Be still my beating heart. The restaurant that taught me what fresh New England seafood is all about is coming to Atlanta – just around the corner from my office. Yes, Legal Sea Foods, that 50+ year-old institution begun by a nice Jewish family in Boston, is expanding to the A-T-L. Joining franchise locations in Florida and the D.C. area, the 9,000 square-foot restaurant will anchor the still-under-construction Hilton Garden Inn adjacent to the Georgia Aquarium – and no, whale shark nor beluga whale is expected to be in the menu. If I were one of the Alaskan King Crabs, I might be nervous however. I have such fond memories of going to the Chestnut Hill Legals when I was at Brandeis, from the ‘men only’ dinner my dad and I shared when he drove me to Waltham from Savannah for my freshman orientation week to the ‘impress the girlfriend’ dinner where my meager credit card limit had already been exceeded, resulting in a hasty sprint down to the mall to retrieve some cash from an ATM. I can already taste the steamers, chowder and yes, the belly-included fried clams. The only negative – opening is not expected until NEXT winter. I’ll be biding my time until then.
Oh did we have a treat last night. With the impending arrival of baby #2, it was pretty much now or sometime in 2010 before we’d be brave enough to go over to our friends Jay and Kate’s place to get a taste of their backyard brick-oven pizza. This thing is truly a marvel – handcrafted, standing probably 10+ feet tall, it takes a good hour+ to fill it with hand-chopped wood and bring it up to proper levels of incineration. With a dough recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, Jay does an amazing job. He’s got the dough-tossing schtick down, too (much to Sam’s amusement). The simplest were among the best – pepperoni and fresh mozzarella (with a dash of truffle oil, ‘natch) and the goat cheese, mushroom and onion (also with truffle oil) was perhaps even better. Great food and great hosts – a fine night was had by all. See the photos of the pizza process here.
Wanted to pass along this nation-wide recall of what I know is the fave snack of a lot of the toddlers (and their parents) – Veggie Booty, produced by Robert’s American Gourmet. In a note from Robert (PDF, Adobe Acrobat required) says that they have decided to temporarily stop all manufacture and sale of the Veggie Booty product. They have more detail on this page as well. Per this story in the LA Times today,
Robert’s American Gourmet Food Inc. recalled all its Veggie Booty snacks across the U.S. and Canada because the mix might be contaminated with salmonella, regulators said Thursday.
Veggie Booty, which include both kale and spinach, seem like a sneaky way to make sure the little ones are getting vegetables when they snack, has been the subject of controversy in the past. Back in 2002, a Good Housekeeping staffer exposed their labeling as being inaccurate, reporting only a third of the actual fat content of the treats. They have also run afoul of other labeling around their Fruity Booty being ‘mostly’ fruit. Turned out that wasn’t entirely accurate either. Anyway, our just-opened bag of Pirate Booty (in the cheese flavor), another of their products, is going into the trash now, until we hear more.
Wanted to pass along this nation-wide recall of what I know is the fave snack of a lot of the toddlers (and their parents) – Veggie Booty, produced by 