Strange or hard-to-find foods that Tep should try

No one say "rattlesnake," by the way, because it costs like $60 a package.

And so-called "duck prosciutto," which I sort of want to hit a little for calling itself prosciutto, and then eat anyway.

Yep, we said Amish section :) Seriously, this place is huge. They're putting in a monorail to take people around the store.

A MONORAIL.

xp A MONOTRAIL!?

Because come on, skull keychain!

try and find a good cured spanish ham. they are sweet and delicious. and not very kosher, incidentally.

Bloomingfoods! Right? I don't know roads, but I think that must be it. I love it. I've been getting local apples there once a week, and nearly every time I go they have organic citrus they didn't have the time before ("pixie tangerines" this week, which are tangerines the size of golfballs, sweet and juicy but tarter than oranges).

Blair's hot sauces are pretty good -- I had those a lot in New Orleans, but that doesn't rule out buying some again.

When you say "a good cured Spanish ham," is it worth the extra bucks to get a whole (or whole piece) of ham and not slices? (I was tempted by a whole prosciutto last time, but I was on a budget, and that was at the front of the store.)

I'm not raining on your parade, damn you!

Gawk at the Wall of Beer.

They have fresh durian for $3.99 each, but I'm not gonna buy any.

Oh, and possibly this trip will also involve a meal at a West African restaurant, which I'm happy about. It's a very food-oriented trip, we've been discussing restaurant options etc.

Wuss.

Do you think they'd have Bolner's Fiesta spices? If so, THAT WOULD BE SO COOL. Especiall if they have the chili powder, garlic powder, cinnamon sticks, ground comino, and fajita seasoning. And whenever Mom makes her Lenten albondigas, she always uses their dried shrimp powder, or as their website lists, "shrimp, dried - ground".

I have sliced pig's stomach roasted with soy sauce, garlic, and ginger.

I have fizzy cola bottles.

Other things --

Tim Tams (iir the name c), Blair's Death Rain potato chips;

much citrus (blood oranges, Meyer lemons, cara cara oranges, honey tangerines, minneolas, ugli/uniq fruit, sour oranges);

some very nice soft cow's milk cheese marinated in sunflower oil;

prosciutto, various salamis, and chorizo;

Rogue Morimoto ale, unfiltered sake, Bonny Doon freisa frizzante, Three Philosophers Belgian ale blended with cherry lambic, Lindemans kriek and cassis lambics, an Islay Scotch;

duck legs and a pork picnic;

black vinegar and coconut vinegar;

mayonnaise flavored snacks;

big sacks of basmati and arborio rices;

Tillamook butter;

opal basil;

culantro (a relative of cilantro, much stronger-flavored, used in Trinidadian dishes that are so spicy no other herb would come through);

smoked scallops;

and I'm blanking on what else.

I made adobo like 12 times over the holidays, so I probably won't get to trying this until next month.

I'm thinking, though, I'll have to make some vinegar chicken :) It's the kind of thing where the differences in vinegars really stands out, sometimes even moreso than in a vinaigrette (depending on what else is in the vinaigrette).

Strange or hard to find "food" you should try: Twinkies flavored lip balm. I got this in my x-mas stocking but have been too scared to try it.

Quincie, I'll trade you something for the lip balm if you want, just name it!

* Often just called "local vinegar" in Philippines (which is misleading since the Philippines have so many local varieties of vinegar, but if everyone knows what they mean, I reckon they can call it Alakazam Doodlebug and it'd still work out).

* Penguin/Oxford sez: Toddy, an alcoholic liquor, is made by tapping the tree, which is done by cutting off the tip of a flower stem. The sap released ferments quickly and spontaneously. The resulting toddy can be drunk raw; or distilled to make arak; or used as a source of yeast for bread; or allowed to turn into vinegar.

* It does have a slight aftertaste, although I think that'll come out more when I've made something with it -- the acrid smell is very strong.

* Seems to be used in Indian, Sri Lankan, and Thai cooking as well (so I'd assume also Southeast Asian in general).

I'm going to make a papaya salad with it, I think -- the papayas I have are not really green papayas, but they're not fully ripe, either, so I'll shred those, dress em with coconut vinegar and citrus and some spice...

