Anna Phor

Or downstairs at the Reef, in one of the booths? It's been a while since I've been there, but it's generally quieter downstairs.

For icecream, I'd also recommend Larry's in Dupont; on Connecticut Ave between Q & R. If you are on the mall, the cafeteria at the National Museum of the American Indian always has interesting & reasonably priced fare. My other go-to place on the mall is the Sculpture Garden cafe. The food is not as good as it used to be, but it's a lovely garden--you can also take a picnic, if you like. On Friday nights they have a free jazz concert.

Watermelon can be replaced by puff pastry. Sauerkraut can be replaced by licorice.

I freeze a ton of corn (although maybe not with as much care as Zora describes), and I find it's okay as long as you are careful what you use it in. Soup, stew, chilli are all fine, but it doesn't hold up so well for salads or salsas. This is fine by me--I use frozen stuff in winter foods, and eat my salads & salsas in summer when it's fresh.

North Sea is on foodler, if you'd like to order online.

How do I tenderize already cooked meat? Spouse Phor picked up a chunk of london broil buffalo, and cooked it according to the wisdom of The Joy of Cooking. Results were not great. I was planning to use the leftovers for tacos later in the week. Anything I could marinade this in for a day or so that would take out some of the toughness?

I'm in Denver through Saturday, staying on 16th St mall & spending most of my time at the Convention Center. My dining options are somewhat limited, however--we're currently experiencing blizzard conditions, so I'm pretty much sticking to trying to scope out decent local spots between here and the convention. I have to second the recommendation for Cook's Fresh Market, on 16th at Glenarm. They have a very nice selection of sandwiches, with great bread--I had a roast beef with just the right amount of horseradish. Everything is very fresh, they have an excellent bakery with both bread and pastries, and were a very welcome alternative to an au bon pain or corner bakery when I was fighting my way through horizontal snow and needed a decent lunch to sustain me. Last night, my colleague and I stopped by the Paramount Cafe, also on 16th St. Unpretentious little cafe/bar frequented by locals (as opposed to the thousands of my professional colleagues who have descended on the city; not that I don't love 'em, but I would like to hang out with some actual Coloradans). I had a simple burrito with pork & green chili, accompanied by posole and black beans. Tasty and well priced. I'd love to hear any other suggestions for places nearby that aren't too pricey (we have a $30 maximum on expenses for dinner); I think my colleague is interested in trying buffalo, although she's not a super-adventurous eater.

You might enjoy the Town & Country bar at the Mayflower Hotel. They have a nice cocktail list, and if you chat up Sam the bartender, sometimes he'll do magic tricks.

Hello Cupcake at Dupont Circle has a gluten-free selection. I have a good friend who is allergic to gluten and she speaks highly of them.

I use cookbooks rarely, and mostly for reference purposes rather than following recipes, except if I'm baking. Not that I don't love cookbooks--but I'll sit down & read a bunch of recipes and then improvise. Tonight's dinner was: Sunchoke gnocchi with braised cabbage, caraway & sausage in a sour cream sauce. Vanilla ice-cream with the last of the summer's peach/balsamic syrup. I made the gnocchi just as I would make a potato one; it had a nice nuttiness to it from the sunchokes. The sauce was a variation on a pasta sauce taught to me years and years ago by a friend who had learned it from a friend who had learned it from her mother--Bridget's Mother's Sauce was a staple in several college households that I lived in and got passed around freely. The original is a mushroom sauce with sour cream, nutmeg and tarragon. Tonight's version was cabbage, caraway & nutmeg with a wee bit of sausage thrown in for good measure.

One of the stalls at Dupont Market has some sort of popcorn-on-the-cob. I've never tried it & I don't know whether its still available. I also don't know the name of the farm, but usually they are on the west side of 20th, right in the middle.

It's non-canonical pie, but WaPo's Breton Apple Pie is divine. The crust is rich & buttery and just enough of the pie juices seep in for it to take on some of the apple flavor without getting soggy. I myself tend to fall on the cake side of the pie vs. cake divide, but this, especially with a side of whipped cream, is v. satisfying.

Wait--yeast expires? Ha. I had no idea. I've been using the same box of instant yeast since 2001. It lives at the back of the fridge. Nobody better tell those little yeasties they've expired; they work fine.

We're currently in the throws of considering a microwave purchase. Anyone do grains in the microwave? Does it speed up cooking time of things like wild rice or barley?

