vengroff

My local bodega is on a corner that marks the unofficial end of gentrification in my neighborhood. As such, it serves two distinct markets. They have about ten different flavors of mad dog and thunderbird (including red banana) next to several dozen imported and microbrewed beers. Foodwise, there's nothing really worth buying.

Please excuse me if I am having trouble following the description of the tests. Not long ago, you said I took the "we" to mean individuals associate with or hired by your company. I took the "it" to mean the wine clip. I took "in a lab with people who have PHd's" to mean people who have earned Ph.D.s in a relevant field did the tests. After some follow up questions, you wrote Now, with all due respect, I would expect someone who claims to have tested a product using the language you used in the first quote would have a copy of the results on hand. I would also expect the test to have been done on their product, as the original language strongly implied. Finally, I would expect they would know the difference between college students and Ph.D.s. But maybe I am asking for too much here.

I, for one, would be very interested in reading the results of this laboratory study, regardless of the methodology. Is there any chance you could post the results on your web site and identify the primary investigator(s)?

If we can go back to Mark's original summary for a moment, he said, "it makes wine taste as if it has been breathing for 30 minutes. It does not make wine taste as if it has been aged for many years as purported." As others have pointed out, this sounds like the clip might be hastening oxidation. Now we have a hypothesis that can be tested. We know, from numerous experiments over the years, that oxidation occurs when wine is exposed to air. There are many other hypotheses we could come up with for what happens. For example, maybe it's alpha radiation that can't get through the bottle that changes the taste of wine in the first 30 minutes it is open. We can test that hypothesis in a lab, and find that it is incorrect. We can test the oxidation hypothesis and find that it is correct. There are various ways we can do this. We can look at a masss spectrograph and find that there are more oxides in wine that has been exposed to oxygen for a while than in wine that has not. We can then correlate the presence of these oxides to changes in taste. We can also open a bottle in a chamber full of nitrogen and find that no oxidation takes place. In a similar manner, we could take a couple of cases of wine and some clips into a well equiped lab and test the hypothesis that wine that has been clipped becomes oxidized much more rapidly than wine that has not. Unfortunately, Mr. Clip later stated It's unfortunate because an expert has weighed in on what he thinks the effect is, and the hypothesis can be tested with a few well-designed experiments that don't require anyone to taste and report anything. The cost of the test would probably be less than Mr. Clip's monthly PR budget of $20K. Someone in the Chemistry department of a local university might even be willing to do it for a lot less than that. Stranger things have happened, like those guys at Purdue that light barbeques with liquid oxygen.

McDonalds burger patties, in the current form, are an all-time low in the fast-food world. They are dry, grey, and taste nothing like beef. Twenty years ago, a quarter pounder was juicy; today it's a hockey puck. I've probably been to McDonalds five or six times in the past year, and it's been the same every time. I've given up and won't go back. BK may not be flame broiled, but they are better than whatever McDonalds is currently doing.

McKay, I appreciate your concern over the wages paid to pastry professionals. However, I think you may be picking the wrong target here. In terms of how they approach pastry, Nectar is one of the good guys, not the bad guys. I can only assume that Nectar chose the pay scale they are offering for this position based on a reasonable amount of knowledge about what people who do the job they want done are currently being paid in the DC area. Otherwise, they have no hope of filling the position. Now, why are those the prevailing wages? Supply and demand, almost certainly. If there where greater demand for people who know their way around pastry, wages would go up. So don't blame Nectar, blame the places in their price range where dessert is a slice of outsourced cake and a scoop of outsourced ice cream plated by a busboy. If they put in serious pastry programs and demanded serious pastry people, wages would be higher. Also, realize that Nectar is a small place. Having Jarad do double duty may be what enables them to offer quality pastry at all. They could easily outsource the same stuff others do, or present the same basic creme brule, apple tart, and liquid-center chocolate cake you get at a hundred other places; but they have chosen not to. If this forces their competition to be more serious about pastry, then pastry chefs all around town will come out winners.

