From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/dining/02jerk.html:

ON most summer Sundays, Brooklyn is burning.

Smoke rises from grills, many of them charcoal-fueled, illegal and loaded with jerk chicken — the spiced, smoky favorite of the borough’s large Jamaican community.

Jerk is Jamaica to the bone, aromatic and smoky, sweet but insistently hot. All of its traditional ingredients grow in the island’s lush green interior: fresh ginger, thyme and scallions; Scotch bonnet peppers; and the sweet wood of the allspice tree, which burns to a fragrant smoke.

“It’s not a sauce, it’s a procedure,” Jerome Williams, a Jamaican-born Brooklyn resident, said on a recent Sunday in Prospect Park, where families arrive as early as 6 a.m. for lakeside grilling spots, a few of which are actually authorized by the parks department. “It has to be hot, but it cannot only be hot, or you get no joy from it.”

Done right, jerk is one of the great barbecue traditions of the world, up there with Texas brisket and Chinese char siu. Its components are a thick brown paste flecked with chilies, meat (usually pork or chicken, occasionally goat or fish) and smoke, from a tightly covered charcoal grill, that slowly soaks into the food.

Boston Bay, on Jamaica’s east coast, has become the island’s most famous destination for jerk. The beach is lined with stalls selling jerk, and the sweet and starchy foods that go well with it: “rice and peas,” rice cooked in coconut milk with small red beans; sweet potatoes roasted in charcoal; and “festival,” a missile of sweet fried dough that resembles an oversize hush puppy.

“People drive all the way from Kingston for Boston jerk,” Mr. Williams said. That’s a four-hour journey of hairpin turns over the Blue Mountains, where allspice trees grow wild.

Purists say allspice smoke is a defining element of jerk. The entire tree, which Jamaicans call pimento, is used: the crushed berries are rubbed into the skin; the wood burns hot and slow; the green leaves are tossed on the fire, releasing a sweet smoke that flavors the meat with a warm, woody pepperiness.

Last year, because of the efforts of Gary Feblowitz, a jerk-obsessed cinematographer for television documentaries, pimento wood for grilling became available in the United States. It took him five years to clear red tape in the United States and Jamaica.

Jerk is so ingrained in Jamaican cooks that the notion of getting a recipe is entertaining, something like asking a Midwesterner for a hamburger recipe.

“Go around the corner to the cellphone store, the music store — you will always find someone to tell you how to do it,” Mr. Williams said, gesturing toward Flatbush Avenue, the main artery of West Indian Brooklyn.

Ms. Reid, of Islands restaurant, bakes her jerk, as her mother did before her. “I think men like messing around with hot coals,” she said, proving that some gender-culinary stereotypes transcend geography. “Women just want to get a good dinner on the table.”

To find good jerk in New York, one place to look is near hospitals (serving the many Jamaicans who work in health care), busy subway stops, or better yet, both.

Yvonne’s Jamaican food truck, which parks on East 71st Street near New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center on the Upper East Side, sells jerk pork only on Tuesdays and Fridays, and jerk chicken only on Wednesdays, but a fiery sauce of chopped Scotch bonnets pickled in vinegar every day of the week. The sauce is available by the shot and, alarmingly, by the quart. (Most local jerk is made mild, with hot sauce glugged on afterward at the customer’s request.)

“Jamaicans and Trinidadians like heat,” said Tamika Macintosh, a nurse’s assistant and an Yvonne’s regular. “The other West Indians can’t take it.”

Alternatively, follow the smoke. Some fancy West Indian restaurants make very good jerk rubs, but they are too mindful of the law to put a charcoal grill out on the sidewalk. You have to seek out the renegades.

“If the smoke is so thick outside on the sidewalk that you can’t see to put the quarter in the parking meter, that’s a good sign,” Mr. Williams said.

“We get tickets, sure,” said Desmond Mailer, the manager of McKenzie’s on Utica Avenue in Flatbush, where smoke billows from blackened oil drums 16 hours a day. “But you know, cops like jerk, too.”

...have come from tuna salad from Whole Foods and fresh papaya.

I don't know that there's a problem with this, or even if it's noteworthy. But my body seems happy with this, so I guess I'll keep eating it.

I had had a craving for crab for a couple of weeks. Then I found out I was going down to Maryland soon. There's a fine place for crab. When I mentioned this to puffydrake he was of course quite interested in eating crab here before leaving for home. And Bethesda Crab House was near by.

