Pat

How special do you want to get? I've only had his cookies (excellent), but I gather he made a cake for one of the DR picnics I didn't go to, and I saw him on a foodtv challenge with one of his wedding cakes http://www.bcakes.com/

Buttered egg noodles Braised chicken thighs Green beans from last summer (still haven't finished cleaning out the freezer) Wine sauce ...all layered in a glass lasagna pan for serving. This was great comfort food.

leftover braised green cabbage wine merchant steak (the recipe is viewable on page 85 here) I've been making the steak recipe for years. It's one of my standards for the winter.

I looked it up earlier this morning and saw the same thing .

Another implement to cram into my kitchen drawers! The long metal spatulas I have are solid, and the spatulas that are slotted are much shorter...It would be good to have the correct equipment, though. Thank you, sir .

I've made berry tart recipes from both Fannie Farmer Baking Book and The New Basics Cookbook (which had cream cheese in the crust), and they both came out well. I can't remember if I used the glaze, though. I've got blackberries in my freezer from the summer that I should really use, so I've been thinking about tarts lately myself.

I've done it, and I've done it successfully. I've also done it not successfully. Maybe I don't have a deft enough touch.When I use tongs for something like that, it's that I'm using what seems like a less appropriate instrument because I can't find what I want. It seems like something where you generally would want something flat, such as a spatula, rather than tongs. If somebody can use tongs reliably to flip fish, it doesn't bother me. Maybe a spatula isn't the right instrument either .

I've got no culinary training at all, but don't you run a fairly high risk of fish falling apart if you flip it with tongs?

I've made a few recipes recently that called for dried chickpeas, and I used Arrowhead Mills brand, which I hadn't tried before. I thought they were really good (firm, not mushy).I thought I had bought them at Whole Foods, but I looked all over the store when I wanted to get more and didn't see them. I think I must have gotten them at Yes! on Capitol Hill.

So, I'm not the only one who does this . I do it with music too.

Potato salad (cold this time; lots of vinegar) Fish Tacos Refried Black Beans

This is my planned menu for Sunday: from Faye Levy, Feast from the Mideast Cilantro-Garlic Eggplant on Pita Crisps with Roasted Peppers (pp. 43-4) Turkey Thighs with Cumin and Tomatoes (p. 171) Spicy Yemenite Peas (p. 247) Wheat Berry Pudding with Walnuts, Dried Fruit, Milk and Honey (pp. 359-60)

My best friend's family used to get them delivered when I was a kid, and all I really remember about them was the distinctive can and the delivery. I'd never heard of potato chips being delivered before. It was exotic. I have very vague memories of the milk box we had for getting milk deliveries when I was very young, but I can't remember getting any other food delivered.

Warm potato salad Bacon lettuce tomato (ahi) tuna sandwich on multigrain baguette

I love the Ashbury's Aubergines site for all things eggplant. http://www.aubergines.org/ I'm not sure if any of those Indian recipes match what you'e looking for.

Utz

That's what I hit with A Well-Seasoned Appetite, which is organized by seasons. I like the concept in the abstract, but I don't find the organization of the book conducive to the way I think. I enjoy her writing and I enjoy her recipes, but I think I'm realizing why I've had the book for years and haven't made anything from it.

I don't know that there were any conclusions as such, but Porcupine emphasized the potential catastrophic effects of a blight on a major monoculture crop, such as corn. I have been thinking about that in recent days as I read about the disappearance of the bees. The loss of honey will be the least of our worries. http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,2...57-2703,00.html http://www.paulagordon.com/shows/pollan/

I haven't done olives in a while, but I like to roast parnsips/turnips/carrots/potatoes together. Roasted plum tomatoes are wonderful. I used some, beautifuly caramelized, to top meatloaf recently. I also like to roast red bell peppers.Roasting red peppers is a good way to reclaim peppers that have been in the refrigerator too long. I buy bags of them with the best of intentions and the last few grow wrinkly in the vegetable drawer. Roasting brings them back to a very usable ingredient.

I made a snowy day crockpot vegetable bean stew yesterday. The seasoning was a bit off, but it was otherwise good and hearty. (I added dried herbs about 2/3 way through to keep them from cooking down too much, but they didn't cook off quite enough .)

I'm looking at Molly O'Neill, A Well-Seasoned Appetite (but I'm not sure if I should go with winter or spring ); Staffmeals from Chanterelle; and Faye Levy, Feast from the Mideast. Actually, this has gotten me enthused about my project again, so I'll tackle all three in March. FWIW, the most noteworthy recipe I found through my past effort was a Coq au Riesling from James Beard's Beard on Pasta. (If you check that book at Amazon, you can locate the recipe through the search inside the book feature.)

I like their vegetarian chili. I had a hankering for some when I was in Clarendon recently, then changed my mind once I was there and decided to get nachos instead. They come topped with chili but I opted for Texas chili instead of the vegetarian. (The vegetarian has ingredients like peanuts and mushrooms, which just didn't seem to go with nachos.) The nachos were ok, not spectacular but better than I've had at some places. They had some kind of greenery on them that I liked but couldn't identify--maybe a chimichurri sauce? The Texas chili was fine as a topping, but I don't know how much I'd have liked a bowlful of it. Thinking about it, this is one of the places (at least the Clarendon one--haven't been to any others in a while) that I go to for the environment more than for the quality of the food.

I started a project like this last year that I've pretty much flaked out on, but I could probably manage to sustain it for one week I had decided to make three previously untried recipes from each of my cookbooks, starting with the shelves in my kitchen (about 75 cookbooks, I'd estimate, a fraction of the total). The idea was that if I couldn't find three decent recipes from any book, I'd jettison it. It would also take me deeper into cookbooks I use often, but frequently making the same recipes over and over. I managed to stick with the project pretty well for the first few weeks, making multiple recipes each week, then it dropped off. I've made recipes from only about 15 of the cookbooks and completed 3 for only a couple of them. In the meantime, I've acquired more cookbooks .

I'm going to say off night. I've never had a bad meal there, though I don't go there as much as some people. The only food complaint I recall from anyone I've been there with is that my MIL didn't like the texture of their ice cream. (I think Chef Power was doing something different with it than she expected.)The only significantly clunky service we had was for a RW meal, so you may have your answer in that you were there on a holiday.

Last night was Braised Green Cabbage from a Molly Stevens recipe (excellent) and slices of baguette with smoked salmon and proscuitto.