October 2010
1 post
Hilltop Crab House Restaurant
Chester County has thousands of restaurants. I am sure that there are hundreds, if not thousands of pizza and hoagie shops, deli’s, Chinese restaurants and Thai Noodle houses, upscale and downscale Italian places, maybe several dozen establishments that serve Cajun or Middle Eastern food, even places that deliver Yak burgers. You can pay a thousand dollars for a meal for four with the...
June 2010
2 posts
A LONG Way for Chinese Take Out!
My friend Gavin Snyder is in China right now for Schramm, Inc. a company with a long history in Chester County. Schramm Rotadrills are used throughout the world for water well, oil and gas, mineral exploration, mining and geothermal purposes. It’s a great job for a guy with an adventurous spirit and an open mind. I love getting his emails with his observations and experiences and...
CHEEP CHICKEN MONDAY! DON'T MISS IT!
If a food is the best of it’s kind, and manages to deliver VALUE in terms of the money factor- well, then to me, it is more than a food. And if on top of that, the food is commonly available and non-pretentious, liked by most people, satisfying and easy to eat, then it’s got to be CHEEP CHICKEN from Acme.
How can you afford to eat anything else on Mondays?
Two huge breasts...
May 2010
5 posts
The Pink Drink
Several weeks before Christmas 2008, I made homemade cranberry liquor, gave some away at Christmas and put the remaining jars in the barn to rest. And completely forgot about them til last Saturday when we had a barn sale and my daughter-in-law found them while looking for more stuff to sell. We cracked a jar open, fished some shot glasses out of a sale box and drank some. It was excellent -...
3 tags
Jimmy John's Piping Hot: Seventy Years and Gone
I regret to inform you that Jimmy John’s burned this morning. I know no details. I’ve only seen one picture. I’m not connected to the family that owns it now, although I think it’s someone from my High School. I am crushed.
I went to Jimmy John’s with my first boyfriend, my second boyfriend, many other boyfriends, and then with husbands one and two. I took my...
April 2010
5 posts
9 tags
Montesano Brothers: Philly Italy in ChesCo
Montesano Brothers
Italian Market and Catering
55 Seabolt Way
Chester Springs, PA
Phone: 610-458-8065
Fax: 610-458-7080
“Where do you want to eat?” I ask my daughter-in-law. If I don’t have a craving, she usually has one, so I know she’s going to come up with something great.
“Well,” she says, “If I could eat anything in the world I want right...
6 tags
Egg-zackly! What To Do WIth All Those Eggs
Easter Monday you might find yourself standing in the kitchen holding a basket of hard boiled eggs with jelly beans stuck to them, wondering what to do.
Because I am a factoid nutcase, first here are some tips and facts about hard boiled eggs first:
1. The fresher the egg, the harder to peel. The ‘bubble’ at the top of the egg is formed as moisture escapes through the shell and...
4 tags
Ideas For Easter Brunch
Okay, Easter at our house, because of the hugely adolescent male presence, is about getting up late, nuking Peeps and cracking very badly dyed hard boiled eggs on noggins before rolling out the door to Church. Once home, everyone disappears to their neutral corners to eat chocolate and get grumpy. Then a nap. And then a visit around the corner to Mom Mom’s house to watch the littlies...
West Chester to become ALL BAR Town!
In a unique move today, West Chester Boro Council has declared that every business must begin to serve alcohol immediately. Law offices, women’s consignment shops and jewelry stores must all begin to serve frozen margaritas and mojitos, if they want to stay in business.
One council person, who did not want to be identified, remarked, “It just seemed unfair that a person coming to...
March 2010
7 posts
Raisinet Flavored Kisses
An apology to the Boy Who Will Remain Nameless: You caught me by surprise. If I had known you were going to screw up your courage and do THAT at that very moment - deliver to me my very first kiss in the dark balcony of the Warner Theater on a Saturday afternoon - I would not have shoved almost a whole box of Raisinets into my mouth right before you planted one on me. I know. I was just as...
5 tags
National Potato Chip Day in the Snack Belt of...
It’s a dark and stormy night at Girl Scout camp - I think probably Camp Indian Run on Fairview Road in Wallace Township. Between claps of thunder and flashes of lightening, an eerie clanking is coming from the direction of our food stuffs. We are all afraid to go out and see what is going on. In the bright morning light, we find that raccoons have rolled our Charles Chip cans down the...
5 tags
Cedars Cafe - A taste of home cooking for my...
The Cedars Cafe
309 Lancaster Ave.
Frazer, PA
(610) 644-5551
www.cedarscafepa.com
Like so many things these days, this venture starts as a post on Facebook. My friend Elizabeth wants to know if anyone has been to the Cedars Cafe in Frazer. What kind of food? I inquire, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s been a couple of weeks since I lunched with girlfriends because of...
We're Forever Blowing Bubbles!
It is a sunny Sunday afternoon in 1963. I am ten years old. Am I outside, playing? NO. I am sitting on a plastic covered sofa in my German Grandmother’s living room in Rockledge, PA watching Mr. Lawrence Welk and his bubble machine. My grandparents are deaf and shouting to each other (We took the train! We had ham For lunch!) so I don’t even know why it’s important that we...
