Let's introduce ourselves and get to know one another better

  1. Southeastern PA – more specifically, one of Philly’s western 'burbs.

  2. I truly enjoy the local restaurant scene, small as it is, and I’m always happy to offer dining suggestions to out-of-towners.

  3. A great food experience – about 2 years ago on a trip to Italy, my husband and I were invited to meet the family that produces our favorite Prosecco and to have lunch with the entire family at their home. Everything that was served was either raised, grown or foraged right there. For us, it was like being in a scene right out of a movie. There was a huge language barrier but it hardly mattered at all. We left there feeling like we had spent the better part of the day with family, and we still keep in touch with each other.

  4. A tidbit about me – I think I was Italian in a former life.

4 Likes

Love the Philly restaurant scene as well! I have rezzies @Vernick for the next 2 Sundays.

Scorrrrrrrre!

1 Like

I keep saying I need to get into Philly more often, especially to destinations like Vernick. Lucky you!!! Enjoy!!!

1 Like

I hope they have sweetbreads on the menu. Their facebook page had an entire tray of them, and they posted this pic as a tease… but frankly, everything they make is great.

1 Like

PS: Sorry, didn’t mean to hijack this thread.

1 Like
  1. Smack dab in the middle of Connecticut
  2. I’m passionate about all things food and beverage. I love to share recipes and great restaurant tips–even in line in the supermarket. Who needs to talk about the weather when we can chat about FOOD? :smile_cat:
  3. Recreating something my very Sicilian hometown is known for–scacciata.
  4. I’m as passionate about music as I am about food.
5 Likes
  1. San Francisco Bay Area
  2. crazy about the high quality raw material
  3. many, one of them will be Pujol in Mexico city, wearing sneaker and T-shirt, had to wait outside until they verified our identities, then they put us in a corner. when we use our credit card to pay, a local guy dress up really nice next to our table, whisper to his partner “americana”. what am I supposed to do? I can’t bring formal clothes when I travel light, and I can’t bring stack of cash with me all the time.
  4. I can’t bake
1 Like
  1. Northern Massachusetts, just a little ways from the NH border.

  2. Food. Trying new stuff, cooking with new stuff, learning about new stuff.

  3. Making my first apple pie for the family Thanksgiving dinner when I was 14yo with a homemade crust, and my father giving me a rare compliment saying “One of the best pies I’ve ever had”, and Mom saying “OK, you make the pies from now on.” Which I have. So much so that when I went to Chicago in my early 20s to visit my brother one Thanksgiving, I had barely arrived at his apt. when he asked “When are you going to make pie?” And while I had given him the ingredients to get so I could make pie, I didn’t think to ask if he had a rolling pin to roll out the pie dough. Nope - but a full wine bottle worked well enough. And then we drank the wine with the steaks he cooked while the pie baked. :smile:

  4. (LONG response) I must give off an aura of “She’s someone who can and will help you”, because people seem to have no problem asking me in supermarkets how to use an item. For example, last fall, I’m poking through the meat case at a local Market Basket supermarket, and a young woman came up to me and asked “I want to make a roast beef - do you know which of these are better and how I should cook it?” (As she stood looking at the chuck roasts.) So I described which cut would be better, and how to roast it until medium rare. Told her that the chuck roast in her hand is better for braising (“What’s that?”) and told her it would be better for pot roast. She noted I had a chuck roast, and she asked how I was going to cook it, and I told her, pointing out some sites she could find online on my phone (which she wrote down). She beamed at me, turned to her husband standing quietly behind her who had also been listening and said “We’re going to have pot roast tonight!” and he replied “Damn straight we are!” Moments later, another woman sidled up to me and said “OK, I’ll admit it - I was listening in - what can I do with this?” and she was holding up another cut of beef, and I gave her some ideas. She said “You don’t work here at Market Basket, do you?” I replied, no, I didn’t. She said “They should pay you a LOT of money - you’re good at this!” LOL

  5. (a.k.a. #4b) (SHORT response) I love going to supermarkets when I’m visiting another city.

15 Likes
  1. Baltimore
  2. Another food preservationist over here. I’m also a little obsessed with finding new uses for scraps and using up all of something.
  3. Cooking with my mom and my sister. Especially at thanksgiving. We usually end up laughing so hard someone ends up on the floor. The year we ended up tossing the turkey at each other while taking bets on the weight was pretty intense.
  4. I also crochet compulsively.
3 Likes
  1. whoah. Maybe you could give ckshen a hand :wink:
3 Likes

@LindaWhit – I’m laughing, because your #4 is how I spend half my time at my local butcher shop. I’ll ask for something like beef shanks, and next thing I know 4 people are standing around listening while I tell them how to prepare them…

Where are you? Tampa

What food-related topic are you most passionate about, that you want people to ask you about and you can’t stop talking about it? Oh geez, too many to count – but probably “grandma” food – simple recipes that knock your socks off when made well with great ingredients – roast chicken, the above-referenced beef shanks, my grandma’s homemade chicken and noodles I used to pore through recipe books in search of fancy over-the-top preps, but as I get older, simple and well-prepared seems to be more impressive!

What’s a great food experience you have had? I’m so fortunate to have had so many – but one of the wow ones was standing in an ancient apple orchard in Normandy on a late summer evening. The guy handed us apples from trees that had been planted by his grandfather and great-grandfather, telling us about the history of the farm, his family, and the land over the generations. He had us take just one bite from each apple – some tannic, some sweet, some eye-wateringly tart. As we wandered the hills back toward the barn in the fading light, he had us take one bite from each of the apples we now held in our hands, and chew all the bites together. BOOM – the taste of the lovely cidre he produces, as the whippoorwills began to call for the moon as the sun set. Wow.

