:
Traditional Polish, Holiday (with marjoram), Double Garlic
Hungarian
Andouille (Cajun)
Snack sausages in natural casing, smoked – Kabanosy (Polish), Italian, Hot Hungarian, Farmer’s (mild)
Krakowska – Ham sausage
Chorizo
Chicken & Apple

FRESH SAUSAGES:
Polish – Traditional, Holiday, Double Garlic
Hungarian
Andouille
Italian – Traditional mild and hot, Traditional with cheese, Deluxe with cheese, wine & parsely , Momma G’s – unique blend of seasonings (medium hot).
Bratwurst – three varieties
Garlic with cheddar and onion
Chaurice (Creole)
Breakfast – three or more varieties.
Morrocan
English Bangers
Irish
Greek with spinach & Feta cheese
Hungarian Hurka
Weisswurst
Chorizo

CHICKEN SAUSAGES: Almost any above can be made with chicken.
Feta & Spinach
Apple – fresh & smoked
Marsala
Wing
CURED MEATS:
Porkloins for Peameal, Canadian bacon, stuffed porkloin.

We can make any style sausage and smoked meats!

Little it is, but little is not as little does. Kitchen Little does it up big.

There is something about a tiny restaurant that ignites each beat of my heart. For years and years I have dreamed of having my own luncheon counter. About 8 stools would do, me behind the counter. Short order is my forte. That and round-the-clock chats.

Rules to live by:
Hold the door.
Look ’em in the eye and shake hands firmly.
Coffee black.
Everything tastes better with a bit o’ butter.

What could be more apropos to this part of the world than a Portuguese water dog? And red shoes?

See, what’d I tell ya? Connecticut style lobster roll. No mayo. No celery. No pepper. No nuttin. Hot buttered lobster on a toasted bun. Didn’t I tell ya everything tastes better with a bit o’ butter?

The view from the terrace.
Photo by T.S.K.T.

From the lips of Sir Loin, Esq. himself,
Ahoy Matey, look out for them ther rocksalts to the starboard!

These bizarre meatscape ads are growing on me. Why just this morning in the shower I had to scrub a bit of roast beef off my left calf.

We were a bit in the rough ourselves, after a 10 hour drive and then a mandatory walk to the brink of every pier at the Mystic wooden boat show. From what I had read Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough the lot would be jammed, the line long, and the picnic tables busting at the seams. We found some Abbott’s breathing space on a hazy, humid July Monday evening.

It’s a big menu. When faced with such a thing my eyes edit to the quintessential. Lobster. In the rough. Lobster roll. Not quite as rough. Oh, and clam chowder. They serve it real plain here and I like that. Greyish, which might not be a person’s first choice in food color outside of clams. They have loads of other stuff, and if we lived in walking distance we might gradually take a tour of the menu. For our brief touchdown we zeroed in on the essence.

This rendition of a lobster roll took me by surprise. Have always seen it, eaten it, and read about it as a cool lobster salad in a top-sliced hotdog roll. My post-Abbott’s graduate work started here with the NY Times, and upon further reading here I found that the hot, buttered lobster roll is Connecticut’s preference.

Under the dock there are huge striped bass slipping and sliding. The counter people were generous with small bags of oyster crackers which my son liberally sprinkled into the gape-mouthed, writhing, leaping, monster fish.

Folks get married at this joint. Do you spose they pack oyster crackers in small net bags tied up with ribbon?

House chips. Tasty and they bring on a thirst. Abbott’s is BYOB. Yippee! I thought until our Sunday drive search for drink yielded zilch. Connecticut has blue laws. Blue is right. I had a case of the dying-for-a-beer blues.

Excerpts from:

‘PRIMANTI WAY’

75 YEARS OF THE SANDWICH THAT HAS IT ALL

Eighteenth Street in the Strip District: a blocklong slab of hot, patchy asphalt, slathered over a bumpy bed of cobblestone, sprinkled with oil and leafy litter, sandwiched between two busy slices of Smallman Street and Penn Avenue.
…
Today, 18th Street, the home of Primanti Bros. restaurant, will receive the name “Primanti Way,” an honorary designation bestowed by city officials as part of the sandwich shop’s 75th anniversary celebration.
…
Said owner Jim Patrinos, who bought Primanti’s in 1974, when he was 24. “I don’t know if MapQuest will change the name
…
When Joe Primanti and his brothers started the business in 1933, it wasn’t a sandwich shop so much as a small wooden lunch stand serving produce workers and truck drivers in the Strip District. The menu was simple enough: grilled meat, fried potatoes, sliced tomato, coleslaw and provolone cheese between two thick pieces of Italian bread.

READ IT ALL HERE.
And my post is HERE, with pictures and more links.

I get the distinct impression that the Pittsburgh Gazette is a damn fine paper, in particular on their coverage of newsworthy food stories. As my local food section has become, in their words, “a dying business” it fascinates me to see ink being spread on local food stories in much smaller markets.

Word to the bbq-eating wise. If you’re gonna eat a pulled pork sandwich in Memphis, and you like your pork with the slaw on it, wear a shirt in the above color. Tumeric colored. Bold yellow. Some ‘o that slaw is gonna wind up on your shirt and they make it yellow there, the slaw. Boldly yellow.

I wore a yellow blotch face-front while in Memphis. Scratched off the worst of it and then lived with it.

We drove to Austin, Texas, and back, noodling from blue highways to red, and taking 3 weeks. Me and my dog. I don’t remember the year, but know that just as we were pulling away from the curb in front of the house my husband pressed a newly purchased cell phone into my hand through the car window. Had never had, or held, a cell prior. Musta been about 1994 or 5. The car was set to GO and we went.

Memphis is on the way to Austin from here. As are Knoxville, Nashville, Hot Springs and Dallas. Biloxi, Montgomery, Athens and Blowing Rock are all on the way back. Lots of good eating to be done. And sight seeing. Sight is right. We saw. We looked. Our eyes were open and opened. Insight and outsight. We were made of mesh and the world flowed in and out.

My Ida. She could leap tall buildings in her youth. One agile ~spring~. Wind up, then uncoil her hocks and she was UP, perched regally on the Graceland wall.

And then, she had to wait in the car, while I looked around inside. Later we ate bbq and she was appeased. So well built, dogs never drip slaw on their chests. Teeth, lips and tongue advance towards tasty bites and bits, beautifully.

Slaw. Pork. Dogs. Love. Gets me thinking.

Where would the sandwich universe be without mustard? In a lopsided, astronomically banal loop around the outer reaches of a black hole.

Mustard is the peacemaker. You got a sandwich. And that is good. But it is not quite right. Missing somethin’. And there is an abyss between you and that sandwich cause it lacks the punch to bring you to it. Mustard! That’s the punch. That’s the punctuation. Mustard will make you lean forward, scoop that sandwich up and make yourself one with it. A peaceful union.
 

These outfits both have the cred of history. Both are local, as in not owned by Kraft or similar, and both engender civic pride.

Weber’s

Weber’s is good anytime of the day, of course. My introduction was at 7 am on a cold sausage. Zooee mama, it was tasteee.

The last remaining mustard mill in the US is:

Ray’s

Ray’s is on in Eastport, Maine, way up north on the east coast near Canada. I wonder where those mustard seeds are grown. That’s a good question. Next up….mustard seed plantations, backyard plots and urban gardens.