Like sour milk with surgical spirit in it.

Filipino cooking is one of those things I'm learning in bits and pieces, and I don't have a handle on the big picture yet, other than the "it's one of those 'naturally occurring fusion cuisines,' with elements that would seem forced if a restaurateur had put them together" thing. I haven't found an excellent cookbook -- most of them are either recipe-driven without much discussion, or appropriate for the Time-Life series Tours Of The Exotic Kitchens Of Brown People -- so most of what I know, I get from blogs.

Remove any small bone fragments you create in the process.

Brown chicken, skin-side down, in a non-stick pan; when skin begins to crisp, add some chopped onions to the fat that's cooked out of the chicken, stir until the onions lose their rawness, sprinkle everything with a generous amount of crushed dried chiles (crushed red pepper'll do it, and you can play around with using powders instead, or fresh/pickled chiles, etc), and add enough vinegar to come up maybe halfway on the chicken.

Cook on medium-heat until vinegar is cooked away and chicken is cooked through. Shazam!

It would probably be too expensive to mail them, wouldn't it? I mean, that'd be great, obviously, and if there was anything I could get you, just name it -- but it wouldn't be worth spending like $20 in postage on or anything.

Every time I go to Jungle Jim's, I check out the honey table. Selection doesn't change all that often, and I don't like flavored honeys like blueberry walnut velvet surprise or ramsbladder cup or whatever, but man, ever since I discovered Tupelo honey however many years ago, I've been a nut for really good, pure honey.

For a while -- well, still, since I have two jars of it in the kitchen -- I was hooked on Greek forest honeys, which is sort of the "wild yeast bread" of honey. The bees aren't kept in a clover field or whatever, they're eating the nectar produced by other insects who don't need flowers to chow down -- you can taste the difference much more than you'd imagine, if all you've had is clover/wildflower/meadow honey.

This time, I got this, a New Zealand variety of forest honey -- beech trees instead of evergreens -- and man oh fuck, it's the best honey I've had, to an extent that that phrase means more than it would have three or four years ago.

Sheep's Milk Cheese Ice Cream.

Dude, it has three different dairy products listed in the title, math says it is good.

Ferran Adria makes a parmesan ice cream sandwich with parmesan ice cream pressed between parmesan crisps (grate parmesan onto a baking sheet, cook until golden, let cool). I started thinking about it -- mascarpone in tiramisu, cream cheese in cheesecake, Creole cream cheese ice cream, frozen yogurt (cultured dairy, just like cheese) -- and said, hey, fuck it.

I don't know if this is the best or easiest or most sensible way to make this, but it's the way I made it.

First make a cheese syrup (!):

Heat some heavy cream in a pan -- 3 or 4 tablespoons depending on how much ice cream you're making. Add an equal amount of sugar, and grate an equal amount of firm sheep's milk cheese into it -- Pecorino, anything with roughly the texture of parmesan.

Heat until cheese is melted and sugar is dissolved.

Taste it. If you hate it, don't bother going further.

Let cool.

With an immersion blender or whatever you've got that can do the work, whip another cup of cold heavy cream in a cold metal bowl until stiff. Whip the cheese syrup into it, and a small egg yolk (I had quail eggs, I used a quail egg). Cover and freeze.

xpost; sheep's milk cheese is sort of halfway between goat cheese (which I don't usually like) and regular cow's milk cheese. It has a distinctive taste that's kind of tangy compared to cow's milk, but not nearly as much as goat cheese -- tends to be nutty, the way good parmesan is.

(This is what jess was referring to, it seems.)

(btw, Tep, I made your 'tangy citrus pickles' from yr 2004 cookbook last night--let 'em sit overnight--they were fantastic in the makeshift shawarma (roast chicken, marinated in lemon, garlic, coriander, chopped and stuffed in pitas with arugala, tabbouleh, garlic sauce, chili sauce, and yr picklesmmmmmm) we had tonight!

I was going to make them for a cuban sandwich, as you suggest, but the store was out of pork loin, so chicken it became.)

Maple syrup aged in bourbon barrels. So good.