Reading Terminal Market's makeover

Reading Terminal Market's makeover -- Philadelphia Inquirer

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More on the makeover

If you live in or near Philadelphia, and you don't shop and eat at Reading Terminal Market, you're missing one of the great food destinations in the country.
 
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm there regularly -- typically two or three Saturdays a month.  Breakfast or lunch with Adam or Carmen at The Dutch Eating Place or Down Home Diner, shopping for veggies and fruit at Iovine's, meat from Charlie Giunta, roasted chicken from Dienner's, raisin-pecan cinnamon buns from Beiler's, cold cuts and pepper bacon from Hatville Deli, coffee (medium, extra cream) from Old City Coffee, bargain produce from OK Lee, steamed dumplings from Sang Kee, bread and fig bars (!) from Metropolitan Bakery, roast pork sammiches (with broccoli rabe and provolone) from DiNic's.   

The market went through a major rejuvenation at the time that the Convention Center was being built, which saved it from developers who were intent on jettisoning the Market from its perch under the old Reading train shed.  

Now it's about to go through another bit of renovation and expansion.  Business is good, and that's good for all us food lovers and inveterate food shoppers, who love good quality and freshness.  RTM is good, not only because it offers so much to its customers, but because it is real, not a phony, tourist "festival marketplace" selling crap T-shirts and soft pretzels.  (Do you hear that, Faneuil Hall and Inner Harbor?)

 Adam, dazzled by the selection at Reading Terminal Market!

Philbert, the Market's mascot.

Jam-making day

Too damn hot and humid to be outside today, so I'm enjoying the day in the air-conditioned kitchen.  I made some amatriciana sauce yesterday (that's a tomato sauce made with bacon or pancetta and lots of onions; recipe to come), and a summer-fruit pandowdy.  I bought 5 pounds of apricots at Gentile's Produce Market last week, planning to make a pot of jam.  Today was the day.

I always refer to a favorite website when I'm making jam -- The National Center for Home Food Preservation.  The Center is part of the University of Georgia's Extension Service and the US Department of Agriculture.  A resource of remarkable depth.

The recipe I used today was for the fruit jam without added pectin.

Jam-making is not difficult, but it does require a few specialized tools -- a canning funnel, a jar-lifter, and a candy/deep-fat thermometer at the minimum.  You also need a big stockpot in which to do the sterilizing and hot-packing.  I have a pair of long leather barbecue gloves that I find very handy, too, to handle the hot jars. 

One of the pleasures of apricot jam is that the flavor of fresh apricots is made much more prominent when confected into a jam.  Also, apricots do not need to be peeled when being made into a jam; the skins disintegrate upon cooking.  

Barbara from NYC stopped by today to take me out to brunch for my birthday.  She arrived just as I was removing the jars from the hot-pack processing.  She got the first jar of jam to take home with her. 

 Boiling the fruit and sugar. 

 Filling the sterilized jars with the hot jam.  This is where the leather gloves come in handy. 
You can see the wide-bottom canning funnel, designed specifically for this task. 
The bands and discs for the lids are off to the upper right.

The finished jam.  Few things are better.

Nigel Slater

I read Nigel Slater's Toast years ago, and enjoyed his storytelling.  Like MFK Fisher, he writes stories that are not 'about' food (they aren't cookbooks or food reviews), so much as they are 'around' food. Food and cooking are characters in his stories.

There was a very good feature in the Wall Street Journal recently about him.

He's also a cook who loves his wooden spoons.  I can relate.

WSJ feature on Nigel Slater

Peach and plum pandowdy

I had half a dozen peaches, nectarines, and plums on the far side of ripeness, so decided to whip together a pandowdy.

A pandowdy is simply a one-crust pie, with the crust on the top.  I love making them because (a) they're quick to put together, and (b) the soggy bottom crust is eliminated by simply eliminating the bottom crust.

Lazy chef cheat -- I always keep a box or two of Pillsbury pastry crusts in the freezer so I can do a pie on the fly.  I will confess my sin on Saturday.  Honestly, though, they're really quite good.

Cut up enough peaches, plums, and nectarines to make five to six cups cut-up fruit.  You can take the time to peel the fruit, but honestly, it pretty much disintegrates when cooking and it's a waste of time.  And forget about trying to peel a plum.

Sprinkle the fruit with a good cup of sugar, and add 2 tablespoons Minute® Tapioca.  Sprinkle some cinnamon, a few grates of nutmeg, a pinch of salt.  Let it sit for 5 minutes while you prep the baking dish.

Spray a 6-cup baking dish with release spray.  Dump in the sugared fruit.  Dot with butter. 

 

Unroll the Pillsbury crust and cut it into strips (I use a ravioli cutter -- a paring knife will suffice.)  Lay the strips on top of the fruit in any sort of pattern you like.  Random looks quite fetching.

 

Paint with some cream or half-n-half.  Sprinkle some coarse brown (turbinado) sugar on top, and pop into a 400°F oven until the crust is nicely browned, and the fruit is bubbling up all around the edges, 45-55 minutes.  I use the convection setting on my oven, which encourages a nice browning of the crust. 

