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Remember this guy?

His name is Al Yageneh and he was the inspiration for Seinfeld’s legendary Soup Nazi character. Turns out he’s done quite well for himself by franchising his world-renowned New York soup shop.

I just discovered one of his Original Soup Man locations on a recent trip to the Jerz (New Jersey, for non-locals). I didn’t make the connection at first, but then I was struck by a big sign explaining “the rules”:

For the most efficient and fastest service, the line MUST keep moving.

• Pick the soup you want!
• Have your money ready!
• Move to the EXTREME left after ordering!

Ah, yes! The memories came flooding back: George and Jerry ordering stone-faced and then sidestepping to pay with almost robotic precision. Fortunately, this particular shop was fairly empty and manned by an amiable guy in a backwards Yankees cap. He didn’t look like he was about to enforce any rules.

Alhough we tasted a curry-based soup and got a look at the rest of the lineup, the wife and I went with a vegetarian mushroom-barley concoction. Barley is not an ingredient that usually floats my boat (and neither is soup as a general food category), but this stuff was like liquid gold. It was flavorful without being too salty, hearty without being a full meal, and just the right balance of slurp and chew.

My only question: when’s the Soup Man coming to Philly?

As someone who’s alive, I consider water not only a thirst-quenching beverage but also an essential contributor to my avoidance of death. That’s why this recent Today Show report that certain types of plastic bottles could be harmful to one’s health immediately struck me as worrisome.

How is it that these vessels of life-sustaining liquid could be so tainted? Once again, we must blame chemistry.

Well, not the whole scientific field. We’re talking about the chemical makeup of certain plastics, most notably those with the recycling numbers 3, 6 and 7 (as seen on the bottom of the containers). Supposedly, the chemical composition of these plastics are such that repeated use, especially with the heat introduced by microwaves, could somehow cause the seepage of unsafe substances into the water or whatever you happen to be storing in these bottles.

While such concerns have been around longer than recent reports might suggest, they are still just that: concerns. A definitive link has not been established and the scientific jury is still out. Some doctors say these bottles are uniformly unsafe, while others suggest that most numbered plastics (those with a 1) are approved for normal, non-carcinogenic drinking.

Between this mess and the discovery of traces of pharmaceuticals in much of America’s public drinking supply… I guess it’s back to rain water in crystal goblet for me.

First of all, a big thank you to Foodaphilia for the photos I forgot to take, even though I actually had my camera.

Second of all, wow.

Tacconelli’s serves easily the best pizza I’ve had in Philly, and probably the best thin-crust pizza in the land. Could it be the best ever? We’ll get to that in a minute.

One of the most interesting, and debated, aspects of the Tacconelli’s experience is the requirement that you reserve dough at least one day ahead. This does not mean, however, that you’re expected to make your own pie out of a pile of raw pizza dough. Far from it.

This policy is simply a means - and a quite effective one at that - of quality control. Tacconelli’s, a “one-man, one-oven operation,” does not (and will not) use refrigerated or frozen dough. They only make as many pizzas as there is dough to make them. Sound logic if you ask me.

The place itself is fairly dumpy. You got a few chairs, a few tables, a linoleum floor and some lights. It takes “no frills” to an almost ludicrous level, with only paper plates, paper napkins and plastic cups for your beverages - which, as you might expect, are BYO.

But mamma mia, what a pizza pie! From the first crunchy-soft bite to the last, this was the very epitome of good eats. Though I never got to see the actual menu (a small laminated thing tossed haphazardly around the table), I counted at least four different types of pies:

1. Tomato Pie - the White Stripes of pizza is just crust and thick sauce
2. Margherita Pie - add a few razor-thin slices of fresh mozzarella and sprinkling of fresh basil to the tomato pie and bang! another winner
3. Regular Pie - resembles your average pie, with a nice sheen of cheese (although still less than most). Ours was topped with sausage and shrooms.
4. White Pie - “consists of salt, black pepper, cheese and plenty of garlic.” We got this one with tomatoes and spinach, which were piled so high as to completely obscure the “whiteness” 
   

I must have had at least six slices out of the five pies we ordered. On a good night, I’m guessing I could probably down a whole pie myself. It’s really that good.

However…

I just can’t bring myself to rate it above Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn. Although they’re both in somewhat remote parts of their respective cities - Tacconelli’s in Port Richmond, about 20 minutes north of Center City; and Grimaldi’s in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge - and both pride themselves on the freshness of their dough and other ingredients, Tacconnelli’s strikes me as too much of a specialty pie.

I’m fairly certain the thin crust is closer to what’s made in Italy, but pizza is as American as it is Italian. And the gold standard of this mixed tradition is still Grimaldi’s.

Sorry, Philly. If it makes you feel any better, you’ve got Boston pizza beaten by a mile!

Unlike Sasquatch, the grassy knoll shooter and a satisfying version of the third Godfather movie, the ever-elusive “free lunch” actually exists. If you’re in downtown Philly, here’s how to get one:

1. Get a job that provides you with copious amounts of business cards.

2. Find a plastic fishbowl, preferably with a sign that urges you to deposit a business card “for your chance to win a free lunch for you and 5 to 10 of your co-workers!”

3. Deposit your business card into said receptacle.

4. Wait.

5. Win. You’ll know you’ve completed this step when you receive an enthusiastic, congratulatory phone call from a financial services representative. Act happy.

