Monthly Archives: February 2017


The Ruml Turkey Sandwich

I’m not sure that there’s ever been a post about the Ruml Turkey Sandwich but since I discovered two excellent photos, here goes.

I usually use a single slice of Pepperidge Farm rye bread lightly toasted and sliced into two thiner slices. But this exemplar seems to be made with two normal slices of rye bread. To start, each slice is slathered with gravy. Then, reading from the bottom, a sliced hard-boiled egg, cranberry sauce, turkey white meat, mushroom stuffing which has been crisped under a broiler, three slices of very crisp bacon, and multiple slices of emmenthal cheese. I cut the sandwich into thirds to make it possible to hold a section in one hand while I slap on lots of mayonnaise with the other.

Here’s another version built similarly:

The Pleasures of H-Mart: Octopus

The very serious Korean market H-Mart opened a gigantic big-box store in Burlington about five years ago and we paid a visit. It was eye-opening to see the stunning variety of seafood all prepared for the table. Happily about a year ago H-Mart opened a smaller market in Central Square and we’ve had great fun inspecting and trying all sorts of things not found elsewhere. We’ll devote a separate post to Hawaiian poke. Our latest discovery is the steamed octopus packaged ready-to-eat with two containers of hot sauce. I once tried to prepare a frozen octopus purchased at the 88 Market on Beacon St but it was not a great success. Here was already cooked octopus which I imagined would only need a bit of grilling to match what we almost always order when we find it on a restaurant menu. Would it work? Well, you wouldn’t be hearing about it unless it had!

The Advantages of Boxed Wine

We’re not great connoisseurs of wine but we’re reasonably knowledgeable and experienced. We’d like to have a glass of wine with the food which would benefit from the pairing but it’s not often that we want to drink a whole bottle with a meal. What to do? We’ve discovered that if you look carefully enough you can find very drinkable and satisfying wines packaged in boxes which preserve the integrity of the wine for several weeks (because the wine is held in a bladder which becomes smaller as the wine is dispensed and thus no air is introduced as with a half-consumed bottle). Our current favorites are available at Marty’s in Newton. Our white is very dry and crisp, suitable for most white wine occasions and for cooking (e.g., fondue):

The Petite Frog is $30. Our favorite red is a bit more at $45 but still very reasonable at $11/bottle:

Fat Hen in Somerville

Recently went to Fat Hen on Broadway in Somerville (but forgot my camera so no photos!). We were very pleasantly surprised when our first four dishes turned out to be superb. Things took a considerable turn for the worst with the entrees but returned to very good with the desserts. Seeing we were not happy with the entrees (tasting them was enough), the management removed an entire meal from our check. Since the price for a four-course meal is $45, it would have been a great value nonetheless; we heartily recommend that you give it a try.

MiniMadeleines Day after Day

We’re big fans of Cafe Boulud in NYC in part because at the end of each meal we’re presented with a small basket of warm, freshly-baked mini-madeleines dusted with powdered sugar. We found it difficult to undertake a batch of madeleines just to eat a few at the end of a meal at home but that’s now all changed. Dorie Greenspan mentions in her madeleine recipe that the batter can be kept in the refrigerator for 2 days. As a result, we can have 12 mini-madeleines after dinner three nights in a row. It now takes two minutes to fill the molds and 11 minutes of waiting! We have great success placing the mold on a baking steel preheated to 400. (We’re considering adding some lemon juice to the recipe for a bit more zing.)

We keep the batter in a jar with a wide mouth so that it’s easy to scoop it out into the molds: