Pat

We're usually away at Thanksgiving, so I don't generally order one there, but Market Poultry (202-543-7470) at Eastern Market on Capitol Hill has wonderful poultry at reasonable prices. That's where I buy most of my poultry, and that's where I would go if I were looking to acquire a Thanksgiving bird. They also have other poultry besides turkey. I checked and they said most of their Thanksgiving turkeys come from Hillside Farms. The deadline for pre-ordering through them is November 19th.

I don't know that store. I venture periodically to the Le Creuset factory outlet store at Leesburg Premium Outlets. They have a twice (?) annual big sale, but there are often other specials in the store, including an automatic discount if you buy more than X$ dollar amount of merchandise. I've made some good purchases there, maybe too many .

Thanks. I'll have to see what's still there. My recollection was that the short-lived auto racing facillity and baseball had cut into the space they had or shut them down completely. Maybe in the off season with the racing gone, it's back to being a real market.

Apologies if this is addressed somewhere in this long thread, but I didn't find the answer when I searched. Is there still a farmer's market at RFK Stadium on Thursdays and Saturdays? Years ago there was, and I would go occasionally, but I thought it was shut down completely a couple of years ago. When we went to vote this morning, we saw a sign for the farmer's market. I was wondering if it had reopened or if that's just a very old sign.

I decided it best to change my opentable profile to use my fuller name. I don't know if that will take care of it, but it should take care of most instances of it. Otherwise, I'll try not to worry about it. The thing that occurs to me that is especially funny is that my husband has a name that is relatively unfamiliar to most people (though more familiar than it once was) : Liam. For decades now, when we order pizza or give our names to hold a table, he gives the name Pat, since giving his name almost always results in confusion. Even spelling it out is a pain, then whoever calls us later doesn't know how to pronounce it, except for those who decide it's William (so we miss it completely, since he's not a William).

Good, because it turns out they decided to open in the afternoon instead They should be open by now, but maybe give a call and make sure (except I have no idea what the number is).

I will try the baking soda next time. If it gives a better crust, then I might not have the gumminess problem.I don't think there is a toaster oven where we are going (don't remember one, anyway), and it depends on what time we get there whether the oven will be already full. Maybe wrapped in foil in the oven if we can pull that off is the best bet. I think the microwave would definitely made the gumminess worse. Thanks for the answers.

We had dinner at BDT last night. I was looking forward to bratwurst, sauerkraut and fries, and the restaurant did not disappoint. I also got the beet salad, with goat cheese, endive, and pumpkin seeds. It was a nice combination of flavors. Beets and goat cheese are paired fairly often, but the addition of endive and pumpkin seeds really enhanced the salad. One thing I love about this time of year is toasted pumpkin seeds. My husband went for the tavern steak (which I enjoyed a bit of) and more fries I was too full for dessert and was disappointed because I wanted to try the apple pie. Next time, I guess. We each got a Sierra Nevada before the meal and I had a wonderful glass of Acacia Pinot Noir with the meal. There were a few, fairly small, issues that left me a bit The service was generally quite good, enthusiastic and helpful. I knew about the communal serving dishes ahead of time but was still a little bemused by serving myself. It did make it easier to share the steak, but the table seemed cluttered. I liked the delivery system for the fries, though. Biggest grump of the night: the butter for the bread was cold and rock solid . (Let the fact that that was the biggest complaint we had inform the reading of the rest of the post.) Another issue was service-related and it took me until this morning to figure out what really bothered me about it. My husband and I have different last names, so occasionally one of us (usually me) will get called by the other's last name. Throughout the meal, the waiter referred to my husband as Mr. my-last-name. My husband didn't mind, and we kind of shrugged it off. It seemed like an awkward thing to make a point of (and I never realized before we got married how many complications having different names would cause). I make all the restaurant reservations and have an ambiguous name, so it's understandable why it would happen. It was only well after the fact that I realized that the waiter only addressed him by name. He assumed that he was the the person who made the reservation. I could have been his wife, mistress, sister, or anything else, so he didn't have a name to call me. (I understand: How embarrassing to call me Mrs. my-last-name if I turned out not to be his wife.) It left me wondering if I should change my open table account to use more my feminine full first name as opposed to the nickname I always use. I'm not bringing this up to criticize this restaurant, because it has happened before. It's, I guess, a matter of managing to maintain some kind of traditional etiquette and formality in a world where people have ambiguous names. And, in the end, my husband was the one who paid the check. So, I'm throwing this out as a question rather than a criticism: Should I make it more explicit that I am female when I make reservations? Should I use my husband's name? Is it not worth fussing about? Is there a non-awkward way to bring it up with a server when something like this happens? I understand that people in the hospitality business are trying to be as hospitable as possible, and I'm not trying to make it any harder.

A few different staff members have told me it's tomorrow, so maybe you'll be in luck.Edited because I talked to Moe. He said they've been cooking lots of food and are ready to go. He's opening the doors tomorrow at 11 AM (Monday).