I spent my early childhood in Scotland, where we have Halloween, but no trick or treating. Kids go "guising". There's a very set formula for guising; you knock on someone's door and you say "Can you give us something for our Halloween?". And then you have to perform a short skit or song for the host before you get candy. I don't actually remember what kind of candy we got, although I can probably remember all the costumes I wore. (My mother was a fan of black garbage bags with stuff on them. Garbage bag + paper numbers = calculator. Garbage bag + colored tape to make a logo, and you're a candy bar. Nobody ever, as far as I remember, had a store-bought costume.) There are a few other traditions that I don't think are found in the U.S. We make our lanterns from turnips, not pumpkins. And there are some very traditional games and rituals, dooking for apples being the most popular. It's done with a bucket of apples, and you kneel on a chair over the bucket with a fork in your mouth and aim to drop the fork into the apple. There's also another game which involves eating a piece of bread spread with treacle which is suspended from a string--no hands allowed. And if you can take the peel off an apple in a single piece, you throw the piece over your shoulder to reveal the first initial of your true love. Apparently sleeping with an apple under your pillow on Halloween night will cause you to dream of your future spouse, but I was a practical child, and always figured it would be lumpy.

While I'm sure others have had this discussion, is there any health benefit to the mixers in cocktails once you add the alcohol and all? Well, I drink gin & tonic, and I haven't had malaria in years. Mmusiker, better still to drink with someone who actually wants to.

I lived more or less across the street from that Hilton for about five years (I just moved). We shopped at the farmer's market for produce, and most of the rest of our groceries we had delivered, with the occasional trip to the secret Safeway at 20th & S for supplemental items. If you're looking to wander around and run into magical truffle-stuffed whatsits, there's not a whole lot around that neighborhood. It's a pleasant 25 minute walk through the park into Georgetown, which has a Dean & DeLuca (head across the P street bridge then follow the dirt path through the park until you pop out at M street). In the other direction, if you climb the hill on Connecticut and head past the zoo and across the bridge, you'll hit Cleveland Park, where you'll find Vace, which is an excellent Italian deli; Fresh Med, a Lebanese takeout; and Brookville supermarket, which is one of the few remaining independent supermarkets around.

From the ever erudite Language Log, who also bring us Sauteed Wild Bacteria and other gems.

Looks delicious. No idea where you could get it, but you can get dried hibiscus flowers from health food stores (Yes market carries them, sometimes) or middle eastern grocery stores--could you make your own?

Banana Leaves is definitely on my go-to list of quick weeknight takeout places. I like the fact that they will do some of their deep-fried chicken dishes with grilled chicken breast & broccoli. They also do the best chicken curry laksa that I've had in dc; not too spicy, but with a really satisfying chickeniness and just enough kick to keep it interesting.

Do you have parking out front? IME, the answer is so they can watch their ride to make sure no-one gives them a ticket while they go upstairs.

How long did you saute it for? An extended sweat will also cut out some of the bitterness. I usually let mine go 20-30 mins on low heat.

I cooked up a batch of wheatberries on the weekend to have on hand for weeknight salads, and I was googling recipes looking for interesting things to do with them. I got home twenty minutes early and in fits of creativity, I decided I was going to do several different dishes, each involving wheatberries. So dinner tonight was Iron Chef Wheatberry Challenge: 1. a tomato/basil salad with cooked wheatberries toasted in butter with garlic and topped with a dob of fresh mozzerella. 2. wheatberries with curried wilted chard--sauteed with mustard seeds, cumin, coriander & paprika 3. with chipotle buffalo sausages, sauteed bell pepper, and feta (this one was a hit) 4. wheatberry chapatis with tillamook cheddar 5. dessert, based on cuccia, which I hasten to add I've never actually eaten--very much an "inspired by" dish which completely departed from most of the original ingredients and used what I had to hand; wheatberries cooked with cinnamon & ginger, served atop some greek yoghurt with honey, finely diced candied citrus, and a quick grating of nutmeg. #1 was meh; I was hoping the wheatberries would get even toastier in flavor, but they didn't really. #2 was good and had great smoky flavors, #3 was excellent, #4 was surprisingly tasty, and the dessert was pretty good, too--I think it would also make a very nice breakfast dish.

If it's firm (like the polenta that can be bought in the polenta-sausage-tube-pack), I like to slice it, toss in olive oil, salt & pepper, and bake for about an hour until I have polenta chips. Cut it thin and you'll have a more potato chip; sometimes I cut them to the size of thick cut french fries.

I've done strawberries in a basil simple syrup with a wee swirl of balsamic added at the end. Very good. There's also a thai dish I love--a green papaya salad, but that treats the papaya as a vegetable more than as a fruit. It generally incorporates chilies, garlic, cilantro, thai basil and probably a bunch of other secret ingredients I don't know about. I've made an erzatz version with fresh coconut meat, but that was under some pressing culinary circumstances. I also do an apricot sauce for pork that has mustard seed & cumin in it (although I guess those are spices, not herbs).