10 tags
Seeing A Ghost: The Hottest Pepper of Them All
The Ghost Pepper
Ghost pepper sauce is made with the now trendy Bhut Jolokia pepper grown in the northeast part of India, and is rated at one million scovilles, the scale that is used to judge hotness. In 1912, before Paris Hilton, before the ubiquitous use of the word HOT to describe almost anything mildly interesting, Wilbur Lincoln Scoville, a chemist, developed this scale to give a...
6 tags
BYOT - Bring Your Own Tomato
When I was a kid, you only ate tomatoes and strawberries during the local season.
Strawberries were only available for two weeks in June, because they were poor travelers and the growing season here in Chester County was very short and unpredictable. Because of improved transportation,hybridization and maybe some irradiation, you can get strawberries as big as your fist any time of year.
...
13 tags
Eggs McGiver
I don’t have an oven or stove at home right now. The story behind this situation is very long and will end soon, so I won’t bore you with it here. There is no boiling of water, cooking under the broiler or baking going on at my house. However, this has meant that I have discovered some unique uses for some standard kitchen appliances, should you ever find yourself, like me, with a...
February 2010
5 posts
Good Meal Redux! Awesome Uses For Restaurant...
Photo: grilled leftover tomatoes and corn, with recycled steak and bread.
Can’t finish that huge restaurant meal? Eating out less and cutting back on groceries because of the money crunch? Tired of discovering the bad smell in your fridge is a little styrofoam incubator filled with fettucini alfredo covered in technicolor mold? Here are some tasty solutions for leftovers that you...
Hurricane Schwartz Can Not Force Me to Shop
No matter how many advisories, predictions of significant inconveniences, potential threats, winter mixes, hazardous conditions, frequent gusts, failing visibilities, threats to life or property, lake effects, sustained wind velocities, or even non-existent temperature warnings associated with blizzards he might declare, and no matter how many parka wearing, coyote fur hooded intern reporters they...
7 tags
Good Ole Bob, Down on the Farm
Cinnamon Creme Stacked and Stuffed Pancakes
Bob Evans Restaurant
www.bobevans.com 303 North Pottstown Pike Exton, PA 19341-2228 (610) 363-0410 Get directions -
Sometimes, you do a favor for someone, something so easy for you that you almost forget that it was a favor. A mere hiccup in your day. But the person you do it for is so appreciative - so out of proportion grateful it’s sort of...
9 tags
Penn's Table: Perfect Setting for a Reunion!
Penn’s Table
The Shops On Eagleview Blvd 268 Eagleview Blvd Exton, Pa 19341 Tel: 610.363.6700
Penn’s Table Website
A couple of weeks ago, I got an actual letter in the mail. You know, a letter, delivered by the mailman, in an envelope without a window in it, with my name and address handwritten and the return address had a name I did not recognize on a neat little sticker.
...
January 2010
7 posts
“Next West Chester Story Slam: Feb 9th, Ryan’s Pub 7pm. Theme: Love Hurts!...”
Quick Up Date from China: Eating Out
From my future niece-in-law, who travels the world doing good works - this just in from China:
“Funny update - So, the weirdest things I’ve eaten to date:- bamboo and jelly fish… not a fan of jelly fish, it moves even when dead and is really slimy (though I had no idea what this was when attempting to cook it in my hot pot - a pot of boiling soup where you put raw ingredents in...
Where Everyone Knows Your Name: Just Mom's
BLT Hoagie, Chili Cheese Fries and Turkey Rueben,
Just Mom’s
1050 North Manor Road Honey Brook, PA 19344-9610 (610) 942-9460
Open Seven Days a week, from around 10 to 10 = hours varying according to season.
Just Mom’s has been open in some form or another since I was a Girl Scout at Camp Indian Run. It has had lots of different owners, lots of different menus. One thing...
4 tags
The Best Hoagie in Chester County
Who makes the BEST HOAGIE in Chester County and WHY?
For now, let’s limit this to the classic Italian variety. No odd combinations masquerading as a hoagie.
Leave your Vote below!
Montesano Bro’s Small Italian - Very good!
8 tags
Sometimes Monday is a Sundae!
Italian Meatloaf Melt and an Ice Cream Sundae!!!!!
FRIENDLY’S
240 The Village at Painters Crossing West Chester, PA 19382 610-358-9046
Open Most All the Time (I could not find the hours on the web)
It’s Monday and I am not feeling it. I have several work related tasks to perform and I’m dragging. I am also meeting a friend down in the Chadds Ford area, who has...
SOMETHING Deliciously GRILLED
Smoked Chicken Wrap, Potato Chumpies and Whole Smoked Chicken
SOMETHING GRILLED
3845 Horseshoe Pike (Rt. 322)
Honey Brook, PA 19344
610-272-7884
Open 10am to 9pm, Tuesday through Sunday
Convertibles can change the way you perceive the countryside – help you discover new sensations you might miss in the air conditioned confines of your car. Like smells…
I was driving through...
6 tags
Don Gabriel Mexican Restaurant and Groceries
Tingas, Asad o Bistec, Carnitas and Quesadillas fritas
Don Gabriel Mexican Restaurant and Grocery
6100 W. Strasburg Road, West Chester, PA
610.431.3214 , FAX 610.431.3216
Monday thru Saturday 8am to 9pm, Sunday 8am to 4pm
A friend of mine told me that someone on his twitter stream was raving about AWESOME TINGAS. He thinks I know something about food so he is asking me what they are.
I...