Busboy

I can't remember the name but there's an extremely cool coffee shop on the corner of 22nd and P. Independantly owned, good coffee and I'm pretty sure they have wifi. Otherwise: Starbucks anyone?

Also interesting to note, "for those who drool over TFL," that TFL Keller never went to culinary school.

Even as a member of the first category, ("used to be a server") I find this a little OTT. You should be able to ask dumb questions. On the other hand, you should drink, too, so I agree with that one. Pretty funny, though.

The most passionate cooks I have ever met were forced by economic reasons to pay attention to their diets, and certainly thought of nutrition first. A bunch of kids to keep healthy and active, and no money, is a great motivator. This is where the Mom thing comes in, I suppose. I hope this lady gets on WIC. It is really a great program that will allow her to build a pretty impressive pantry, as long as she is careful with her WIC dollars and doesn't spend them on some of the more processed and less healthy items. She should have plenty of eggs, milk, juice and cheese if nothing else to do anything she wants with. Toss in a couple of veggies, and you should be able to produce a tasty meal. Amazing that a significant amount of US Service families are on both WIC and Food Stamps. You are getting some great suggestions here. Maybe some copycat recipes for the family's favorite fast foods, as suggested earlier everyone needs a tasty break from time to time, and a feeling of indulgence. ← Never done the mom thing,so I can't comment on that. Just the dad thing. My wife has done the mom thing, though and I can say that between the two us I'd be surprised if we've spent more than 20 minutes on a nutrition discussion more detailed than "we need something green for dinner," or "make sure she gets some fruit in her lunch" over the last 20 years. The kids seem healthy. On the other hand, because we find cooking more of a joy (just like that book!) than a chore, and because we take a clear delight in a decent meal, we more or less naturally (when we don't send out for pizza ) end up serving and eating all the things you're supposed to eat. Because that makes dinner better. And other people pick up on it. You know, spoon full of sugar and all that -- not saying you should ignore the practical aspects of dinner, but why lead with a nutrition lecture when you're teaching something that is actually enjoyable aside from that? Tell a man that fish is a great source of Omega 3 fatty acids, and he'll eat properly for a day (and then sneak off to McDonalds later than night). Show him how good it is with mashed potatoes and a little garlick spinach, and he might eat well for a lifetime. (Teach him to fish and he'll live on beer and sandwiches ) Just thought of this, btw, thinking of my kids: fried rice, done up with fresh or frozen (usually cheaper and not much different after frying) veggies, whatever meat is leftover and a cracked egg or two. Dirt cheap, way filling, easy to cook and an opportunity to teach someone about fresh garlic and ginger and how to stir fry. Worked for me and, 20 years later, my kids.

I would suggest that the more you make this about cooking delicious food (that happens to be cheap and nutritious) and the less you make it feel like "eat your vegetables because they're good for you" the more successful you will be in creating positive, long-term change. Teach adventure and delight. Aside from people forced for medical reasons to pay attention to their diets, I don't know any passionate cooks who think about nutrition first. They think first about a good dinner. Nonethless, they tend to be very good at coaxing the best meals out of inexpensive ingredients and they put nutritious meals on the table.

Nice to see a fond note regarding Alexandria. When I mentally prepare a return trip to Athens it is, probably more than anywhere else in that town, a key dining destination. Too bad about the smoking. It doesn't bother me much (and I mostly spent my time there dining on the small patio) but Athens appears still to be a city where they apologize for seating you in the non-smoking section.

Have never been there, but Le Timbre ("the stamp") is getting some play on this side of the Atlantic. I also quite liked Le Petite Troquet which isn't so much romatic except in the sense of perfectly capturing one's romantic image of a Paris boit.

I don't mean to be a crank, and I've tried local wines in places like Georgia, Iowa and Michigan, and they are mostly awful. I have almost never had an American wine not made on the west coast tjhat was worth what they were charging for it. You hit France or Germany or Greece and you buy a bottle of plonk and it's maybe just OK -- maybe barely drinkable -- but it's dirt cheap and distinctive. It tastes like where it's from and it costs a couple of bucks a liter. You get a local wine in the U.S. and some joker wants you to pay $15 for a mediocre-at-best bottle of plonk just because they had the foresight to put their vineyard in Texas or Pennsylvania. I'm happy to have the Midwest look like the south of France -- somehow vineyards are more romantic than cornfields, though maybe it's just because they're more exotic here -- but they need to start making quality everyday stuff before they pretend that they can produce actual premium wines.

in terms of aesthetics for the selection - yes! Whilst obviously not a hard cheese in terms of say cheddar it has a much firmer consistency than the others in the selection and a hard rind which is where the term is intended and so would prove a nice counter balence flavour and texture wise to the others. ← Naaah. Can you imagine grating morbier? Plus, it's oozing in the direction of stinky -- not a hard cheese flavor. Harder than a Pont l'Eveque, but hardly a hard cheese.