A little tidbit about you Love to be at home sweet home, but traveling is my passion.

3 Likes

Funny–I explained to the man who asked which avocados to buy how to make guacamole. This after he asked me how many he should get to go with “the packet.” :smile:

And earlier this week I got to talking about ginger ale while in line and sent a man off to look for ginger beer downtown. HEE HEE.

3 Likes
  1. manhattan, nyc since i moved here for college- yikes, that’s been a while- grew up in CA near monterey/carmel
  2. who has the best bagel in nyc, creative ways to cook vegetables, where to eat next
  3. when i was barely 21 i went to barcelona for the first time (and promptly fell in love with the city). I was traveling with my best friend (she has been since we were six yrs old and met), and a family friend took us to a nameless restaurant without a sign or menu. A plate of simply grilled assorted wild mushrooms with a “huevo roto” and the most amazing bright dark orange yolk with this sprinkle of flakey salt became the best thing i had eaten in my life- likely still is to this day.
  4. at age 11 i decided to become a vegetarian- despite the fact exactly zero of my friends or family were. Shortly thereafter i began cooking my own dinners (i had been cooking with my mom since forever).
    I read too much. Mostly murder mysteries. I’m fluent in spanish.
4 Likes

@Ttrockwood, there is no such thing as “read too much”

4 Likes

Brooklyn, here.

Lately I’ve been obsessed w/ SE Asian food, restaurants and learning to cook it in my kitchen. Hot Thai Kitchen lady, you move me.

This summer I was invited by a friend to her home for a group dinner. In her bathtub were 6 dz live blue crabs, for the 8 of us, waiting to be steamed and doused with Old Bay. And then we got crackin’.

My FB posts consists mostly of food porn, photos from live music shows (funk & jazz) ,with a smattering of left of center politics.

7 Likes

May I suggest that here, and in user profiles, former Chowhounds who have different user names on this site, provide their CH names?

10 Likes
  1. half hour northwest of Boston.
  2. preventing food waste, knowing how to pick out good produce
  3. Thanksgiving Dinner at the Shaker Village in New Hampshire years ago. Eating at communal tables, by candlelight, fostered wonderful fellowship that enhanced the enjoyment of the holiday meal.
  4. I prefer crocheting to knitting, but am bistitchual, usually listening to NPR or audiobooks as I work.
7 Likes

Hi,

I live in a very small town in a small house on an acre and a half, in north Fl.

If there is one food I am passionate about it would be crabs, oysters, shrimp. In that order. My nephews own shrimp/crab boats and I have caught and cooked more crabs than I can remember. I got my first crab pot when I was 18 and I still use it.

I am not a fancy dancy person. I cook what I think might taste good and lean towards southern cooking.

My sister was in Orlando and invited me to have dinner with her at Todd English BlueZoo. Wasnt on the list, but what a wonderful time.

I really like this site. I checked out the other one. Not welcoming and kinda stuck in the past.

Forgot to add, Other than home cooking, I love reading restaurant reviews. I am vicarious like that :wink:

5 Likes

1. Where are you?

Okayama City, Okayama, Japan

2. What food-related topic are you most passionate about, that you want people to ask you about and you can’t stop talking about it?

Italian food, cooking and ingredients. Cookware, from knives to appliances. Anything restaurant industry related. Food in Japan

3. What’s a great food experience you have had?

First day of a stage in Puglia, Italy. After a long train ride from Parma to Puglia, late at night, exhausted, got picked up by front of house manager in the middle of service at the train station which is 30 minutes from the restaurant, driven from train station to the restaurant which was in full service since they eat later in Italy. Was grubby as, unkept, with my luggage, brain wasn’t processing any Italian at that point, they marched me into the dining room of the michelin rated restaurant, sit me down at a table, and proceed to give me a full meal. Started with an entire ball of buratta with a light, small tomato sauce and basil, followed by gorgeous housemade orecchiette, and finished with a filet of horse with a lemon arugula salad.

If I’d been properly dressed and actually eating at the restaurant it would have been an amazing meal and experience, but to sit there by myself, not at all in the correct clothing, not able to talk to anybody, but to have everyone silently usher the food to me, served wine, and then after the meal taken back to the kitchen to meet the chef and staff, and then promptly escorted to my accommodation where I had one of the best sleeps of my life.

4. A little tidbit about you

Former chef, specializing in Italian food, with experience in Canada, Italy, and Australia. Now living in Japan teaching English.

4 Likes

I found you guys!

  1. Burbs of Los Angeles.

  2. I’m passionate about my local farmer’s market and the wonderful people who grow our meat, fruit, and veggies. We also take our cocktails, wine, and beer seriously and have a home bar stocked better than most restaurants in the area.

  3. A dinner with our friends on the Amalfi Coast a few years ago. We traveled to this tiny restaurant tucked in a grotto for a crazy good multi-course meal. The owner, who was also the chef, sommelier, and server was so warm. It didn’t hurt that as dinner ended with a fireworks display over the water.

  4. I have a huge collection of vintage vinyl handed down from my grandfather (a big band jazz pianist) and my father-in-law. Dinner and vinyl leaves most people very happy. Oh, and we have two fur babies.k

5 Likes