Bethesda Crab House
4958 Bethesda Ave. (near Clarendon Road)
Bethesda, MD 20814
(301) 652-3382
daily: 1200-2300
Visa, MC
Metro: Red Line to Bethesda

You come here to eat crab. Yeah, they also have shrimp, corn on the cob, and cole slaw. But really, if you didn't want to eat crab you probably should have gone somewhere else. Mediums are $45 a dozen, large crabs are $60 a dozen, and extra large crabs are something more than that. When we went, all they had were the mediums. They also have a $30 all you can eat offer which comes with cole slaw and corn. There's seating outdoors in good weather.

We weren't wildly hungry, having just come from our previous food stop, Ben's Chili Bowl, so we split a half-dozen crabs for $22.50. They arrived at the table hot and covered with old bay spice. We probably should have asked for them to hold the spice; the crabs were sweet and very fresh, and the spice was sprinkled with a heavy hand, as is traditional.

Eating crab makes quite a mess, which is why the tables are all covered with newspapers. You use your hands, the mallet, and the knife provided. This is the purist's approach. If you prefer, there are crab cakes. But we preferred dismembering the crabs ourselves.

Soda was $2, and corn on the cob was $2.50. After tax and tip we walked out for $17 each.

There really isn't that much more to say except that we'll cheerfully go back. Oh, and that parking is challenging. Take the Metro. It's not that long a walk.

...but the world always looks better after a good meal.

I got in late last night, but palmwiz had a suggestion for a late dinner. He said it was a drbitch and frotz recommendation, which in my book means it's something to check out. Also, one of the branches is open very late.

Aloha Kitchen
2605 South Decatur Blvd., Suite 110
Las Vegas, NV 89102
tel: +1.702.364.0064
fax: +1.702.364.9282
http://www.alohakitchenlv.com/
7 days: 0700-0500
Cards: MC/Visa/AmEx/Discover

Two other locations in Las Vegas, at 4745 South Maryland Pkwy. and 4466 East Charleston Blvd.

My last Hawaiian Barbeque experience had been a bit disappointing, but I was certainly willing to give it another try, particularly on a recommendation. I'm glad I did.

We started with the Lumpia Shanghai ($2.99), thin, crispy egg rolls filled with ground pork, which came with a sweet chili sauce. They were fine but nothing particularly special.

palmwiz got the Kalua Pig and Katsu Combo ($7.49) and I got the Mix Plate (also $7.49). He made the better choice. The Kalua Pig--shredded pork with cabbage--was excellent. Flavorful and moist, it was the highlight of the meal. The chicken katsu wasn't bad, either, pleasantly breaded and a bit less oily than usual. My mix plate came with teriyaki chicken, beef, and mahi-mahi. The mahi-mahi was a thin slice, fried. At first it looked like a fried egg. Alas, it was rather bland and limp. The teriyaki chicken wasn't bad, but it was pretty much generic teriyaki chicken, although reasonably well executed. The beef was better, tasty but a bit chewier than I like.

Both meals were accompanied by the standard white rice and macaroni salad. Both competently done, but we both reached our limit of macaroni salad pretty early.

Aloha Kitchen serves good Hawaiian at a reasonable price. I'm thinking I'll be going back for the kalua pig.

(Thanks for the pointer!)

(Why am I not surprised California won't allow you to sell a grilled hot dog?)

From http://www.laweekly.com/eat+drink/dining/the-bacon-wrapped-hot-dog-so-good-its-illegal/18276/:

The Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog: So Good It's Illegal

Jailed for selling L.A.'s famed "heart attack" dogs, licensed street vendors are fighting back

By DANIEL HERNANDEZ
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - 10:15 am

Not quite Mexican and not quite American, the bacon-wrapped hot dog, like the city that so fervently embraces it, has a curious romance about it. You can smell one from blocks away. The grilled bacon, twisted around a wiener, is topped with grilled onions and a mountaintop of diced tomatoes, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. Then one whole grilled green poblano chile is plopped impossibly on top. You take a bite and think, This is so good, no wonder it's illegal!

Among working-class downtown shoppers, belligerent clubgoers and adventurous foodies, devotion to the famed "heart-attack dogs" is strong and strident, a source of raw L.A. nostalgia.

"I probably saw my first one while I was trying to pick up 18-year-old girls at Florentine Gardens," says Eddie Lin, a food blogger at deependdining.com, who has rhapsodized about the bacon-wrapped dogs on local public radio.

To get them, "I go to places like the 99 Cents Only store in Reseda or other Hispanic working-class neighborhoods in the Valley. Parks are good too. It's the only street food L.A. can really claim as its own," Lin adds. "It's illegal and yet it's a ubiquitous part of L.A. culture."