Comet has backed away from their claim of New Haven "authenticity." As with many made-for-TV movies, it is more "inspired by" than "based on" the real thing. Whatever they call it, it is a good old Northeast Corridor pie. I don't want to get into 2 Amys-bashing -- tweaking, yes -- as there are few things I like better than sitting at the bar and working my way through the small plates and cured meats as I work my way through the wine list. Matter of fact, this grim-ass afternoon here in DC would be a perfect time to do just that. But my tastes are clearly too crude for the delicate nuances, or whatever, of 2 Amy's AOC (I do find AOC designation a little silly) pizza, as well as similarly Neapolitan-oriented spots. I need a little Ramones in my pies, Puccini is too elevated for the likes of me.

Strong words. I take it that you like it more than Two Amys if that is even your second place pizza? ← I have long been underimpressed by 2 Amys and "authentic" Italian pies in general. Authentic, auschmentic! Give me a pizza made withing walking distance of the 4,5, 6 or D lines or, in DC, the Red Line. (My second choice, btw, is a staunchly inauthentic joint called Vace Italian Deli).

I know the quote, but the fact that he wrote it isn't an explanation. The portions are, apparently, an issue .. and cheese is only an option over a sweet dessert ... ← I've had "planned, multi-course meals in which the other courses are kept to a modest size" and I still don't see the appeal of cheese at the end. What I'm asking is, Why is it the perfect end to a meal? To me, dessert works to end the meal precisely because it is sweet; in other words, it's categorically different from the rest of the meal. I'm not one for huge, terribly sweet, rich desserts right after dinner, but to me, a little bite of something moderately sweet closes the meal in a way that I just can't see cheese doing. If sweets are "palate numbing," then why isn't cheese? Just because it's not sweet? I'm not trying to be difficult; I truly don't understand the appeal. ← Well, if you don't like a cheese course you don't like it, and there's no harm in that. I like a cheese course because its a brief pause between the more complicated emotionally demanding main course and dessrt. No sitting around and speculating about the sauce or the provenance of the lamb, or what the heck "nougat" is. Just good old cheese. It's a few bites of umplicated fatty lusciousness, a big hug from a good friend. And, if I were to speculate recklessly about the cheese course's origins I would guess that in the days when meat was expensive and rare and that even the best tables did not often offer the fatty, well-marbled beef one often finds today, that small dollop of cheese was a special treat. I'd think of lean old cows and chickens a bit tough even after a long braising because the frugal farmer didn't kill them off until they'd given all the eggs (note the number of egg recipes in traditional French cookbooks) and milk they could, and how they might make a nourishing repast but without sensual satisfaction of a brie or epoisses ripened in the barn. Too rich to come before the meat but too special to be ignored, the cheese came after, with the last of the wine. But that's just speculation. Lori: I'm not a big Port Salut guy so I don't look for it. I do know that Cowgirl or the more boutique-y other cheese shops focus on smaller production cheeses so I'd suspect they are less likely to have it, but I have seen it around (it's in the Monty Python "Cheese Shop" sketch, so I get a chuckle when I see the little label on it). I hope my earlier comment weren't taken as a shot at Sam's but rather a suggestion that if you like cheese, there are few things more fun than standing in a cheese shop pointing at something you've never seen or heard of and saying "can I have a little taste of that?' and that's more likely to happen (in my area) at Cowgirl Creamery or Arrowine than anywhere else. gariotin: dish!

Had a rematch at Comet Ping-Pong and a good pizza has now improved -- crust more crisp than bullet-proof and properly browned/blackened (who doesn't love those crackery bubbles?), and sauce now deployed in appropriate quantities. Service remains a bit herky-jerky with one and arguably two pizza orders screwed up out of four/five if you count the comp, but they sling new pizzas at you quickly and amicably. The Chianti is better than the Primitivo. Pies are small and expensive, my 13-year-old daughter was left unfilled by hers and I could easily have downed two. But, for my money, Comet is now the best in town and not by a narrow margin, so judge accordingly.

