Food Thread: Whelkome Back My Friends To The Thread That Never Ends!

Come for the food...stay for the comedy!

Those are whelks, a sea snail found everywhere, including the Atlantic on the northeastern seaboard and across the pond in the U.K. and France. I have seen them for sale at a fish store (Randazzo's...a great place) on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, which is a great Italian shopping street, but I don't remember anywhere else.

They are mighty tasty, especially dipped into some excellent mayonnaise. I have never seen mayonnaise for sale in the markets here, so it is possible it was homemade. But the dirty little secret of a bunch of restaurants and cafes in France is that they buy a lot of food already prepared -- from their equivalent of Cysco -- so maybe there is wholesale mayo available here.

Those whelks are briny and sweet, with a pleasing texture that is sort of like a firm clam (stop that!). I enjoyed them, and if they are on the menu again at that local place (they were a special), I will definitely get them again.

This is from long-time reader and commenter (though sadly not recently)"Vendette."

In the February 2 food thread you posted about a bill that had passed the North Dakota House of Representatives to legalize direct-to-consumer sales of raw milk and raw milk products in the state. Because I have no life am a nice person, I kept an eye on the bill for you. I can now report that the ND Senate amended the bill to add a labeling requirement, then passed it unanimously, and the House agreed to the amended bill by a veto-proof majority of 87-5 (2 members were absent). Not that the governor made any noises about vetoing it. Therefore, later this year North Dakotans will be able to add raw milk to their French Toast recipes.

I'm okay with that. How about you?

Lentil soup is great, but there are other ways to use them, one of which I discovered a few weeks ago. Lentil Salad with Ham. Weird, but very tasty!

So I decided to duplicate the dish in my (sort of) kitchen. Easy Peazy! Simmer some lentils in chicken stock for about 25 minutes with some thyme and a single Bay leaf. Since I think Bay leaf is a tool of The Devil, I took it out after about 20 minutes. Then I added some carrot rounds (next time I will cut them in cubes to match the ham) and simmered for an additional five minutes, drained it and let it cool. While it was cooling I added some minced shallots, figuring that the heat would wilt them a bit and moderate their flavor (I was right!). When the lentils were just warm, I added cubed ham (about 1 cm.), salt and pepper, then made a dressing with olive oil, lemon juice and Dijon mustard.

Delicious! It goes with everything, and the texture of the lentils is quite nice...sort of al dente. A great and easy dish. Try it, you'll like it!

That is a falafel (they spell it fallafel) from the best place in Paris, and maybe the world. It's called L'as du Fallafel, and it is in Le Marais, the old Jewish Quarter of Paris, that has become a chic and expensive place, filled with boutiques and restaurants. Everything is closed on Saturday but open on Sunday, unlike most of Paris, so people throng here on nice days.

And I think all of them line up for those falafels! There are other places for falafel, but this is the only one with monstrous lines. Actually, there are two lines; one for take-out and one to sit down in the restaurant.

I hate lining up for anything. And I really hate take-out food I have to eat while walking. But I am a sucker for falafel, so I stood on the restaurant line for about 20 minutes one Friday. Luckily there were a bunch of young Chabadniks getting Jews to put on tefillin (it's a Jewish thing, you wouldn't understand), so I chatted with them off and on.

And to my everlasting disappointment, it was worth the wait. Damn!

The falafels were perfect. Crunchy and flavorful, with just enough parsley. But the rest of the sandwich was great too! They add chunks of roasted eggplant, which I had never seen, and while it was a weird combination, it worked very well. And the tahini sauce was delicious in its own right. My only quibble was that maybe...just maybe...there was too much chopped cabbage.

The wait can be quite long, and it seems to be a constant. I have never seen the place without long lines. Oh, it has other food too, some of which looks great! The Merguez sausage platter that the guy at the next table got the last time we were there looked spectacular.

We went to a well-regarded restaurant in Fontainebleau yesterday, because we wanted to see the Chateau, and the restaurant was recommended by the same guy who told us that the falafel place was the best in the world.

Japanese chef cooking Modern French food. And it was almost entirely successful. Everything was inventive without being fussy or weird, and we got the tasting menu so there were a bunch of Amuse-Bouche(tiny little bites) that were wonderful.

Those white asparagus were amazing! The French obsess over white asparagus, and they are in every produce store (for a huge amount of money! $14/lb.), so I wasn't surprised that they were on the menu, but I was surprised at how good they were. Of course there was a chunk of broiled eel underneath, and it was topped with Parmesan and crunchy rice. Weird and delicious!

[Hat Tip: dhmosquito]

I know, it doesn't have anything to do with food, unless people eat crow for culinary rather than other reasons. But it made me chuckle, so...

Who are those poor deluded souls We know who shake their Manhattans! These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.

$1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty of fifty years, but it is worth it!

posted by CBD at 04:00 PM

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