We finally made it back to one of our favorite restaurants, (James on Main, in Hackettstown, NJ), after being held hostage by the Route 80 shutdown for almost 4 months. It was nice to see our old friends, who missed us as well. We even received a personalized menu with a welcome (top right hand corner).
We enjoyed a veal chop; crab cakes; duck confit spring rolls; eggplant and mushrooms in an excellent yellow curry; tiger prawns; gnocchi with lamb bolognese; crispy and creamy hand cut fries with black garlic aioli; elderberry tart for dessert. It all we t great with a couple of excellent cabernets.
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that black and white photo is one of my favorites of him. Except, of course, for this one
i miss him too.
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Just when you think you’ve seen everything!
Totally still missing him too.
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I have that one too.
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Garlic Mushroom Chicken With Bacon, mashed cauliflower with sour cream, green onion and a butter puddle. Panzanella salad. There was Beefeater with Fever Tree Light and also on the rocks with vermouth and tipsy onions. The chicken was very good, the sauce much better than I thought it would be.
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where did you get the mizithra cheese? The only place I’ve ever had it was at The Old Spaghetti Factory in So. Cal… Still one of my favorite pasta dishes ever…
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I found a couple of sweet potatoes on clearance, so I shredded them with the rest of the white potatoes (I had in stock). Add in some onions and cheese and I made a casserole. Sunshine and I will get three meals out of it. I’ve made this many times before, but we like it.
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I’ve heard that about The Old Spaghetti Factory. I think I was there at the one in North Beach, SF, around 1981, but I don’t remember myzithra there. I got this at Berkeley Bowl West, in the open cheese case, north side, to the back. Their myzithra used to be dry, but they seem to have a new supplier, and it’s creamy and salty. This is the myzithra of my Greek-American childhood, long my favorite pasta cheese.
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Well lets call it a epic disaster. Upped the hydration up from 64 to 68 . Launched the pizza and it immediately stuck , the middle blew out . Peeled the mess out onto the peel . Sat there in ultimate failure and disgust . With my two best freinds . Ate the pieces.
But always ill be back next Saturday with another pizza . Cheers.
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There is a dry mizithra as well as a creamy/ wet /moist mizithra.
I didn’t know that there were 2 types, made for different uses, until maybe 10 years ago.
My family uses ricotta or small curd cottage cheese in lieu of the creamy/ wet/ moist mizithra for some recipes, including our tiropitas, which are half feta and half wet/ moist mizithra, to cut the saltiness of the feta.
I can only find the dry type of mizithra in Toronto.
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I’ve never heard of that wet myzithra. The version here is in boules or wedges. I guess these are what you mean by dry. I’m saying that the wedges of myzithra that I used to get were dry and crumbly, not easy to grate. This batch is smooth and a little creamy, beautifully gratable.
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Yep, the type for pasta that you grate is the dry type. I guess some types of dry mizithra are drier than others.
I know my relatives in the East Bay used to buy the fresh/ wet type, but this would have been a long time ago, and closer to San Leandro and San Jose, rather than Berkeley. There used to be a Greek store in San Jose where they shopped. Most of my relatives who lived in the area have passed away over the past 15 years.
The wiki mentions both types.
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My family pronounces the cheese as /mouzeethra/. I didn’t see it written out as myzithra until years later. The package I saw at the store here spelled it as mouzithra in Greek letters. But everywhere else, it’s pronounced /meezeethray/, or /meyezeethra/? . I don’t know how it’s pronounced in Greece.
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The English spelling is just transliteration, doesn’t matter which English letters are chosen. It’s trying to approximate the Greek pronunciation.
The Greek spelling is consistent.
μυζήθρα
I barely speak Greek. 3rd gen, one year of Saturday morning. Greek school when I was 6.
I pronounce it mi zi thra, with a short i, but I might be pronouncing it wrong. Pronunciation varies so much anyways, depending on region, also depending on generation.
This blogger pronounces it Mee zi thra
I think it’s mostly regional and there are variations.
It was funny, my friend who is fluent in Greek, since it was her first language and she has probably spent a quarter of her life in Greece, kept correcting my pronunciation on my second last visit. I realised later that the words she kept correcting were words that are pronounced differently in Mytilene than in the Peloponnese. And she didn’t know that. She just thought she was right and I was wrong.
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Hey! I spy some green in there, too 
Well technically there is 
since he bok choy leaves have a little green in them. I’ve heard the expression you eat with your eyes and I find that is true if I have different colours on my plate.
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As I was putting fish away in the freezer I found a bag of oxtail I bought a while ago. Rather than putting it away I decided to make oxtail curry similar to the one from our favorite Carribean place (Islander in Asbury Park). Served with rice and black beans seasoned with “Magic Seasoning” from our visit to St Martin, and sauteed cabbage and onions.
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Happens to the best of us…
Yep, I’ve had quite a few food disasters of my own.
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Thanks, i’ll check it out!
It was the dish I ordered again and again at Spag Factory. So good.
I’m planning chicken and corn on the cob for dinner tonight. If you made the recipe with COTC, would you just cook it on the sheet pan along with the chicken? Thanks.