You may have tried it already, to no avail, but on many vertical preparations, the trick (I have heard, I'm strictly horizontal except for mashed potatoes) is to build the dish inside a length of fat PVC pipe, and then carefully remove the pipe. +++++ Boy, you guys are way too intellectual for me. .... ← I haven't posted on this, as I didn't want to say much more but rather hear from others...but I realize I convey an undue nod towards "emotionality." If most of my recipes, plate conceptions, menu/degustation conceptions will often start with some sort of "visceral" response to something, I must admit a very conscious intellectuality as well...if, for instance, I include the pomegranate glaze on a plate of venison rack, in drops and gently-stroked lines, as it sensually reminds me of pristine blood, I will also think very hard, strategically, on how I can best convey whatever impulse first brought me to something. Maybe, there is a triumvirate in place - an emotional or visceral impulse, an intellectual design, and a foundation of orthodoxy. Even these, though, are artificial distinctions. Many times, I will first consciously and intellectually wish to bring about something, and use other things to bear to flesh it out. On and on. ← I understand that you as a professional have a lot less leisure to wander aimlessly through farmer's markets and a lot more pressure to turn out a variety of consistently excellent products night after night, and I respect the vision you bring to your craft. I cook in a way that brings me the most pleasure, from the moment I wake up hungry until the time I'm munching leftovers while doing the dishes. I'm pretty sure it's not for everyone -- it's been known to drive my wife to distraction -- but it works for me.

You may have tried it already, to no avail, but on many vertical preparations, the trick (I have heard, I'm strictly horizontal except for mashed potatoes) is to build the dish inside a length of fat PVC pipe, and then carefully remove the pipe. +++++ Boy, you guys are way too intellectual for me. I like to have a couple of glasses of wine on an empty stomach, grab the wife and wander around the market or the grocery store and see what jumps out at me -- Maybe a fish so fresh it needs to be slapped. Maybe a piece of beef so aged that it almost needs to embalmed. The last strawberries of the year. The first Meyer lemons. Fava or english peas so fresh that you bring a positive glee to the unsavory task of elbowing old ladies out of the way so you can grab the cutest and the best. Whatever the heck "this" is (veal breast? mung beans?) that looks good and we've never made. And then, once the menu is begun, free associating from flavor to flavor and texture to texture as the brain and palate balance the meal without conscious thought. Something crunchy to go with the sorbet. Tart greens to go with the braised beef. A soup, because we haven't had one in too long and the bewintered body craves the miracle vitamins only warm soup provides. Something irresistable because it's on sale, we'll work that in when we get home. Fruit after a rich meal and chocolate after a lean one. Or both, because then we can have piort And then off for some cheese. What's particularly runny today? Maybe something to melt on toast with soup. Or that gooey-looking Italian thing in the back, with the sheep and the cow on the wrapper. Sure, we'd love a taste... (For more formal dinners, surround yourself with cookbooks and wine, and run through roughly the same process, using recipes instead of raw ingredients). I don't like thinking too hard about dinner, I like flionging myself at it. I don't trust the application of intellectual rigor to food or to art or to love. I like it when guests call out of the blue or my son announcers his friends are staying for dinner, the wine fueled anarchy that ensues when six becomes ten and I like the dishes we have to improvise because the chicken can only be stretched so far. There are too many rules in life already. This boy just wants to have fun.

I have a fairly thin food-writer resume -- but enough of one to have some credibility -- and I can't imagine anyone even asking whether you have a degree. It's what you put on paper that counts. This is both liberating and unnerving. Summarizing my own experience and what I've heard from actual pros: if you want to write, start writing. If you don't have a background in writing, contribute to blogs. Write long letters to friends. Post on eGullet -- heck, I've gotten one good gig and maybe another based on my postings here and elsewhere. Write for the free weekly. Be mean to yourself: it takes time to get good. And remember that, early on, editors are going to be looking far more for your professionalism than your unique voice. Once you prove you can string together coherent sentances, hit deadlines and and handle editing without losing your cool or your confidence, you'll begin to get more leeway (and you can always take advantage of outlets like this to have more fun in the meantime). Look at the local paper to see what style they're publishing. How may words? Fancy food or down home cooking? First-person experiences or third-person reporting? And then find out who the editor is and write an e-mail with two or three idea. If you don't want to get rich, and can produce professional local articles, you might make your local editor very happy -- and get a chance to go beyond. Good luck. And write!

Have you been to Milia? What did you think.

