Damian

I've often heard of this other Gifford's, but never tried it. I'd like to, their site looks great and makes the ice cream sound terrific. Seems like the Maine version of Gifford's ice cream was founded in 1980 using older family recipes. The Maryland Gifford's has been in operation since the 1930s. MD Gifford's is much more of a boutique operation and does not sell, and never has sold, to retail outlets outside of its own ice cream parlors as Gifford's of Maine appears to do. Interesting coincidence of names however. Not sure if I posted this before, but here is the link to Gifford's in Bethesda. www.Giffords.com

I'm in on a sugar blitz. Re: Cakelove, I've met Warren on a few occasions through mutual friends he probably would not remember, he is a fasinating guy. I've sampled his cakes at a couple of those occasions and was suitably impressed. I wasn't aware he had a store until you mentioned the place and I looked it up. I figured it was his upon hearing the name and approximate location. Sounds like it is taking off, good to hear.

The best way to learn about Indian Food is read through all of the incredible contributions made by Suvir on the subject on his website and in these threads. The man is truly a fountain of knowledge and passion on the subject. My introduction to Indian food was through lamb and chicken dishes, especially curries, which feel somehow more Western, like spicy stews. Once you get an affinity and appreciation for that unique kind of spicing, then move on to the breads, the dhosas, and other unique specialties. I am somewhat new to a a desire for a more serious understanding and appreciation for Indian cuisine. Having had it throughout my life, I never having a real craving for information about it or for the food itself until recently coming in here and being exposed to Suvir's magical writings on the subject.

Thanks for the detailed post Rachel! I am more determined than ever to get to Craft.

I concur with Armand's being objectively barely acceptable, but my liking for it is more a product of having it as a staple for so many years that it is a familiar piece of home which I actually creave from time to time. I have not yet had Two Amys although reports from friends in the neighborhood give it high marks. I had forgotten Geppetto's, or however it was spelled, another of my favorites in Washington. Is it still around? I have virtually no contact with commercial Georgetown anymore. I also left out Faccia Luna which I haven't had in years (Rocklands is too tempting when I get to Glover Park). I was going to add Bertucci's, and it is passable, but I consider it a national (or at least regional) chain, and thus left it out. There's another pizza place in McLean that my wife's family always uses - I don't think they deliver - it's called Rocco's, maybe? Had some decent pies from there too, but they tended to get soggy with the addition of a few ingredients. DC is no one's pizza heaven. Then again, getting good pizza in New York (Manhattan at least) is not as easy as one would think. My woes with delivery pies here are well-documented in the NY thread.

I'd be interested to hear which pizzas you have tried in DC other than the national chains. Have you tried Two Amys or Pizzeria Paradiso? Armand's thin crust (not actually thin)? I have an affinity for Armand's because I grew up with it- especially the bready deep dish - but I do not kid myself into thinking it a paragon of pizza perfection. Tried Listrani's? I used to like the old Maggie's pizza quite a bit, and Alfio's (next to Rodman's on Wisconsin - now still in Friednship Heights) but that quality seems to have deteriorated a bit too.

Heresy! Actually, since the topic is bottled beers, the old Guinness bottles were pretty bad sinc ethey never had the proper carbonation and the stout always tasted a bit off. The new bottles, however, with the plastic device in them pour a smooth creamy Guinness right out of the bottle. Also, don't drink Guinness warm. I never had a warm one while in either Ireland or England for tht matter. It may surprise you to know that Guinness is practically a "light" beer. Lower alcohol content gives Guinness a 110 calorie count per 12oz. serving. That's roughly one calorie more per ounce than Miller Lite at 96/12 oz. Budweiser? 140. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale? 150. Anchor Steam? 145. Thus if by Karo syrup you mean heavy and cloying - Guinness is not your man. I will grant you that Guinness is sweet. Now, to each their own, and I won't begrudge you your dislike of the stuff. Just be aware that in certain circles, Guinness is mother's milk itself. Cheers!

Reeve's is not the greatest in terms of food, but it is a classic dowtown lunch joint. The waitresses and the strawberry pie, as you rightly observed are the heart of things. Malawry, I am enjoying our private conversation on the public message boards!

Link to another recent Blue Hill post for the sole purpose of continuity and organization. Click - Blue Hill This has been a test of the emergency organization system, feel free to resume your normal posting activity.

Interesting, I wonder if the building of the old Gifford's is still there at Sligo and Georgia or any evidence of its former presence. It was quite a landmark. Another landmark near there (which was even before my time - I've seen pictures only) was the polar bear frozen custard shop. From what I have been told through the years, it was in the shape of an igloo out of white plaster with bits of mirrored glass embedded in it. It had a polar bear scuplture out front that was rearing up with its claws in the air. There was another one on Georgia near the Missouri intersection in DC. Dale is a great store. My favorite place for music was the Library of Congress, they have everything and it can be xeroxed barring copyright restrictions. The woman who runs the Lib. Cong. music section is a composer / conductor. She rediscovered the score for the silent horror film classic Nosferatu and then conducted the National Symphony Orch. at Wolf Trap while the movie played on a huge screen - that was a great event. Come to think of it, the Lib. Cong. probably has some incredible food-related books as well. What an amazing, and underused, resource that place is.

