hannnah

They have ham biscuits on Georgia Brown's Sunday brunch buffet - not that I would go just for the ham biscuits, but they're there nonetheless. I've seen them more often from caterers than on various restaurants' menus, though.

It's that good. We did our 2nd anniversary dinner there in March. The tasting menu is a nice mix of dishes off the "Tradizione" and "Evoluzione" menus. If I had to choose one favorite, I'd have to go with the carpaccio - it was stunning, although I'm told the baby goat chops were pretty damn good (they must have been, I didn't get to try them!) If you can get a kitchen view table, do - it's great fun to watch your dinner come together. Bear in mind that the 7-course option ends up being a LOT of food, what with amuses and pre-desserts and mignardises; if you're not looking to be stuffed by the end the 5-course might be a better option. Oh, and the $200 for the room is just about worth it for the bed alone.

Except that they are in fact Asiatic water buffalo, which aren't native to Italy either (but were imported from Asia around the 7th century). So there's no reason that someone can't have an imported herd of the same animals locally, in which case you'd have your mozzarella di bufala. This is not to say that there is such a herd, but it's quite possible.

She may have been a sports editor, but not the sports editor - the current Post sports editor started in 2003, and the prior one was there for 27 years. As far as sports+food, sports reporters generally eat pretty well - they're almost always fed in the press room. And there's no shortage of "x arena/x stadium has really good/bad food and here's why" kind of talk. It's not a huge leap from doing that in conversation to doing it in print, if you're already in the newspaper business and you're interested in it. Plus, you don't have to spend nearly as much time coming up with synonyms for "won" and "lost" in the food section.

It's been a few years since we were there, but I'd go back to both Galyn's Galley (good seafood with a little more variety than just lobster and chowder) and the Jordan Pond House in the national park (for the popovers). One of the local microbreweries does a nifty blueberry beer as well, which we were calling "liquid muffin" by the end of the trip. Dave insists that I point out that popovers are just Yorkshire puddings with jam. They're good, either way. Contact info for Galyn's Jordan Pond House

Vi-dale-yah. (i as in pie, a as in sale) I'd do exactly what you're doing - they roast/bake wonderfully well, and they're great raw. I wouldn't try to make French onion soup with them; they don't come out right when they're caramelized - I assume because of the higher water content. Light sauteing seems to work though - I've subbed them for shallots in the Julia and Jacques sauteed green beans with tasty results.

I still fail to understand why there's a prevailing opinion that "fresh" or "natural" or "organic" foods can't have salt in them. I'd rather have food with the right amount of salt added to flavor it during the cooking process than to try to correct the lack of saltiness at the table. That's one of the things I like about Chipotle - they're taking a good ingredient (the Niman Ranch pork) and cooking it so that it tastes good rather than worrying about an arbitrary high or low amount of salt. They're not marketing it as macrobiotic health food. It's still fast food. It's ok if it has salt. Now, if they were implying in their marketing that the burritos are healthier than regular fast food, a la the Burger King/Bayless fiasco, then there'd be cause for complaint. As far as I can tell, though, their current marketing campaign involves intentionally bad songs about burritos, which don't mention a word about health. Or salt, for that matter.

Um, an aureole is the big gold shiny halo thing around saints' heads in medieval pictures. You're thinking of an areola.

Gotta love those carnitas. What I think is coolest, though, are the semi-industrial aluminum and plywood Mayan petroglyphs. I want one for my house.

