bookluvingbabe

He had mentioned seeing the food truck parked at Hank Dietles and as I drive past it myself regularly, I went with it.

(Still my favorite thread of all time...)

Fennel, licorice, anise (See a theme???)

I'd prefer to avoid olives but I'll eat them.

Corned Beef king?

Fuck Cancer.  Today, tomorrow, and forever.

Sigh...

We did a completely pre-fab meal from Whole Foods at the inlaws supplemented by pies and extra veg procured by MIL at a local store.

It was surprisingly succesful. The brussels sprouts were underdone and the turkey skin didn't crisp up but otherwise we were pleased.

Holding Paris in my heart right now. It's a fucked up world.

It is interesting to sort by most viewed.  Ray's the Steak's holds the lead by a significant number!

I watched the Paris episode and recorded the others.

Meh. It's kind of cute but it gets old pretty quickly.

Dear god, if there is a sweet spot, please tell us! My 8 year old adores the place on Thursday nights for TV dinners.

Daniel,

See we stopped gong to BGR because their burgers were always hockey pucks no matter how much we asked, begged, etc...

The lines at the Starbucks are always long.  Goldberg's is rarely crowded but I so rarely eat grains these days.

We end up doing dinner out every Tuesday because there isn't enough time between karate and choir to go home.  I can not remember the last time we ate anywhere in Cabin John.  Probably Attmans 2 years ago.

On 10/23/2015 at 10:27 PM, DonRocks said:

This whole conversation is fascinating to me - I never once thought I was doing something heretical.

 What about a jambon beurre?

 I don't eat jambon beurre at the Jewish deli...

 My family wasn't very observant and I was in college before I had a cheeseburger or a steak and cheese sandwich.  (The steak and cheese is at least partially being from the midwest...)  We had bacon mashed potatoes at our wedding and had to put up a sign that it was turkey bacon.  I think for many of us there are lingering cultural and religious taboos that we don't even think about 99.99 percent of the time.  My oldest nephew could not understand why his parents were appalled when his single request for his bar mitzvah was shrimp cocktail. 

 I don't object to the mixing of the cream cheese with the meat.  I object to the idea of making it anything less than a vehicle for the perfect schmear of cream cheese or white salad.  Bagels are a breakfast food!

Feeling just a little sad that Mr. BLB's dad no longer has Met's season tickets.

---

Tom Seaver (DaveO)

We had a streak of very average meals at Tower Oaks and Founding Farmers.

We had a lovely buffett lunch at Comus Inn last year. You can't beat the view!

You can have a mostly private room at Potomac Pizza (Kentlands location) where the kids make their own pizzas and can do other activities.  I'm sure they would serve you beer and pizza for the adults.  We did that for BL-3rd graders 4th birthday.

My gauge of a successful party is how few kids end up crying when it is done. The Bounce U/Pump It Up parties fill that criteria in the 5-7 year old set.  Laser tag has been a huge hit lately.  We just went to a 9 year old's trampoline party and it was the first party in ages where a bunch of kids end up crying because they got bumped and bruised.

I loved Ball Four when I first read it--probably around age 12 so 1982-ish.  Some of the people referenced in the book were still active and I vaguely knew who they were.  I read it again in my early 20s and loved it even more.  I haven't read it since but it is a great read and not a long one.  I think it is now available on the Kindle.

We spend more than our fair share of time in Ridgefield.

Early Bird Cafe is solid.

We really like Tom Toms.

Beyond that, we are at the will of the in-laws and now that BL-3rd grader hasn't napped in years I don't get to make a break for lunch...

Thanks! My guest of honor picked Bis. I'm not attending but I will report back with feedback.

I need to organize a dinner for about 9 people next week after a special event. The keywords are nice and quiet.

Bis?
How loud is Johnny's?
Art and Soul?

I don't think they want Sonoma on the House side.

Go for it.  I will happily post my love of Scherzer until the end of time. Or he breaks my heart...

Rose's--don't want to wait.

Mintwood Place--I just don't go to Adams Morgan anymore

When my grandfather emigrated to the US he spoke no English. His family landed in St. Louis and in time he learned English listening to Cardinal's and Brown's games on the radio.  My mother developed her love early.  Meanwhile, in Utah, my father was listening to Cardinal's games as they were the Western most team in the 1930s.    I don't think I had much of a choice in the matter!  I did like the "Clubbies" for a bit when I was 4 and 5 but I got over that pretty quickly. :-)

In college I started doing Rotisserie baseball and that is eventually how I met Mr. BLB.  Who is a Met's fan... (Sigh...)   I became an Orioles fan because it was baseball, and Cal Ripken and Camden Yards was a great place to see a game in the 90s.

We tried really hard to be Nat's fans.  We bought season tickets.  We promised we raise BL-3rd grader as a Nats fan. But he is a die-hard Cards fan.

I've fallen away from most other sports and what passion I had for tennis apparently started and ended with John McEnroe (although we did see Andy Roddick play Agassi when he was just a punk kid and run Agassi ragged...That was one of those moments when you know you were seeing someone special.)

This sounds like a great idea: the five-year-old will not remember any details of the trip, but might remember the single act of blowing up the balloon, especially if you watch said balloon on TV the next day and make a big fuss over it ("Remember what we saw last night? That's what we saw!"). Based on what booklovingbabe said, this is exactly what I'd do, and the good thing is that the nine-year-old isn't so old that she'd be bored with doing both things - it sounds perfect.

"Dining in Brooklyn with Toddlers" by Tweaked

"Celebratory Dinner ... Ages 4 through 60" by adjen

"Child-Friendly Lunch for 8 ...." by Ericandblueboy

I will say that we took a friend's 6 year old many moons ago and said "we are going to see them blow up the balloons" and she was quite unhappy that there were no explosions.  So if you have a particularly literal child, go with "inflate the balloons" instead...

When we did NYC with my then-just turned six year old, Blue Smoke was a huge hit.

You can go see them inflate the Macy's balloon the night before with a much smaller crowd.

I frigging adore Danny Meyer.  I don't know him, I couldn't pick him out of a line up.  But I wish more restaurateurs were as serious about their craft as he is.

From Union Square Cafe to Blue Smoke to Eleven Madison Park (back in the day) to the Modern to Shake Shack--I have only had one disappointing experience at one of his places (Shake Shack Dupont) and the manager quickly and cheerfully made that right.  This is going back to the mid 90s to April of this year.

Given a choice between a Danny Meyer place and a non-Danny Meyer place in NYC, I will always go with Danny Meyer.

And then we did none of these things but stopped at Whole Foods and Astro Donut on the way to the train!

As predicted, we were not bothered by motion sickness on the train.  The dinner wasn't bad but I could have used a more substantial breakfast than cereal and muffins.

The Sugar Mill was just okay--it was hot, it isn't air-conditioned and it is super crowded.  Probably not the best experience with overtired traveling companions (Mr. BLB flew in that am and we picked him up at the airport after getting off the train...)

I did not have time to hit Total Wine but we adore Publix.  There is one 5 minutes from where we stayed in Daytona and we were there at least once a day.  They are so darn nice!