Lazy chef cheat -- put the baking dish on a sheet pan which has been covered with Reynolds® Non-Stick Foil.  You will thank yourself later after the fruit syrup bubbles up and over the baking dish.

How beautiful is that?

Hot summer day -- time to roast peppers

Few foods are as tantalizing as roasted red peppers.  When peppers are in season this time of year and are inexpensive (I've gotten them recently as cheap as $1.35/lb), I fire up the grill and start roasting.

Get the grill very hot, and lay the peppers across.  Close the lid and let them char on one side, which will take a few minutes.  After the one side is charred, turn them, and char the other sides.  

   Once charred, place them in a covered pot or a paper grocery sack and let them steam and cool.  This will help the skins to detach from the flesh. 

Peel the charred skin from each pepper -- it will pretty much fall off.  Don't rinse the peppers under water, though you might be tempted.  The bits of clinging charred skin that you can't remove adds nice flavor. 

Pull our the stem and seed pod.

Pull apart the tender, roasted flesh.  You probably won't need a knife.

Let the sliced up peppers drain in a colander for an hour.

Dress the peppers with salt, black pepper, chopped garlic, parsley and ample extra virgin olive oil. 

If you make a large batch of peppers -- and I recommend that you do -- dress only what you'll eat now, and freeze the rest in zipper bags for later use.

Ferry Building farmers' market

I was traveling for business last week in San Francisco, and had some time between client meetings in the city.  I was right downtown, so wandered over to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, where there's a great indoor market/restaurant space and an outdoor farmers' market a couple days a week. 

The produce for sale was beautiful and I had to get some photos.  (One of these days I'm going to collect all the photos I've taken at farmers' markets and put them in one place!)  The pictures speak for themselves!

 

Peaches, nectarines.

 

Sweet peas and snap peas.

 

Beautiful cherry tomatoes. I bought a basket to munch on.  Sweet as sugar!

 

California garlic.  None of that awful Chinese stuff!

 

I bought a jar of honey from this very nice vendor -- Snyder's Honey -- who let me taste them all.

 

Worthy of a Dutch master.

Feast for a friend from faraway

I hosted a supper on Friday evening for Hilda, a friend visiting from the UK.  Long story short: Carmen met her years ago when traveling in London and she was the tour guide.  They've kept in touch all these years.  Back in the US after about a decade, visiting NYC.  Popped down to Philly to say hello.

Dinner outside on the patio, under a pop-up canopy.  (Thanks, Steve!)  Perfect weather, and a perfect size gathering for supper.  Lighting courtesy of the Coleman gas lamp.

  Menu
Munchies -- Goat cheese sprinkled with zatar with crackers, olives, peanuts. 
First course -- Pasta with fresh-tomato sauce and lots of basil from the garden.

The guest of honor and the first course.

 How beautiful is that??

Main course -- Roasted chicken with herbs from the garden, arranged on croutons over which all the pan juices were poured, making a kind of "pane inzuppato." ** (Best quote of the night, from Dewey: "We will ALWAYS serve chicken this way from now on.")

Side dishes -- Mushroom rice pilaf and green salad.

Dessert -- Apricot-cherry cobbler, ice cream, water ice, coffee and tea.

The next morning, at Reading Terminal Market.

**inzuppare, v. tr.

1. 1. (intingere) to dip, to dunk
   2. (bagnare completamente) to soak, to drench

Gazpacho

Definitely a recipe that improves upon sitting refrigerated for several hours.

Makes about 6 cups.

4  large, very ripe tomatoes, chopped coarsely
1  medium onion, chopped coarsely
1  red bell pepper, chopped coarsley
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, chopped coarsely
¼ cup each, parsley and basil, finely chopped
1Tbp sriracha sauce (or tabasco, or similar hot chili sauce)
2-3 slices good white bread, torn into big pieces and soaked very briefly in water to moisten
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
¼ c     olive oil
2 T     vinegar (sherry vinegar or balsamic is nice)
    salt and pepper to taste

Process the mixture in batches in a food processor.  You can make it as smooth or chunky as you like.  You might want to add some tomato juice or V-8 to thin it out, too.  Chill well before serving. 

Drizzle each serving with some good olive oil before serving. 

Periprandial entertaining

Maybe I've glommed onto something....

It was Nick's and Ben's birthday. We met at my house for drinks and munchies, headed out to a local restaurant for a very nice dinner, then back to the house for dessert.

Little expense, little to clean up, and a great meal I didn't have to spend all day Saturday cooking!

That might seem an odd sentiment coming from someone who writes a food blog, but even we cooks get tired occasionally.

First fresh tomato sauce of the season

I'm making a pot of fresh tomato sauce -- first of the season!

 Sure, they're still hothouse tomatoes from New Jersey, but they're big and red and tasty.  Great for sauce.  But I do have basil and parsley from the garden. 

I've posted the recipe here. 

Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet.  I have a couple big zucchini in the fridge that I bought at a farm stand on the way home from the shore last weekend.  One idea is to slice the zucchini, toss with olive oil and seasoning, and arrange on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle liberally with grated cheese -- pecorino, parmigiano -- and into a hot oven until the cheese has browned.  Toss pasta with the tomato sauce, then arrange the zucchini on top.  Really outstanding. 

