bookluvingbabe

I haven't been able to recreate my grandmother's lockshen and cheese and I've been trying for close to 30 years. I wonder if there was sour cream in it. I also think she may have baked it because the noodles were sometimes a little crispy. I'd love to try a traditional recipe if you feel like sharing! Thanks1

Michael Pollan seems to piss a lot of people off.

Discovered that the turkey thighs were too freezer burned to be edible, after I cooked them. The 2.5 year old had leftover pasta with salmon and artichoke hearts last night along with milk, cauliflower and clementines. I ended up with cauliflower and mini veal burgers. I think my husband had chocolate--he didn't get home from work until after 10. Today-- 2.5 year old had the last frozen waffle for breakfast along with milk, O's and cheese. He takes his lunch to school and asked for a sunflower seed butter and jam sandwich. I added a peach yogurt, sauteed mushrooms and clementines. The clementines and mushrooms came home uneaten. (They have a microwave in his classroom.) I had milk and a Trader Joe's Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Caramel for breakfast followed by tea and chicken soup. For lunch I had the rest of the mini veal burgers and roasted cauliflower. Dinner--the little guy asked for rice and a wrap so he had a frozen Amy's Veggie Pie and rice, along with oj and milk. I'm going to pull out frozen sweet potato gnocchi in a few minutes. He's allergic to eggs so we will different dinners some nights. I am down to half an onion. Other than that, I don't think I'm seriously low on any staples. And I may have some of those frozen onion cubes from Trader Joe's in the freezer with my cilantro and basil stash. In digging around the freezer, I counted three frozen pie crusts. I have everything to make apple pie so I think I will do that tomorrow. I took out ground goat and smoked ham steaks to defrost. I think I'll some sort of red sauce with the ground goat and will use the ham steaks as lunches for me. The little guy out of the blue asked for fresh blueberries and blackberries tonight. I haven't seen any at the market in a while, which I reminded him. I hope he doesn't keep asking--he's kind of hard to resist!

I am going to try. I'm going to have to bend a bit with a tyrannical 2 year old in the house--fortunately we have a full box of O's in the house but I'm in deep trouble if we run out of bananas! I need to get stuff cleared out of the freezer--there isn't room to freeze extra soup or chili right now. To that end, I took out boneless turkey thighs to defrost last night. I will bake them tonight in a ginger soy sauce with brown rice and serve with roasted purple and orange cauliflower. Wondering about alternatives to olive oil if I run out. Looking forward to this!

How was it?

Has anyone dined in Stratford this season? We are going at the end of August, with toddler in tow, and are starting to wonder what are options are going to be this year. Thanks!

Saw online that the Globe has closed!!! So very sad, especially since I'm not making a Stratford run this year as we have a 4 month old at home.

I use my kitchen shears to cut up pizza.

TSA did search every bag again at the gate for my flight from Buffalo to BWI. I assumed it was because we were flying to DC.

I'm sorry we missed Zee's for lunch. While our dinner was very good, the lunch menu looks so much better! We had dinner before theater there last week and it was lovely. They have wonderfully whimisal presentations. The mushroom and goat cheese app is terrific and the duck entree was very nice. My friends tried the quail, the pork and the sirloin and all were happy with their choices. The night before was less successful with a decision to "wing it" once we got to the Falls. After seeing LOTR-the Musical and driving back from Toronto we were in no condition to make good choices. We ended up at the Happy Wanderer for German food. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't very good and the service was downright lousy. I know there aren't a lot of good choices at the Falls but this was pretty impressively disappointing.

