SaturdayBreakfast@TheBigTable

Every Saturday 10AM to 2PM and
Every Sunday 10Am to 2PM SundayBreakfast@TheSmallTable

Out of consideration for others you cannot study or use computers ANYWHERE in this room during breakfast.

French Toast with NH maple syrup  5.75
Creamy Egg Sandwich on toasted ciabatta  5.95
add bacon  2.25
Bacon Sandwich: our own HP tamarind sauce on pepper brioche roll   6.75
add egg 1.00
Blueberry Pancakes with a hint of lemon
and NH maple syrup   7.75
Fried Egg Sandwich with caramelized onions,
French feta and spinach pesto  5.75
add bacon  2.25
Toasted Crumpet with Taleggio, honey & pistachios  3.95
Grilled Blueberry Muffin with whipped butter  2.95
Side o’bacon  3.75
Sophia’s of Belmont Greek yogurt
with granola and honey   3.25
French Press Coffee from
Barismo, George Howell,
or Batdorf & Bronson  3.75
Fresh squeezed orange juice  2.00

A lot happens during the Spring.

1.  The Cambridge Science Festival is presented by the MIT Museum
There are a lot of great events including two for young people interested in creating computer games.
http://cambridgesciencefestival.org/Home.aspx

2.  The Boston Independent Film Festival is showing new and great movies all over the city.

http://www.iffboston.org/

3.  I get to walk or pedal past the tiny MEME Galler on Norfolk Street near Bishop Allen.  This is the final weekend for Andrew Neumann’s show of flowers, fans, and acts of kinetic beauty.  “I’ve No Use for Flowers.”

http://meme.templeofmessages.com/pagez/now.html

One thing I have always hated about college towns is the proliferation of community notices that make every cafe look like a laundromat.  The causes and events are always good but the effect is shoddy.  So we hit upon the idea of choosing posters for our own reasons  and blowing them up.  We use the architecture graphics firm, Service Point, 1000 Mass. Ave, near the former location of the old Orson Welles theater.  Service Point blows them up, to a size that I probably like because the dimensions are the same as a movie theater poster.   Right now we have handsome posters for the Boston Independent Film Festival and the Cambridge Science Festival/ MIT Museum.  You can’t miss them.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Ed Levine’s 13 Favorite Frozen Desserts in America

I know it’s just barely spring, but I’m already thinking about ice cream, gelato, sundaes, and other frozen desserts. Admit it, you’ve already had your first iced coffee of the season or started daydreaming about your favorite scoop shops to hit this summer.

Here are some of my all-time favorite frozen treats from across America, from vanilla soft serve with maple-pecan-bacon streusel in Chicago to sundaes in Ohio. Chime in with any others I missed.

Vanilla Soft Serve with Maple-Pecan-Bacon Streusel at Xoco (Chicago, IL) »
Popsicles from Las Paletas (Nashville, TN) »
Burnt Caramel Ice Cream at Toscanini’s (Cambridge, MA) »
Grapenut or Coffee Ice Cream from Gray’s (Tiverton, RI) »
Insane Sundaes from DBGB (New York, NY) »
Luxxe Coffee Ice Cream from Sweet Rose Creamery (Los Angeles, CA) »
Gelato at Capogiro (Philadelphia, PA) »
Frozen Cafe au Lait from Morning Call (Metairie, LA) »
Frozen Banana at Bent Spoon (Princeton, NJ) »
Sundae from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream (Columbus, OH) »
Butter Pecan Frozen Custard from Leon’s (Milwaukee, WI) »
Foie Gras Profiteroles from Le Pigeon (Portland, OR) »
It’s-It’s Ice Cream Sandwiches (Northern California) »

We are in the new April, 2011 issue of Boston Magazine with a wonderful and flattering note from Brittany Jasnoff.
We shall endeavor to keep things on a steady course.

Toscanini’s :: Ice Cream, $5.50
I’ve been the victim of brain freeze at just about every ice cream shop in town. So when a craving for frozen custard strikes (which it does almost every Friday night), I forgo the half-gallon of Hood and can of Reddi-wip for two unadorned scoops from my all-time favorite spot: Toscanini’s. Why is this place a deal? Owner Gus Rancatore’s confections aren’t merely ice creams. They’re works of art. This shop’s flavor variety is unrivaled, from the famous burnt caramel and the refreshing khulfee — nuts, cardamom, and oftentimes saffron — to the mind-altering brown butter/brown sugar/brownie (a.k.a. B3), a confluence of dominating dessert forces. Then there’s the texture — thick, silky, delectably creamy. Rancatore produces them all on site, with impeccable ingredients — chocolate by Callebaut and Cacao Barry, leaves of fresh mint and tarragon grown in Dartmouth by Eva’s Garden, and locally sourced honey. He even whips his own cream to boot. Add it all up, and I’m happy to part with $5 and change. One scoop, $4.25; two scoops, $5.50; 899 Main St., Cambridge, 617-491-5877, tosci.com. — Brittany Jasnoff

We will NOT be serving Breakfast@TheBigTable this Easter weekend, April 23/24.

