Results tagged “foodsdaytuesday”

I grew up thinking that I didn't like sweet potatoes. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized that it wasn't sweet potatoes, in and of themselves, that I had a problem with: it was the way they're served at Thanksgiving, sickly sweet and buried under marshmallows. (All due respect to marshmallows: I love you, but not in this particular instance.) Used with savory ingredients, however, sweet potatoes are nothing short of awesome. Plus, they're healthier than standard potatoes: high in fiber and vitamins and easier to eat unadorned by their white, starchier siblings. (Seriously, Yukon Golds have their place, but that place is usually under a large amount of butter or sour cream.) Once I discovered that I actually liked sweet potatoes, I was unstoppable, ordering them at any restaurant that had them on the menu and trying out every recipe I could find. Then, I started ignoring the recipes and experimenting. The below is basically a spicy hack of one of the first sweet potato recipes I tried, and it's still one of my favorite preparations for the bright orange tubers. Bring it to your Thanksgiving potluck for a twist on tradition: you may find yourself the most popular person at the party.

If the martinis article earlier didn't give you enough of a taste of fall, allow us to tempt you with some desserts.

Aside from generally awesome weather, the arrival of autumn has one big perk: fall food. Heavier and more flavorful than a summer menu, but neither as comforting nor as fattening as winter meals (if you don't count Thanksgiving, that is), fall brings with its gorgeous color palate a collection of foods you can't get fresh any other time of year. (And really, who wants pumpkin in July?) A plethora of new produce appears in supermarkets (does anyone know what to do with a five-pound bag of assorted gourds, by the way?), and restaurants roll out new menus and seasonal events. Among them, Old City's Fork Restaurant, which will (among other events in the coming weeks) hold a special fisherman's dinner on October 10—featuring fish that the guests catch themselves in a fishing excursion earlier that day.

My Texas upbringing makes me generally suspicious of anybody who doesn't eat meat, and even more suspicious of those who have completely sworn off animal products altogether. (To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I'd ever heard of veganism until college.) I'm tofu-averse, completely addicted to cheese, and entirely too fond of bacon in all its various incarnations. Though not generally a fan of dessert, I tend to believe that the best ones are made from metric tons of butter and/or cream and/or eggs, and so if I'm feeling like a final course, I almost always order the crème brûlée.

Something about a fun invitation—this time in the form of a note tied to the stem of a sunflower—makes me want to cancel all plans and head to the event in question. This invite beckoned me to Girasole, a new(ish) restaurant in the ground floor of Center City's Dranoff-developed Symphony House condominium building that got its start in Atlantic City. The small restaurant, with its gold-upholstered banquettes and black granite tabletops, isn't as bright and cheery as one would expect from a restaurant named for a sunflower, but it's certainly Italian in that "Dude, where's my Godfather theme music?" kind of way. (It's an observation, not a negative. Perhaps negative, though, are the plastic chairs at every table in the dining room. Summer heat + short skirt + plastic = not the most pleasant dining situation.)

Sometimes, you wear a certain outfit only because you really want an excuse to show off a certain pair of shoes. And sometimes, you cook a certain dinner because you really want an excuse to use up something in your kitchen. In my case, the something was a large quantity of dill, leftover from this recipe that Ross and I really wanted to not go bad for once. "What uses a lot of dill?" he asked. My mind jumped to tzatziki: strained non-fat Greek yogurt, cucumbers, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice and zest, and as much dill as we wanted. (Everyone makes it differently. I'd suggest starting with the yogurt and adding everything else in small quantities till you're happy.)

              

[Author's Note: This is a fairly lengthy post, much longer than what we usually do here at Phillyist. Our apologies! But the Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival included many noteworthy events, and we felt it proper to give each its due.]

The recent onslaught of celebrity chef- and restaurateur-helmed dining establishments in casinos could run the risk of turning Atlantic City into a Vegas-style cheese-fest (next stop: Celine Dion!), or it could help turn the town into a dining mecca. Here pulling for the latter situation are our pals at the Atlantic City Harrah's Casino Hotels, who this weekend bring us the awesomely star-full (if your stars are on the Food Network) Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival.

So you're tired of Center City Restaurant Week. You think you've already done all the restaurants on the list that are worth the deal. You've sworn off three-course prix fixe menus. Done. Fin. No mas.

   

*Yes, it's Wednesday. But we needed some extra time to prepare our new Foodsday Tuesday feature, Quick Nosh, which will feature snack-sized servings of food news that we couldn't dedicate a full post to. Check out the first one at the bottom of this post. Got a Philly food tip? Send 'em over!

Take a good look at this photo. Does it look like a place you'd be able to go for a quick, affordable lunch on a weekday, just a few blocks from major streets and public transportation? No?

Two weeks ago, we mentioned a special pig roast going on at Alison at Blue Bell. Seeing as the last time we ate at one of Chef Alison Barshak's restaurants, it was for a Jewish holiday, it seemed only fitting that we should move from the kosher to the treyf, the divine to the mundane.

This week's planned Foodsday Tuesday post will have to wait, because we'd much rather tell you about a media alert we just received about one of our favorite suburban restaurants (Alison at Blue Bell) and one of our favorite preparations of "call-me-a-bad-Jew" meat (whole roasted pig). Next Wednesday, June 17, Chef Alison Barshak will be celebrating almost-summer with one helluva prix fixe meal: $35 will get you a choice of gazpacho or Caesar salad; split roasted pig (from Maple Acres Farm Market, a tamale, and a salad; and a dessert of either berry crisp with ice cream or a chocolate torte with berry sauce. It sounds delicious and perfect for summer—and maybe if it's a success, Chef Barshak can be persuaded to make this a regular event over the next few months?

