MC Horoscope

BCC Restaurant Week at Jaleo is only $25 for dinner. Wonder if it's the same menu at $5 off?!?

If so, it's an even better deal this time. I'd call and ask.

We enjoyed Jaleo in Bethesda for DC Restaurant Week:

http://www.donrockwell.com/index.php?s=&am...ost&p=65802

We really enjoyed our Restaurant Week outing there on Thursday night!

Pickled vegetables, bread and olive oil, and gazpacho were quickly delivered.

My wife's three dishes were Apple and Manchego cheese salad, Boneless rib of pork with slow cooked piquillo peppers, and chicken and ham fritters. For dessert she had a hazelnut torte. My dishes were Shredded salt cod fish with tomato, black olives and mixed greens; Sweet peppers stuffed with goat cheese and mushrooms; and Slow cooked piquillo pepper stew. For dessert I had flan with orange slices and an after dinner drink.

Not bad for the price! The only extra was for the Spanish beer I had.

Everything was good but the winners were the pork ribs, the salt codfish, the pepper stew (which was a bit oily but very sweet!), and the desserts. I am not usually a hazelnut fan, but that dessert was delicious.

They must have seen us coming -- service was very friendly and efficient. I think the second dish came out while I was still eating the first, but I didn't mind since that night we really didn't want to linger.

We'll definitely return!

Still thinking about going to the Bethesda location this Thursday for Restaurant Week. Gazpacho, your choice from the cold, seasonal, and hot plates, and dessert. Somebody tell me how good it can be, please! The latest reviews here are a bit discouraging!

It's the diminutive "ie" that makes the word unpalatable. Dookie; rookie; stoolie...every nickname for little kids Chuckie, Bobbie, Jamie...it can't be abided.

That's why I am a Foodhist. Peas to all things!

"Foodie" is fine with me. I don't associate it with "groupie" or "hippie" or anything like that. Besides, what do kids nowadays know about hippies and groupies? That was all PG (pre-Google), like 1996 or some forgotten age.

Recently Unearthed E-Mail Reveals What Life Was Like in 1995:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48970

As I have said many times in the past, this has to be the worst Internet dating service I have ever seen!

On the other hand, the conversation about food and restaurants is informative and often times funny. Thanks for a great year!

I was there last year. It may be good enough for the presidents, but not my family!

Lovely area up in Thurmont!

Nothing memorably good or bad about Cozy as I recall. Just a yawn. Boy, I hope this doesn't yank me into the Criticizing thread!

When there is a local industry, yes, it is important to me to support local aquaculture. It's done in Louisiana with its strong crawfish industry that was in recent years threatened by the importation of crawfish from China flooding the market and upsetting the price structure. The state government stepped in with some regulations, if I remember correctly. Packagers went to work right away with stamps like "Louisiana crawfish."

Are there similar issues in our area? Crabs?

On an unrelated note, why didn't the Eastern Shore crawfish industry take off? Was it because there is no tradition of cooking crawfish in the home here? I swear that land looks like the SW LA prairies and could be a big producer, but I am not sure which species.

That back room reminded me of the "kooky little space" that had live music at the defunct Half Moon Barbecue in Silver Spring! They ought to consider live music there now and then.

Really enjoyed the pizza! Nice, salty crust. Is it whole wheat? My wife thought it might be whole wheat.

Service was friendly and efficient for us at 6:30 on Friday.

Thanks for the directions. We had no problem getting there or parking in the lot behind the building off Nebraska.

How is the parking in that neighborhood? I am coming from Silver Spring and from MapQuest I reckon it's down Connecticut near that first circle as you enter DC, no?

Man cannot live by bread component alone. There must also be secret sauce and fried potatoes from Gaul.

"Have you tried John Hagen's Tavern on Braddock Heights Road?

It's an historic tavern (one of those places where George Washington slept, and the officers of both the Union and Confederacy spent the night before the battle).

Not bar food. 20 dollar entrees."

(quoting my own post at eGullet Sept. 10, 2005)

A lady on eGullet dissed her employer, who somehow got wind of it, and she got fired! It happens.

Now, I think it might be a hat in the manner of Arch Campbell, and

camera angles that never reveal his identity.

We all loved Arch Campbell's hats!

A real Rindercella story....

I think the time stamp problem is the reason today I always get the flood control message when I click View New Posts. Is anyone else experiencing that?

There has also been a thread on South Street Steaks, a Philly style cheesesteak place some of us like a lot.

8. Exit the bar briskly and silently.

That's it. I am going to have a t-shirt printed up that reads "I ambled loudly out the PX," to go along with my "I talked out of turn at the Birchmere" t-shirt.

The beauty of a copyright is that ...

Yeah, but the ugly side is the loss for the public domain. They really should have passed a private law for Disney et al. so that they could still cash in on Mickey Mouse, instead of gumming up the works for the entire copyright system with the Sonny Bono act and those impossibly long terms. Oh well, it didn't happen that way.