Edit: It appears it's a county ordinance: "Instead, she prepares dogs the only way the county Environmental Health Department currently allows, by boiling or steaming. Not grilling. And grilling is the only way to make a classic L.A. bacon-wrapped hot dog."

I collected these very helpful suggestions a few years ago, when I had the first of the various molars removed.

http://yale.graduate.net/~marr/liquid.html

Thanks again to all of you who sent in suggestions!

As anyone who has spent any time with me knows, I get food cravings. And because I like tasting new things, sometimes these cravings are oddly specific. This time, I wanted Adana Kebab.

At first, I thought Cafe Anatolia might have it, so I made bedfull_o_books drive me there. Sadly, despite their name, they don't actually make much Turkish food. A search for Turkish food in Boston turned up the Boston Kebab House, which I'll need to write up sometime, because it was a favorite lunch place for cmeckhardt and me, back when our work locations made it convenient. Unfortunately, Boston Kebab House closes at 8PM. But there was another alternative listed: Brookline Family Restaurant! Open until 11. And their online menu said they served Adana Kebab!

Brookline Family Restaurant
305 Washington Street
Brookline, MA 02445
T: Green Line D Branch to Brookline Village
phone: +1.617.277.4466
fax: +1.617.277.4140
http://brooklinefamilyrestaurant.com/
Mo-We: 0700-2200
Th-Sa: 0700-2300
Su: 0800-2200
Cards: MC/Visa/AmEx/Discover

True to its name, Brookline Family Restaurant does have an unassuming family restaurant sort of way about it: with padded booths along one wall and tables in the center, like a thousand other family restaurants all over America. But the food is something else entirely.

It's probably because there just hasn't been that much Turkish immigration into the States that its food has been overshadowed by its neighbors Greece to the west and Iran to the east. And it does share some similarities with both, with kebabs and rice featuring prominently on the menu. But it would be a mistake to assume that's all there is to Turkish cuisine.

Brookline Family Restaurant gives a good sample of the variety of Turkish food: while the standards, like doner, kofte, and shish kebab are all on the menu, there are also items like alabalik, a whole brook trout, char-grilled or pan-fried, and sebzeli guvec, a vegetable casserole served with rice.

We both started with cups of lemon chicken rice soup ($2.95), which had nice, bite-sized chunks of white meat in the thick lemony soup. It arrived with excellent Turkish bread, as well as a bean salad with diced tomatoes and cucumbers.

I got the Adana Kebab ($13.95) which comes as two long strips of minced lamb, mixed with crushed red pepper and , lying across two beds: one of rice pilaf and one of bulgur wheat, garnished with parsley, and served with sliced onions, quartered tomatoes, and shredded carrots. A couple of grilled green peppers laid along side the lamb completed the attractive presentation.

Adana Kebab is, in its home town of Adana, in Southeastern Turkey, often a spicy dish, but its level of heat can be reduced as you go north and west. Here, the kebab has just enough bite to keep your attention, but isn't by any means wildly spicy.

bedfull_o_books ordered mantı, from the handwritten specials menu. These little pasta pockets are a bit like tiny curled up tortellini, and were served lightly tossed in a red sauce, with a generous dish of yogurt that one could top them off with. (I stole some of the yogurt for some of my Adana Kebab, too.) They were served with the pasta still nicely chewy, and I found them delightful, with little bits of flavorful ground meat within.

For dessert, we shared a sweetened pumpkin slice, garnished with what bedfull_o_books identified as ground almond ($3.50). We almost couldn't finish it, as we'd already had too much food.

Turkish tea ($1.50), served in the traditional tulip-shaped glasses and drunk with sugar, was the perfect accompaniment to our meals. Beer and wine are also available.

"A diet is a selection of food that makes someone else rich."

They're the dyed-orange color, but they're cheese curds nonetheless.

$5.59/lb.

Just fyi, and particularly for thespian.

(Trader Joe's Cambridge (502)
748 Memorial Dr
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: (617) 491-8582
Trading Hours: 9 am - 9 pm
Alcohol: Beer & Wine, M-Sat 9 am - 10 pm; Sun 12 pm - 10 pm)

I didn't buy any of them, but there were real, honest-to-god fresh mangosteens in the produce markets on Spadina Av. near Dundas St. West in Chinatown on Thursday.

Back in August, the NY Times reported that they were going for $45/pound in Brooklyn. I sense an opportunity for some Chinese grocer...

People claim this craving is linked to gender. Specifically not my gender.

Whatever.

Chocolate! Now!

