PollyG

Since the holidays are just around the corner (or at least the retailers would have you think so), I was wondering what ideas are out there for creative, yummy, and homemade gift ideas. 

Last year I put together a little goody box for a few of my friends.  It included spiced nuts (Nigella Lawson's Union Square recipe), white chocolate peppermint bark, chocolate pistachio biscotti, and cranberry oatmeal cookies.

What do you do?

I've made biscottii, some of them dipped half-way in chocolate. I put them into a nice jar. Maida Heatter's Brand New Book of Great Cookies is the source of my recipes. Two of my friends have native Italian mothers; in both cases their mothers expressed (not in my presence) disbelief that a non-Italian could have made the cookies.

The Epicurious rosemary shortbread cookie recipe has been another holiday hit.

At Trader Joe's this afternoon, I witnessed a 3-year old boy tagging along after his mother, grabbing items from the display and putting them in his mouth.  The items were vacuum packed, and his spittle did not penetrate the cellophane.  But he certainly left some remnants on the packages.  His mother said, "Henry!  Henry! Henry!" and kept shopping.  When I registered a (rather mild) protest, she ignored me.  In an age of communicable disease, what is a responsible citizen to do?  Perhaps I should have taken the items he slobbered on and given them to the manager.

You could have made a gushing remark about the wonderful healthy immune system Henry was developing by sucking on items that had been handled by dozens of people. If she had no consideration for other shoppers, perhaps she might have had some for little Henry.

This is one reason I'm a big fan of the new shopping car/carts that some of the bigger chains use. Some kids outgrow the shopping cart basket earlier than they (or their parents) grow any common sense.

I think it should have a prosciutto garnish...

Rolled prosciutto might work, but I think a scallion, shredded on the end, would make a more convincing ventworm.

Last time I went to A & J in Annandale -- they advertized bubble drinks.  Don't care for them myself (texture of the gummy balls coming thru the straw along with the liquid) so I can't comment as to quality.

A&J's are among the best. The 5 year-old loves the passionfruit, while the adults waver between passionfruit, coffee, and milk tea. They manage to keep their bubbles at the right level of chewiness, and they don't use the dreaded powdered base.

The worst we've had was at Dragon Star in the Eden Center. The 5 year-old got through only about an inch of hers. It was a powered base and grossly sweet.

Song que is also excellent.

An even cheaper fridge is available at Sierra Trading. What a shame, you missed the promotional campaign that Office Depot had for teachers last year--we got something like this for free with a $50 OD order.

My daughter's cheap plastic bento sets come from Super-H, which has a small selection of the Zorushi-type bento spectaculars. She has rice balls, home-grown cherry tomatoes, watermelon, and carrots today.

I found one nugget from the article just plain depressing:

fast food and casual dining chains -- which together account for three out of four U.S. restaurant visits

I understand that in some cases, chains and fast food are better options than the locally owned greasy spoon on the corner. But three-quarters of all restaurant visits? Who are these people, and what are they doing in my country?

And we must not forget the Octodog! There are also many devices intended to cut Japanese sausages into clever shapes for bento boxes, but I am oddly reluctant to perform a search on "shape sausage" from work.

I'm trying to put together a gift basket for a family with a few kids...

The gist is for the thing to be full of treats of all different types, but not so much with olive tapenade or goose liver in a tube.

Harry & David fruit sounds good, but it's too limiting.

Do you guys have any reccs? It's seems there are more companies basketing gifts on web than I could have ever imagined.

(Dean & Deluca and Balducci's and......

If I understand you correctly, you are open to ordering via the web and the family may not live near you.

Various family members have been happy with items from The Flying Noodle

I was wondering if you ever include children among your dining companions.

Flame wars about inconsiderate parents who allow their kids to run amuck aside, the area has plenty of families with children. Some of those families are trying to raise the next generation of fine diners. We have a vested interest in making sure there is a next generation of them, or we are going to be condemned to corporate chain dining in our dotage.

Dining with a child changes your perspective. The pacing of service, detail and accuracy of dish descriptions on the menu, and availability of one or two dishes that aren't too fussy (and yet aren't the @)*$# chicken fingers) become much more important. The kind of service you get from the restaurant staff can change a lot, too. Some places bend over backwards to make your kid feel welcome, and they aren't necessarily the ones you'd expect to do so. For example, Matsuri Sushi and Sake bar in Herndon has a kid's sushi platter (no raw fish) and provides crayons. It is one of my five year-old's most frequently requested dining destinations. The same concerns will probably hold true until she is in her mid to late teens.

As the parent of a restaurant friendly child, I find most dining reviews fall a bit short. I can generally decide, based on the review, whether I'd like to eat there. But they leave me wondering whether the restaurant is going to be a good place to go as a family.