Eating cigarettes and crying, heh, that kills me Stella. Don't eat those things, they'll do you in. Lots of good suggestions here, thanks to all who have posted.

I'm not prone to airsickness, so the occasional feeling sof lightness in the stomach from a quick maneuver don't bother me too much. I just remember the amazing greens and the dramatic views of the Mountain, the coast, and the canyon. I must have snapped a whole roll of film. What's the name of that burger place in Hanalei? Kind of a little stand near the mall? Never had one, but I remember the name being hilarious for some reason. There was also a laid back little place on the main road outside of Hanalei that did a pretty good breakfast if I recall.

Discussion on the Polonez thread has sparked my memories about Gifford's Ice Cream and Candies. Gifford's started out in Sliver Spring in the late 1930s and opened right on Wisconsin in Bethesda (may not have been their original Beth. location) shortly thereafter. Both locations closed in, gosh, the mid-80's, maybe. These were both classic ice cream parlors. I remember the Bethesda one best: huge glass windows and the old-fashioned soda fountains. Those in the know entered by the side door which was closer to the counter. They had wrought iron furniture with marble tops at the Silver Spring shop, even then probably to simulate an old-timey parlor feel. They had racks of glasses next to a water fountain with a long spout, you'd take a glass from the rack to drink water from the fountain. No occasion was complete without Giffords for dessert; Thanksgiving, Birthdays, Christmas. The best of all were summer evenings when it was still light out after Dad got home from work and we'd had dinner. Often it would be the good humor truck ringing its bells that would cause someone to say "Gifford's?" That was all it would take to get everyone outside into the evening air filled with the sound of cicadas and into the car for the quick trip to ice cream heaven. Thanksgiving always had O'Donnell's turtle soup (served with a splash of sherry) to start and pumpkin pie with Giffords for dessert. A digression on O'Donnell's turtle soup. My grandfather ordered it for Thanksgiving every year for decades. Eventually, they removed it from the menu. Sometime during that span I remember being given the task to order it one year and being told that they didn't have it anymore. I then heard a voice saying "Wait!" in the background. Someone older got on the phone and asked to whom they were speaking. When I identified myself, he said they would have our family's soup ready for me when I went to pick it up. I never knew if it was just that this person (the chef? the manager?) knew my grandfather's name or whether there were other Washignton families for whom O'Donnell's snapper soup was a tradition and it was something they made off-menu. O'Donnell's Seafood Restaurant was never a great eatery by any means, but it was kind of an institution with two Washington locations that closed, a later Bethesda location that eventually closed, and, I'm told, a new location out in Gaithersburg - all run by the same family over three generations. Our family tradition changed somewhat with the passing of my grandfather, I wonder if they still have the old recipe for turtle soup - if they do, and if I was still in the area, I'd cheerfully return their loyalty by driving to Gaithersburg for it. In fact, next Thanksgiving, I think I'll find out. End of digression, back to Giffords The classic Giffords ice cream flavors were Chocolate Chip, Coffee, White House Cherry Vanilla, Butter Pecan, and Swiss Chocolate. There were the other usual suspects, and some unique ones, including one with almonds, but those are the ones that I remember best. Three scoop banana splits with the works were a house specialty - served in heavy glass dishes. They had lots of candies, but the caramels are what I remember. The caramels were large (two bites or more) soft and chewy at the same time. Some had nuts in them, some were chocolate. They came wrapped in yellow wax paper twisted at the ends. These were regular components in Christmas stockings (along with Hannukah gelt for some odd reason my mother never really explained - I suspect it was because she bought it one year on a whim while at Wagshall's Deli without knowing the Jewish implications, and it just stuck). I remember going with the family for a final visit to the Bethesda Giffords before it closed. I had my favorite, swiss chocolate. Dad had a banana split and a long face. I remember him saying remember how this tastes because you won't have anything like it again. How great when the revived location opened in that awful parking lot location. It was not the same as a destination - it never felt like a place you wanted to while away an hour eating ice cream, drinking water, laughing away a summer evening, and then going back to the counter to buy candies for later. The ice cream, however, was still great. Handpacked pints and quarts have once again become a staple for family occasions. Swiss chocolate, that unique, creamy, very delicate chocolate flavor that I thought I'd never taste again is once again more than just a sense memory. I hope the new location will revive Giffords as a destination and revive the caramels. Those old ice cream recipes are great, Gifford's has always credited its high butterfat content. The handmade quality seems to still be there. Another great institution was the University Pastry Shop on Wisconsin and Macomb, two doors down from the old Zebra Room pizza joint / bar, and next to a flower shop (in the approximate location of the present Cafe Deluxe (the bar side)). My mother grew up near there and worked at the UPS during Summers from high school and when she commuted to college at Catholic U. Mr. Andrewchuk was the baker (patissier somehow doesn't fit). Rows and rows of cookies including the specialty, chocolate leaves, along with cakes, pies and sweet rolls. Chocolate leaves were very thin cookies in the shape of oak leaves and coated with dark chocolate on one side. They were about as big as your palm but long and thin rather than round. They also sold a few flavors of ice cream, the best being a very yellow french vanilla (in retrospect, this was pretty commercial stuff). Once when our grade school was having its annual fair shortly after Easter, Mom bought a cake in the shape of an egg and gave it to weatherman Willard Scott, in front of the UPS to promote the fair on TV. It never occurred to me then, but she was really promoting the UPS for Mr. Andrewchuk and using her PTA duties as an excuse to kill two with one. My sisters and I would walk in there with Mom, usually after a visit to Dr. Lang, the dentist up the street on Wisconsin who was Mom's childhood dentist too. Why visit an ice-cream and pastry shop after visiting the dentist? Because Dr. Lang was no idiot, he had a deal with UPS, a deal made in the tooth fairy's version of hell no doubt. After every dental visit, he'd give you a gift certificate to UPS good for one free cone. The certificate was the same color as the french vanilla, do you need further proof of the hand of Satan in this? My mother's father died when she was young. But the neighborhood was a very close, and surprisingly diverse, community back then. Mr. Andrewchuk had been running his pastry shop since before my mother was born, he knew her, and all the neighborhood children, like his own. Mr. Andrewchuk was an old man when I knew him, he would greet us with smiles and hugs (he smelled like flour and sugar), give us our cones (french vanilla of course after staring at the oxymoronic yellow bravery certificate for the two blocks on the way over there) and slip us each a chocolate leaf that inevitably melted all over our grubby hands despite the tissue it came in. The shop closed soon after Mr. Andrewchuk died, I can't remember if he owned it, but he was its heart and soul. Dr. Lang started giving away toys he'd buy from Sullivan's Toy Store across the street. While a plastic paratrooper with a working chute or a styrofoam delta wing plane launched via rubber band made you the hit of the Annunciation School playground for a few minutes, I'd have traded twenty of both for one of Mr. Andrewchuk's chocolate leaves. How about it? Any other Washington traditions come to mind? I've got memories associated with so many places from my hometown, but here are a few names that may spark some conversation. M.E. Swings coffee shop Reeve's restaurant and bakery on G Street Ben's Chili Bowl Sherrill's Bakery The Roma Restaurant The Tune Inn Wagshall's Deli Market Lunch Florida Avenue Grill Crisfields Hot Shoppes (gone) University Pastry Shop (gone) DGS grocery stores Heller's Bakery