I'm sorry. I should have found this article before you left, or at least when you asked about what to do in Brooklyn. But I just found it.

It's five different vignettes, on five days, all in Brooklyn:

Monday: Yemeni on Atlantic Avenue.
Tuesday: Chinese in Sunset Park.
Wednesday: Russian in Brighton Beach.
Thursday: Bangladeshi in Kensington.
Friday: Ecuadoran, Guatemalan, Honduran, Dominican, and Mexican in Red Hook Park.

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933598&story_id=9532200

Oh well. You're going back, right?

cmeckhardt, bedfull_o_books and I were at Christina's Ice Cream when cmeckhardt realized we should have gone to Fun Food Snackery to try their Summer Snow Shaved Ice (tm) instead. I suggested we go there anyway, after we'd finished our ice cream. Why not? So we did.

Fun Food Snackery
141 Brighton Av. (near Harvard Av.)
Allston, MA 02134
+1.617.787.8989
http://www.funfoodsnackery.com
MBTA Bus #57 or #66
MBTA Green Line B branch to Harvard Ave.
Su-Th: 11am-11pm
F-Sa: 11am-1am

Fun Food Snackery is a frozen dessert place. Its signature Summer Snow Shaved Ice (tm) is a pile of shaved ice, dotted with your choice of fruits, topped with a scoop of sorbet or ice cream from Christina's (which is why cmeckhardt thought of it when we were at Christina's). I was pleasantly surprised that the shaved ice was more flavorful than the sorbet: light, sweet, and milky. She told me they mixed the shaved ice with a sauce based on condensed milk. You can order the Shaved Ice with one, two, or three fruit toppings. We chose strawberry, blueberry, and Asian pear. The server embedded them in three clusters on the edges of the shaved ice. For our scoop, we chose blackcurrant sorbet. With three toppings, it came to $5.25.

Fun Food Snackery also does smoothies, fruit shakes, hawaiian ice, crepes, and of course Christina's ice cream. But the Shaved Ice really is the thing to try here.

Thanks to drbitch, I have a followup to my earlier posting quoting the New York Times.

From http://www.boston.com/ae/food/articles/2007/07/18/baby_baby_stick_your_fries_in_gravy/:

Mouth-watering but off-putting. Perfect but excessive. Crispy but soggy. How can one dish have so many contradictions? Poutine, Quebec's most diabolically unhealthy culinary ambassador, is at once several opposite things. As this imposing pile of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy slowly makes its way down through North America, it leaves only enthusiasm in its gooey, fatty trail.

Guess I have some new local places to visit.

I've been off the net for a few days, so I missed posting this NYTimes Op-Ed piece by Trevor Corson, author of The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, From Samurai to Supermarket. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/opinion/15corson.html)

So Americans are stuck between chef-driven omakase meals at elite restaurants that cost a fortune and the cheap, predictable fare at our neighborhood places. Both extremes have deepened our dependence on tuna — at the high end, on super-fatty cuts of rare bluefin; and at the low end, on tasteless red flesh that has often been frozen for months and treated with chemicals to preserve its color.

What we need isn’t more tuna, but a renaissance in American sushi; to discover for ourselves — and perhaps to remind the Japanese — what sushi is all about. A trip to the neighborhood sushi bar should be a social exchange that celebrates, with a sense of balance and moderation, the wondrous variety of the sea.

I suggest that customers refuse to sit at a table or look at a menu. We should sit at the bar and ask the chef questions about everything — what he wants to make us and how we should eat it. We should agree to turn our backs on our American addictions to tuna (for starters, try mackerel), globs of fake wasabi (let the chef add the appropriate amount), gallons of soy sauce (let the chef season the sushi if it needs seasoning) and chopsticks (use your fingers so the chef can pack the sushi loosely, as he would in Japan). Diners will be amazed at how following these simple rules can make a sushi chef your friend, and take you on new adventures in taste.

In return, the chefs, be they Japanese or not, must honor the sushi tradition and make the effort to educate us — no more stoicism. They must also be willing to have a candid conversation about the budget before the meal; it’s the only way American diners will be willing to surrender to the chef’s suggestions. Sushi should never be cheap, but it also should never be exorbitant, because that makes it impossible to create a clientele of regulars.

Fraternizing with the chef may be a tough habit for Americans to take up. But we’ve had sushi here now for four decades, and it’s time for a change — both for our sake, and for the sake of the embattled tuna. Let the conversation across the sushi bar begin.

Another in a series of posts at silly hours of the morning.

Anyone in Camberville want to get a donut or something? Comment, text, etc.