On Saturday we will open at 8AM with coffee, tea and pastry.  We close at 11PM.

On Sunday we will open at 10AM with coffee, tea and pastry.  We close at 11PM

I eat a lot of ice cream and have to eat a lot of ice cream.  For professional reasons like knowing what the competition is up to but also because even now, after many years of having my own ice cream store, I like to eat ice cream.  The portions can’t be too large.  Doctor Zorn would be unhappy.  We’re not talking about that Hunt brother who ate a pint a day or some stoner watching reruns of Toy Story, eating a pint until it turns to soup and finally drinking the dregs, chips and all.  This is professional.  “Its just business”, like the dopes always quote The Godfather.    Its been awhile since there have been any breakout ice cream flavors.  After an Al Green like run of hits starting with Cherry Garcia and Cookie Dough,  Ben and Jerry’s has been quiet.   In the music industry they speak of people “having good ears” or golden ears.  The tv programmer Fred Silverman was said to have a golden gut.  He knew what people wanted before they wanted it.  He knew because in ways he was like them.  Since Ben left Ben & Jerry’s no one has fufilled that role.  Haagen Dazs was never a flavor innovator.  They simply made excellent versions of flavors that people already liked.   For years, neither Haagen Dazs nor Ben and Jerry’s have been able to catch lightning in a pint container, or in Hagen Daz’s case a 14 ounce container.  Rather than raise prices the company  reduced the size of their grocery containers.  Haagen Daz has developed a demeanor of classic restraint when it comes to new flavors.  Nothing too silly, nothing foreign.  A little like Joseph Abboud, perhaps Ralph Lauren.

I can’t walk down a supermarket aisle without opening the doors and looking for new flavors.  The doors have glass fronts in part to discourage you from doing this.  They gain a lot of heat or lose a lot of cold when you’re kneeling trying to read the list of ingredients or find the pint of regular Chocolate Chip amidst the dozens of Coffee Chocolate Chip containers.  The other night I had to buy limes at the big supermarket across the street so I also came back with Haagen Dazs Dark Chocolate and Sweet Chai Latte.  The regular Haagen Dazs chocolate has always been disappointing to me.  When they make Chocolate Chocolate Chip I’m happier although I don’t think Dr. Zorn is.  Over the years they have made a few variations including Deep Chocolate  and a Mayan Chocolate that had vocal fans, but I think they keep away from chocolate flavors becuse while they are usually easy to make they also tend to be expensive.  If you use good chocolate you can easily create good chocolate ice cream but your food costs can take off.   This new Dark Chocolate is dark but dull, a little dead in the mouth.  The Sweet Chai Latte, on the other hand is fine and represents the company doing what it does best.  Chai is a traveler’s drink from India that several years ago became popular with art school types.  It has become so popular that even my father drinks it.   Chai sweetened tea combined with spices.  Chai works a little better as an ice cream than a sorbet but this is an easy idea.  Indian food has ever-broadening appeal and familiarity.  Haagen Daz has balanced the mix of spices.  A friend thought this ice cream was too sweet but I think this is just about right.

One of the things I like about the new food business is the almost essential generosity of many people who are involved in it.  They are always proffering a spoon of something, “Here.  I think you’ll like this.”  Today we received a box of spring flavors from The Bent Spoon, the ice cream store in Princeton, NJ that is often described as having a cult-like following.  What an improvement to a cold, cloudy day.  Owners Gab Carbone and Matt Errico sent Clementine Strawberry Sorbet,, Lemon Poppyseed Sorbet, Coffee Coconut Sorbet, Chocolate Mint Cookie,  and an amazing Pistachio.  With pistachio prices climbing I will probably not see the likes of this flavor for years.  It is green because of the density of expensive pistachio nuts.  This week we have been working on variations of Lemon Sorbet for restaurant accounts and the poppyseeds were not something we were considering.  The Clementine Strawberry is a good example of using familiar flavors in a new way.  With the internet every ice cream store can see almost instantly what others are doing and it is very difficult to develop a popular flavor that no one copies or imitates.  But reading about a Greek Yogurt that is drenched with excellent honey is not as convincing or as wonderful as actually eating it.

