southdenverhoo

speaking of Courthouse and Clarendon (henceforth always, for me, "the Clizzledizzle"), has everybody but me already seen this viral video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T1RMuoQnKo The references to brown flip flops on the "dress code" thread made me think somebody has....

My mother's people were working-class Alabamans, and I remember one day when I was around 13 (so, 1965 or 1966) riding in a big old gas tank-trailer truck with my uncle Tommy, from the Talladega jobber where he worked, to the refinery in Birmingham. He made that trip twice a day, three days a week; the other days he took a smaller truck from the jobber to various gas stations around Talladega County, topping up their tanks. I-20 wasn't complete back then; there were gaps where you were on old US 78, and it was hard work horsing that big thing around the two lane portions of that old pot-holed highway. We had lunch, after we filled the tanker at the refinery, on the way back, in a not very fancy looking joint, in a sort of industrial strip, in the northern part of Birmingham. To this day it stands out in my mind, partly because it was probably the first dedicated BBQ restaurant I'd ever eaten in, if you can believe that. (There wasn't really any BBQ in my home town, Warrenton, nor as far as I know, any noteworthy Q in Northern VA in the late 50's and early-to-mid 60s, at least nowhere my folks took us to. And--BBQ was something my Alabama relatives made themselves, for themselves. Uncle Bob, from a brick pit, with the trunk lid off a '50 Ford, mounted on a hinge fixed on to the front of the chimney, over the grate, to hold the smoke in and sort of channel it to the rear-mounted chimney; Uncle Fred, in a smoker styled from a discarded Frigidaire, of a sufficiently aged vintage where the corners were rounded, instead of square. The firebox was where the vegetable crisper had once been.) Last time I was in Alabama, I mentioned that I couldn't remember the name of that BBQ place or even where it was exactly, just knew it was on US 78 or not far off it, and near the refinery, on the way back to Talladega. Three people piped up, "Oh that's the Golden Rule in Irondale, Tommy did love that place." Turns out there's about a gazillion Golden Rules now, and chain BBQ is something I shy away from, but the store I'm talking about dates back to 1891 and was the first one in the chain. Interweb criticism places the Golden Rule Q far below, say, Don Gibson's, or the Tuscaloosa Dreamland, or Johnny Ray's....but I'd sure like to check it out, now that I've had a few tons of restaurant BBQ to give me a little background on the subject. Even if it was disappointing, it wouldn't be a disappointment, if that makes any sense.

I want to grow them myself, I'm sorry I didn't make that clear enough, though I did mention setting out plants. This IS the "shopping and cooking" forum, so I understand the confusion, I didn't see a better sub-forum to post on and there are so many knowledgeable folks here I thought someone might know. Given that the "payoff" is going to be months away, I wanted to give myself the best chance of getting it right. My grandmother did a great job on these and hers were probably standard ol' Big Boys or something.

I can only say, here's the link to Stitt's quoted comment:http://food.yahoo.com/blog/southerntable/1...-quick-and-easy I also found a couple of heirloom tomato seed sources who didn't have "Atchison" in their massive catalogs either. So--scratch Atchison, and thanks for the wild goose chase, Chef Stitt...but what IS a good variety? I would think it would be pretty meaty but not too hard, when green; low moisture content.

We recently returned from a short trip to Charleston, just as it's closing in on time (in Colorado where the nights are still cold) to put out tomato plants. What, does the collective wisdom around here believe, is the best varietal for fried green tomatoes, a new favorite of my wife, courtesy this trip to a town where the dish is hard to avoid even if one wanted to? (We didn't want to) A google search turned up something on yahoo called "Southern Table" by Frank Stitt; he says "A freshly picked old-fashioned tomato variety like Atchison has that green leaf aroma that smells of the farm even when green." Unfortunately a google search for "Atchison tomatoes" is complicated (to the point of forcing my surrender) by the fact that an actress named Nancy Moore Atchison starred in the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes".... Any help will be greatly appreciated!

