Thank You, Restaurant Club

Blogs that promote other blogs. I swore that I would rarely, if ever, do it, and so far, I've kept the hall-of-mirrors recommendations to a minimum. But today I have to offer a tip of the hat to Philadelphia Magazine's food blog, the Restauarant Club, for its compilation of kid-friendly restaurants in and around Philly and the 'burbs. A handy list with goood menu suggestions, along with some practical advice from two serious restaurateurs with kids of their own.

I'm always looking for new places to take Ben and Sophie, who, like their dad, love to eat out.

Thanks, Restaurant Club!

CALENDARS! The Firkinteenth Is Coming!!

(photo courtesy of Grey Lodge)

We're just 6 days away from the original, knockout beer festival in Philadelphia, Friday The Firkinteenth at the Grey Lodge Public House in Northeast Philly, to my mind the most sociable and best single beer event in Philly, and the only one dictated by the calendar. This year there is only one Friday the 13th, and therefore, only one Firkinteenth.

This year, owner/publican Mike "Scoats" Scotese promises THIRTY firkins of fine brew, starting at 9AM on Friday the 13th. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served, and I'd advise consuming plenty of food and water, to help with your enjoyment of this terrific lineup, courtesy of the Grey Lodge's website:

Current Cask List(many more to come):

Arcadia IPA
Arcadia Whitsun
Cricket Hill Col. Blide's Bitter
Dock Street Summer Session
Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA
Flying Fish Farmhouse (Citra hopped)
General Lafayette IPA
Iron Hill (West Chester East) TBA
Iron Hill (West Chester) American IPA
Lancaster Amish Four Grain
Lancaster Milk Stout
Manayunk Black Eye PA
Manayunk Yunkers Gold
Nodding Head Rufus
Philadelphia TBA
Prism Bitto Honey IPA naturally carbonated with fresh local honey
Riverhorse TBA
Six Point Righteous Rye
Sly Fox Chester County British Bitter
Sly Fox Standard Porter
Stillwater Stillwater Stateside Saison
Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard
Stoudts ESB (oaked)
Stoudts Tripel (blended with IPA)
Troegs Hopback Amber
Troegs Dead Reckoning Porter
Victory Hop Devil
Victory Pursuit Pale Ale (Amarillo)
Weyerbacher Autumnfest
Yards Philly Pale Ale (dry hopped with Citra)

Check out these additional details from the website:

Tapping begins at 9am. It's a breakfast Firkinteenth.
Our kitchen will open at 9am serving a special breakfast menu. At 11am our full menu will be available. For the Firkinteenth, all food service will be 2nd floor only.

We are hoping for 30 firkins since this is the only F13 of 2010. Looks like we are at 30, hopefully we'll find a couple more too.

With 30 firkins, we should have cask ale going until at least 9pm. Time permitting Scoats will be updating the news page and tweeting throughout the day with cask status.

7 firkins will be pouring at any time (except when we get down to less than 7), tapping a new one as one kicks. The order of the casks will be random, but hey there should be no stinkers in the line-up.

See you there! I wish I knew when I'll be getting there, but that's still up, up, up in the air.

That Special Summer Sauce

As promised, the first batch of fresh Jersey tomato sauce from the ridiculous bounty we've gotten from our weekly Honey Brook Organic Farm share, step by step in pictures. And just to add emphasis: it tastes even better than it looks!




Started with the ripest, softest, reddest beauties and a vase full of basil....

Added the chopped tomatoes to a stew pot sizzling with chopped garlic and olive oil......

Simmered and reduced the chopped tomatoes for a half hour, with some salt and pepper.....

Added TORN fresh basil leaves and simmered for another 90 minutes....

Took a stick blender to the mix to smooth out large chunks and remove skins. Bright orange-red color, amazing aroma.

Done!

By At Least Half a Foot

I've been privileged and cursed to read some horrible reviews of restaurants over the years. Sometimes I had to actually edit them for publication, God help me. Articles so awful, spiteful and/or clueless that they were ironically funny, entertaining stuff. However this week's restaurant review from Philadelphia's weekly South Philly Review maybe the all-time champ.

The writer, a grizzled veteran food writer of a certain self-importance, has trumped anything she has ever written with this inspired screed on the brand new restaurant ADSUM.

Enjoy.

The Tomato Bounty Begins....

This is my favorite time of the summer. No, it's not the unbearable heat and humidity. No, not the smell of chlorine on all of my clothes from hours (and hours) of swimming with the kids at the community pool either.

It's the appearance of sweet corn (the world's finest, IMHO) at Kern's Farm Stand in Pennington, NJ. And the arrival of tomatoes in our weekly farm share at Honey Brook Organic Farm. What you see above is about 16 pounds of New Jersey's finest contribution to civilization, and I know it's just the beginning of a veritable landslide of lycopene heading my way.

Honey Brook has been putting out tons of great basil in our weekly share, too. So can you see where I'm going with this?

I'll be pulling out a big stock pot soon....stay tuned.

SACRE BLEU!

For the first time in a long while, I'm virtually speechless.

Who saw THIS coming? C'mon now, be honest.

Wow.

KETCHUP

It's been over 5 weeks since I last posted something on this blog, the longest gap between posts I've ever allowed to happen.

I'm sorry, but I have been ridiculously busy.

Beginning with a nearly 14-hour birthday party for the twins (where I grilled almost 200 various kinds of sliders--- a gamble that really paid off--they went over big!), lit and cut TWO birthday cakes, and had lots of 90-degree weather fun watching the twins and their friends bounce and waterslide (thanks Aunt Renee, it was a BIG hit!) themselves crazy, and continuing with a government-related project that I am prohibited to discuss, my days and nights have been full.

In between all that there were a few stops during Philly Beer Week (only McGillin's Olde Ale House's 150th Anniversary was well attended; the others were....much quieter), Ben and Sophie's touching "graduation" from pre-school, a slew of other birthdays (including my mom's 75th!), some BBQ at Sweet Lucy's for MY birthday last week, and some favorite beers shared in our weekly beer chat, the "No Bull Inn," on starchat.net.

My dear friend Lew Bryson lost his dad last week to pancreatic cancer, after a long and courageous fight. His tribute to his dad is another example of how great a writer and son he has been. Don't pass up reading it.

Bob Sheppard, the voice of Yankee Stadium for half a century, passed away Sunday. And today the Yankees' owner, "The Boss", George Steinbrenner, died after suffering a massive heart attack.

So we have a lot to catch up on. And I need to get back into the rhythm of writing again. I missed the interaction, reaction and feedback. I promise I won't wait this long again.