6. The financial guy (and it’s always a guy) will make restaurant arrangements and send you a sign-up sheet and menu for your convenience.

7. Your office-mates will debate whether they can escape work for an hour next Tuesday. Mass indecisiveness will cause your sign-up sheet to resemble one of those declassified military documents.

8. On the day of the lunch, the procrastinators will finally sign up and the last of the guilt-ridden (or truly busy) people will drop out, leaving a (surprisingly) manageable number for lunch.

9. At the restaurant, the affable financial guy will take your order sheet and hand it to the waiter. From this point until the food arrives, you’re his.

10. He will talk about the market. He will talk about insurance. He will talk about retirement. You will blink and nod occasionally. Do not speak - this will prevent you from transforming into a “lead.”

11. The uncomfortable silence that accompanies the “Anybody have any questions?” portion of the pitch will end when the food arrives. At this point, the financial guy stealthily acquires your contact information, disingenuously tells you to enjoy your lunch and departs.

12. Eat your lunch - every. last. bite.

13. In a day or two (standard call-back time in financial circles, as well as social), he will attempt to contact you and gauge your interest in his or his organization’s services. Ignore this call at all costs.

14. Ignore all follow-up calls. If you accidentally answer the phone, hang up immediately. If this is not possible, avoid the following subjects: Roth IRAs, debt consolidation, saving for college.

15. Find another fishbowl lunch contest. Repeat.

This guide was based on a recent lunch won at Qdoba , paid for by Ameritrade and furnished by Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizza.

I’m all for snarky, pseudo-intellectual T-shirts - like the ones currently on sale at the Mental Floss store - but I draw the line at monkey-eating innuendo.

If you’ve seen Ratatouille - one of the best animated features of all time and a true foodie classic - you probably salivated at all of the visual delights cooked up by those wizardly Pixar animators.

According to this video, however, making animated food look edible isn’t that easy. As opposed to real cooking…

“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti!” - Hannibal Lecter, The Silence of the Lambs

Maybe it’s because I’m not a crazed, cannibalistic killer, but somehow this just doesn’t seem appetizing to me. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted liver in my life - human or otherwise - and I can’t say that I’m too gung-ho to join that particular gustatory club.

However, this infamous quote does beg the question: How exactly did Hannibal prepare his meal?

His Liver

Being the cultured man that he is, I doubt Lecter would just eat his victim’s liver raw, especially if we assume he’s gone through the trouble of getting fresh fava beans and shelling them. Even though it’s fairly plebeian, I think our favorite serial killer might go with a standard Liver & Onions recipe, like the one here.

Now, the question becomes: did he prepare the fava beans with the liver in some sort of stew, or were the fava beans simply a side dish meant to fulfill Hannibal’s daily vegetable allowance?

Some Fava Beans

Unfortunately, we don’t know how the fava beans were prepared, as the script doesn’t bother to elaborate on this pivotal scene. But I can see it going one of two ways. Either Lecter was in a rush to get these beans done, in which case he probably just fried ‘em up like this… or, he went all South American with the beans, and made a salad of this sort.

Since Lecter saw fit to even mention the beans, I’m sure they had some personal significance and he would thus have gone with the more sophisticated second recipe. But alas, that’s pure conjecture.

What is certain is the type of red wine that Lecter consumed: the king beverage of Tuscany, Chianti.

A Nice Chianti

Now, I love Chianti. To me, it’s one of those wines that even when it’s bad, it’s slightly good. And believe me, there are some bad Chiantis out there (just look for anything made in the states, which isn’t really chianti anyway).

Chianti generally goes well with red meat dishes and other heavy foods, and Hannibal could have even used it to braise the liver. Certainly a Merlot or Cabernet would have lacked the necessary boldness he was looking for, though substitutions of Sangiovese, Syrah or Zinfandel would have been just as complementary to the meal.

Then again, I couldn’t see any of those varieties roll off Anthony Hopkin’s tongue with enough verve to really sell the character.

Let’s see: “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice… zinfandel!” That’s just about as scary as my grandma at Sunday dinner.

I’m not one for fancy salads. If it’s got (non-iceberg) lettuce, fresh tomatoes and a splash of tangy dressing, I’m usually a happy camper.

But sometimes a fancy salad surprises me. For example, the endive/apple/gruyere concoction served at Backals (Scarsdale, NY) this past Easter Sunday.

Maybe it was the setting - the upstairs private room - or the fact that it was taking so long for the food to arrive. Or maybe it was the pre-splitting of the salad into two portions. (I gotta say, I dig this new-found courtesy for notorious appetizer sharers like me.)

Whatever the reason, this super-crunchy combo of veggies truly hit the spot. This Belgian Endive and Apple Salad from Cooking Light is the most comparable recipe I could find, but it doesn’t capture every detail of the restaurant one. For instance, ours came with a surprisingly non-intrusive balsamic vinaigrette that added flavor but didn’t undermine the crunch.

Unfortunately, all of the good vibes built up by the salad were wasted by the tasteless chicken sandwich I ordered as a follow-up. Sometimes, the salad really is mightier than the sandwich.

This is not a picture of Philadelphia’s Django restaurant. Instead, the painting represents the BYOB’s artistic namesake: Django Reinhardt, France’s most influential Gypsy jazz guitarist.

The comparison is an auspicious one, for just like the real Django evoked mini-symphonies through the plucking of his guitar, the restaurant named after him creates impeccable meals from a medley of fresh, seasonal ingredients.
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