this may be of limited use if your wine fridge is going to be highly visible and therefore needs to look good....but homebrewers frequently attach temperature controllers to chest freezers to create fermentation chests, where they maintain primary fermentation temperatures for lagers (48-55 degrees F, say) which might not be too different from what you're looking for. A 10-12 cubic foot chest freezer might run as little as $220 on sale at a big box retailer, the cheap analog controllers ("Johnson controller", is a common brand name, many cheap laughs) maybe $50 or so from a homebrew store, pricier digital models also exist...This is much cheaper than I've ever seen a Danby (aren't they around the same size as a 5.2 cu ft fridge), with much greater capacity but admittedly not so pretty. here's a link to the one I have: http://morebeer.com/view_product/16663/102...ture_Controller

A salient point I think. My down-market local pours a healthy shot of Jameson, let's say 2oz, for six bucks. Cheap compared to higher end joints, somewhat pricier than the true local dives, but I believe that still works out to roughly 2.66X mark-up over retail, (I'm not connected enough to know the mark-up over wholesale), but it doesn't FEEL gougey because it's, you know, 6 bucks. For pouring whiskey into a shot glass, no cocktail artistry involved. And this is probably a low margin item for them, much higher margin on the au courant cool-kid cocktail craze... I myself largely drink draft microbrewed beer. Manager tells me the Avery Maharajah currently on tap cost him $300 per, his first ever $300/keg purchase. But there are 15.5 gallons in that keg, and they are selling this for $8 per 12 oz pour. That's $1320 for the keg, take out ten percent for spillage and it's still a 4x mark-up. A lower ABV tipple, say Odell 5 Barrel at $5 a pint, 120 pints to the half-barrel would be $600, again knock off 10% spillage (I'm told 5% is acceptable) and you've taken in $540 for a keg that wholesaled at maybe $120--4.5X mark-up. I'm not putting it down, either-I get value for that in terms of atmosphere, companionship, somebody to wash the glasses, a game I want to see on the telly, all the (circa 2009) components of Hemingway's clean well-lighted place. With wine service involving a master sommelier at a place like, say, Frasca in Boulder, where my party dined Saturday night, add in knowledge and skill that I'll never have to that equation, a cellar somebody put together and at my disposal, and cared for, and pulled out JUST the right bottles for me.... and I can't complain, at 3X over retail.

http://www.fauquier.com/news/2009/mar/10/r...accident-crash/ I guess those Maryland deer are better at this sort of thing.

FWIW, Dino IS on the website as being in the group of ~75 sort of "next best bars in Washington", bars that "we love but didn't make the top 75" per the accompanying blurb.

hmmm, I thought the e-mail address in the casting call (KenBeaver@comcast.net) sounded a little, I dunno, Boogie Nights-esque....and the papered over windows a little Zack And Miri Make A Porno...throw in the escalating Archibald's references and, as Julia Child was wont to exclaim at the climactic shot-on-video moment, "Voila!!"

They're on a roll right now; the Celebration was (IMHO) way better this year than last, in part because of the Torpedo technology...the current seasonal, the "Early Spring Beer" (initials no accident) is a very nice pale ale, falling somewhere (IMHO) between a very hoppy ESB and a less-hoppy-than-typical-West-Coast IPA, and the Torpedo furnishes something, year-round that they've been lacking as tastes in the marketplace have changed for the hoppier, a very aggressively hopped IPA. And it's Bigfoot season...

Oh that IS good---having to wait an excruciating 50 minutes, warm and dry, presumably with cocktail (sequential cocktails, even) in hand, in pursuit of a DIFFERENT sort of rara avis...well it was too too, for madame. Happy Valentine's Day, monsieur, I see you've chosen well! [at least, one assumes, the CHICKEN did not disappoint our hero; perhaps his new (for THAT seems inevitable) partner will better appreciate the concept of quid pro quo in all of its relationship-preserving glory...]

cold Santa Maria-style tri-tip roast (cooked over hardwood charcoal in big green egg last Sunday), sliced thin (but piled on heavy) on whole foods boule w/ ms southdenverhoo's horseradish sauce...

