Text 4371, 103 rader
Skriven 2006-08-16 00:03:22 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
Ärende: Picnic Day 2 (Sat.)
===========================
I apologize for the sporadic nature of these posts.  It's been busy
here; we have had more showings of the current house and I had to
get over to the other place to let an appraiser have a look round.

Anyway, this is the Tale Of Saturday.

Breakfast:  Eggs any style for those who wanted them, accompanying
homemade scrapple.  Anticipating the number of people attending - 
and knowing that scrapple is one of Michael's favorite foods - I
had made a double batch, and we went through a little more than
two-thirds of it.  Spices for the scrapple were based on Michael's
recipe, though I bumped up the black pepper content and added a 
very generous pour of good Hungarian paprika.  It turned out spicy
but was well-received nonetheless.

Manny made matzoh brei - moistened matzoh, broken up and saturated
with scrambled eggs, then pan-cooked to a somewhat creamy consistency.
I liked the flavor as well as the texture, which was somewhat chewy
and dense owing to the matzoh.  I am a big fan of matzoh anyway, 
having grown up eating many meals in the homes of Jewish friends as
a kid.  Manny's cooking over the weekend reminded me how much I
enjoyed matzoh.  Gotta get some soon.

Early afternoon, we caravanned to Victory International market,
the Russian store I speak of fondly in the echo.  Folks milled
about and selected items for purchase.  Michael, Manny, and I 
wandered back to the hot food lunch counter in back, where we
peered through the glass and made selections of stuff for 
everyone to graze on.

Stuffed cabbage - these were stuffed with chicken and rice and
braised in chicken broth with finely chopped red pepper, onion,
and broadleaf parsley, and were excellent.  Maryanne and I normally
make our stuffed cabbage (golumbki) with beef/rice filling and
tomato sauce, but next time we're doing it this way.

Stuffed red bell pepper - Pork and carrot filling with perhaps
some type of starch? (not sure), very good.  Michael really
liked these; the pepper flavors melded well with the pork and
carrot and they were quite exceptional.

Stuffed grape leaves - Similar stuffing to the cabbage, but with
grape leaves instead.  They were OK, but not something I'd
make myself.  Michael mentioned that these were better with
sour cream.  I wish I had thought to try them that way!

Fish Pancakes - Finely shredded whitefish, egg and flour.  Lots
of egg, actually, which distinguished them quite a bit from
standard New England codfish cakes.  Not bad, quite fishy, 
quite eggy, but overall kind of unspectacular.  

Potatoes - Manny insisted on a big plate of large quartered
spuds, cooked with cabbage, onions, and scallions.  This dish
appealed to the Polack in Maryanne, and she loved them.  I 
liked them quite a bit, too, and put it on The List of things
to try out at home soon.  Michael (not a big tater eater anyway)
was underwhelmed by them, I think, but there weren't any left-
overs so I guess everyone thought they were OK.

Meatballs - Pork - very good, nicely seasoned without being
In Your Face, and Chicken - pretty standard but still decent.
Not terribly authentic, I think, since the meat was the primary
ingredient. [g]

Manny stepped up to the deli and bought the second round of
eats:

Eggplant stuffed with carrots - OK, I guess, but stewed eggplant
is not really my favorite dish, so I'll leave it others to 
describe this and the other eggplant (cooked with pepper.)

Thinly sliced kielbasa - Unknown brand, but it was good and
definitely NOT the crappy mass-market Hillshire Farms junk that
is so prevalent in supermarkets around here. (Victory carries
about 10 different kielbasa brands, all of them small-label
products from New England/NY/New Jersey.) It was lean enough to
enjoy cold. I bet it would be pretty good sizzled in a 
frying pan, too.

Pork knishes - Savory pork surrounded by a kind of pastry
shell.  Crust was more bready and less pastry-crustish than
the tater blintz we had gotten at the Carnegie Deli.  Pretty
good, but not as good as we would have gotten at a good Jewish
Deli.

Pickled mushrooms - I don't like pickled mushrooms very much,
especially these shiitakis that tasted like slimy flat coins of
greased latex. Those who liked that kind of thing say
that they were the kind of thing they liked, so that worked
out OK.  As for me:  :barf:

Rye bread - An extremely dense loaf, sliced somehat on the 
thin side.  We noticed that the Eastern Yurpeans buying it were
slathering sour cream on everything and when we tried it out
we agreed that it was excellent that way.




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