This is funny too:

USE OF SENSES (continued)

· COLOR VISION: Frequently. Recognize color differences between various drinks and colored linen. Quality control.

· FULL FIELD VISION: Constantly. View department and other areas of hotel.

· SMELL: Constantly. Detect potential hazards and odors.

· OTHER: Occasionally. Sense of touch needed in handling hot plates.

What dumbass is going to touch a plate and not realize it is hot?

I would guess that 15 RIA either had a problem with an ADA issue and the definition of essential functions of the job or someone from 15 RIA recently attended a conference. They've gone overboard to an extreme, but it does help them explain to the blind, handless person who has lost their sense of smell that no reasonable accomodation will allow them to perform essential functions of the job.

But it does look a lot like a document created on an April first.

This advert appeared in the Loudon Easterner (weekly free paper) and will probably not get wider circulation:

Thai Food Festival, Sunday June 26

11 am-4pm

Thai Food (also Thai souvenirs, multi-family yard sale, show of Thai music and song by a famous singer from Thailand, Yodrak Slakjai)

Wat Yanna Rangsee Buddhist Monastery

22147 Cedar Green Road

Sterling, VA 20164

703 406 8290

Free admission and parking

For those of you unfamiliar with the Virgina 'burbs, Sterling starts about where 7 and Fairfax County Parkway intersect, and ends around Rt. 28. So it is about as far for you as Dulles would be.

I grew up with a horse farm down the street and was positively horse-crazy as a kid. But I really don't understand what is wrong with slaughtering domestic horses for human consumption. Why is it worse than slaughtering cows?

On my way to horse camp each morning during the summer of '75 or so, we'd pass a small farmyard full of gaunt horses, standing in a bare dirt pen. We were told that the authorities had been called upon the owner many times; the owner was pretty much starving the horses to death. Many of them were retired race horses. A thoroughbred lives 25 to 35 years with proper care, but most stop having any possibility of earning money after they reach age 5.

Frankly, I think the horses would have been better off slaughtered than starved to death. In some ways, the slaughter of retired horses makes a lot more sense than our factory-farming of meats. The horses at least have a decent quality of life before we send them to the table. But then again, I wonder at the ridiculous waste of perfectly edible flesh as we incinerate 6 million unwanted cats and dogs each year! If people understood that Rover was going to end up in the stewpot, would they be so nonchalant when they dropped him at the shelter after he is no longer a cute puppy?

The horse steak I had in Belgium (with full knowledge of what I was eating) was delicious.

With 30-50 people, it is possible that one of the Korean buffet places could put a few Japanese dishes or Chinese-style dishes out to help cope with the adventure-adverse.. Alternatively, careful labeling of items, ingredients, and spice levels might work. If my 5 year-old of thoroughly non-Korean descent can enjoy bulgogi and kalbi, you'd think an adult could, too.

Hee Been has been designed so that one of the dining areas can be somewhat cordoned off for larger groups.

Just wanted to start something new and different. I usually hit the big ones - Han Ah Rheum, Lotte, Maxim, Kam San, Eden Supermarket, Asian Market (Southeast Asian grocery store) and Hung Phat. (Yes, there is a trend here...)

I am a big fan of Super H, which is Han Ah Rheum's flagship store. It has *almost* everything, including a sizable selection of hispanic foods. They have done a great job of keeping the produce section manouverable during peak periods and the checkout lines are generally quite short. The extensive seafood section is astonishingly odor free, too. They have been spotty on their weekend uni supply, but last time I was there, a tank chock full of live abalone had been added to the selection.

No visit to A&J in Annandale is complete without a quick hop into Kam San.

Grand Marts seem to vary tremendously from location to location. I like the one in Centerville; it has a very large produce section and a wide selection of Asian and hispanic items. The new one at 7 Corners seems to be pretty skimpy on Asian items and have more hispanic ones.

Bangkok 54's market has a gorgeous selection of frozen herbs and vegetables. You know that you need that package of green peppercorns, still on the stalk.

Just bought a condo offf Seminary road and will be moving shortly, I'm not going to be far from Del ray but wanted to know if anyone knows good food to be found near Duke street between Old Town and Landmark, or thereabouts

Since you said "thereabouts" I'm going to suggest that you head West on Duke Street and make your first left after you go under 395, where you'll find Hee Been, a Korean restaurant. They remodeled last summer to offer a large buffet selection of high quality food. I'm pretty sure that they still offer the full menu as well. The interior is fairly upscale with lots of polished wood.

Mediterrean Cafe and Bakery is, as others have mentioned, a gem. In addition to the huge selection of olives, olive oil, hot sauces, and dry goods, they have a lot of meat and cheese-filled pastries that you can take home. I like the zatar "pizza" from the take-out department.