Question for Mr. or Ms. 8Track: As Dyson's outside legal counsel, how the fuck do you respond--and I believe you have a duty to respond, having outed yourself--to THIS? Eagerly awaiting your reply, I remain yr obdt servant, etc

How would you do it? I'm thinking a hot chile powder rub and a 24 hour marinade in an off-the-shelf hot sauce supplemented with some powdered and diced chiles, say jalapeno and chipotle powder with maybe a diced habanero or two in there. Then, you know, get out of the tub and go find some chicken. No, really, any ideas? I'm not looking for pain but I want some pretty hot chicken. A 24 hr. marinade of 50% home-brewed beer and 50% Louisiana brand hot sauce didn't do the trick, though it didn't suck either. Maybe halfway to the desired heat level. I'm talking thighs here instead of wings BTW.

obviously of no current help to agm, and too far to walk on a lunch hour when it does happen (ought to be accessible fairly quickly by bus though), but whatever happened to the Fire Station renovation at (IIRC) roughly the 1600 block of North Capitol, on the west side of the street? I believe a group including the St Ex guys got the nod, seems like two Christmases ago...I was looking at Bloomingdale property at the time and I remember the announcement being a big deal, though my plans changed & I'm still in Denver...but I haven't read any more about it in this forum...

This is great, I was just trying to explain my Talladega AL grandmother's fried pies to a Denver native, and I wasn't getting across...("So you're saying it's like a flauta, but with pie filling?" "Well, more like a sweet empanada, only big enough to fill your whole hand, and more like a pie crust folded over than empanada dough..."), now I can e-mail her a photographic illustration.Mama Hurst didn't do PUMPKIN pie filling though...

the Popeye's on East Colfax in Denver has a "Tuesday Special" of a thigh and a leg for 99 cents. So if one were an occasional glutton, one might be working one's way through 2 thighs and 2 legs, spicy, for a whopping $2.13, tax included, right this minute. I can't make it myself for that price. Is this a national promo? i.e., do you have it in Washington? If so I highly recommend that you, in the words of Smokey, "Take advantage, man; take advantage."

Hmmm...my daughter lives in the area so I have some experience at both, for such a rank out-of-towner, and somehow I always leave Stoney's somehow more satisfied than anticipated, and Logan Tavern vaguely less so; perhaps it's a function of lower expectations being met at one and higher expectations being unmet at the other. Or something my first father-in-law said to me, "Son, go first class or go third class, but never go second class..." (an ironic if perhaps prophetic pronouncement, considering the source and subsequent history, but I digress...) In either event one feels one has ignored a better option close at hand that somehow has skipped one's mind, or been unfairly vetoed by others in one's party.

