The Great Grocery Store Hunt-5/6/09

The most challenging thing about the project of making every recipe in each month's issue of Gourmet is not making the recipes at all. It's finding all the ingredients required to make those recipes. I primarily shop at 3 different grocery stores each week to find the items I need. Let me give you some reasons of why this is necessary. I've mentioned that Super H Mart is my local Asian grocery that also has an extensive Hispanic foods section. This store is great for produce and hard to find ethnic ingredients. It is not good for cheese or other dairy products and has a limited pasta, cereals, and breads. My closest grocery store is Kroger and is good for cheeses and other dairy products and has pretty good produce section for commonly used vegetables and fruits. Publix is another local grocery store that has lamb, something rarely carried at Kroger, and a much better bakery. Sometimes I've just got to search at all three. For example, for last month's Rhubarb Orange Tart, Publix was the only grocery store of the three that carried rhubarb.

Thankfully, tonight's ingredients were pretty easy to find, although I did have to make a little change that I'll explain later. Tonight's dinner recipes were both from the Gourmet section titled "You Asked For It" where readers request recipes from favorite restaurants. The Panfried Cod Sandwich was from Mary's Fish Camp in Greenwich Village and it was a luxe fish sandwich. The fish was good, though I only found cod loins, not fillets. ( How do fish have loins if they don't have legs? Never mind....) The only noticeable difference was that the loins were thicker than traditional fillets. The best part of the sandwich in my opinion was the homemade tartar sauce. The crunchy red onions, salty capers, and tart sweet pickles gave this tartar sauce more substance than the store-bought kind.

The French Fries were flash fried, then fried again to cook. I wish I'd thought to set a batch aside and see if with a direct comparison, I noticed a difference. These fries were very good but I've made fries before with my fryer and they are always good. Richard asked me to warn him next time I make fries so he can save room.

For dessert, I made the Strawberry-Vanilla Swirled Frozen Pops on page 75. To be honest, there are some really great strawberry Popsicles out there. I thought this recipe was overkill. I only softened one pint of ice cream but what a mess! It was fun to lick the spoon but washing out the baking dish and all the drips on the counter when I spooned the ice cream into the molds was a pain. The pops were fine but not any more spectacular than most store bought brands.

The final recipe of the night was one of the drink recipes from the article "Going Stir Crazy, Forties Style". I count cocktail recipes as required recipes for the month but I draw the line on paying too much for one ounce of alcohol, like I did in April with The Waldorf cocktail. Tonight I made The Baker "Improved" Libre on page 12. It was a rum and Coke with lime. I won't pretend to be a drink connoisseur.

Panfried Cod Sandwich-A-

French Fries-A

Strawberry-Vanilla Swirled Frozen Pops-B

The Baker "Improved" Libre-B