Behold, the Washington Post Food Section Digest for May 12, 2004 What's Natural? Natural vs. artificial flavors - they all come from a lab. Some of the "natural" flavors are more artificial than you'd think - Robert Wolke discusses some of the processes behind the wonders of modern flavor chemistry. The Best of Spring In a Soup Bowl: You can have good homemade vegetable soup even if it's hot outside - just choose your veggies wisely and keep the flavors light. Shelf Awareness: How can you tell how old that bottle of Worcestershire sauce that's been with you through three apartments and two significant others? Just look at the date code. A guide to the differences between sell-by, use-by, expiration, and best-by dates, and a PDF chart of pantry items' approximate shelf life are provided. Sundays with George: Food Network has caved and put on a low-carb cooking show. Fortunately, it's not terrible. Dinner in 25 Minutes: Spicy Tomato, Fennel, and Orange Sauce with Seafood. Current minutes count - 5 weeks with, 4 without. Today's Tip: Wash the wax and other assorted detritus off your fruit before you zest. Book Report - A Meal Observed, by Andrew Todhunter. Description of a soup-to-nuts dinner at Paris's Taillevent, written by a former apprentice in their kitchen. Fruit Pureeists Can Appreciate: Jarred fruit purees from a Napa Valley supplier, now available for the home kitchen. Brush Up: Don't destroy your nicely seasoned carbon steel wok by using a scouring pad - the traditional bamboo wok brush works just fine. To Do: An Armenian food festival, Italian cooking class, and French wine dinner. Have Your Pick of the Area's Farmers Markets: The yearly listing of farmers' markets in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Market Watch - Fingerling Potatoes: Boiled, pan-fried, roasted, or grilled, try these irregularly shaped oblongs of potatoey goodness. Food Staff Credits: The women and men behind the curtain. Location, Location, Location: This week's wine column is a Q&A - how much is a Chateau de la Riviere, 1982 Fronsac worth, and how does one wade through Texas' esoteric wine shipping regulations? The Weekly Dish: James Beard Awards wrapup - kudos to Ann Cashion for winning Best Chef/Mid-Atlantic, to Ben's Chili Bowl for being named one of America's Classics, and to Robert Egger of the DC Central Kitchen, named the Beard Foundation's Humanitarian of the Year. Foraging - Where Rice is Nice: The different kinds of rice at Rice, on 14th St. NW. Boilerplate: the Nutritional Analysis and Behind Every Recipe blurbs that ran a couple of weeks ago. I sense an impending Food Section FAQ. Chat with Tom: Help for the lobster-obsessed, fill-in-the-blank poetry, more whining about "Tom-only-reviews-expensive-places," more reader smackdown of same.

Blame the pandas. We're all frustrated because there ain't been no panda lovin'.

Never mind the toenails - what about the hairy Hobbit toes? EWWWW!

It's not fake, but it's not precisely British either. Best guess, after some back and forth with the TiVo, is either someplace like the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, or, at the outside, New Zealand.

Nothing we haven't seen before... Why not have restaurants that no one's allowed to go into? That way no one's inconvenienced by anyone else's dogs, children, iguanas, cicadas, poor hygiene, bad habits, stinky perfume, footwear, lack of stick-thinness, or gaucheness in daring to order chardonnay.

Unfortunately, that weekend isn't good for us.

Oh, most definitely. I got violent stomach flu in college after a lovely lunch of cheese (don't remember what kind, but it was pretty unremarkable and definitely nonstinky), ham, and Carr's water biscuits. The nice ladies at the infirmary confirmed that it was a bug going around and had absolutely nothing to do with what I'd eaten that day. Unfortunately, my subconscious decided it was the water biscuits that made me ill. So I'm in the unfortunate position of wanting to retch every time I see water biscuits, possibly the most inert foodstuff known to humankind. If they're the only option presented with cheese, I skip the crackers entirely - generally works out OK as long as the cheese isn't too squishy.

Washington Post Food Section Digest, May 5, 2004 Fabio Trabocchi Has His Own Way of Looking at Italian Food: From carpaccio with tofu to tiny goat rib chops to diver scallops with cod and pea puree, the chef at Maestro puts his own spin on Italian regional cuisine - and it's gotten him recognition in the form of a Beard Rising Star nomination. The Pulverizer: Meet the molcajete - Mexican cooking's answer to the food processor. Sidebars include how to season and clean one, and what to make in one - salsas and guacamole. Like Mother, Like Daughter: Moms are the most important influence on their children's eating habits - for good and bad. Elegant Bug Warfare: Garden Incense to drive away the no-see-ums. Consider the Source: Parmigiano vs. Pecorino - which to use when. Dinner in 25 Minutes: Pasta with Asparagus and Fried Eggs. And minutes! Golly Pops: Barley-sugar butterfly lollipops, for bridal or baby shower favors, or maybe just your best Kojak impersonation. To Do: Clyde's Strawberry Festival and cooking demos galore. Today's Food Tip: If you don't have a molcajete or a spice grinder, put seeds or spices in a plastic bag and whack them into submission with a meat mallet, rolling pin, or heavy skillet. Defined: Collywobble: From Merriam Webster's Word of the Day. Sweet and Pure: Piloncillo sugar from Mexico - for use with your molcajete. Cookbook Honors: Results of the IACP Cookbook Awards. The Weekly Dish: Silver Spring's Red Dog Cafe. It's not named after bad beer - there really is a red dog. Also, Poste gets a new chef, Robert Weland, by way of Guastavino in New York. www.HassleFreeDinners.com: An online subscription service for meals, recipes, and shopping lists. Nebbiolos Meet Barbaresco: The magical synergy between the Nebbiolo grape and the Barbaresco and Barolo regions in Italy - from those two places the wine is wonderful, from everywhere else it's crap. Michael Franz discusses Barbarescos, and will cover the Barolos in a couple of weeks. Tom's Chat: Mother's Day brunches, overly perfumed diners, the best pizza sauce, and cicada kebabs. Grapevine chat: Austrian wines, Spiegelau glassware, various food pairings.