We sell ice cream to a number of Whole Foods stores.    One friend used to follow the Pittsburgh Penguins from arena to arena in the Northeast.  He loved the Penguins and eventually moved back to Pittsburgh so he wouldn’t have to travel so much.  My brother has been to the basketball hall of fame, the football hall of fame, the baseball hall of fame and maybe even the bowling hall of fame.  My sister Mimi  and I have visited a lot of Whole Foods stores from Portland Maine to Princeton NJ.  Everyone is different although you can often find a familiar face.  One person from Cambridge worked in Lower Manhattan and was making a gender transition.  We laughed about parking problems.    My own Whole Foods is the company’s smallest store on Prospect St. in Mid-Cambridge.  Long ago it was an A&P, then it was a Food Shack, and then it became Bread & Circus.  Old timers still call it Bread & Circus  which suggests they can give directions to the Orson Welles Theater or will tell you to get on the Mass. Pike by the big big Coke sign on Storrow Drive.  I’m in this Whole Foods at least five times a week, usually in the mornings when I pick up things we need for work or just something to eat while I read the morning papers in my car when parked somewhere near Toscanini’s.  Supermarkets are great places when they’re giving out samples.  Low temperatures and North Atlantic cloud coverage probably reduced attendance on Wednesday night but Toscanini’s set up near the large display of ice creams and gave out samples of our Belgian Chocolate and Burnt Caramel.  Other suppliers gave away caviar on blinis, chocolate milk, and cheeses.  Occasionally a Whole Foods team member would be surprised to see me working in the store.  Regular customers and friends stopped by to say hello.  Bartender John Gertsen and Rain from Drink said hello while shopping for dinner as did Helena, a former scooper who is now part of the band/performance group Army of Broken Toys.  A once regular customer described dividing her time between the  Cape and  the west coast of Florida.  Another neighbor suggested Spearmint ice cream on a brownie sundae, which was a summer camp memory from northern New England.   When I thought aloud about turning that into a Spearmint Brownie ice cream flavor she was unenthused.  A Whole Foods customer wanted Dark Chocolate.  We both looked at all the brands but this store didn’t have any of our Cocoa Pudding nor did it have any Haagen Dazs Dark Chocolate ice cream.  Another customer found her way back to our corner and looked confused, saying she had only cooked once in her life when she ruined a chicken.  After three hours of giving away small portions of ice cream I could turn into the Anna Deavere Smith of supermarkets.

I live in Mid Cambridge and both my eyes and my nose tell me that I live in a forest.  About a month ago crocuses and daffodils appeared in  the neighborhood and then a few rounds of forsythia exploded in yards and corners.  One bush blooms early in my neighbor’s yard and I can admire the yellow from my porch.  Another early forsythia can be seen at the corner of  Prospect St. and Harvard St., next to the offices of Bruner Cott Architects.  I can pass it every day on my way to work and reassure myself that whatever weather is promised for the afternoon winter is ending.  A great old growth forest of tall trees rises above the three deckers and today each and every branch was stippled with a lime green pointillism.  Tomorrow or the next day will be what I think of as “Pop Day” when every street in Cambridge has a lowering cloud of new leaves above the second story.  The birds nests that have been visible for six months vanish in the greenery but the birds themselves noisily reclaim their nests, their trees and the city.

Here’s an obituary from the NYTimes that touches on Cambridge, the movies and the idea of personal re-creation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/business/17harvey.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print

Cyrus Harvey, an Extravagant Entrepreneur, Dies at 85

By BRUCE WEBER

SundayBreakfast@TheBigTable
Sunday from 10AM to 2PM.
Out of consideration for others you cannot study or use computers ANYWHERE in this room during Breakfast.
Kitchen
Bacon Sandwich with our own HP tamarind sauce on pepper brioche roll  6.75
Classic French Toast with NH maple syrup  5.75
Plate of assorted pickled spring vegetables, avacodo mash with baguette 4.75
Two Potato galette topped with watercress salad  6.95
Smoked Salmon with Tomato, Red Onion, and Lettuce  6.95
Bagel Bar
Any type of Iggy掇 Bagels toasted  3.95
(Plain, Raisin, Sesame, or Multi-seeds)
Toppings:
Cream Cheese:  assorted flavors
Peanut Butter
Whipped Butter
Assorted Hi-Rise Preserves
Raisins
Sophia掇 of Belmont Greek Yogurt with Honey and Granola 3.25

French Press Coffee from
Barismo, George Howell,
or Batdorf & Bronson  3.75
Fresh squeezed orange juice  2.00