Abra

Did you get out to Yellow Hawk? For my money (and not too much of it) they make some of the best QPR wines in Walla Walla. Uh, the sangiovese happens to be my least favorite. You guys made a heroic tasting effort, I must say! Oh, and I meant to say that Cayuse is never open, so don't take it personally. Not at all, never, so far as I know. Their wine's all sold out way in advance and never hits the store. That store is more or less a cute ad on the main drag.

Lasagne. I don't know anyone who doesn't like it, and it's easy to freeze in portions. And brownies, at the top of most people's comfort food lists.

Creektown is truly terrible. It's pretentious and doesn't deliver. It's a diner dressed up with nowhere to go. Really, I promise, you'll hate it.

Very interesting, Kent, about the Chinese and soul food!

Tell us about your pastry background, how you came to be able to get such a great stage. It's way cool that they let you work on the important stuff right away, not just sifting flour or something.

Sheena, try getting a pile of baking soda in the palm of your hand. Wet your finger, dip it in the soda, and paste a big glop on the sore. I predict it'll be gone in a matter of hours. Thanks for pointing me to that Korean home cooking thread, Chufi. Somehow I've completely missed it up until now.

Oh good, the Korean Association party should show us all sorts of interesting food. Three cheers for Sheena's Mom for participating in her blog! Some nice simple panchan recipes would also be a great addition to the blog. I know less about Korean food than any other Asian cuisine, and it's the only Asian food that I never cook at all. We love to eat Korean food at a restaurant, but it would be fun to be able to cook some of it myself.

Pictures of your Mom making a dish from start to finish would be wonderful, especially if it were a dish that we could follow along and make at home. Maybe seafood pancake or something like that, where the ingredients are easy to find? I've never eaten Korean food in a home, only a restaurant. Does one do panchan at home? I love and adore those tiny crunchy sweet fish, and don't know how to make them. Actually, what I really don't know is which sort of tiny fish to start out with.

My dinner tonight: young beet greens lightly sauteed with sweet onion and olive oil, drizzled with saba, topped with crisp lardons and softly poached eggs. With a side of blanched sugar snap peas drizzled with olive oil and dusted with Maldon salt.

Yep, I found that one, and have even made a reservation with that same place, although it looks like it has different owners now. So, nobody has gone to the festival?

Now that I'm getting a stunning greens mix from my CSA farmer, I've been using it on salad - just a drizzle of good olive oil, a swoosh of saba, some salt and pepper, and heaven.

Wow, this is kind of under the web radar, unless I'm really missing some key thing. I'm very drawn to go to Espelette for the last weekend in October, but am having a hard time finding much information. Especially of interest is a great place to stay, as I rather imagine the eating part will take care of itself. All piment d'Espelette, all the time!

All I can say is à toute à l´heure, dude! And thanks for everything.

Wow, I've got to say that is one weird menu. Potatoes with chopped oysters, shrimp with applesauce, zut! Some of the combinations just floor me, and the fact that you had all that in a tiny village is another wow. Very educational and timely, this blog.

Arrrgggh, I have about $200 worth of black cake fruit and liquor going, and now we`re going to live in France for a year and I won`t be able to make it. I`m going to give my started fruits to Chefpeon, and we`ll all watch to see what she does with it.

I boycott Whitehouse Crawford - it's a lovely space but the service is insufferable and the food decent but overpriced. The old 26 Brix was best for brunch, but I havent been there since they revamped. The Whoop Em Up gets great reviews, but it`s 20 miles away and we haven't been. There's pretty good pizza at the Sweet Basil, and I've been hearing good things about Aloha Sushi, although we haven't been there yet either. Merchant's is the deli you're talking about. It's great for Walla Walla, but you'll probably laugh at it. The Onion World owner died suddenly not too long ago, and I'm not sure whether the sausages are available right now or not. I've never heard of the patisserie or Tino's, so I look forward to yor report. Be sure to stop at Glondo's Sausage in Cle Elum, if only for the beef jerky, which is awesome. The sausages are good too, if you have somewhere to cook them. And if you want a real trip, go to Andy's supermarket. It's huger than a Safeway, and all vegetarian. Very fun to wander in. For a Rocky-style old fashioned breakfast, go to Clarette's.

I love it that you're giving us so many recipes. I can't try them right now, but vicariously, I'm cooking every one! When you say fresh walnuts, do you mean green ones?

Here are the Milk Chocolate Mini-Bundt Cakes. If you, like me, run out of milk chocolate and need to sub some semi-sweet, be sure to (unlike me) add a little extra butter to compensate for the additional cocoa solid content.

This is driving me crazy. I'd guess that you stick a baguette or a saucisson through it and use it to hold while slicing, but I see neither bread nor sausage in that dinner. And unless you made the tiniest of tarts, that truc wasn't holding the pastry together either.

That's a great looking dinner, especially the peppers. What are Anaheim peppers called in French? I bought some apricots to roast today, before seeing your tart. I'll just give them a litle brush of honey and roast them in a dish, but I'll be thinking of your tart and how delicious it must be.

Ok, now tell me your favorite places to eat there, special foods of the region you love, and all that. Since we'll be there a full year, that can go all the way from truffles and holiday festivities to the first fruits of spring.

All together now, Uzes, Uzes, Uzes! Thanks so much to all of you for your help, and to Busboy who hasn't been participating on this thread but sent me some great impressions of his time in Uzes. We're planning to be there at the beginning of September, and I'm looking forward immeasurably to participating in the life of the France forum and meeting as many of you as I can once I'm sur place.

And the winner is....uh...wanna vote? We're totally hung up on deciding between Semur-en-Auxois in Burgundy, and Uzes, way down south. Foodwise, I don't know that one calls louder than the other to me, but how about you? Semur is more expensive, being closer to Paris. The further you get from Paris the more house your money will rent, I've definitely found that out. Semur is pretty much all-French, whereas I gather that Uzes has some to a lot of ex-pats. House in Semur is likewise smaller, whereas Uzes has a pool and more rooms. Really, I'd so appreciate any insight any of you care to share in the next 24 hours or so. The houses await us, all we have to do is sign. So, what say you all?

I'm so looking forward to this, especially as I'm hoping to see it all for myself in the near future. I'll guess that the weird item is part of some sort of vise-type thing, or maybe a lid remover?

Just out of curiosity, this is illegal in Seattle, and in most of the US. Health departments don't allow the preparation of food for sale in home kitchens. Is that not true in France?