Washington Post Food Section digest for April 28, 2004. Yeah, I know it's a week late. Blame Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Toasts of the Town: Things to do with day-old (or older) bread. Croutons! Fried bread! Breadcrumbs! Bread sauce! Bread pudding! French toast! Melba toast! Bruschetta! Miso Goes Mainstream: Wonderful savory miso goes well in anything from the traditional miso soup to vinaigrettes, barbecue sauces, and even peanut butter sandwiches. Sidebars include a guide to the different types of miso, a short history of miso, and recipes - miso soup, dashi (soup stock), miso-marinated cod, citrus-miso vinaigrette, wilted greens with miso-tamarind sauce, miso-rice porridge, and miso-peanut butter sandwiches. Confessions of a Bride: Lunatic decides to make her own wedding cake, despite various disasters and cats with an unusual fondness for royal icing. She even provides helpful tips, in case you too are a lunatic. Where Creamed Corn's a Welcome Treat: Local diplomatic wives learn about local culture and regional cooking - including crab cakes and the aforementioned creamed corn. Book Report: A 50th anniversary reissue of MFK Fisher's "The Art of Eating." USDA's Nutrient Database Feast Your Eyes: Edible elements of floral arrangements - including artichokes, raspberries, and asparagus. Food Tip: Adding a couple of layers of newspaper under the paper towels helps to soak up the grease from fried food. Generations of fish and chip shops can't be wrong. Up Rights: Use standup photo clip holders to hold recipe cards. Dinner in Minutes - Lamb Chops Vert Pre. No minutes again, but the cooking times are so variable in this week's recipe it'd have to be "Dinner in 22-40 Minutes," which would just be untidy. Weekly Dish: Tom visits Le Paradou. Pass the Ginger Salad: Ginger salad recipe from Spices in Cleveland Park. Let the Fun Begin: "Fun wines" - mostly Australians with aboriginal art on the label such as Yellow Tail - are the latest thing. Market Watch: Fava beans. Tom's Weekly Chat: He's never seen Iron Chef. Most of the posters are whining about something - including Lithuanian boiled pig's ears.

Just let us know when.

If it were me, I'd seriously consider the fruity drinks at TenPenh. Expensive, but very tasty. And they go well with the spring rolls.

Y'know, that was what I kept thinking for the brief amount of 10.5 I watched: "Low budget made-for-TV Armageddon." Bring back Rocco - same amount of melodrama, slightly less overacting.

We still get takeout every couple of weeks. Quality now is the same as it was at the start, they're just a little faster - as I said back in March, the wait is generally for more chicken to come out of the fryer. They don't fry huge batches and let the chicken sit under a heat lamp for hours. For at least the seventh time, no one is saying that it's the best chicken in the entire world. I just read back through the entire thread, and I don't see anyone claiming that it's the most wonderful chicken ever, just that it's very good for what it is.

I thought it was funny.

This is semi-off-topic, but why would vegetarians object to Crisco? It's vegetable shortening.

I can't resist -- would these by any chance be VENTWORM NUT crackers??? Nah, just regular old nuts. I'm sure there's an untapped market niche for ventworm nut crackers though. Or perhaps ventworm nutcrackers?