Principia

Ooh, cool, can we bring a +1?

Ooooh, two mad geniuses are always better than one, unless explosives are involved. Was he by any chance one of the mighty few who helped you perform that 52-person miracle that was the DR dinner?

The plunger cups are also available from the man himself. On the subject of measuring devices, I also get a ton of use out of the Emsa Perfect Beaker. As for recent device acquisitions, the Zyliss Rotary Grater has been very well-behaved. There's a second drum available for softer cheeses - in the event that your shop doesn't sell the package with both drums, you can send Zyliss a check for $7 and they'll send you the soft-cheese drum.

Having had his crab bisque and salmon at the DR dinner, I can't wait to see what he does with a wider seafood menu... it'll be worth the drive, that's for sure!

In today's Express' Weekend Pass Dining column: Decant This Unpretentious Little Wine Store Opens in Fairfax Don't know the difference between Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio? Could you care less about the soil differences between Napa County and Sonoma County? WineStyles, the national wine-demystification franchise, opened up a location in Fairfax, where customers shop for wine by color and style instead of the traditional way, by varietals and regions. And the best part: Most bottles are priced $25 and below. Each wine category is organized by style—crisp, fruity, silky, mellow, rich, bold, bubbly and nectar—with an accompanying description of the wine's characteristics and flavors, and suggested food pairings. This is WineStyles' second location in the Washington area; the other one is in Centreville. The national chain has concentrations of locations in Florida, California, Texas and Chicago. ------------------------------------- Release the hounds!! Anyway, seriously, what are our resident wine aficionados' opinions on this place? Good idea, bad idea, at least better than relying on Wine Spectator...?

I appreciate that you must find it tremendously frustrating when people cast aspersions on your recipe when they haven't actually made your recipe, but some mutant variation of their own devising. Your experience is far from unique - and I'm sure it drives professional chefs batty. Some of them handle it graciously, and some of them come out to the table to yell at their customers. However, when they do that, they lose - it's no longer about the (arguably) idiotic customer, but instead about how they flipped out over something so (arguably) minor. You might keep this in mind. A recent - and admittedly lowbrow - version of this universal problem I've seen was a debate on LiveJournal in a cooking community. Someone was complaining vociferously about the results from making Alton Brown's baked macaroni and cheese recipe (but that's another thread). When we asked, it turned out that the person had substituted about a third of the ingredients (crushed Ritz crackers for panko crumbs, crappy cheese, etc.), and hadn't followed the preparation instructions either. In either case, it's like someone complaining about the quality of Mercedes-Benz sedans, when they've been driving a Chrysler minivan. They may be from the same parent company, but it ain't the same car.

I think this expectation may be why so many restaurants have invented things similar to Baskin-Robbins' Birthday Club... you give 'em your data, they send you some kind of freebie coupon around your birthday, and then you either use it or don't. I've never even imagined that I was entitled to a freebie simply by dint of it being my birthday. Every day is someone's birthday, for heaven's sake. And, like Sthitch's wife, I am completely against the whole restaurant-birthday-hoopla scenario. But then again, I also have a permanent moratorium on the purchase of cut flowers, and I have no expectations of Valentine's Day other than to have pizza in some form during the day.

For that matter, Woodlands in Fairfax (and Arlington, I believe) is an excellent source of dosas. You know, I think someone could make a fair bit of doss by starting a chain of dosa joints along the lines of falafel shops.

You beat me to it!

Let me guess... you were there on a Saturday? Me and mine don't come within a few miles of Weggers on weekends. I will point out that the original genesis of this thread was as part of a DRers query about quick eats near Dulles Airport. No one is suggesting that you trek halfway across creation just to go grocery shopping (or at least I'm not).

Alton Brown's Baked Macaroni and Cheese: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/re...6_18422,00.html The tricks to this dish: 1. When he says finely diced, he means finely diced. I've heard people complain about it being "too oniony", and upon inquiring found out they'd only chopped the onion. 2. Double up on the panko topping. 3. If you're a mustard-head like me, a little extra is just fantastic. 4. Use a good, sharp cheddar like Cabot's Extra Sharp. The theoretical treatment for the leftovers is to slice it up, breadcrumb-coat it again, and fry it... but I've never actually had any leftovers left after making this, so I wouldn't know how that works out.

Didn't get the chance to interrogate anybody on my last trip this weekend, but I did get to two tasks: 1. Trying their kosher soups. The Corn Chowder was most excellent. 2. Determining that the contents of their prepackaged soups vary from those in the kettle, which reinforces (well, to me, anyway) my belief that the soups for the bar are still made in-house. One very critical difference for a portion of the population is that while some of the prepackaged Wegmans soups are gluten-free, nothing that has come off the bar is.