I'm not sure where you checked, but these are indeed rare-earth magnets. Your website even says so. But if you want more backup, there are plenty of other sites that can tell you all about them. For example, with a quick web search you can find that the rare-earth elements are "any of a large class of chemical elements including scandium (atomic number 21), yttrium (39), and the 15 elements from 57 (lanthanum) to 71 (see lanthanides)." Neodymium, which has an atomic number of 60, is a lanthanide, and is thus a rare earth element. Rare-earth magnets, so named because they are made from neodymium (as well as iron and boron) are, despite the "rare" label, quite readily available. For example, this one, a rod 0.25" in diameter and 1" long which looks to be about the size of the ones you use in your clip, costs $1.03. Science is out there on the web, and it's not hard to find.

I can assure you that Nectar is committed to a quality pastry program. If you scroll back up through the posts in this thread you will find several that commentators explicitly mention dessert. Jarad Slipp is the pastry chef, and I don't think he is leaving that position any time soon. Was the ad you saw perhaps for an assistant or an apprentice level position?

I'll nominate Schneider’s of Capitol Hill in DC.

Kebab and chips at an Upper St. shop after being tossed out of the pub at 11pm.

I guess you know which two to go to then. Very true.

This is exactly right. And the solution is easy. The best advice anyone can give to a wine neophyte is to find a local wine shop with a reasonably knowledgable staff. In most cases, they can walk in and say, "I have a Gallo of Sonoma/Kendall Jackson budget, but I understand I can do better without spending more." Chances are they will find the staff falling all over themselves to steer them in any number of better directions. They will end up drinking better wine, almost certainly enjoying it more, and will probably end up saving money too.

I've met Mark on several occasions, and can vouch for this.

There's a difficult balance in running a show like this. Ms. Immer no doubt has access to essentially any bottle in the world she wants to discuss. But if she recommends obscure wines to her viewers and none of them can find in their local wine shops then her show becomes irrelevant. It sounds as if she may be erring too far in the other direction.

You might want to try hopping across the river to Dean and Deluca in Georgetown. It's expensive, but the selection is generally pretty good, and the pre-purchase tasting policy is quite liberal. Some Whole Foods have better cheese offerings than others. The P Street store usually has some decent offerings. Unfortunately, I don't often shop at the NoVa Whole Foods locations, so I don't know how they are in this department.

It's good to know there are open pits in the area. What style of BBQ do these places serve?

Homemade porcini ravioli. Parmesan cream sauce. Peas.

Call now and get in while you can. Tom Sietsema has reviewed the minibar. I forgot to mention one other cute little quirk. They keep the minibar reservations in a seperate little black book in a drawer at the host's stand, not in the regular reservation book on top. It's the minibook!

I think I know that restaurant too. Sara, you should stop in next time you are in DC.

I think it's 3 for $6, 6 for $9, or 9 for $12. A pile of micro-thin onion rings is included with each order.

That's too bad. Me, I can't get enough of it. Brioche + miniburger + pickle + mustard => big smile on my face every time.

Here are the goods.

Just reviving this thread to say that I was in the other night and the crust is now really excellent. It's very crisp, much like how Ella's does it around the corner. The portabella and artichoke topping was great; those mushrooms were really meaty. Miniburgers came out medium, instead of medium-rare like the usually are. Still very tasty, though, especially with a dollop of mustard. I'm not sure if they've changed the default, but I'll be sure to ask for medium-rare next time. The onion straws were spot on--not much could have been better to eat with a beer.

I lived just off 23rd on Aloha in the early nineties and used to shop there when I was desperate. I can't believe it is still around!

Olives, hummous, pita; Green salad with balsamic dressing; Spicy lamb sausage; Rice. But it could have just as soon been peanut butter and jelly; I'm just thrilled to have a functional kitchen again. Even doing the dishes was fun.