I'll buy that. Note, though, that anyone wondering why mothers lie about the food their children eats might be able to get some idea as to why they do so from some of the more uncompromising-sounding posts upthread. [And milagi -- didn't mean to pick on mung beans, which are rare in these parts, once again. The next time I see them on a menu, I will order them twice. ]

A-freakin-men...My sister and sister in law feed our nieces and nephews the same food over and over again. "It's all they will eat" I hear. I don't remember having that luxury as a child. I got stuck eating whatever mom and dad were eating, and I assure you, it wasnt mac-n-cheese or chicken nuggets. My one niece is so picky, I made her chicken nuggets once (at the instruction of her mom) and she wouldnt eat them. When I asked her what the problem was, she sobbed "These are different than the ones I get at school!" My brain hurts thinking about it... ← I agree. Just because you have to share five or six thousand meals with your kids is no reason to give them a say in what they're eating. Plus, I personally relish the opportunity to turn the too-few minutes we have around the table as a family into yet another power struggle with my children; school, dating, television, money and cleaning their damn bedrooms just don't provide enough opportunities for conflict. "You'll eat your mung beans and you'll like them!" I often find myself yelling across the table. "And put that napkin in your lap!" That'll teach the punks the joy of cooking.

This thread is the product of many weeks in Athens and should be helpful. I don't know how much time and money you have, but if I had to make choices, I'd take Hytra over Spondi -- I think Spondi is more Frenchified and my meal at Hytra was a little more daring -- though both are excellent. I liked Aristera-Dexia very much, though I understand they have a different, more formal menu in the winter. Milos had some high points (the Aegean oysters) and some low points (the entree was poorly cooked). Be prepared at Milos and other fish tavernas (if haven't discovered this already) to be led in the kitchen to pick your own fish. I did not eat at Orizontes Lykavittou. However, I would bet against it on the general principle that restaurants with views and tourists are usually pretty expensive and not very good. The good news is that there is a cafe attached to the restaurant and you can enjoy the view (which is spectacular) for the (over)price of a frappe or a glass of ouzo. Similarly, if you are in the mood for a drink and have just finished seeing the Acropolis, spend a little time looking for the tucked-away tavernas around the edges of the Plaka, where tables are nestled up next to the ruins. One great Greek tradition is the Saturday or Sunday "lunch" which usually commences between 2 or 3 (the stores close at 2 on Saturday, so every one shops until 2 and then goes to lunch) and goes for hours. Not to be missed. I would spend one such lunch at Cafe Avissinia, after antiquing around Avissinia square, not because the food is particularly smashing, but because the place is so much fun. If you go to the Archaeological Museum -- and you should -- there are two inexpensive restaurants nearby which I like quite a bit, Alexandria and Patcute. Have fun and report back! (Addresses and phone #'s are on the linked discussion). PS: Don't forget GEFSEIS ME ONMASIA PROELFSIS in Kifisias, the northern neighborhood at the end of the Green Line. Excellent Greek/Med. PPS (Since you're from Philly) The Athenian equivalent of the cheesesteak is the gyro, of course, and they really are better there. There's an excellent join in Exarchia Square, in the Polytechnic area. The Monisteraki neighborhood, next to Plaka, is famed for the quality and variety of their gyros. Be careful that you get the wrapped kind, and not flat kind. Good late night dining (and late nights in Greece are late.)

A related question: In Paris -- and other larger French cities -- you can't walk more than a few blocks in a commercial neighborhood without seeing a seafood cafe with crates of bivalves stacked and on display and massive shelves of crushed ice on which rest fresh crustacians, ready for deploy along with the Chablis, White Bordeaux or Muscadet of your choice. My question: can you drop into these places more or less at random and expect fresh, simple and tasty seafood? Or are they hit-or-miss?

Aside from their being, perhaps, from different regions, is there any real difference between a daube and a pot au feu?

Brave words and -- perhaps -- true, but in my years of feeding and eating with children I have yet to find one who finds a green bean as delicious as a pizza (probably for the important reason that it is not). Nor have I found a parent whose doesn't occasionally allow fatigue and whining to cloud their judgment resulting in -- in age where we're all surrounded by fundamentalists of some sort or another, including ultra-orthodox nutritionistas -- guilt.

Hmmm...I bought an extremely odious box of rose in Uzes this summer. Even by the standards of the inexpensive plonk we'd been drinking, it was pretty undrinkable. Of course, it was practically cheaper than bottled water, so we weren't too surprised. Still open-minded on the subject, though.

We spent three weeks in the South of France this summer and I remain retrospectively agog at the three and four-course meals we were getting for the price of a single main course in Washington DC. Not that these were Michelin-starred places, just consistently very good local restaurants. As my wife and I observed, the "level of mediocrity" in France is noticeably higher than in the states. As for the wine, we were playing it cheap (hence the lack of Michelin stars this trip), but we found many an excellent bottle for less than 20 euros, and one of the great things about French restaurants is that it's aften as hard to spend more than 40 dollars on a bottle of wine in France as it is to find one for less than 40 in the U.S. I wonder if your friends had a run of bad luck. Or if Burgundy is a special case.