marinating chicken in buttermilk: bowl or bag?

the answer: both!

most importantly: buttermilk on sale at ideal for 69c/qt through friday, 3/20. if you eat chicken, and you haven't tried marinating it in buttermilk, you should try a cheap cooking experiment.

there's even a recipe on epicurious with only two ingredients. the pieces you see here were dredged in bread crumbs and browned in the grill pan before going into the oven to bake, in the same grill pan.

st. mary's fish fry: limited lenten engagement

when: fridays, from 5pm to 7pm, through the end of lent. (easter is april 12 this year.)
where: the basement of st. mary's church, on k street across from the capitol building.
what: the best fried fish anywhere.

i was thrilled to remember this from years past. every friday during lent, st. mary's has a fish fry... and i'm serious that it's the best fried fish i've ever had.

it's seven dollars for dinner. you choose one of the following: baked cod, tuna noodle casserole, macaroni and cheese, or two big tasty pieces of deep-fried pollock! then you choose tater tots or baked potato. they offer you cole slaw and bread and pickles. you'll see all the condiments you would expect. there's a dessert table with individually priced items on the other side of the room.

they offer cafeteria-style service and seating. if you eat there, you might look into the all-you-can eat option. if i remember right, it's eleven dollars and sounds dangerous.

have you ever wanted soup from bread & cup on a sunday?

bread & cup has the most wonderful soups. and a great menu in general, and a very pleasant atmosphere for an affordable sit-down restaurant. and they're not open on sundays. which i completely understand, and yet totally resent in the best possible way.

good news! you can buy containers of soup from bread & cup-- at the mill in the haymarket, which is open on sundays. i assume it's day-old soup... if you have a problem with day-old soup, well, i don't know what to tell you.

a 12 oz container is 4.50. that's soup for one, or if you add a sandwich at home (grilled cheese!), soup for two. i wouldn't assume that they won't run out.

the fat of the matter: good buys now at ideal

i have wanted to buy the duck fat at ideal so many times, but always resisted. i'm pretty sure that the reason the french fries from dish are the best in the world (i'm not kidding) is because they fry them in duck fat. how have i not written about those fries yet? you'll see something here soon...

so i knew i liked the flavor from duck fat but wasn't sure what i'd do with it, and never quite felt like spending four bucks to find out. today it was 2.49 and i caved. (the sale cooler for close-dated cold stuff is up by the deli counter. check it out!)

also on sale today: clarified butter, or ghee. high-heat cooking with butter flavor, here we come! the cardboard wrapper was banged up but the plastic container was fine.

not even sure what i'm using these exciting ingredients in yet, but i've got plenty of ideas. wanted to pass along the sale news, though. there were several containers of each product at sale price this sunny saturday afternoon.

changes at cetak's

cetak's (the best meat counter in town) has added more self-serve coolers and is stocking a variety of frozen fish. i haven't tried it yet, but the pieces looked great for frozen fish...

it also appears they're focusing their cheese selection towards a couple artisan domestic suppliers, which sounds wise. this meant their remaining imports were sale-priced to move, which sounded great! i got this hunk of spanish manchego for three dollars. that's a steal.

check out the sticker at the bottom. hard to tell from the photo, but it has an iridescence that leads me to believe someone wanted these stickers to be difficult to copycat. is queso manchego the new champagne?

orange you glad i made cauliflower

the hy-vee at 70th & pioneer has been stocking orange and green cauliflower for 1.88 a head. that's not a bad price for cauliflower anyway, and the orange variety is just fun. the green doesn't interest me as much; i guess it's not that unusual to find a green vegetable.

according to this article, the orange variety has more beta carotene than the white.

new at the ideal deli counter

if you're near ideal grocery around lunchtime, it's hard to beat the 3.49 deli sandwich. (it's that price all day.) new to the list of options: sliced sweet red pepper.

this is a roast beef and swiss on dark rye with lettuce, tomato, pepper, horseradish, and vinegar & oil.

also new at ideal: expanded delivery hours. check the website for more detail on that.

chocolate-covered strawberries from the cup

i'm not sure if the cup had chocolate-covered strawberries for sale because of the recent holiday (presidents' day, of course) or if they'll off them regularly. these were very good, with more flavor and better texture to the fruit than you usually find. 1.50 ea.

takeout review: squid salad from wasabi

in one word: yes

did you know "penzeys" translates to "approximately twenty"?

not in another language, but in dollars.

i went to penzeys spices in omaha a while back. it's definitely a place to visit if you're even curious about cooking, or if you like shopping for ingredients. you can get a good idea of what they offer here at their website.

every item they have for sale is available in a wide range of sizes (read: prices). also, every item for sale has a sample out in an openable jar, so you can assess the freshness and quality a little more readily.

i don't usually like "boutique" food stores, but their presentation-- at least at their omaha location-- transcends the seeming, screaming distance from actual consumption that you often find in specialty food shoplets.

anyway, i bought everything in the two pictures for twenty bucks. approximately. i've been happy with my experiments and results, some of which should appear here soon.