fri 9/05--Ray's The Steaks--amid my guests' giant ribeyes and strips I had the hangar, eschewed by the other first timers/out-of towners in my party--but upon receipt of the minuscule bites I parsimoniously passed out for tasting, all acknowledged my genius....while guarding their own (delicious) entrees every bit as stingily. 17 pages of reports on this place, here, leave nothing to be said that hasn't been already, except to say that this is a much warmer place service-wise than one might think reading about it, here and elsewhere. I've been trying to drag my local connections (Woodley Park and U Street) out to Rosslyn for three years, since I found this board, say five or six visits, and finally success(!) (they loved it, natch), now this will be a tradition... Sat 9/06--lunch at Pig and Steak, Madison VA. I've heard negatives but our pulled pork was juicy and smoky, hickory predominating, maybe some fruitwood in there? Vinegar sauce very similar to mine at home, brown sauce also nicely tangy & spicy, sort of halfway between memphis and texas. Red sauce meh, mostly ketchup and brown sugar, but who needs it anyhoo? Dinner at Michael's on the Corner in Charlottesville, decent little tuna steak for a student area, very nice beer list which was why we were there, post game. This may be a rare home win, this year.... Sunday 9/08, late lunch and multiple cocktails at Logan Tavern....great company, adequate food. What did we have, can't remember. Many attractive diners however. Tuesday 9/09...Ben & Mary's, Warrenton VA...parents reported their last two sorties here showed improvement after a long down period, but my sirloin was abysmal. The ONLY thing to get here is the filet mignon, which they still do well, a lesson I for some reason feel compelled to re-learn every trip home by ordering something else, to my repeated regret. The room itself is depressing, bare walls once adorned with beautiful Marshall Hawkins photos of steeplechases from the 60's... Wednesday 9/10...perhaps the find of this trip, Swank's on Main Street in downtown Kilmarnock VA. Mr. Landrum himself would not, I think, look down on this NY Strip, cooked EXACTLY to temp, and my wife's lamb chops (ditto) were excellent as well. le tout Kilmarnock seemed to be there in the main bar and dining area though we were alone at the bar/exhibition kitchen thingie, allowing pleasant conversation with chef/part owner Patrick Murphy and sous Nikki.. late Thursday 9/11...regrettable, Nalu in Dewey Beach DE, near our last-minute condo rental, serving faux Hawaiian very late, post-season and midweek, a slight redeeming grace I guess. Fri 9/12...such a huge late lunch (3:30-5:00) after a beach day, involving several dozen oysters and three half-pound orders of Old Bay shrimp, plus fish tacos, at a beach bar/tiki joint called Zoog's, at the beach end of the main drag, that we had no dinner... Saturday 9/13...lunch at a quaint little lesbian bar called The Seafood Shack, perfectly adequate grilled mahi served over salad greens, with two ice cold Natty Bohs, served in the can, regrettably made in Milwaukee by the Heilemann folks these days, but still nostalgia-inducing... for dinner, an old stand by for us, perhaps touristy--but hey, it's a tourist town--Fins on Rehoboth Boulevard, good oysters to start ( Barnstables and a second briny new englander whose name I've forgotten, begins with an N but not Narragansett), rockfish for the girls and a flounder for me, for the mains, great micro brew list and a serviceable Sancerre with the entrees) Sunday 9/14...very late lunch at Rosemary's Thyme in Dupont, pre-flight. Mediterranean pizza excellent with sweet roasted re peppers an kalamata olives predominating. Efes pilsner from Turkey, a new one on me, daughter's chicken shish quite tasty, wife's pide (sujuk & cheese) what I probably would have had if ten days of shellfish and red meat and craft beer and bourbon hadn't had me a little gout-anxious....if you've ever had an attack and read this so far you'll understand... and back home to south denver, to a very late an mediocre delivery pizza from a local (at least it's not Pizza Hut) chain, Black Jack....

can I just say, what a cool thing for pax to do? Cheers, pax!

Holy shit, seems the task set for himself by a certain fedora-ed (though not as stylishly as another local of my memory, one Jimmy Thackery) ex-Top Chef contestant, already shall we say difficult 'round these parts, just crossed the line into "herculean"....

OT but in 1972 the manager of the Newcomb Hall Cafeteria at the University of Virginia decided to "upgrade" the experience by adding a plaque on the wall next to the entrance, denominating the (in every other respect, same old) space "The Dogwood Room". In less than 24 hours some undergraduate wit had made the signage modification you all probably anticipated a sentence ago, and for the week or so before some tattler clued in the Appropriate Authorities, those of us blessed (or cursed) with a meal pass dined in the now more accurately named "The Dogfood Room". I know it's the state flower and all, but that experience made it impossible for me to ever name a restaurant anything having to do with Cornus florida, though I'm sure the Dogwood Tavern is a lovely spot and in fact sounds like my kind of joint...

I suppose one could shuck oysters with any number of things in a pinch, including a screwdriver, a church key (Julia Child famously used this) or a Swiss Army Knife, but I don't. And I don't really do anything else with my oyster shucker. It's the kind with a round sort of handle that fits perfectly in the palm, a short thick "blade" that's actually only relatively sharp--just sharp enough to slide between the lips of the shell-- at its triangular tip.

I'm not seeing any evidence of any whiskey being on offer and it would take not a little to "endurance-source" one's way through an evening here, IMHO....fair trade coffee won't get that job done, nor even the vague potential fruits of prospective "partnering" with local vintners and brewers.... my predictive track record on such things being what it is, BUY STOCK now. Or whatever they call it. "Capitalsource", possibly.