It seems as though the Segway riders posting to this thread are of two minds. However, would it be safe to say that the preponderance of opinion expressed here is that everyone should assume that anyone riding a Segway is disabled? Is that because such a large percentage of Segway riders are, in fact, persons with disabilities? If that's the case, have riders' groups considered trying to get it certified as a medical device themselves, so that its benefits can be shared by a greater percentage of the disabled community versus being reserved for those of sufficient means to pay for it out of pocket? (I know from the discussion upthread that Segway isn't allowed to do it for themselves due to a marketing agreement with a wheelchair manufacturer to whom they've licensed pieces of the technology.) If, on the other hand, non-disabled persons are attempting to receive preferential treatment from use of a Segway because they're aware it may be assumed they're disabled... well, honestly, shame on them.

José Andres will be doing cooking demos and a book signing next month at a couple of the local Wegmans: Saturday 11 February, 2.00-4.00 pm Wegmans Dulles (Sterling) 45131 Columbia Place Sterling, VA 20166 703-421-2400 Sunday 12 February, 2.00-4.00 pm Wegmans Fairfax 11620 Monument Drive Fairfax, VA 22030 (703) 653-1600 Tickets are free, but you have to go request them from the customer service desk at the respective stores.

Italian flat-leaf parsley? I know they carry it (having bought it there previously, and fairly recently), so they may have just been out.Most of the time when I can't find things there, though, it's because they've gotten clever with shifting items around, or locating them in really odd places. I don't expect them to necessarily copy Giant's floor plan, but I can tell you most stores don't locate tomato products halfway across the store from the other canned vegetal matter.

Or their Entenmann's counterparts, which are each coated in the equivalent of about a candy's bar's worth of chocolate...

I'll double-check next time I'm in the store, but to my knowledge the stuff only got moved to an island because they wanted to free up a person from manning that station, not because the soup's no longer made in-house.I would also recommend eschewing them right before any notably important sports events; if that's unavoidable, just know that the subs and pizza counters are going to be slammed.

There's a large seating area upstairs. The soups at Wegman's are quite good too. There's a Sweetwater Tavern in Sterling, for that matter - although I'd hardly characterise them as fast.

I can confirm, having just checked their site, that Penzey's (http://www.penzeysspices.com) also carries juniper berries: Juniper Berries 16oz bag 54911 8.80 Juniper Berries .65oz pot 54937 1.09 Juniper Berries 4oz bag 54940 2.99 Juniper Berries 1.3oz jar 54953 2.19 Juniper Berries 8oz bag 54982 4.89

I'm sure he probably figured he was doing Nadya a favor, as she could've just hung a couple of coats off the handles!

Strangely enough, the interior of Ray's reminds me strongly of Las Pampas, the Argentinian steak place in Georgetown that has since been replaced by Amma Vegetarian Kitchen (and some sort of art gallery). Very personal, very communal. Almost the antithesis of the (formerly) smoky backroom atmosphere that places such as Ruth's Chris/Morton's/Fleming's set try to project. So it's "loud"—if I wanted to eat in perfect monkish silence, I'd either sneak food into a library, or park it at home. I loved Ray's at the DR dinner, and will be glad to try to make it back there as soon as my budget recovers from RW.

Once again, I find it interesting to note that the guy who came on here from the forum was rather snarky, but yet we're being characterized as being snotty about Segway riders. The issue is not the device itself, it's how the people that use them choose to behave. We're not harshing on Segway users, and certainly not on persons with disabilities - we're taking issue with presumption and rudeness, which in this instance happened to coincide with the rather ostentatious use of a specific device. We could just as easily have been talking about inconsiderate cell-phone users or rude smokers. On the subject of Seg-users who would rather not reveal that they're disabled (as was discussed up-thread) - that's like someone who needs reading glasses going on a dinner date without them because they want to look pretty, and then getting pissy at the waitstaff because they weren't offered a large-print menu. If one is too vain to request or otherwise make apparent the need for accommodation (i.e., some sort of tag), then one shouldn't expect to be accommodated. If the Original User had needed his device for anything other than swanning about, I'm sure that a simple "I'm sorry, I need this," would have sufficed. And again I would point out that Segway has made a smaller version of the HT (the p133) that seems to have been designed specifically to better adapt to indoor usage. I'm sure restaurants would have a far easier time providing storage for that iteration of the Segway. Or maybe we're all just jealous that Segway owners can afford to blow the cost of a used car on one of these puppies. Speaking of which, does anyone know if Segways have been certified by Medicare/Medicaid as a device?

The odd thing about my local Whole Foods is that they carry both a large bulk selection and a large quantity of vac-packed spices (et al). Is it possible that the stores that don't have sufficient turnover of the bulk goods are the ones discontinuing their use? After all, between staleness and spillage issues, if very few of your customers ever use the bulk bins I could imagine discontinuing them.

Not the one in Reston—their bulk section, as of this past weekend, was alive and kicking. Is it perhaps a jurisdictional thing (i.e., do you notice that other groceries in the area have the same restriction)?

I second that recommendation! It's slightly tricky to find by car at night (being stealthily concealed on a side street), but just about walkable from the Metro.