treznor

I certainly agree with the selection at Costco. Alas we don't have Costco where I'm at now (we only have Sam's and BJ's) but we did find some great stuff there (which Sam's and BJ's has to some extent as well). I thought part of Pollan's position was that locally grown food is preferable, though it's been well over a year since I read his initial book and have more than likely gotten him mixed up with some other food books I read. If that is part of the position I just thought the juxtaposition a bit humorous as Costco certainly doesn't go for the locavore route as it isn't there thing. Not damning anyone, just found it funny :-)

I would expect so as well, but in the interest of discussion: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/twinkie2.htm I've used "How stuff works" for years (gasp, bordering on decades now!) and consider them fairly authoritative on whatever they publish, or at least fairly well researched. It lists that the original recipe was basically milk, eggs, and butter and that the shelf life was 2 days, compared to the officlal shelf-life today of 25 days (though they last longer this is the officil shelf-life, still quite long considering it's a bakery item). As the recipe is a trade secret and food wasn't required to have ingredient lists at that time I doubt that the exact ingredients in the early Twinkie's is easily determined. However, a number of the current ingredients either weren't invented or weren't commonly used at that time.

Oh, I'm certainly not saying it's funny on your part for buying it there as you're just a cog in the machine. I (think) I find it funny because I would think that Costco and other bulk-merchandise stuff are alot of what Pollan goes against. Though perhaps that's where to have the most impact?

I'm still trying to determine whether buying a Pollan book at Costco is inherently funny (or ironic?)...

When growing up the only thing we used the crock pot for was beef stew (and then with sliced hard-boiled eggs for breakfast the next morning) and I remember that working okay. I've only made one dish in my crock pot... NC-style BBQ. Get a blade roast or another cheap roast cut, mix up a batch of BBQ sauce (not anything like BBQ sauce in a bottle...) and cook for 8 hours or so. The recipe I use is fairly similar to this one. Hey, it's not quite NC BBQ but it does a serviceable job.

It is. I've eaten at Bear Rock a number of times when I lived in central NC and thought it came out pretty well against it's competition (which I'd consider to probably be Subway and Panera).

I can't even begin to tell you how much less of a PITA it is to make a meringue, or anything with stiff peaks, with a stand mixer than with a hand-mixer. Turn it on and watch it go...

Just stopped by Earl's and had the Monty. It appears that they are now open until 8 (earlier in the thread I believe it was stated as 7). While I will agree that others that the bread was the weak link it didn't bother me all that much. They may have been because I ate in and the sauce didn't have time to seep into the bread. I'd liken the Monty to everything that an Arby's sandwhich aspires to be but falls horribly short of. Wonderfully roasted beef, a sweet and tangy thin barbecue sauce and a nice horseradish sauce with just a little bite to it. I was worried the barbecue sauce would completely overpower the roast beef, but this sauce is thin enough that it's not a problem.

As VAFoodNut said, you won't be buying a replacement in the near future if you get a Kitchenaid. I don't remember which model we have, but it's not the lowest end model (I believe the lowest end model uses different attachments than the other models but I'm not certain of that). I wasn't sold on the usefulness of getting a stand mixer having had a hand-held mixer and the fact that we only use it 1-2 times a month but after using it once or twice I'm thoroughly converted. It's quite possibly one of my favorite "non-necessary" appliances in the kitchen. The only knock against it is that it's too large for us to store out on the counter permanently as we are constrained for counter space but that's been a pretty minor concern for us once we got used to using it and liked it so much more.

On at least one occassion that I've tried to eat there in the past, it was closed for a private event. They may be having enough private events to stay open. The next time I went the place was quarter full at the most as others have noticed.