Anyway, are the practical barriers really that great? NCPinDC seems to suggest otherwise.

It would be a different world. If there had been a patent for blackened redfish, we might have all had to go down to KPaul's Kitchen to experience it! Some of the mutations of the dish that I have experienced would have likely never seen a menu in places like Riverdale. Ultimately a chilling effect, IMO. PS. Don't get blackened (or brightened) redfish in Riverdale, except at somebody's house!

A dish on a plate as a work of art enjoying copyright protection? Maybe. But I don't think that's what chefs want. They want their creations, new dishes, to have protection, or they at least want the credit.

I bet a lot of you missed this because we arrived around 3:30 and y'all looked like, well, pigged out by then! I mean that in a nice way. Try it at home. I just added some jalapeno and cayenne peppers from the garden, maybe more than I should have.

Ground Beef, Sausage, and Cabbage Jambalaya

(Makes 6 main-dish or 20 side dish servings)

From The Prudhomme Family Cookbook, Darilee and Saul’s recipe

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 ½ pounds ground beef

1 pound andouille sausage (preferred) or any other good smoked sausage such as kielbasa, cut into ¾ inch slices

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne)

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups chopped green bell peppers

2 cups chopped onions

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped green onions (tops only)

½ cup packed, chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 10 oz cans Rotel or other liquidy tomatoes

7 cups coarsely chopped cabbage (1 large or 2 small)

4 ¾ cups beef or pork stock (if you don’t make your own, get the one with low sodium)

2 cups uncooked rice (preferably converted rice)

Place the oil in a heavy 6 quart saucepan or large Dutch oven. Add the beef and place over high heat, breaking up meat into small chunks. Add the sausage and cook until the ground beef is browned, about 5 minute, stirring occasionally and continuing to break up the meat chunks. Stir in the salt and the red and black peppers; cook about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the bell peppers, onions, celery, green onions, parsley, and garlic; cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the tomatoes and cook and stir about 2 minutes.

Now add the cabbage and do not stir. Cover pan and cook about 25 minutes, stirring only occasionally after mixture on the bottom of the pan has browned and then scraping the pan bottom well. Stir in about 1 ½ cups of the stock, scraping pan bottom until all browned sediment is dissolved. Cook uncovered about 15 minutes, stirring and scraping occasionally. Add 1 ½ cups more stock, stirring until all sediment is dissolved from pan bottom, then stir in the remaining 1 ¾ cups stock. Add the rice, stirring well.

Cover pan, reduce heat to very low, and cook about 25 minutes. Check after 20 minutes to make sure mixture is not scorching. Remove pan from heat and let sit covered until rice is tender, about 25 minutes. Stir well and serve immediately.

What are the barriers to getting a patent for a newly invented dish?

It sounds like what they want is a patent. If you invent a new dish, brightened redfish, you want to protect it so that you have the sole (sic) right to make it, at least for a while, and maybe license others the right to make it or adapt it. Later, "ownership" expires and it becomes part of the public domain.

That collards recipe looks good! Do you think it would work with Swiss chard? I have a lot of it in my garden still.

The durability of the tangible medium in which the work of authorship is fixed is unimportant. One could carve a potato and claim that it was a sculputural work eligible for copyright protection. And with regard that particular potato, if the sculptor wanted to diplay it in a museum, it probably would be eligible under Section 102a5.

I think the durability issue is one of the keys. It hasn't often been adressed because there has seldom been the audacity to suggest copyright for perishables, as commonly understood. Someone at SCOTUS is bound to ask, "Would it be logical for us to set a copyright term of the lifetime of the author plus 75 years for something perishable like food on a plate? Don't all the other classes of works that can be copyrighted endure more than this?" I think durability would certainly be a key issue.

The copyright regime is largely based on the idea of land and its lasting quality, and its scarcity. We want to give some protection to intellectual things that last, so a regime was created to give ownership-like rights.

But I agree with the poster, would this be good for the industry? I doubt that it would promote creativity. Creativity abounds in the industry, regardless of copyright.

Credit where credit is due seems more like a plagiarism issue to me. I don't know.

The durability of the tangible medium in which the work of authorship is fixed is unimportant. One could carve a potato and claim that it was a sculputural work eligible for copyright protection. And with regard that particular potato, if the sculptor wanted to diplay it in a museum, it probably would be eligible under Section 102a5.

This would be contested, I am sure, on the basis of the absurdities that follow. After consumption, one's waste would be a derivative work, to which the consumer held no rights.

When we were discussing the issue of photographing in restaurants, the chef claimed it was the plated dish that was copyrighted. It wasn't the recipe that couldn't be photographed but the actual food. (Of course, she would want to protect the written recipe as well).

I don't think a plated dish would qualify for protection because it is not tangible enough, does not endure, will be consumed or else spoil. That's all I meant.