Malawry

I assume you are looking for a cooking job. If this is the case: I say wear chef clothing--clogs, chef pants, a clean chef's jacket. Tie your hair back if it's long. Your hands should be clean, including nails. On my resume, I have my culinary school experience. I list some of the more important special events I have worked in the past, and list the champagne-and-desserts gala I cater every year. And I list my culinary employment, which is now reasonably substantial but which was limited to a few crappy foodservice jobs in college when I first started out. (Even those jobs were useful...I learned about portion control, customer service, stocking and rotating, prep work, all things I needed to know to work in a restaurant.) I list that I have a rudimentary grasp of conversational Spanish. I do not list jobs that are not food-related, even though those constitute most of my employment history. A restaurant shoudn't care about those. The resume is definitely not essential to getting a restaurant job. Since I came from the white-collar world I tried to use my computer savvy and other white-collar job-search skills to give me a leg up. It usually helped. I only sent a thank-you letter once. Before I went to school I trailed in a local kitchen, and had such a great time I sent a thank-you note along with a gift of some heart-shaped cookie cutters. (The ones in the kitchen were wearing out.) I wasn't even looking for a job there, I was just elated to feel like this was the right career field for me and thrilled that the chef involved me so much when I had no experience to speak of. I did not send thank-you notes for later, actual interviews, but then I rarely did that after an interview for an office job either--and it never seemed to hurt me that I hadn't.

I don't think BdC has ever participated. Just got back from Ceiba with Busboy and Mrs. Busboy. Like DC Coast and TenPenh, where I have previously enjoyed RW meals, the options were fairly generous...three soups, a salad or a ceviche as a starter, any entree, and one of three desserts for the special price. I had a "Hemingway mojito" at the bar before lunch; the basic difference between this and a standard mojito is a splash of sparking wine instead of soda on the top. Like the mojitos at Cafe Atlantico, it comes with a sugarcane stick. Monica, you may want to add this one to your list of mojitos to explore...though I think it'd be best if we ganged up on Mrs. Busboy and bodily forced her to whip us up a batch of her own. I ordered the shrimp ceviche, pulled pork and chicken tostadas, and flan for my meal. The ceviche was a small, extremely tart portion in a little double-shot-sized glass. The shrimp were medium-small, and there were chunks of tomato and avocado in the red sauce. It came with a few tortilla-type chips. Refreshing but a little too much on the senses, which diasppointed me since I'd heard so much about the ceviches. I sampled Mrs. Busboy's black bean soup: pretty good for a non-Cuban-style version (it was thinner and less robust than she'd anticipated). The entree was two tostadas piled very high with mojo-flavored shreds of pork and chicken, topped with a crisp slaw and a few slices of radish. Again, pretty good but a little too much on the senses...I would have preferred less meat so I could have perhaps picked up and eaten my tostadas, and the meat got to be cloying after a while despite not being super-sweet. The flan was probably the highlight of the meal for me--we all ordered it, though, and each flan looked somewhat different from the others. Mine had a disk of hard caramel (like brulee coating) on top which I rather enjoyed. They all came with nut-encrusted cookies that seemed to be made from compressed puff pastry.

Is Blue Moon just a breakfast type of place? Varm, the breakfast described doesn't exactly sound earthy-crunchy to me...

I enjoyed the book too. I seem to recall some kind of disclaimer early in the book stating that the recipes were not written to be followed, they were intended to be viewed in a more literary sense.

I've made lemon "confit" (more of a sugared preparation before) following Louisa Chu's method combined with the way I learned to handle zests at culinary school. Basically: peel long strips of zest from lemons, scrape off the pith, and julienne. Blanch and refresh three times: bring water to a rolling boil, add zest, let go for a couple minutes, strain, and then rest the zest in a bowl of ice water. (Use fresh water for each boil, but you can use the same ice water each time if there's still plenty of ice in it.) Then make a simple syrup (1 part sugar:1 part water) and slowly simmer the zest until it is supple and semitranslucent. Remove from syrup and toss with sugar; spread out on a sheet pan and let cool before using. This is excellent brunoised and tossed into scones, cookies, cakes, muffins...scattered on top of asparagus...stirred into rice with plumped raisins and slivered almonds...perched on the edge of a glass of lemonade...etc.

I don't know Bawlmor at all. I'm hitting the O's game on Wednesday night, though, and wondered if any of these places are near the stadium. I'd most like to go to Faidley's, but we were planning to eat around 5:30ish and they'll be closed by then. Advice?

Hey, I hadn't thought about Bis offering a fixed-price brunch, but I have to say the menu for it looks pretty good. I've had brunch there before and it's terrific.

My best friend got me hooked on noodles with canned tuna, sour cream, capers, dill and black pepper. Much better than the classic casserole, especially if made with homemade noodles.

Now, THAT'S a cool idea.

What is the point of those Corian boards then? I've seen little ones in several homes with Corian counters. Are they supposed to be like trivets or something?

I think your entree plate sounds pretty sweet, what with the glaze and the fruit salsa. I'd look for a green with some bitterness to it as a complement--perhaps the "bright lights" rainbow swiss chard I find at my local markets, or some grilled broccolini. I think corn is hard to say no to at this time of year.

Chuchelo, are there specific restaurants in these neighborhoods that you think deserve cheap eats coverage? (I have no idea, mostly because of the lack of their coverage if they actually exist!) I think that your argument is only as good as the restaurants you can name that are missing out.

My grandmothers both always had them around the house. Dad's mom had a pool that we'd go over to swim in frequently during those North Carolina summers, and after a dip I always ate a handful of plain saltines on the back patio. Mom's mom made chopped liver for every family occasion or holiday, which she always served with saltines. As a child I was only interested in the saltines, but as I got older I was just as passionate about schmearing as much liver as possible on top of them. I have never cooked with saltines, though I have made matzah toffee candy before. For that matter, I have made other crackers before, but I have never attempted to make saltines.

Monica, did you cook it with chicken? I forgot all about Cumberland Sauce. It's delicious with gamy meats.

Grilled duck breast is great for a quick dinner, but I don't think I'd cook a whole duck on the BBQ. Even roasting a whole duck is not simple, IMO...the breasts and the legs cook at totally different times.

As a child, I was offered many of the things listed here--tomato soup, crackers, tea. I didn't like chicken soup so Mom never bothered trying. But I always, ALWAYS wanted beef when I was sick. Had terribe burger cravings. In fourth grade I got the chicken pox. Was knocked out from it, out of school for over a week, high fever, pox everywhere. My dad's parents lived in the same town at the time, so about a week into the illness they got me on the phone and asked me what they could do to help. "A cheeseburger," I croaked, before Mom took the phone away from me. The next afternoon, they showed up with a Wendy's Single in one hand and one of those Baskin-Robbins clown ice cream cones in the other. It was one of the most satisfying meals I ever ate, and I slept deeply afterwards. Whaddaya know, the next morning I was finally up and moving again.

I use wood for everything but raw meat--for that I use a NSF-certified plastic board I picked up at a restaurant supply store once. My knives stay in great condition, and I have never contracted food poisoning.

Try the Takoma Park Silver Spring Coop...there's one in downtown Takoma at the intersection of Ethan Allen and Carroll Aves, and one in Silver Spring on Grubb Road. Some ethnic markets also carry bulk spices, but I'm blanking on which ones.

An electric juicer can work surprisingly quickly and efficiently. I've juiced enough lemons and limes to make a quart in just a few minutes using a cheap Waring model at a job I once had. It strained out seeds and pulp, too. I don't think the device cost more than $35.

Sorry I missed it--sounds like a good time! Busboy, we'll do pullets at twenty paces soon enough I'm sure.

I'd definitely toss. Yick. If I had salmon that had been hanging around for 10 months or so I'd still eat it, but only by cooking it well and then turning it into salmon cakes or some such recipe where the salmon doesn't have to be in one glorious piece.

I'm surprised the Leatherman chef knife is so bad. I have a smaller multi-purpose Leatherman and often use the little knife to cut up my lunch when I forget to bring a "real" knife. Easy to use, sharp, and wipes clean afterwards. It's way too short a blade for cutting tomatoes though--plus it's not serrated.

They'd be great tossed into scones.

Baskin-Robbins might too, if you're looking for an ice-cream cake. As a child I always got ice-cream cakes for my birthday cake. I still have a fondness for Baskin-Robbins logs filled with mint chip ice cream as a result.

Pecan-crusted chicken breast A few sticks of middle eastern cucumber from the farm market A handful of sweet sweet blueberries Iced coffee