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SH put down the fork recently for a little R&R, but we’re back and ready for your dining queries.
This Sunday, our Taste column looks at Touch of Italy, a salumeria, pasticceria & trattoria that opened in November at 101 Second St. in Lewes.
We'll be posting the column this weekend.
A few weeks ago, a reader asked where to find locally grown strawberries in the Hockessin area.
We gave a few suggestions, but we forgot to mention Harvest Market at 7417 Lancaster Pike in Hockessin. (Let’s chalk this up to a brain freeze.)
April Lea Pedrick, the Harvest Market’s marketing coordinator, said the full-line, natural grocery store carries strawberries that are grown locally without pesticides or herbicides. The store also carries certified organic produce.
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Pedrick said that people lined up requests days in advance for each strawberry delivery.
In the fall, the store also carries Glen Willow apples. Call 234-6779 or visit www.harvestmarketnaturalfoods.com.
Also, Paul Lauprasert, owner of Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine, the defunct restaurant just north of the Delaware-Pennsylvania line on U.S. 202, told us he decided not to renew his lease a few months ago.
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He is now looking for a Delaware location for the restaurant. Customers can find Lauprasert at the Downtown Wilmington Farmers’ Market in Rodney Square on Wednesdays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Now, onto the mailbag. You ask. We answer. Most Fridays. Email questions to me at ptalorico@delawareonline.com.
Nothing kooky about beer-can chicken
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Some years ago, The News Journal published a recipe for beer-can chicken. I seem to have lost mine. Are you able to search the archives for a new copy, please?
Phil McGinnis
Phil, are you in luck. Ten years ago (10 years? Really? Where has the time gone?) we interviewed barbecue guru Steven Raichlen about what was then considered a “wacky” beer-can chicken recipe.
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He included it in his terrific cookbook “How to Grill” (Workman, 2001) after seeing a version of the grilling technique at the very popular Memphis in May Barbecue Festival (www.memphisinmay.org).
As it turns out, beer-can chicken isn’t just kooky cooking; it produces very moist meat and crispy skin because the beer can works as a vertical roaster. Now, you can buy one of those snazzy beer-can roasters for anywhere from $20 to $30, but we still like the good old-fashioned, and cheap, beer can.
Just in time for Father’s Day, we decided to revisit the recipe and, no big surprise, it’s still a keeper. (If you don’t like beer, you can pour wine into a can or use cola, lemon-lime soda or root beer. Don’t use diet soda.)
The recipe was published on Wednesday. You can find it here.
Check out Two Tree in nearby Maryland
I don't know if you take dining suggestions of readers but I'd be interested to read what you would think of the restaurant called Two Tree, in Millington, Md.
It's a little bit of a drive from Wilmington, but the distance is not worse than that of the Kitty Knight House or The Grainery restaurants in Georgetown, Md. Fact is, it's about 20 minutes from Smyrna, if taking the back road, that is Del. 6 from Clayton.
We had lunch there recently and were pleasantly surprised at the quality. It made me think of a restaurant called 865 (or something like that), which was briefly in Dover around 2003.
It was first located along the main strip in Dover near what used to be Shuckers Pier, but it later moved to the building along Silver Lake that was formerly known as The Blue Coat Inn before the demolition.
The entrees, the soups, the bread, even the coffee were memorable for Dover. You may have done a review for them, but it is not available from www.delawareonline.com archives that I could find.
If you should take a ride someday and found yourself eating at a rather nice restaurant in Millington, Md., I'd be interested to know what you think.
Cheers.
Sue Craven
Newark
Sue, we love dining suggestions from readers. And we haven’t been to Two Tree. Road trip!
The former Dover restaurant at 865 N. Du Pont Highway (across from Delaware Agricultural Museum) was owner/chef Matt Schafenberg’s 865 Fine Food & Drink.
Eric Ruth visited in 2003 and he found it “proved capable of delivering dependably good dishes again and again, bringing a tastefully decorated and pleasantly sedate alternative to the neon fast-food chaos outside.”