V.H.

The beef jerky here is top notch, very tender and flavorful. What I really enjoyed though was the cuttlefish jerky. Sweet, spicy, and tender but with just the right amount of chew. I appreciate that everything is sold by weight, more opportunities to try different items.

I saw packages of salted duck egg yolks today at Great Wall. It was maybe 10 yolks for $5.99. Are they for congee?

I believe this is a New England thing. My coworker's wife is from Massachusetts and I remember him saying something about always ordering the seafood stew at a restaurant for the blueberry muffin alone.

El Chapparel across from the Clarendon Whole Foods has it in their meat case. Just saw it there last week.

Lebanese Butcher Shop and Halaco should both have it and are located just about across the street from each other in Falls Church.

I've been buying basa at Hmart and it is popular at our house as well. I cut a knob of ginger into matchsticks, mince 3 cloves of garlic, and saute that in a little veg oil. Add maybe a quarter cup of soy, a teaspoon of sugar, a tablespoon of red pepper paste and about 3-4 green onions, thinly sliced. We add about 1.5 pounds of basa to this and cook the fish in the sauce. The soy gives the fish a beautiful color and it's great served with rice and a green veggie.

I have one of these pans. Sometimes I put a little batter in, dollop of filling, and then a little more batter. It's a fun pan and I'm getting faster at cooking these but it's not something I'd want to do for a crowd, just too time consuming.

They are not quite open again yet. My daughter goes to Saturday school down the street from there and we saw the "Coming Soon" sign open in a space across the street from Halalco. I peered in and it looks like they are starting to move in their refrigerator cases. I'm hoping that perhaps next weekend?

Meals in Asheville over the last two weeks: Breakfast at Tupelo Honey-great biscuits, homemade black raspberry jam, entrees were HUGE, tasty, and did we mention HUGE? I ordered the kid's little sweet potato pancakes for my two year old and what he got were two eight inch wide, half inch thick rounds of yumminess. Dinner at Early Girl Eatery- you need to get the braised local lamb shank, so awesome. I'd skip dessert though, we were not impressed with the slice of German chocolate cake we got to go. Dinner at Lexington Ave Brewery-good beer, okay not great food. Two dinners at Bouchon, one with the kids and one without.-they were very sweet to our kids but the menu was a bit of a bust for my kids. Great frites and lots of stuff on the menu that we loved though. African Queen dessert is not to be missed and Mon-Wed are all you can eat moules nights. Really fun casual place. Thai Basil-okay Thai but not great by DC standards. It scratched our itch for something with rice though. Chocolate Fetish is locally acclaimed but I must be missing something, it was just okay. A little north of Asheville in a town called Weaverville is the Well-Bred Bakery. Go there. Order a bunch of desserts. Eat while enjoying their free wi-fi. Repeat every other day until your whole family is gloriously fat or your two week vacation is up, whichever comes first.

In Pascagoula, I try to get to Bozo's Grocery (2012 Ingalls Avenue) every time I'm in town. They've got a sandwich counter where you can get po-boys but I can't resist going to the back where the seafood counter is and getting a pound of crawfish boil. It's priced at something like $2.79 a pound but when you buy a pound, you are served a large scoop spicy crawfish that is usually somewhere between 1.5 to 2 pounds of crawfish. I usually split a po-boy with a coworker to go with my "pound" of crawfish. This place is great, with holes in the middle of the tables and large garbage cans underneath for you to drop your shells. I will admit though that I stay in Mobile so that I have better dinner options.

Me too. My two year old son does not like to touch wet things with his fingers so whole grapes it was/is. Let's see, lunch ideas that worked for us last year in first grade: -Homemade mini-challah rolls (make a big batch and freeze them, then take out a couple out as needed), buttered and stuffed with a couple slices of salami or prosciutto, or spread with Nutella -salami/tortilla roll ups, cut into pinwheels and skewered with fun picks -fresh fruit that's not too juicy because it gets messy in the lunch cube. Fruits that work for us include blueberries, whole grapes, strawberries that have been hulled but not cut up, apple slices or plum halves with a little Fruit Fresh rubbed on the cut edges to keep them from browning -edamame -corn cut off the cob (it still sticks together in large pieces that are easy to pick up with fingers) -blanched snow peas -cold chicken -carrot sticks with peanut butter for dipping -we're still doing milk in the thermos although when the weather turned hot she was asking for fruit juices and lemonade instead -pancakes, cut up with a little container of maple syrup -muffins (we make batches a couple times a month and freeze them, a frozen muffin will thaw by lunch time) -ham roll ups skewered with a fun pick -a small handful of cashews, almonds, or peanuts I'm a big softie and usually include a little treat of some sort, emphasis on little. They could be 4-5 M&M's, some chocolate covered raisins, a few chocolate chips mixed in with her cashews, or a small cookie. I'm with bookluvingbabe and just strive for a balanced lunch everyday without worrying about any particular component. This means that some days her lunches were an unorthodox combination like a banana muffin with a side of salami, edamame, and milk but it was balanced and all things she would eat. I love the idea of doing veggie sushi for lunch and will have to try that this year. I can't believe that school starts in another week and another year of packed lunches is ahead of me. At our public school in Arlington, most of the first graders wore still bringing their lunches although there were a few more who bought than last year in K. We did get a flyer from the cafeteria staff last year saying that they were in the process of outfitting the kitchen to allow them to cook lunches from scratch every day and that the more school lunches we bought, the faster they would achieve their goal. I talked to some other moms about it and the details seemed very vague so we weren't sure what to think.

My hubby and I would love to do this if there is space. Just came back from a 2 week vacation and saw this.

Roast pork buns... Mmmmmm... I also like to stir fry with Chinese broccoli

I'm in need of duck legs to make confit and would like to find a reasonably priced source for them in either DC or NoVa. Anyone have a source?

We stopped by tonight around 7pm and there were a couple of families there but overall it was pretty quiet. The sign at the register said cash only today and I didn't feel like finding an ATM so we were only able to buy a single pepperoni pizza. There was a nice char on the bottom of the pizza and the flavor was really fresh. Definitely a good option for the summer months when we can't stand cranking the oven to 500 degrees at home for pizza. I'm looking forward to getting back and trying more of the menu since everything coming out of that oven looked great.