TRADITION! TRADITION!

The diet's more or less over, but I'm still trying to watch what I eat so that I don't have to start dieting all over again come this time next month. But whether you're trying to lose weight or just trying not to gain it, when you're weight watching, lunchtime meals of pizza and cheesesteaks from the place downstairs from your building just aren't the best idea. But you can only eat salads so many times in a row before you get bored (or your colon rebels), and sometimes you just want a hot meal. Lean Cuisines and SmartOnes both offer relatively satisfying, low-calorie meals with Weight Watchers points printed right on the box (Healthy Choice is a bit hit-or-miss in my opinion, although they've recently introduced a number of new recipes) that can sometimes even be really tasty—but tasty or not, one thing's for certain: once out of your microwave, none of your frozen meals will ever look like the boxes make them look.

This, Phillyist readers, is shaping up to be the best. weekend. ever. With no less than three major outdoor events this weekend—all of which involve food or drink in some capacity—we'd be fools to tell you to do anything except going outside and exploring Philadelphia. We know we'll be out and about this weekend, even if thunderstorms are in the forecast. We never let a little rain get in the way of good times.

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. Hell, it's not even a holiday celebrated in all of Mexico. (Wikipedia actually has a decent explanation here.) But, here in America, we like to use the holiday as an excuse to get wasted anyway. (It's like St. Patrick's Day, but with tequila.)

First came Center City Restaurant Week. Then came South Jersey Restaurant Week. Legal drama ensued between the two Restaurant Weeks. And when that was done, even more legal drama ensued, this time kept within South Jersey. But really, all we want is a drama-free, food-filled Restaurant Week. Something reflective of our more laid-back temperament. Maybe something new, or at least someplace that doesn't generally get a whole lot of attention. Thanks to the New Kensington Community Development Corporation and Phoodie.info, our wish has been granted in the form of the Riverward Restaurant Week, which runs from this Friday, May 1, to next Wednesday, May 6. (Yes, the timing of the restaurant "week" to span two weeks and not run a complete week is a little odd, but apparently this was due to some scheduling issues.)

We at Phillyist love food. And Shakespeare. So when we heard that City Food Tours was teaming with the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre to present a tasting tour in honor of the Bard's birthday, we naturally had to pass our findings on to you—and then we found out the one-time-only tour is completely sold out.

Ah, Passover. That lovely time of year where God—via a series of biblical writings and ancient rules—tells you to go on Atkins. (Unless you eat lots and lots of Matzah—that stuff is pretty carb-heavy.)

I'm not a baker. I like to throw things together in a kitchen, taste, see what it needs, and taste again. You can't do that when you're baking, because (a) flour and raw egg does not a tasty combination make, and (b) baking is a science wherein you have to follow a recipe closely or risk... something other than what you were going for.

Hugs for Puppies, the awesomely-named foie gras-hating organization that now seems to have become The Humane League of Philadelphia, has provided more than a few dinnertime laughs for me. It's not that I hate animals. It's just that with all of the other crap going on in the world, the fact that a group of people is assembled to hate on my dinner, which may or may not consist of fattened goose liver, seems so arbitrary and pointless that I can't help but laugh.

So you may be cutting back on meat every Friday between now and Easter, but what about the rest of the week?

I'm Jewish, so Fat Tuesday was never anything but a holiday to me. I knew that it kicked off Lent, but seeing as I'm not supposed to give anything up for the next forty days (instead, I'll spend a week in April when God puts me on the Atkins Diet), the significance of the holiday that many of us will celebrate tonight (pass the beads, please!) has always been lost on me. As has the meaning of its name.

Warning: If you're a foodie like me, this website is dangerous. Whatever you do, don't click on that link. It'll take you to Tastespotting, which is the biggest collection of food porn I've ever seen.

I love Brussels sprouts, which is probably news to Mamaist, who tried to make me eat them for years. The trick, I discovered, is eating them fresh (not frozen)—and with meat, preferably bacon. I had this epiphany while I was in college, and I've never looked back. This has led me to amazing finds, like the Brussels sprouts and bacon salad at Alison at Blue Bell and the duck fat-fried, lardon-enhanced sprouts frequently served as a special at St. Stephen's Green in Fairmount. It's also led me to experiment in my own kitchen, and this time of year, when the cute little veggies are in season and readily available at Iovine Brothers in Reading Terminal Market, my love of trying new things with Brussels sprouts knows no bounds. Below is the recipe for my most recent concoction. I think it's a keeper—and because I'm still weight watching, it's a keeper that's not too bad for your diet!

Lately, it's kind of seemed like it's always Restaurant Week—but then 2008 went by in a blur, so maybe it's just us. But today, at least, it's not just us, because Restaurant Week is once again on the horizon. The restaurant list features old favorites and new additions alike, and even though the price has gone up a bit in the last few years, we still think most restaurants put out special price-fixed menus that are tough to beat for $35 (plus tax, alcohol, and tip—of course).

Anyone else noticed how damn cold it is outside?

Every weekday of December (except for December 25, that is), Phillyist will be counting down to 2009 with our highlights from the past year and our predictions for the next. If you have a list you'd like to submit, let us know!

Adding to the list of Philadelphia dining establishments coming out with recession-busting prix fixe menus is Old City's part-kitschy, part-lovely Positano Coast, the Aldo Lamberti restaurant helmed by the restaurateur's son, Pippo. Their "3 for $33" holiday menu, offered Sunday through Thursday evenings through December 30, features some of the restaurant's most popular appetizers, entrees, and desserts—and I was able to sample some of the dishes last week.