Anna Phor

A napoleon is too much work, so I should try croquembouche? Hells yeah. Choux pastry is dead easy. Waay easier than puff. (Thanksgiving this year. Making a chicken, rather than a turkey, since we are but 2. Roasting it in pyrex. Pull it out of the oven to turn and baste about half way through. Must've been a spot of cold water on the countertop -- my pyrex pretty much *explodes*, broken glass is everywhere. Happily, the chicken was in some foil and was rescued.)

Stopped into La Chaumiere last night for dinner before a friend's party in Georgetown. It might be a little too cozy for my tastes -- I almost felt obliged to introduce myself to the people seated at the next table, since we were so close to them. The food was serviceable. I had a beef wellington, which was good, although not in puff pastry as our waiter had informed us. Spouse Phor had a lamb dish which was also decent. But the food service was very slow -- we were seated for a full hour before any food arrived at our table. Verdict: for the money, there are a dozen other places across the city that I would have rather tried.

Brickskeller has Coopers' Sparkling -- and they indeed *had* some in stock when I popped in looking for something Australian to drink after our election last month. Now, if anyone knows where to get a cold VB ... It's not the world's best beer, but it's the beer I learned to drink beer on, and it has a heavy nostalgia factor for me.

If it was hopping at 9.30, that would explain why it was quieter than usual at 11, which is about as early as I can usually drag myself out of bed on a Sunday ... I had bought some very nice back bacon from Cibola a couple weeks ago, but apparently they aren't doing that any more . Something about nitrates. Also, the people across the way from Cibola had real. fresh. ginger. The likes of which I have not seen since I left Hawai'i.

You can definitely get coffee in the front lounge at the Tabard Inn; I wrote chunks of my doctoral dissertation in that room. It's a gorgeous room, especially in the wintertime when the fire is roaring. It believe also has a reputation as being a discreet place for movers & shakers & powermongers to do business. I once overheard an extremely serious sounding discussion regarding possible military interventions in North Korea -- although one presumes that if the gentlemen in question had more access to the centers of power and less of a need to publicly demonstrate it, I wouldn't have overheard them.

I've never done it myself, but Alton Brown has a technique for drying that involves a box fan & some (clean!) AC filters.

Anyone else use foodler.com for takeout or delivery? I came across it about a month or so, and it's a revelation. You type in your zip, and it gives you a list of restaurants that deliver to your address (a substantial list, where I live -- at least 20). When you click on the restaurant, you then get a clickable menu where you can place your order. The site then faxes your order to the restaurant. You can pay by credit card online or by cash when they deliver. There's also a takeout option if you want to pick up the food yourself. It's free to the customer -- all the costs are paid by the restaurant. Some of the restaurants use takeout taxi, which has an extra fee, but they are clearly marked. Oh, and there are also lists of the "most popular" dishes ordered from the restaurant that week, and there's a section for reviews/ feedback -- once you've place your order, you get an email and then you can click back through to leave rate the restaurant and leave comments. I love it. No more messing around trying to find takeout menus. No more repeating my order on the phone because the person on the other end is in a noisy kitchen. I know I'm raving. They should be paying me for advertising. (They aren't, in case anyone was wondering.)

I grabbed a pint of chillies from the farmer's market on Sunday, and I'd really like to have a jar of chopped chillies to hand in my fridge. I made up this recipe from the USDA. I didn't actually bother with sterilizing & putting it up, since I'm planning just to keep it in the fridge, but does it sound a bit suspect to anyone else? Just chillies, water and a teeny bit of (optional) salt? How come this won't just rot in the fridge? Is the capsaicin content in chillies enough to retard spoilage? I know they typically don't rot in my fridge if I keep air circulating around them -- they just dry out and shrivel up, but I have a shaky gut feeling about this recipe (pun entirely intended).

1. Peanut oil. I think I'm okay if it's fresh, but if it starts to smell even a teeny bit, I wanna gag. 2. Creamed Vegetable of any sort. Gammon. Cf. school dinners in Britain in the early 80s. 3. Baileys. 1 & 3 are from unfortunate incidents with the porcelain telephone; 2, just coz they are gross. Bitter melon, otoh, is truly vile and doesn't count. I understand the wet bread thing, too; I'm not fond of things like panzanella or even biscuits with gravy, but I don't mind the bread in French onion soup.

I just saw this -- and I'm guessing I'm probably too late. But just in case. I'm from Australia, but it's a loooong time since I've lived there. I'm from Perth (west coast), but I've spent a fair amount of time in Melbourne. I was a completely impoverished student while I lived there, so my recommendations aren't going to be anything fancy. In Melbourne, go visit the Queen Victoria Market. The deli hall is a great place, and it's worth grabbing a kebab in the food hall. There used to be a decent pub across the street with a great jukebox. A wander up (or tram ride) Sydney Road is also a very cool culinary experience -- you can trace waves of immigration as you go outward from the city, starting with the Italian & Greek neighbourhoods, moving into middle eastern & Lebanese and ending up with southeast Asia -- Vietnamese, Cambodian, Indonesia. (There's great Greek food in Melbourne -- there's a huge Greek community there.) The area around Lygon Street is also home to a nightlife/restaurant district. Things worth trying in Australia that you won't find elswhere. Australian wine (well, you can get that elsewhere, I suppose. But if you spot a Margaret River chardonnay, have a glass for me). A burger with pickled beets & a fried egg on it. Tim tams (which are chocolate cookies). Potato wedges -- they come with sour cream & sweet Thai chilli sauce for dipping (those, I miss). A sausage roll -- beats out a pie any day, for my money. (I once made my husband sit in a car for four hours so I could go to a particular bakery that does a deliciously irresistable flaky pastry sausage roll.) On the more gourmet end of things, if you see any of our weird native crustaceans, they are worth a try; Moreton Bay bugs (saltwater), yabbies or marron (both freshwater). Emu is tasty, although not commonly available. Kangaroo is becoming more and more widely eaten. Also, people will try to get you to eat vegemite. If you must, you can try it, but really, I wouldn't bother.

There's a bowling alley open to the public at GW. $5 per person per game plus $2 for shoe rental -- cheaper if you have a GW ID. It lacks a bar, alas, and the only available food comes out of the vending machine.

I've also seen it at the Giant in Wheaton -- although never at any of the other Giants I've been to.

I know it's a chain, but what about Lebanese Taverna? Also, I believe Skewers (upstairs from Cafe Luna at 17 & P) has a small private room, and their prices are reasonable.

Dinner tonight -- Cold (Vaguely) Middle Eastern Things. Hummus, cold green beans in a tomato sauce, a salad of tomato, feta & olives, roasted zucchini paste. Horrid bread from Safeway. Summer pudding.

There's a stall at the Dupont Farmers' Market sometimes has it -- I don't remember the name of the farm offhand, but they have big metal buckets of spinach & greens. They're usually on the east side of the parking lot, next to or almost next to Cibola farms.

The USDA publishes a fantastic, free, and comprehensive guide to home canning. I just made a batch of strawberry jam. I used about a quart of strawberries; yield was about three 8 oz jars. It jelled nicely, but it's a tad sweeter than I'd like. (p.s. Hi. Newbie here.)