TheSnackHound

Italian restaurants usually are forbidden territories for those suffering from Celiac disease or mild wheat sensitivities. A gluten free Italian restaurant menu just does not exist.

Well, Portland – you can put Pastini on the list. Pastini is a Portland, Oregon Italian restaurant chain dishing up authentic Italian pastas. They offer spaghetti and penne in non-wheat versions as well as tiramisu. All of their cream sauces, with the exception of the beschamella also is wheat free. If you live near or are traveling to Portland ( with locations in Portland, Bend, and Corvallis, Oregon) – lift up your forks! I will warn you – it’s still pasta, carb counters. But loosen up once in awhile and have some fun. You know you want to.

Any chance of opening a location a lot farther east, Pastini?  If not, how about an overnight shipment of tiramisu?

(Oh, and if you are looking for affordrable Portland Italian catering, give them a ring.)

Church’s Chicken…

First Congregational Church, Detroit,
current location established in 1891…

Location, Location, Location…

The grandest and most brilliant expression of irony, or the biggest “fail” of corporate real estate scouting? When I was a child in Detroit, and later a student, I assumed that I would meet kindred spirits who weren’t sure whether to snicker or marvel at the juxtaposed neighbors. In my years, I have never had another soul even vaguely refer to this in any other way than as if it was routine and ordinary. I sometimes needed to prove to people that the strange parallel universes coexisted, not unlike the skills used in my strange position as one of five people who remember “Can’t Cook/Won’t Cook” or “Manimal” on television.

When I pass, I wonder if the good people of the First Congregational Church were petitioned for their opinions on both restaurant proximity and their sense of humor, and convenience won, or some corporate honcho just saw that the location was on the main drag. You’ve got to give them credit. I would not have been able to tell you where to get chicken sandwiches if it was a few blocks down. My mind wouldn’t have been able to place it. But put it next to the biggest word association billboard there could be, and the brain seals it in.

Now, if you go visit the good people of First Congregational, you will be sure to learn about the “Living Museum” that lies within. If you go to the good people of Church’s, pick me up a side of jalapeno peppers.

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At Carrabba’s, as well as at some upscale local eateries, an exposed kitchen is all part of the dinner theater. On one particular visit to one such place, a friend of mine was really paranoid. Every soup or salad or bread stick she ate, she inspected for phantom hairs. The ice cube had a hair on it, the salad had hair in it.

I looked up at my Death by Chocolate cake. “That’s a potato straw.” Then, after a few bites: “That is a caper.”  “That is a chopped strand of endive lettuce.” “That’s a hair. No. Just kidding.”

Some of the visible kitchen staff were wearing uniforms or company T-shirts and had their hair pulled back, some did not. Even so, pony tails flew through the air as cooks and waitstaff whirled around the kitchen and the ordering window.

The only hats I could find that encapsulate hairdos completely without looking like a cheap hair net was at Blue Sky Scrubs. They are usually known for making medical scrubs for men and women (http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Women/)but their head coverings are not industry-specific. I could see the Poppy scrubs hat being worn by pastry chefs. They come in a multitude of patterns, including camouflage, and also many solids.

I broke Twitter. Not singlehandedly, of course, but maybe I was the key person who just merely thought of issuing a tweet and that caused the whole thing to take a dive bomb. Some website give you a generic 404 message, but NO! Twitter gives you Fudgie the Whale

Okay, it is not really Fudgie the Whale.  That is just what popped into my head.  In fact, I don’t think I know any other name for a traditional whale.  Of course, there are plenty of Killer Whales with names, but I didn’t know any Blue Whales to have a name.  No one would have one as a pet on a show, except of course Aqua Man.  However, I think Aqua Man would have been the 200 ton whale’s “little pet” instead.

Fudgie the whale was and is a Carvel Ice Cream Cake that was brought back in the new millenia.  Why did they think a whale and chocolate ice cream cake went together?  Who knows.  What we do know is that the voice of Fudgie the Whale in commercials was originally that of Tom Carvel himself, letting kids know that they can find Fudgie or Cookie Puss at their local Carvel!  of course, now you can sometimes buy Fudgie at select grocery stores, as I have not seen a Carvel store often aside from on the East Coast.

The very unsettling idea is the prospect of being able to order your very own Fudgie Mascot Costume.  I don’t know if it is officially endorsed by Carvel, or not, but I saw one on a mascot site.  There is a BIG rule of thumb when it comes to costumes.  Aside from the plastic costumes with masks that were around in the 70s through mid to early 80s, until people decided kids couldn’t breathe in those masks, if you have to put the characters name on the front of it to let people know what you are, it is not a good costume!

