Pasta special at Baba Louie's

This looks like it would be bland, but the sauce was wine, lemon, capers and garlic.  It was perfectly tasty and made a good lunch.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Cucumber + feta salad

This cucumber and feta salad is a wonderful mid-winter salad that is hearty and versatile.  I went shopping at Guido's in Great Barrington today and came home with cucumbers and when I started thinking about a light snack to tide me over until a late dinner with friends tonight my mind turned to them along with the feta that I've been hoping to use Real Soon Now.

In my mind the feta must be in large chunks for this salad.  You may not be able to handle a big bite of this strong cheese, but I enjoy piling a hunk of feta up with other salad ingredients and basically getting feta with different condiments as I work my way across the serving of salad. 

Another thing about this salad is that it's got very strong flavors, so that means small servings or serving it on top of a bed of lettuce or avacado slices or finding some other means to mix in more mildly flavored foods.

Tonight I started with 8oz feta and two cucumbers and chopped them both into chunks a little smaller than bite-size. I added:
juice from half a lemon
2 Tbs of olive oil
minced glove of garlic
1 Tbs of capers
2 chopped pepperoncini, mild
about a dozen calamata olives
half an achovie filet, choppped
a teaspoon of basil
a teaspoon of oregano
two sun-dried tomato halves, finely chopped

It can't be tossed too much or the cheese disintegrates, so it's better to stir up everything else and then add the cheese lightly toss.

Windex at Elda's

Dear Restaurant owners everywhere:

I would like to recommend that you fire any employee who carries a bottle of Windex (or other ammonia-based cleaning fluid) into the dining room while the restaurant is open.  It's really mean to spray your customers with Windex. It tastes bad.  It's a bad appetizer.

 I'm sort of accustomed to being invisible, but tonight at Elda's on Lark Street, just after I was seated in the empty dining room, a waitress came into the room with a bottle of Windex and paper towels and proceeded to clean all the windows - all seven of the huge windows overlooking the street. I managed to get seated in the other dining room after the third window, but by that time my nose throat and mouth were full of Windex.

The meal was ultimately good - I had the veal Franchese and it was very well executed.  But what I remember most is being covered in Windex for starters. 

Man doo guk

It's been many years since I had this dish.  I ordered it at Kinnaree, the new Asian restaurant on Lark St. It's a delicious dumpling soup, served with the Korean side dishes.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre