Choose a Name Wisely

That's right. Naming a dish cannot be taken lightly. This concept is true in many areas. Giving a blog entry a title, for instance. I could have named the entry "Dandelions," or "Cooking Dandelions," but instead I named it "Hey Man, I am Cooking Weed." Just the word "weed" caught the readers' attention. The entry drew the second highest traffic the blog ever had. Of course most visitors were looking for a different type of content and they left immediately but nonetheless they came to the site. I tried.



Recently I went to a favorite sandwich shop, The Village Market and Cafe located in Gardiner, NY for a quick bite. Well, what can I tell you. I love meatloaf and I can't have enough of it. They have a nice sandwich that they call Workin' Manwich Sam-ich. They serve the meatloaf topped with caramelized onion, cheddar (love it!), and horseradish mayo. Never has one sentence contained so many favorite words of mine. But I digress. Since this is my favorite sandwich I want to see it do well and become a favorite of many customers. But then it hit me. Perhaps, and only perhaps, a female would not order this sandwich because its name is...too masculine. I can only picture heavyset, bearded men, order this sandwich.

Sure. They have other sandwiches like: Yes Dear, BLT, and Tofunito. I can see a lumberjack or a young female order a BLT, but, no way, no how, would a teenage girl order a Workin' Manwich! They also have brownies there too and they call them...brownies! If they called them Girly-Whirlies instead would a lumberjack order one? Would a police office go up to the counter and order a Girly-Whirly?

So, I explained to the person behind the counter my issue and the message was relayed to the manager/owner. But the message was received with bridled enthusiasm and a nervous smile.

Why can't they name this sandwich: Best Meatloaf Ever, or Hot-to-Trot 'loaf, or even better, Yummy-Yummy-Down-my-Tummy Meatloaf, or...The Grilling Greek's Meatloaf.

I beg any local readers of this blog to go to The Village Market and Cafe and tell the owner(s) about this issue and urge them to change the name of this sandwich. It will make me soooooooo happy.

Oven Baked Beans - Fasolada sto Fourno - Φασολια Πλακι στο Φουρνο

A few years ago the family went to Hellas for a month long vacation. While there, we visited a beautiful island, Syros. Every day we would go to a different beach where we would stay there for several hours, swim, sunbathe, have lunch, sunbathe, swim, take a nap, swim, and go back to the hotel. Rough life I tell ya. Rough!

There was one restaurant there that cooked oven baked beans, fasolada, that was to die for. They had the beans in a huge pan, 20" x 50" that would only fit in an industrial oven. The beans were about 2" high and they were in a thick tomato sauce. Yum! I remember staring at the pan, salivating like Pavlov's dog.

In Hellas they use giant beans for this dish but I am having great difficulty finding these beans in the USA. So, like the versatile Odysseus that I am, I improvised and bought the beans that you see below. I followed the directions listed on the package to prepare the beans. HOWEVER, since in the end I wanted to bake the beans I followed the recipe to the final point where it stated that I should cook the beans in a pot for 1.5 - 2 hours. I cooked the beans (against their recommendation) for 1 hour only.

 This recipe has three steps:

1. Prepare the beans,
2. Prepare the sauce,
3. Put the beans and sauce together and bake.

STEP 1

Here are the beans soaking in water for one hour. This was the first step as I read it on the package.

Hey man, I am Cooking Weed

I had to buy two pounds of dandelions to complement our dinner last night, I just could not resist the temptation. In Hellas when you go to a restaurant to eat you always order a plate of weed. Yum! When I saw dandelions at the supermarket I bought two bunches of it.

You will need to cut the bottom of the weed about two inches high. Here I am using my middle finger to point because my index finger has...a Hanzaplast.

After I cut each bottom I add the weed in a bowl because you need to wash the leaves very well. There is a lot of dust and dirt that needs to wash away.

I used the dish drainer to set the clean weed to dry.