Another visit to Stratford has come and gone. The food scene has some wonderful highlights but the overall impression is that service continues to go downhill. The decent, but nothing special to write home about spots: We had breakfast at Madelyn's and it was disappointing for the first time. The fruit cup was canned and the eggs were way overcooked. Breakfast at Feature's was the same as ever. Worth a visit once during the trip... Dinner at the Boar's Head--we were there over 2 hours. They ran out of shepherd's pie and didn't mention to us that they were making them from scratch until we had been waiting for over an hour. They did comp us dessert --burnt, awful fruit pie. (A visit later in the week for lunch was much better but still not the fun experience we used to have there.) Bentley's--they lost our appetizer order, the Guiness stew was underseasoned and my basil parmeson chicken had the nastiest tasting basil. Again we were comped dessert and for the first time in six years they actually had the caramel apple cheesecake! It was very good at least. The Olde English Parlour--We had a nice lunch, the portions were reasonable and tasty. The food just didn't sing. The very nice spots: I'm not sure how we missed Foster's the first few years we went. It is good food at very good prices with very good service. The seasonal salad with heirloom tomatoes and goat cheese was fabulous and the pasta special I had was very nice. The real winner of the evening was the roasted chicken though. We went back to Down the Street after skipping a year in protest of extraordinarly rude service. We had good service and tasty food. The angus burger is pretty wonderful. Boomer's--really, I could eat there every day but we went twice. The fish on a bun is just about perfect and the poutine makes me very happy. I switch to sweet potato fries for the second visit and was almost as happy. The burger was reportedly quite good and the black bean chili is a big hit as well. And the best places: My friends were a bit reluctant to go the Globe. The sticker shock mentioned in many posts, the odd combinations of flavors, etc., were all mentioned. I was pretty insistent and everyone was glad we went. We didn't order enough dishes--my intermission of South Pacific we were all hungry. (We had plenty of time--the price tag escalation was the primary concern I think.) We had the shoestring fries (how do they get them that thin?), the mushroom risotto, the spinach lady bird, lobster bisque, the bbqed chicken (a real winner for me), the pork schnitzel and two specials off the board--a beef tenderloin dish and the roast lamb loin. Both were excellent. I loved how the flavors mixed together and how different it was from anything else in Stratford. If we had gone earlier in the week or had a longer stay, we would have gone back. For our final night we went to the Church which was just about perfect. I had: King Oyster Mushroom Velouté Chanterelle and Summer Savory Stuffed Chicken Wing Watercress Purée A roast veal that is no longer on the menu Classic Kobe Beef Striploin and Sautéed Marrow Caramelized Salsify, Pickled Chanterelles and ‘pommes boulangere’ Thyme Infused Red Wine Jus (Where has salsify been all my life?) and the Chocolate Espresso Marquis with Summer Fruits Port Wine Reduction Bay Scented Ice Cream Service was perfect as always. Two of had the wine pairings and one skipped it. We always go on Saturday night after the theater rush is over and it is simply a wonderful time--not rushed at all. We peeked at the Schnitzel House and it looked fine but we had terrible german food in Niagara Falls so skipped it. Garlics is now Gilt and the menu looks the same. Our innkeeper reported that there was a split between the owners that resulted in the name change. I completely failed to ask about dim sum but wonder if it was the new place on Ontario near the King Family Buffet. I think it is called Hong Kong. Completely skipped Bijou, Sapori and Pazzo. We were there fewer days this year so our choices were more limited. Still it was a good trip and I look forward to my next jaunt eagerly. Jennifer

I flew last week and food was allowed--we brought back scones, Timbits and a ton of candy. We checked the wine we bought--mine was in mini-bottles (Canadian ice wine) and got through fine. Not sure if the big bottles made it safely to California. I also had nuts and dried fruit with me and it wasn't an issue.

I totally love the new non-dog policy and made a point of telling the management. I also mentioned that I had come to prefer Takoma and Arlington which are dog-free and I was glad to see Dupont was finally on the band wagon.

Though French Fries are back on the menu at the House cafeterias. ← Doesn't make them edible!!!!

Breakfasts at the Court itself aren't bad--Angie makes a mean eggs and cheese sandwich. Plus employees get a discount. Don't eat at the Senate (or the House.) Cheap eats for breakfast and lunch can be had at Jimmy T's--East Capitol and 5th Street SE. There isn't a lot of good grocery shopping right near the Court--Eastern Market can be pricey. Sonoma on Pennsylvania Avenue can be done for a reasonable price if you order carefully. Good luck!