It's time for DonRockwell.com to have a compendium of places to go to buy fine foods: the stuff you'd want to give as gifts, or the stuff that's hard to find, or the stuff that regular grocery stores don't carry. Let's put our heads together and develop a list. I'll volunteer to put it all together after we brainstorm. Where do you go to find the unusual? Here's a start:

Dean and Deluca
The Store Formerly Known as Sutton Pace Gourmet
Cheesetique

Where else?

full disclosure: I need new ideas for Christmas shopping. help!

Can we open it up to questions on where to find such specialty items? Say....duck fat, as a good, entirely random example. Ideally by Friday night?

Start here.

Julia Watson lurks here, but has so far resisted my entreaties to join and post.

Shogun, if you needed it by Wednesday of next week, I could bring you back some from my trip on Sunday. I could just buy it at Monoprix or Auchan.

For duck, Super Fresh in Annapolis has a d'Artagnan (sp?) cold box with duck confit, duck fat, breasts, etc.

I believe that I saw some at Wegman's in Fairfax too.

For Italian goodies try the Italian Store, lunch is a bonus, nice wines good basic Italian things. For the gourmet side try DiBruno Bros. out of Philly they have an online store and if you can see the original store in Little Italy, you are in for a treat. Great Cheeses, great selection of products.

I haven't been there since I quit, but Market Salamander in Middleburg went out of its way to bring in unique foodie gifts and built a pretty strong cellar.

This is probably old news, but recently discovered that the Brookville Market in Cleveland Park carries a whole bunch of D'Artagnan goodies (duck, duck fat, venison, sausages, demi glace, etc).

Super Fresh, near AU, also carries some D'Artagnan products.

MOM in Jessup stocks some D'Artagnan products and will special order stuff for you with advanced notice.

Okay, this is blowing my own trumpet, but if you want to know where find any food stuffs - familiar, unfamiliar, weird, and just wonderful (including D'Artagnan products) - for cooking and eating in the greater Washington area, log on to my web site http://www.eatWashington.com. It's also got DC chef profiles and recipes.

Seen today on the shelf at Balducci's on New Mexico Ave. in orange Balducci's brand tins:
fennel pollen
lavender
juniper berries