I would have put more of a tail in the back or had the back part of the whale back there.  Instead of having it like he is standing up on its fin like Jabberjaw.  I would have the costume look like the cake, just with the feet sticking out the front.   Or put the whale sideways and then the persons face is the eye on the side.  There would be no way people wouldn’t know what you were then.   To me, the costume looks like a ginger bread man.

Anyways, I digress…

Oddly enough, all the cakes are Kosher, and if you go to the Brooklyn Carvel, you can even get one that is Cholov of Israel, meaning it is the very highest Kosher certification that you can get.  I did not know there were different levels, but what I am more surprised at is the fact that the cakes are kosher, because I always pictured Kosher foods as somehow healthier.   Oh well.

Maybe I will get a Fudgie the whale cake for someone who is way past kid age as a joke.  However, ice cream to me is no joke.

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I have always found Ruth’s Chris Steak House to be a tongue twister.  I don’t know why they just didn’t call it Ruth’s Steakhouse or Chris’ Steakhouse.  My best theory is that there was a bunch of people in the family or neighborhood named Chris.  There was Christopher, Cristine, Christian, and of course Christopher Junior and all that stuff.  Because there were so many, everyone wanted you to know that it was Ruth’s Chris that owns it.  Just like my Grandma who has two sons-in-law with the same name and my late Uncle was forever known as “Betty’s Tom.” Maybe Chris was Ruth’s son, daughter or husband.  It wasn’t that other Chris who was Ruth’s brother’s daughter or Ruth’s cousin’s husband.

Recently, I was corrected.  Who knows why I never bothered to read the company history on the website, but there was actually a Chris that had nothing to do with Ruth. Chris Steak House was in a down and out section of New Orleans when Ruth Fertel decided to buy it in the 1960s.  Instead of changing the name, she called it “Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.”  It sure probably saved a ton of money on signage because she would just have to put a sticky note or tap in a little plywood board to ad the Ruth part.  Pretty ingenius.

Now, Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse is a national chain.  What if someone else bought it.  Maybe a guy name Horatio would buy it and it would be Harold’s Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.  Then, later on a lady would come along and it would be Ellen’s Harold’s Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.  At that point, they would probably call it EHRCS (pronounced Eric’s).  But then Harold’s wife and Ellen’s husband worked there as equally as they did, even though Ellen and Harold owned it before their respective marriages.  Then, what would happen after that is they would ad little hash marks or little slanted lines under the names, so it would go like this:

That is what would be on the menu, but they would probably come up with some logo with all the names around it, similar to the design of one of those Grandma sweatshirts that has all the kids names on them with hand prints.  Expensive, you say?  Expensive to keep changing the corporate name?  They wouldn’t have to keep changing the name with the U.S. Government.  They would just tack up little boards or signs every time someone new came around or got married.  All the locations would do it and it would be sort of one of those unspoken things.  People in the communities would probably have to come up with their own name for each location based on geography and proximity to the nearest Radio Shack.  Sort of like “Mickey D’s” or “that restaurant by the movie theater.”  Hey, it could work.  You would just have to show up, though, because directory assistance would have no earthly clue what you were talking about.

Looking for something to do that is steeped in tradition this Thanksgiving?  Pull up a chair at Jefferson’s table.  In a de-luxe apartment in the sky-ey-ey.  Oh wait.  Not those Jeffersons.  Although when I was a kid I would have loved to have visited.  Ouisie always endured such crazy hijinks that I think that she needed a break.

The Jeffersons I am talking about is the Thomas Jefferson type, who have been around a little bit longer than the ones that have “moved on up.”  In fact, now we can hang out with the 10th generation of the family whipping up great dishes in the kitchen.  Actually, it is more so the 9th generation, but now the 10th generation is in on the act.  On the Jefferson’s table blog, you can read all about the amazing feast that is in store, and you can cook some of the dishes at home.  The latest posting features a recipe for Indian Corn Cookies from the most adorable chef ever.

Nope, she didn’t make cookies and then pop the kernals off corn and transplant them, but it looks real doesn’t it?? You’ll just have to wander over to Jefferson’s table to find out.   If you are feeling froggy, sometime in the future, you might want to pull a physical chair up to the table and visit the Old Masini Adobe in Santa Barbara, where you may partake in an awesome cooking class or a winemaker’s dinner.    You just may “Finally get a piece of the pie!”  I know.  I just had to say it.