Pat

My husband and I will probably be there. I'm not 100% certain, which is why I didn't post before. I see that there is no tabbouli listed on the most recent menu, so I will make that and a couple of loaves of bread of some sort.

They had them as a special last night too, but I'm not sure if they were prepared exactly the same way as what you had. My husband didn't really care for them. He thought they were undercooked. I thought they were cooked through enough but the flavors didn't come through as I was expecting from the description. I liked them but they didn't transport me. I'd try them again, though, as it may just have been an anomaly with the order we got. I generally like the chicken at Sonoma. The Amish source they use seems quite good.The rest of the meal was stellar. We had a cheese plate (I love the red wine jelly that comes with that) and a plate of the truffled peaches. I love those truffled peaches and was disappointed when they were off the menu for a while. I got the lobster-cauliflower risotto first as my main course, and it was delightful. My husband had the linguine with clams as a first, and I managed to get a few delicious bites of that. He also had the NY Strip with polenta, which he thoroughly enjoyed. I usually drink beer there (I like the Moretti draught), but last night I ordered wine, and my husband got the Moretti. I tried two different whites, one a Russian River Sauvignon Blanc and the other a blend that I forget the provenance of. Both went well with the meal and were quite reasonably priced.

Not a definitive answer, but I've tried to do an Open table reservation for one at a couple of places and not been able to do it. From that, I concluded it was a system-wide policy, but I'm not sure that that's the case. We're going to Sonoma tomorrow night for dinner and I'm wondering what to look forward to on the menu. We haven't been there in several months. I could be patient and just wait until we arrive, but I'm curious

I'd say the bistro at Eve or give Corduroy another chance.

I'm happy to eat at the restaurant no matter what the rules are. My knowledge of Open Table is limited (I'm not in the business) but I believe you can block out periods of time for your own use (say, for walk ins) and use the system for the rest. I don't know how much good handwritten signs are going to do. I understand that you wanted to go back to being more of a neighborhood place, but that could take as long and be as successful as regaining virginity Perhaps someone who uses Open Table at his/her restaurant can give more information, but I guess you have to pay to use it too.

When we had no kitchen for a lot of last year, we discovered that the frozen Amy's meals are pretty decent. Trader Joe's has (or at least had) boxed tuna curry that was very good--one in red sauce, one in yellow. I bought a lot of prepared foods from Whole Foods as well. There used to be frozen microwavable brown rice (Rice Expressions) available both at Whole Foods and Yes! that suddenly disappeared. Fortunately, it disappeared as we were finishing up our kitchen. I have no idea what happened to the product and whether it is available now, but that was very good.I mentioned in another thread but will repeat that the chicken andouille sausages (Sausages by Amy) at Costco, Pentagon City are quite tasty.

Egg salad (from leftover garam masala deviled eggs) on whole grain bread with watercress. Good and spicy!

That is my favorite bread book. I have not baked much bread lately, but I can look through my recipes over the weekend for favorites. The last bread I baked, in fact, was Beard's whole wheat soda bread for St. Patrick's Day. There's a walnut onion bread in that book that's excellent, and a water-proofed bread that I used to try to simulate a type of Armenian bread. (I'm usually the bread baker for my husband's family's Thanksgiving meal.)

You should be able to find a decent whole turkey in a supermarket. I recall my one experience with grilling a whole turkey outside (remarkably good) was in the summertime.For accompaniments, I'd go with asparagus or maybe fresh peas. If it's not too much with the stuffing, you could try rice pilaf. I also like this orzo primavera recipe from Rachael Ray. I use whole wheat orzo. And also, I really liked this recipe for deviled eggs from the current Bon Appetit as an appetizer. I added more garam masala than the recipe called for. It seems like a good Easter food.

I've been so busy that I didn't know when Easter was and so bought a nice semiboneless leg of lamb at the Old Town Whole Foods a couple of weeks ago, thinking Easter was sooner than it is. I consulted the calendar, then wrapped the lamb well and put it in the freezer . If I remember to defrost it in time, I will be making it for Easter dinner . I generally roast leg of lamb with a lot of garlic and pepper. I eat lamb with mint jelly because that's the way I grew up eating it. My husband thinks that's disgusting. I will probably make an Indian Spiced Potato Gratin recipe (from the NYTimes a decade ago. I've previously posted it here.) to accompany it. I think I'll buy some asparagus at Eastern Market to round out the meal and maybe a loaf of bread from Firehook and/or a simple salad. This is all contingent on my having any actual time to make a meal on Sunday.

I just finished eating cole slaw leftover from a batch I made for dinner last night: cabbage, carrots, mayo, buttermilk, salt, sugar, and celery seeds. No hot sauce

plain fruit salad--berries, melon, etc., in their own juicespasta with olive oil and basil or other greenery roasted vegetables in olive oil (I just did eggplant, cubanelle peppers, tomatoes, onions, and garlic, with some basil thrown in at the end) orzo primavera Omit the cheese and use vegetable stock or water instead of chicken broth and looking back at what I wrote, dates stuffed with peanut butter would seem to work

One of my easy go-to finger foods is pitted dates stuffed with peanut butter, cottage cheese, or a soft, brie-like cheese (I like to use slivers of Mirabo, which has walnuts in it). I usually make an assortment of stuffings. They look nice on a platter.

Tonight I'm going to make a warm chicken liver salad and Mollie Katzen's recipe for Chilaquile Casserole. The casserole is an old easy favorite. It's in her Still Life with Menu book, but I first found it in a magazine. I haven't tried making the salad before but I was thinking of one they have at Montmarte and trying to work with my memory of that and what I can find on the web.