Memorial Weekend BBQ -- and Kick-Ass Sangria

Had a great BBQ on Saturday with the gang.  Started out with hummus and chips, steamed artichokes with aioli (dang, they were VERY good!), olives and peppadews, and softened goat cheese with zatar on crackers.

Pasta with asparagus -- a spring favorite, even if it did feel like August outside.

Grilled skirt steak, grilled chicken thighs, with chimichurri to go alongside.  (Chimichurri is an Argentine condiment -- think parsley pesto -- parsley, garlic, olive oil, a bit of hot chili, and a squirt of vinegar, too, but no nuts or cheese as the Italians do with basil pesto.)

Potato salad, veggie slaw, baked beans, and deviled eggs as side dishes.

Desserts were banana pudding, pound cake with blueberry-cherry sauce and whipped cream, ice cream, coffee.

I made a kick-ass sangria, too.  Good sangria goes down like soda pop, but packs a wallop.  A tall glass over ice is the perfect outdoor drink.  The trick to great sangria is to make it sweet, and to make it potent.  Wine + fruit isn't sufficient, so you need to add a few things to bolster it.  See recipe below. 

Then of course there's always iced tea and mint iced tea.

 Patio all set up for the BBQ.  With the tree gone, it's a bit sunnier than we liked.

 Dewey and Munro.  

Carmen and your host.

Kick-Ass Sangria

1.5-L bottle of cheap red wine (use that bottle you got for Christmas last year that you'll otherwise never drink)
12-oz can of frozen concentrated apple juice
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 cup liquor -- I do 50/50 Grand Marnier and brandy (You can also use Cointreau, triple sec, or similar potent, fruit-flavored liquor.)
Assorted sweet fruits, cut up -- sweet oranges, apples, pears, dark sweet cherries or maraschino cherries, ripe peaches or nectarines.  (Don't use lemons or limes -- they're too sour for this.)

Pour the wine into a 1-gallon jug.  Add concentrated apple juice, orange juice, and liquor.  Add cut-up fruit.  Let it sit and macerate and hour or so.  Serve over ice.

Spring supper for the cousins

Hosting dinner tonite for my cousins Matt Pacello and Kate Pacello Dunn and her hubby Eric. 

Dinner starts with antipasti -- a few different cheeses, toasts and bread, olives, roasted peppers, and some garlic-infused oil for dipping.

Then penne al pomodoro.  Simple and perfect.  I made the sauce already, and used a lot of sweet, red bell pepper, and a couple anchovy fillets -- my secret ingredient.

Roast pork shoulder, with oven-roasted potatoes, and a green salad with Caesar dressing  . 

The Dunns are bringing dessert. 

Springtime herbs

I've put my herb garden in.   So far: 

• 4 basil plants
• 3 parsley plants
• thyme
• oregano

Basil and parsley are annuals, and the thyme and oregano, perennials.  I had both thyme and oregano from previous years, but neither seem to have weathered our harsh winter. 

The chives are well up and blooming.  The mint is more out of control this year than last, and the sage seems to have recovered from a lackluster 2010.

I planted two parsley plants in the sun, and put one in the shade.  A bit of an experiment to see how well they thrive in each environment.   Parsley typically likes sun, but too much sun and heat make it bolt.  A bit of shade, or shaded sun might favor a more gradual growth. 

I'm looking forward to a summer of abundant herbs. 

The chives in bloom. 

Beautiful sage.  This plant is about 18 years old --
I planted it shortly after moving into my home.

Basil plants.  A bit anemic, but it's not even Memorial Day.

Thyme in the foreground, oregano in the background.

Parsley -- curly up front, flat-leaf in the back. 
I think both have great flavor. 

Mystery herb.  I planted this last summer in one of the
patio pots, but I don't remember what it is!  I think it's
lemon mint, or catmint, or maybe even catnip.  Regardless,
like any mint, it's coming back strong!

 And of course, mint -- peppermint, in this case.  Out of
control, and spreading all over.  But at least I use it!  This shows
just a small part of an 8-foot patch of mint.  That started with one
plant a few years ago. 

Vintage Magnalite® roaster

My friend Chris Z. and his sister Jeanne were cleaning out their mother's house in Northeast Philadelphia.  Mrs. Z. passed away earlier this year.

Chris and Jeanne, knowing that I enjoy cooking, invited me to the house to go through the kitchenware and take away what I wanted.  Well, I made out like a bandit:  a big, square Corningware® casserole, an almost-unused tube cake pan, a couple 9-inch round cake pans, a stainless roasting pan, and probably best of all, a magnificent Magnalite® covered roaster.

My grandmother had several pieces of Magnalite, which is cast aluminum cookware.  It's sturdy, durable, even-heating, shiny, ovenproof, and beautiful.  I always loved my grandmother's pots and roaster, but my aunt still uses them.  Now I have my own.  And I am eternally grateful to Chris and Jeanne. 

I washed it up tonite, and will use it this weekend.  A nice pot roast, perhaps?

 

I look forward to preparing a wonderful meal and inviting Chris and Jeanne for dinner.