I’m just impressed with how much thought actually went into this. Click for the punchline.

Burned by bad chicken from Wilson Farm again! I love Wilson Farm. It is 5 minutes from my house. I do all my weekly shopping there. But. They seem to have some chronic issues keeping their chicken breasts fresh.

The latest incident involved a package of split breasts purchased on Monday, July 23rd with an expiration stamp of July 27th. I opened the pack last night (July 26th) all set to make Grilled Chicken w/ Tomato Tarragon sauce. MMmmmm… smelly chicken!

Fortunately, I had a pack of extra-firm tofu in the fridge. The tweaked-recipe result was delicious.

* 1 package extra-firm tofu
* 3 roma tomatoes
* 1/2 clove of garlic
* 2 T minced fresh tarragon
* 2 T lemon juice
* 4 T olive oil
* salt & pepper

Get the fire started in the grill.

Drain the tofu and press out the excess water by wrapping in paper towels and setting something mildly heavy on top for several minutes. Cut the tomatoes in half and grate them on a box grater. Mix the tomatoes with the tarragon and lemon juice. Use a microplane to grate the garlic into the tomatoes. Whisk in two tablespoons of the oil. Add S & P to taste. That’s the sauce.

Slice the tofu lengthwise into three slabs, then slice crosswise once so you have six pieces. Sprinkle with S & P and brush with the remaining olive oil (or spray each side with some of that aerosol canola or olive oil). Make sure the grill grates are cleaned and oiled. I keep an old kitchen towel and a can of spray canola oil near the grill just for this purpose; spray the oil on the towel and quickly wipe down the grate. Repeat. Don’t burn yourself.

Grill the tofu “cutlets” for 3-4 minutes on each side. Serve with the tomato sauce spooned over the top.

The other day, in response to a Chow.com post requesting suggestions for good eats near the Cambridge/Belmont line, I received the following message from the moderators at Chow.com:

bq. *Subject: Chowhound – Note from Moderator*

Hi lbjay, you’ve been sent the following by a Chowhound moderator:
We are not currently accepting postings about Craigie Street Bistrot. Please refrain from posting further about this place while we investigate a problem with some postings about this restaurant.

*Your post:*

_I bet you’re within walking distance of Craigie Street Bistro, just over the Cambridge line. Follow Mt.Auburn until it crosses Rt 2/3/16 (whatever the heck that is at that point) and becomes Brattle Street. It’s maybe another 1/4 mile past there? http://www.craigiestreetbistrot.com/_

Huh, ok.

Undaunted, I returned to the discussion thread and posted a second time, this time suggesting that the person check out a “bistro” nearby on a street that “rhymes with _Graigie_”. This post was apparently yanked as well, although I didn’t receive a second notification from the moderators.

The mystery to me is, are the chow.com moderators really so dumb that they can’t distiguish between a legitimate post and comment spam? I’m assuming they have some kind of automatic flagging system that catches comments that contain references to “Craigie Street Bistro”. But once these messages are caught it shouldn’t take an Einstein to assess whether they are spam or not spam. Idiots.

PS, Craigie Street Bistro rocks.

We recently ate for the first time at an Indian place in Somerville called The Kebab Factory. The word of mouth was that the food was great (it was) if a little overpriced (also true).

The service was just OK. Mostly little things, like we asked for a table for five, waited for 30 minutes in a pub across the street, and then were given a table for four. Fortunately some other diners were just finishing, so were were able to move to a larger space after a few more minutes. Our waiter was very pleasant, but the girl who was assisting him was kind of… hmm, brusque?

My primary issue was that a good 20-30 minutes after everyone at the table had clearly finished eating, no one on the staff bothered to clear a single item from our table. I finally had to make this kind of awkward, irritated sweeping gesture to communicate that maybe it was a good time for them to clear some plates. This really, really drives me nuts. Also, I asked that the leftovers from Jenny’s and my meal be wrapped up but I guess I was misunderstood and they ended up in the trash because I was never brought a “doggie bag”.

In case this seem a little harsh, let me remind you that this was no mom-and-pop Indian joint (like the excellent India Palace). The Kebab Factory is getting $15-25 for an entree.

But wait, there’s more.

Afterwards we strolled down to Harvard Sq. for some ice cream at Toscanini’s. We were served by two dudes in dreadlocks. I bought my ice cream and ate it and it was good and I’m sure it didn’t have any cooties in it, but thinking back on it, I’m kinda grossed out. Last time I checked, one of the steps involved in forming dreadlocks is not washing your hair for several months. Surely there’s some kind of health dept. regulation that requires food workers to wash their hair? Honestly, I’m not anti-dread; I’m pro-hair-washing.