Couscous

Photo by Jacob L. Silberberg, chicken, couscous with sun-dried tomatoes and roasted vegetables by Mr. Silberberg and Scott Mayerowitz.

Sweet potatoes, raw

Why didn't someone tell me sooner that you can eat sweet potatoes raw? Clearing out our fridge the other night, Keryn had me grate some (raw) sweet potatoes into the (raw) carrot and (raw) red cabbage slaw that she later served with lightly breaded tofu and broccoli. The sweet potatoes added a subtle and fresh sweetness to balance out the spicy spices and heavy sauces.

Contrasts in Connecticut

The brunch menu at O'Rourke's Diner, in Middletown, Conn. (728 Main St.), is exhaustively extensive. Just contemplating the specials must give nervous breakdowns to hung over Wesleyan students on Sunday mornings.

Meeting up with our cousins there last weekend, Keryn and I explored the extremes, though we did not sample everything in between. (I liken the strategy to the Simpsons montage that shows Patty spreading a rumor around Springfield by calling "A. Aaronson" and later "Mr. Zykowski." "There," she says, looking spent, "Aaronson and Zykowski are the two biggest gossips in town.") I, not surprisingly, opted to sample as many of the absurdly long list of meats available, ordering "The Irish Embassy," with corned beef hash and bacon (I substituted Irish bangers), alongside home fries, a poached egg and Irish "brown bread."


Keryn had the yogurt, with granola and fresh fruit.


Everyone munched on the incredibly moist and mind numbingly flavorful pistachio bread and lemon poppy seed pound cake, both complimentary.

Medford feast

The last time I had a meal in Medford, Mass., it was at the Carmichael dining hall at Tufts University, an all-you-care-to-eat affair that most likely involved pizza, lasagna and soft-serve ice cream memorable more for the quantity than the presentations or flavors. Needless to say, the feast prepared by our friends Randi and Jeff the other night made me feel like I may have grown up a bit after all.


The vegetable soup was garnished by sage, oregano and parsley plucked from their Medford garden; the peas in the baby spinach and goat cheese salad, grown at Verrill Farm in Concord, Mass., had that energizing crunchiness their frozen cousins simply can't deliver; the ricotta ravioli, served alongside roasted asparagus, tomatoes and black olives from Whole Foods (Rt. 16, Medford), was baked at Bella Ravioli (369 Main Street, Medford).




The ground sole, served with a homemade Parmesan and pine nut pesto, swam in from Captain Boston Fish (377 Main St., Medford). (I wish I could say the bananas in the bananas foster, halved atop heaping portions of vanilla bean-flecked ice cream, also grew in a Medford backyard rather than Honduras, and you know what, maybe they did. Randi and Jeff would not disclose the secret recipe!)

Scungilli (snail) salad, crawling over R.I. tables

Ever nibble on a snail salad? Me neither. I didn't even known it existed until this weekend. Apparently, however, I'm living in the snail salad capital of the world.

The hungry, roving correspondents behind The Splendid Table's "Where We Eat" stopped by Champlin's Restaurant in Narragansett, R.I., for the July 4 episode. There, they not only guzzled gallons of clam chowder -- creamy New England style, red Manhattan style and Rhode Island style ("Briny, sweet, grayish colored clam broth is loaded with clams, potatoes, salt pork and some seasoning") -- but also feasted on some scrumptious snails. (A side order sells for $7.) The way they made it sound, in Rhode Island, snail is the new caesar.

I don't fully buy it, having lived here for a few years and only heard of snails sightings, if anywhere, at the great French restaurants Chez Pascal, on the East Side, and Pot Au Feu, downtown. But a quick search through The Providence Journal archives shows that, indeed, one can stumble upon snails on a Rhode Island menu. In June, the Projo wrote about the $8 snail salad ("something you don't find at a lot of restaurants") at Silvio's, in Johnston. Snails have apparently also crawled on the menu at Carrie's Seafood Restaurant, in North Providence, and the Atwood Grill, in Johnston. The Projo's food writer, Gail Ciampa, even featured snails in 2005, writing about the "snail-salad king," Al La Greca, owner of Rome Packing, where his majesty sells 4,500 pounds of scungilli (snail) salad every week.

"Of course, there aren't really snails in scungilli salad. Everyone will tell you it's conch. But in fact, scungilli are whelk, and the word even means whelk in Italian," Ciampa writes. "While both are saltwater mollusks that live in spiral shells, conch come from tropical waters, while whelk live in the cool waters off New England. Both are essentially marine snails."

If that made you hungry, Rome sells two version of its snail salad, traditional and marinated. Both include, "the finest fully cooked New England cold water conch, freshly chopped celery and Spanish onions, 100% pure corn oil, blended garlic vinegars, salt, crushed pepper, sugar and selected spices."

(For New England fans of Jane and Michael Stern's food finds, the pair have also bestowed their quirky endorsements to the wieners at John’s New York Systems and the stuffed clams at Mike's Kitchen, both in Cranston, R.I.; the ginger flavor at Gray's Ice Cream and the chow mein at Evelyn's Drive-In, both in Tiverton, R.I.)

Photo of Rome Packing's snail salad by Providence Journal photographer Sandor Bodo.

Crazy Burger, lives up to its name

The (poorly lit, lovingly assembled) "BAA-BAA BURGER" at Crazy Burger in Narragansett, R.I., with ground lamb and feta cheese baked in phyllo dough, with a side of oregano-pepperoncini relish ($10.99).


The (poorly lit, lovingly assembled) fried calamari special at Crazy Burger, where every dish must have at least 12 ingredients. Here, the calamari appetizer includes, among other tasty, colorful tidbits, sun-dried tomatoes, pepperoncini, white wine sauce and shredded cheese.

Chinatown, Seattle

It's not quite San Francisco, but Seattle's Chinatown is fairly enormous, and the food is as tasty as the neighborhood is sketchy (at night). Jade Garden, famous for its dim sum, has huge, bubbling, crowded tanks of live lobster and crabs, great daily specials and a super late closing time (2:30 a.m., M-Th, 3:30 a.m., Fridays and Saturdays).






Try the crab or beef with black bean sauce, or the eggplant in Szechuan Hot Pot ($8.95) and sauteed string beans ($7.95).

Diamond Princess

Breakfast aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Alaska's Inner Passage.

Some factoids about eating aboard the ship:

• There are five dining rooms in addition to the infamous, 24-hour Horizon Court buffet, as well as "casual poolside dining," where Trident Grill serves up hamburgers and fries and Prego's Pizzeria throws 600 pies a day in the oven.
• Still hungry? Hunt for the warm, fresh, soft-baked cookies served daily.
• Still lazy? The complimentary fruit, tea and OJ is delivered to the staterooms every morning.
• In a day, the ship prepares 16,000 meals in the galley.
  
• In a 7-week cruise, the ship cracks 38,354 eggs and serves up 920 kg of shrimp, 6,691 kg of beef, 700 kg of king crab legs, 548 kg of lobster and 600 kg of pasta.
  

Granville Island, Pike Place, Pacific Coast marketing all year long

The farmers' markets at Granville Island, Vancouver, and Pike Place, in Seattle, are open every day, all year, so there's no holding your breath until summer for fresh produce, an East Coast tradition.

Farmed caribou

I can't tell if all the reindeer in Alaska, such as the $5 sausage served with pickles and grilled onions in downtown Anchorage, is a gimmick for summer tourists or a traditional part of the Pacific Northwest table. But it sure is everywhere, in fusion dishes like the reindeer chili, served with corn chips, and in reindeer salchipapas, grilled reindeer sausage served on a bed of grilled potatoes and chimichurri sauce.




There's also oodles of smoked fish and fried fish, such as the popular beer battered, fried halibut, every type of jerky you could possibly imagine, and Russian treats like piroshky, yeast dough with ground beef and cheese sold at street fairs.



Some advice: If you go to Alaska, better bone up on your salmon factoids, as it's all Alaskans talk about (at least the tour guides). There are apparently five types of Pacific salmon, chum, coho (silver), chinook (king), sockeye (red) and pink (humpy). I won't pretend to fully understand the "life cycle," but I'm told salmon start as eggs, hatch into alevin, start swimming around as fry and either spend a few years in the river or go straight out to sea as smolts, where they grow into adults for 1 to 6 years before heading back to their birthplace to breed.

Slow cooking in the Jewelry District

I'm no expert on the Providence barbecue scene. I went to LJ's BBQ once, and I was less than wowed, and not just because it's in a shopping center on the Pawtucket line. (After all, Providence's best Indian restaurant, Rasoi, is next door.) Since then, I haven't even gotten around to trying Wes' Rib House, known mostly for being open until 4 a.m. on weekends, or United BBQ, even though it's a few blocks from my apartment and its delivery vehicle is a hip, little Smart Car.


