Rusa

amcomb, can I have your recipe for the lamb-stuffed phyllo? I think your menu is great as is. Wish we weren't kosher (peas w/pancetta in cream - wow!) Maybe an oyster stuffing?

Here is the Cooking Light recipe, for which I have had good results (especially if adding a little more banana and NUTS): 2 cups all-purpose flour 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup butter, softened 2 large eggs 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas) 1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Cooking spray Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Yield: 1 loaf, 14 servings (serving size: 1 slice) CALORIES 187 (21% from fat); FAT 4.3g (satfat 2.4g, monofat 1.2g, polyfat 0.3g); PROTEIN 3.3g; CARBOHYDRATE 34.4g; FIBER 1.1g; CHOLESTEROL 40mg; IRON 1mg; SODIUM 198mg; CALCIUM 20mg;

Thanks! That one is in every store around here.

Which Colorado butter?

I can recommend the duck breast and the mac and cheese. The desserts aren't up to the quality of the savory items. Have you been there before?

It's Groff's Farm in Mount Joy.

Here is what I made for break the fast: and I also usually make a dairy meal, but start with cornmeal pancakes with sour cream and caviar.

If Betty Groff's (I think that's the name) restaurant is still open, that is the best of Hershey. Amish, family style.

Having lived in Denver for the past 14 years (gad...has it been that long already), I have to agree that there is NO good Chinese food in the entire area. It's all very basic and tasteless. Ocean City is about the best. Now Vietnamese....you can do very well up and down Federal Avenue in Little Vietnam. Sob...I miss my Hunan Beef I used to get at the House of Hunan in Washington DC (in which ANY Chinese restaurant beats ALL Denver Chinese restaurants).

When I lived in Portland, I was thrilled by all the "free" food right outside my door. I found the best blackberries (I'd call them marionberries, they were so big and sweet) behind the gas station up the block. Apples, plums, pie cherries, and bing cherries grew in my backyard. Acres of abandoned strawberry fields with a large variety of different artisan berries a few miles down the road (long gone, covered with condos). Now I live in starvation land (Denver, Colorado). I can find the odd crabapple

Lucky you, you're in the NW, where all you have to do is go for a walk in the woods. You will soon find a million marion/blackberry bushes, and all you need is a pail, and a long sleeve shirt to keep the stickers off. Look around and up, you will also find lots of fruit trees gone wild: plums, apples, pears, cherry. I used to live in Portland, and strawberry farms are also superb places for upick. No more of those styrofoam California Stepford berries. Once I found an abandoned five acre strawberry farm only a mile from my house Now I live in Denver, and there is nothing growing wild anywhere except a few sage bushes. I miss my cherry (Bing!), apple, and plum trees. sob