Hmmm, Can't help you with the fruit identification. I wonder if it is in the old Gifford's spot. Is it on the corner of Georgia and Sligo? That's where my recollection has the old Gifford's. It's possible that Polonez has been around long enough that it overlaps with Gifford's and is thus in a different location. My familiarity with Silver Spring is far from perfect. I'll start a new thread on Giffords and their candies to keep things legit. The family caramel maker who sold out of Woodies sounds familiar, that's probably the one I am thining of. The name starts with a "V" if I am not mistaken.

Sounds like fun, Beachy. I've been to the Hanalei Dolphin a couple of times. I agree with you that simply prepared fish is the way to go there, we had a pleasant enough meal there about two years ago - I couldn't tell you what it was, local fish to be sure. Are you doing any hiking? We hiked up to the waterfall up from the first beach on the Napaali trail and did some hiking in Waimea canyon - just beautiful. Beach, hiking, golf, fresh simple food, stunning scenery, gorgeous weather, friendly people - what is there not to love about Kauai? The coolest thing we did was the helicopter tour not far from Princeville. Expensive, but wow - thrillingly beautiful experience. Enjoy!

Thanks Malawry! Any sens of how long this place has been around? I'm a multigeneration Washingtonian and have never heard of it. Not that I know every single food store in town, but I'm genuinely surprised that something like this was below the radar if its been around for a long time. The awning said "ice cream" on the side? Did it have the name of the deli on the front? The location on Georgia (although I confess that I don't know where 8113 would be (DC? Sil. Spring?)) makes me think it might be at the old Giffords ice cream location. Giffords had a blue and white logo. Speaking of Giffords (off-topic, so sorry), is the revived location in Bethesda still doing well? The Giffords ice cream recipes are a true Washington treasure. They used to make other kinds of sweets as well, especially these wonderful soft caramels. Isn't there another old family place in DC that makes old fashioned candy? (God, I really am off-topic very very sorry - ignore at will!)