As of tonight, however, I can say that I have finally hit up Rick’s Roadhouse, at the site of the old Big Fish in the Jewelry District.


It was not life-changing, surely not remarkable enough to set me off replicating the pace of red meat binging I kept up last year while living in Uruguay. But the preposterously large Chicken Grande Nachos appetizer ($9) was tasty and colorful (though the BBQ chicken was more chopped than pulled); the Steak on a Stick skewered, marinated and grilled beef appetizer ($7), served with a homemade bourbon steak sauce, was light and perfectly cooked; and the Texas Beef Brisket & BBQ Pulled Pork plate ($15), served with two sides (I recommend the Cole Slaw and the All World Baked Beans) was super tender and pleasantly sweet.

But don't take my word for any of this. The Providence Journal, my employer, has reviewed all these BBQ joints. Read about Rick's here, United here, LJ's here and Wes' here.

In Providence, R.I., a taste of the Dominican Republic

I've been meaning to post a link to a great food story my colleague, Philip Marcelo, reported in May about the Latin street food scene on Providence's West Side, a growing phenomenon that reflects the city's growing Latino population and the growing demand for cheap eats during the recession.

"Broad Street is also where many of the city’s 'chimi' trucks –– the converted trailer homes and ice-cream trucks serving cheap fried eats, like Perez's –– have made a home. Around dinnertime, anywhere from 10 to 15 of them are lined up along Broad Street, in the few blocks around the nightclubs and bars. It's especially noticeable as the weekend approaches and the weather gets warmer."

The food trucks, with august and boastful names like Con Sabor a Pueblo, La Universidad de Chimi, Johnny's Chimi, and La Casa de Chimi, all serve chimichurri, "a sandwich of seasoned beef, pork or chicken packed with fresh tomatoes and coleslaw on a toasted roll that is a fast-food staple from the Dominican Republic," Marcelo reports. "There's also frituras (morsels of salty fried meats), longaniza (sausage), pastelitos (empanadas), pinchos (kebobs), yuquitas and tostones, not to mention the standard-fare French fries and sugary fruit drinks. Here, five bucks goes a long way."

Read the full story here.

Photo by Ruben W. Perez for The Providence Journal.

Pregnant cousin, oven roasted tomatoes

I've never really considered making sun-dried tomatoes, and I'm still not sure I will, given how time-consuming the process appears. But it's apparently not a particularly complicated operation. The caterer at a baby shower for my wife's cousin let me in on the recipe for her "oven-roasted" tomatoes. It seems she just halves tomatoes, adds some olive oil and seasoning and roasts them at super low heat for a few hours, flipping them once. Even without any marinating, they were delicious, topped with crumbled feta. (For the record, I wasn't invited to the actual shower, but I sneaked some leftovers the next day.)




Summer Hill Catering, in Madison, CT, also served up lox with dill sauce as a passed hors d'oeuvre. For dessert: intricately constructed, absurdly sugary, double frosted cup cakes from a local pastry chef.

Noodles 102

Noodles 102, an Asian noodle house, opened recently on Ives Street in Providence, a surprisingly happening commercial stretch in a mostly residential section of the East Side. The building is not particularly attractive, and the modernist interior decorating in the cozy dining area (the owners call it a "contemporary atmosphere") does not match the tone set by the minor history lesson on the menu that includes the phrase, "started in China over 1,000 years ago."




The food, however, seems pretty darn authentic. It's also amazingly cheap. The tea leaf eggs, hard boiled, halved and served with dribbles of hot sauce and wasabi and a bowl of soy sauce, go for $2.50. The dumplings, five to a serving, sell for $5.50. The signature soups -- offered with a choice of egg, pho, udon, rice or somen noodles with chicken, shrimp, beef or vegetables in coconut curry, spicy miso or house broth -- will set you back just $9.

The noodles are homemade. Slurping is encouraged. B.Y.O.B.

UPDATE: My Providence Journal colleague, Jennifer Jordan, just remind me that the Projo's wonderful food writer, Gail Ciampa, mentioned Noodles 102 in September in a story about the food scene on Ives. "Jumping right on a popular fusion trend are Lisa and Mustafa Kusco who opened Noodles 102 at 102 Ives St. less than a year ago," Ciampa reported, noting that the restaurant offers Turkish coffee (owner Mustafa Kusco is Turkish) and "claypot dishes with fragrant jasmine rice paired with fresh vegetables."