I like Calomiris in the middle off the market for produce, but that's a sentimental preference. The other veg stand inside is good as well. If you browse around outside, you may find particular produce you like more. Dan Donahue's stand outside has some really nice produce from PA, including a lot of Amish produce and some Amish baked goods. He's right by the nut guy who gives free samples . That's at 7th and C on the northwest side.I don't have a preference among the butcher stalls, but I like Canales generally. I think one of their stands has fresh pasta (brain is not fully turned on). Whichever place has the fresh pasta, it's good. I like Market Poultry for poultry. I've been trying not to get freaky about bird flu but have been noticing, despite myself, that supermarket poultry (everywhere, including Whole Foods) has not been looking good in recent months. The stuff at Market Poultry still looks fine, and that's where I'm buying most of my poultry lately. The cheese stand is pretty good but I sometimes get a little annoyed there. He's good at giving cheese samples, though.

I hope everyone has a good time. I didn't even try for it, as I knew I had a major work deadline the next day

This is getting off the local sausages theme but seems like a decent place to put the comment. Costco (at least the one at Pentagon City) has a fabulous huge discounted pack of chicken andouille sausage from Sausages by Amy. I liked them enough to pay crazy premium prices to buy different ones mail order from the company to check them out. The chipotle chicken were okay but probably not worth the high price. The ones at Costco are the best chicken sausages I've ever had, though, and the price is great.

I get the feeling that some people use the term "food poisoning" the way other people do "food allergies." Both are serious and potentially very dangerous, but some individuals use the terms somewhat loosely. I guess it's an easy conclusion to draw when you get sick after eating somewhere, but I always wonder what other variables there are when I hear a story about it. Fortunately, I don't think that I've ever had food poisoning. I've never had a serious enough reaction to food to think I have, though I have seen articles saying that low-level food poisoning is more common than people think and accounts for illnesses people attribute to other things. A lot of my thinking on this subject traces to a friend who visited years ago. We took her to a local Italian restaurant. By the end of dinner, she said she wasn't feeling well. Immediately upon returning to the house, she ran to the bathroom and threw up. She said she had food poisoning from the food at the restaurant. Given that she'd only finished eating an hour before, that seemed unlikely. Then she said that she gets food poisoning "very easily," which struck me as an odd comment. How many people get food poisoning often enough to draw such a general conclusion? Then she said that she knew it was from the sausage in her entree; it tasted like licorce. The sausage had FENNEL in it! I don't doubt that she was miserably sick, and as her hostess, I felt bad. But I don't think she had food poisoning.

My preferred protein shake/smoothie is approximately the following, mixed in a blender: 1 banana 3-4 strawberries, hulled handful blueberries TBSP wheat germ TBSP honey 6-8 oz. container plain yogurt scoop protein powder (I like Nutiva hemp powder from Whole Foods) enough almond milk to make it the right consistency It looks like a chocolate milkshake and is quite tasty, if I do say so myself.

The answer for #4 in the test seems to be incorrect. Maybe it's possible to make an argument for that phrasing, but it sure sounds backwards to me.

That's the case with a lot of Whole Foods. I've stopped buying produce without a label because: 1) the cashier most likely won't know what it is; 2) it will cost more than I anticipated if the cashier actually checks on the real price.That new Old Town store is like playing The Price Is Right. It's weird every time I go there, with the guessing at what things are and how much they should cost. It usually works to my advantage, except once when a cashier insisted something was a particular type of mushroom when it was a different one. He and the bagger said it was one thing and I knew it was another, but I just gave up. One time I was there I got a bunch of things cheap because the cashier didn't know what they were (even though I explained it), shrugged, and rang them up at a generic price. I understand that it's really hard for them to keep up with what all the specialized produce is, since there's so much of it, but on my last trip, I had a cashier unable to identify cubanelle peppers and shiitake mushrooms (probably the most common of the uncommon musrooms). Then my other (related peeve) is that when they're out of something, they move the other stuff around on the shelf to cover that area so there doesn't appear to be an empty spot. I can't tell you how many times I've had to go to customer service to see if they still carry the product and will have it in the future (I'd have more confidence if there were accurate shelf labels.) I believe I read somewhere that the spreading things out to cover empty spots is a chain-wide policy. I'd frankly rather know what's not there and is out at the time, rather than pulling everything off the shelf in the hopes that one of something I want has gotten pushed to the back.

Capitol Lounge has big signs outside saying they've reopened. This sounds like something they would have on their tvs. I guess it depends on what you think of their food.

One time we were seated at a corner table for 2, and it was less noisy than various spots we'd been seated on other visits, even though the place was packed and bustling. I asked what the table number was. I'm pretty sure it was 33. (Smart of me to write it down and have no idea where I wrote it .) The disadvantage of that table, however, was that it wasn't so easy for the server to make his way back there.

I've not been to [garble garble garble] and have no opinion pro or con, but couldn't a lot of this be that you have not eaten fries (or fries in any significant amount) in quite a long time? I deduced from what you wrote--I don't know if correctly--that you are probably not eating a lot of deep-fried food these days. I don't know if that would account for such an extreme reaction, but it could account for a reaction.

When I was there the other night, I got the house steak, which is a NY strip prepared this way. It was wonderful, but I had a lot left over. The helpful waitress told me that when I came back in the future (this is what got me on the track of asking what the future of the place was), I could order any size NY strip with the house preparation. (On the menu, you will see that there are several different sizes listed in the area below where the house steak is listed.) The salad with leftover steak was great, by the way.