We happened to be in the area tonight and stopped by for dinner. Easily one of the better dinners I've had, especially considering the prices. Starters were $7-10$, entrees $20-$25, deserts $5-$8, and wines were $20-$30 for the most part. The overall atmosphere of the place is very cozy, with a fireplace in the dining area and only 8-10 tables total (only 7 tonight but there was a large group so I'm not exactly certain of the normal number of tables). PJASchultz started with the gnocchi with butternut squash and marsapone. It was almost a butternut squash soup that it came in and was quite tasty. The gnocchi were little pillows of goodness and the marscapone brought the two elements together. I was seriously jealous as it was the starter I wanted to get but she talked me into getting something else so she could get the gnocchi. We had the discussion during dinner that butternut squash was almost one of those things that's done too often but in this case it was excellent. I had the duck rilette croustade to start. Quite good and had a bit of a peppery taste which I didn't expect but didn't quite compete with te gnocchi. For entrees we had the pork loin wtih a apple, onion, and blue cheese tart. The pork was very juicy, helped out by the apple reduction sauce and the apple tart set it off very well. PJASchultz thought it was the best pork that she had had. The other entree was a sirloin with blue cheese and mashed potatoes. The sirloin was cooked to temperature properly and had a nice char on the outside and the blue cheese (which was a wedge of blue cheese, not crumbles or a blue cheese sauce) was a nice touch. Other options with the sirloin were grilled onions or grilled mushrooms. The potatoes were lumpy and wonderfully tasty. Overall, I wouldn't drive out here from DC for dinner, but if I were in the area already I definitely will make sure to stop in. And if I were contemplating being in the area, Flint Hill Public House might tip the scales into making sure I go.

I'm probably in. Flying into town that day so as long as my arms are too tired I'll be there :-)

I'm interested, depending on schedule.

Considering the origins of the owners of Solly's, that sounds about right :-)

There a number of people in the Southeast forum on EG that wondered about the legality... Brian always seemed fine with the risk though... Guess we'll see :-) I do hope he comes through clean though.

I'll be there in spirit! The two of us stopped in this week and are stopping back in next week for dinner but we travel back to NC's on Thursday so will miss the gathering.

You make it sound so.... appetizing.

I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?

I'm out of town during the weekends (okay techincally I'm only in town during the week since I don't actually live in DC anymore and just travel here for work :-) ) so the 25th is the only night I could make.

I was marked as a no show at a different restaurant before. I told Opentable and it was sorted out in a couple days with no problems. Shouldn't be an issue. We stopped in a couple weeks ago for dinner. Figuring it was just another Clarendon restaurant and not having heard anything about it at all at the time, we stuck with ordering pizzas as we can both tolerate poorly prepared pizza better than poorly prepared other items. We had the Vermont (Cabot white cheddar, prosciutto, caramelized onions, Granny Smith apples, and sage) and the Americano (grilled chicken, smoked cheddar, mozzarella, crushed tomato, arugula). Both were quite good, though certainly not in the echelon of the top pizzas in the area. However, it was evident that the food was well prepared and definitely made it the place for us to go when dining in Clarendon.

Hey, I'm just saying that Mario isn't some random person that happens to work for Food Network (like say, Giada). They may have made him famous but he helped make them famous as well. In relationships like that when one side wants to get rid of the other then things can be a bit strained.

To be fair, without their early stable of cooks Food Network may very well not be where they are today either. Both he and Emeril made for very big personalities that became the face of the network when they were starting out.

Depending on whether or not I'm in town, I'd be in.

You're about 12-18 months late :-) Prior to my carrying around a CrackBerry (so I just use Google Maps instead) I used text Google religiously for addresses and phone numbers. I've had very good results with it, only having been let down a time or two which were mostly my fault as I didn't get the spelling close enough for Google to figure it out.

I had the Lamb Vindaloo at Haandi about a year and a half ago or so. Expecting the dish to be hot to start with, once I start eating it I thought to myself "this is quite warm". Then the second bite... "getting warmer". By the fourth or fifth bite my entire body was sweating, I was asking for extra napkins to wipe the sweat off my face and had drank and entire pitcher of water. It was a burn that just kept building and building, never subsiding. I finished the dish (and thought the taste and texture were quite good) but the heat was something else. I've been accused of having my taste buds burnt off and no longer capable of tasting the heat that is present in food as what I find to be a pleasanty spiced dish with just a wee bit of kick my GF finds to be inedibly hot, and yet the lamb vindaloo that night made me see that there were degrees of heat that I had never been privy to previously. I wanted to make it back to see if it was a fluke or just how they made the dish but never got around to it.