I'd rather bite the poularde, thanks, or the snapper.

Wilfrid, Not to burst your delusions of extrasensory powers, but Jordyn linked to the article earlier in this thread. But go ahead and revel in your karmic superhero diner fantasy if you like, I'm sure none of us will mind.

I am stunned. I could read posts like that forever and never get enough.

Had dinner at Gotham Bar and Grill last night on the spur of the moment after finding out that an old friend was in town. We stopped by GT around 8:15 hoping they might have space in the front room, no such luck - the place was packed out. We then passed up Patria which looked like it had some empty tables and sauntered over to GB&G. Hostess said 15 min. for a table with no reservations - we said great. 40 min. later, we were seated, beggars can't be choosers and things can be unpredictable, but argh. The meal was simple but absolutely delicious. I started with tuna tartare an assemblage over a ring of thin baby cucumber slices each with a dot of a spicy sauce (seemed like wasabi and balsamico, but I couldn't be sure) three crostini spikes imprisoned a crown of frisee on top. This dish was almost too beautiful to eat - like a work of art (don't start!), but was better in the eating than the viewing. Silky smooth fatty tuna, melted like butter. My companion had the linguine special to start served with chunks of lobster tail in what appeared to be a tomato sauce. He was very happy with it, and it looked great. He then had a NY Strip and I had a Niman Ranch pork chop served on the bone with polenta, wilted spinach, and braised vegetables and plums all surrounded by a thin gravy of plums and red wine (not sticky sweet as one would imagine, more savory and "au jus" in appearance and texture). This was a terrific cut of meat - thick, nicely crusted on the outside and juicy and firm on the inside. It was not served pink or underdone, but was not at all dry. The benefits of nicely marbled pork to be sure. I'd go back just for this. The accompaniments didn't do too much for me, plums and pork are a nice combo, but how exciting can polenta and wilted spinach be? I'd go back for that chop though, just delicious. With dinner, a decent bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape (not sure of the label or vintage, sorry my friend picked it out) and couple of capuccinos rounded things out. Service was friendly and informal (no touching, don't get me wrong.). All in all, a pretty good excursion for a last-minute Monday night.

Peter. Argh. I feel your pain.

Also 55th between 6th and 5th (right around the corner from the LOVE sculpture on 6th and 55th). Just had a "Coronation Chicken" sandy from there today. Good, not great...reminds of the Brit sandwiches in London - couldn't find cheese and pickle or Brie and apple, however. Skip the fruit salad, my healthy addition in lieu of chips, mealy and overripe fruit.

Cindy, believe it or not, your chocolate and mint drink is called a "Thin Mint" in many places - in other places, especially when served as a shooter, it's known as a "Dirty Girl Scout." Tia Maria or Godiva can be substituted for your chocolate cookie liqueur.

Sandymalloy-Good to see I'm not the only one in this group who has sustained the thumb-webbing "bagel slicer's lament" injury. Mine was none to serious; however, a good friend who happens to be an ER doc told me that this injury shows up at least once a weekend almost without fail. i haven't done it, but I'll bet a check of the "web" will show that this is a pretty common phenomenon. My real slicer injury came on Christmas morning at the hands of my grandfather's brand-new folding fish filet blade. Couldn't this new little beauty open without some serious leverage given the stiffness of the as-yet unused hinge. Upon opening it, instantaneously cut an inch-long gash into the knuckle partly severing a tendon and losing close to a pint of blood in the process. Christmas morning in the emergency room! Cheesed off grand-dad! Happy freakin' holidays. On a positive note, have since used the same knife to filet live fish right into Captain Martin O'Berry's proprietary beer-batter, so the venerable Captain (a Chesapeake legend and former Navy Seal) could quickly fry them up and serve them while we were still fishing. Flounder, blue, spot, croaker, perch, they all tasted the same - absolutely incredible.

You can probably find Gongura leaves right here in New York. They pronounce it "Ganja." Just walk to a street corner that isn't very well-lighted and ask whomever you find there for it by saying the name of the vessel you want to cook it in, for most people that is "pot." I am told that it is expensive, and that once you finish eating it you will be hungry for the classic American lunchtime snack made of fried and puffed corn coated with cheese powder known locally as Cheetos. Also, the police really like these leaves so be careful that no police are around when you buy them or they will take them from you. Also, be careful not to burn the leaves or the whole neighborhood will know that you are "smoking the ganja" and will begin behaving in strange ways to let you know that they are on to you. "Smoking the ganja" will also likely bring the police. Good luck and good hunting. Make sure you have some Cheetos handy or possibly some dry Lucky Charms cereal.