I'm trying my hand at baking soft pretzels. When I tried years ago, I didn't have much experience baking bread. This try went much better but still needs work. This is the recipe I used.. My biggest problem was with shaping the pretzels . I managed that in mediocre fashion. Does anyone have pretzel-shaping techniques for the aesthetically impaired? They seemed to come out pretty well and were nice warm from the oven. The next day, however, the cold pretzels had gummy parts, which I think relates to the boiling. Pieces that were near pieces that got folded over got boiled but not baked fully. (That's my best guess.) They look kind of opaque and, well, gummy in spots. Another question would be: How do you reheat these suckers? I'm working on this to take them along with my bread basket at Thanksgiving. Help? Thanks.

The cranberry bread recipe I posted here is a Thanksgiving staple.

Utz pretzel stix in the country store container. Just a bit too salty but satisfying.

Last I heard was next Monday, but things have been running a bit behind.

This isn't a family heirloom, but I've been making it for many years, and it always seems to be expected in the Thanksgiving--New Year's time frame. I got it quite a few years ago from a package of cranberries, and Ocean Spray doesn't have it on their web site. I thought I had posted it somewhere but couldn't dig it up when I looked. I was getting rather nervous about finding it again. I thought I'd lost my copy of the recipe but just located it (fortunately), so here it is. It's a pretty standard recipe, but I rely on it because it always comes out just right. I generally use walnuts, and when I'm feeling lazy, I'll omit or reduce the amount of orange peel Cranberry Fruit-Nut Bread from Ocean Spray fresh cranberries package, n.d. (makes 1 loaf) 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped ½ cup chopped nuts 1 Tbsp. grated orange peel 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup sugar 1 ½ tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. salt ½ tsp. baking soda 2 Tbsp. shortening ¾ cup orange juice 1 egg, well-beaten Preheat oven to 350˚F. Generously grease and lightly flour a 9”x5”x3” loaf pan. Prepare cranberries, nuts, and orange peel. Set aside. In a bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and soda. Cut in shortening. Stir in orange juice, egg, and orange peel, mixing just to moisten. Fold in cranberries and nuts. Spoon into prepared pan. Bake 60 minutes or until wooden pick in center comes out clean. Cool on a rack 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely. Wrap and store overnight

Last night was salad of arugula, radishes, avocado, and truffle cheese with strawberry-balsamic vinaigrette pan fried pork chops butternut squash-potato gnocchi with fried sage butter I loved the gnocchi, though there was flour all over the kitchen when I was done . My husband thought they were too heavy, but that's probably because I made them too big. It was getting late and I wanted them done. I think they'd make great dumplings in chicken broth. I also ate some for breakfast this morning

Remember candy and bubblegum cigarettes?

I went trick or treating in suburban Pennsylvania in the 60s-early 70s, and we knew most of the people whose houses we went to. I'd go out with a group of neighborhood kids, and it would take the whole night to cover maybe 4 suburban streets, in large part because the adults would want us to come inside so they could admire our costumes. A couple of my friends' families staged haunted houses some years. There was one elderly lady who lived near the end of our street who did a big spread every Halloween, with apple cider and all kinds of homemade cookies and cupcakes and other kinds of food. This was when I was very young so memories are a bit fuzzy. It was like going to somebody's grandmother's house. She had her dining room table all set with an assortment of foods. Mrs. McClellan was her name. It was really nice of her, but I don't know how much we appreciated it. We should probably have appreciated it more, because it was the end of an era for that kind of thing, before parents worried so much about neighbors poisoning their children. As thoughtful as she was, it was kind of a drag for the kids, because it slowed you down on getting to as many houses as possible for candy .

I wouldn't go to Afterwards expecting great service, and the whole piece seems like an overly broad generalization to me. The only other one of the places mentioned that I have experience with is Firefly, and I've never had bad, or even subpar, service there.I've never waited tables, but there's something about [paraphrase] <<I tip 25% if the service is to my liking and otherwise I leave coins and a grumpy note>> that sets off my radar.

I have the problem with "View new posts" not working sometimes too. It hasn't happened really recently, but I've had clusters of times when it hasn't worked at all. (I'm using Firefox on a mac.)

Tonight, if my energy levels stay up, will be James Beard's Coq au Riesling and a salad of arugula, radishes, avocado, and strawberry-balsamic vinagrette.

The Capitol Lounge used to have a cigar bar downstairs, but I haven't ventured past the main floor since they reopened, so I don't know if its still there. (I'm not sure what your criteria are for "good.")

Tonight is kale soup with country ham and cannellini beans, plus an antipasto plate of cheeses, olives, peppers, and proscuitto di parma with flatbread. The other course is cauliflower with proscuitto and toasted walnuts in a balsamic-walnut oil vinagrette.

I just finished reading Mimi Sheraton's Eating My Words, and she says definitively that the food improves when a critic is recognized (and goes into an explanation of it).

Hee. Next Friday sounds good. Let's keep on top of that.

I'm going to be out of town the rest of the week until then but am thinking this sounds good for Friday. I'd love to check this place out. I cant guarantee what Friday will be like, though. We're a maybe, if anyone's counting