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astrid

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Everything posted by astrid

  1. astrid
    I assume crazy regarding both the weather and the itinerary? I think we'll just make it since we seem capable of squeezing a lot into our vacations and are tolerant of cooler weather. The biggest worry is probably mosquitoes, hopefully late May is too early for mosquito emergence.
  2. astrid
    How crazy is it be to cover Halifax - Moncton - PEI (2 days) - Cape Breten (3 days) - Halifax in 7 days + 2 half days? Also, how crazy is it to visit Cape Breten during the last week of May?
  3. astrid
    Also want to put in a good word for flowering annuals, they have always been worry free for me. A few Benarys Mix zinnias and cutflower marigolds will keep you in bouquets from June to frost.
  4. astrid
    You should probably give at least 2'x2' space per indeterminant tomato plant. Use bulky wooden or steel stakes, at least 5' long. Don't bother with tomato cases because they're far too flimsy. If you don't plan on visiting the garden everyday, don't bother with cherry tomatoes because they'll be a pain to pick and you'll end up with too many rotting on the ground. I've had good success with Pruden's Purple, Eva's Purple Ball, Aunt Ruby's German Green, and Kellogg's Breakfast. Don't plant Brandywine unless you're prepared to be disappointed. If you must plant, see if you can get the OTV variant, which is supposed to be better. Borrow Ira Wallace's book on vegetable gardening in the southeast and Ed Smith's Vegetable Gardener's Bible, from the Library. Those are probably the best beginner vegetable gardener books - they're straightforward and easy to follow. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (which Ira Wallace is associated with) is probably generally a good place to read up on growing guides generally. Johnny's might be more thorough, but also more biased to more northern and commercially oriented gardener.
  5. astrid
    Don't grow strawberries if the previous gardener did, it probably has an accumulation of diseases and could use a break. Plus strawberries take a year to really start producing, so it's wasted space in the meantime. With that amount of space, focus on high value stuff - greens, tomatoes, and herbs. You can sow greens now - spinach, lettuce, chard, leaf radish, mustard, kale. Wait until after April 15 for tomatoes and herbs, and opt for small transplants (see if you can get them from a garden club sale or farmer's market - they'll do better than the bigbox stuff).
  6. astrid
    Cukes are basically impossible in community gardens because of wilt virus infected cucumber beetles. They may be possible in home gardens, properly crop rotated farms, under horticultural fabrics, or maybe in year 1 of a community garden, but impossible in community gardens in this area. Many very skilled CC gardeners I know have tried and failed. While I know a few naive home gardeners who produced magnificent crops. Bitterness is a non-issue with newer hybrids or even good heirlooms such as Poona Kheera. But wilt will get your cucumbers.
  7. astrid
    I own and like The Bread Baker's Apprentice, though the recipes may still be too big for what you have in mind. Another suggestion if you're open to a wider definition of breadmaking, would be Flatbread & Flavor. It has a nice overview of various kinds of flatbread and include lots of recipes of food to eat with each flatbread.
  8. astrid
    I will just say that when humans mess with complex systems that don't really understand, I would prefer that they proceed with extreme caution and are motivated by things other than short term greed and vainglory. There's no re-dos for this one and only known planet capable of sustaining complex life, should we mess it up. We don't know the long term impact of GMO organisms, yet we're forced by Monsanto (and the regulatory bodies that are in its pockets) to eat it, breath it, have it contaminate existing non-GMO corn strains, all without my consent or knowledge. And I don't assume that old fashion breeding and hybridization is harmless or merely incremental. There's tolerable argument that the epidemic of celiac disease comes from high gliadin modern wheat strains. There are plenty of other "old fashion" ways to mess up the environments too, look at the destruction wrought by introduced species and diseases - mongooses in Hawaii, destruction of the North American chestnut and elm, kudzu, the increasing disease and insect pressure on fruit and vegetable crops. Even "good" crops introductions such as the sweet potato and corn into the old world, have very serious negative consequences for the ecology whereever they're planted (see 1493 by Charles Mann). I think that you would be very foolish to merely accept what the experts say. Experts recommended the FDA food pyramid and demonized animal fats for decades, while letting people gulp down HFCS and Crisco as healthier alternatives. And those were made before corporate interests invaded academia and government (through grants, revolving door careers, and election funding) in a way that it did not in 1930-1990.
  9. astrid
    I'm not sure why they opted for coconut milk rather than coconut cream. I'd sub in Trader Joe's coconut cream, which should be sufficiently fatty to whip without needing any reduction.
  10. astrid
    Clementines have very thin skins, so I'm not sure they would work for marmalade. Based on Food in Jar's note on canned clementine turning bitter in storage, I wouldn't recommend doing canning that include the skin. I think they need additional acid to work for making curd. I would suggest putting some of the extras (make sure they're not bruised or too soft) in plastic grocery bags and storing them in the vegetable crisper. Oranges can last for months when stored this way, without drying out or going moldy. In addition to salads, if seedless they might be good frozen into homemade popsicles. They would also make a decent orange juice (though that seems very decadent).
  11. astrid
    Hopefully they finally broke the locality curse, as it was when we visited for lunch. If my experience is typical (and it's 4.5 star Yelp rating suggest it is) It's well worth adding to the lunch rotations for anyone who works nearby. The service was encouragingly prompt and friendly for lunch service. Overall I was happy with the meal. The ramens were quite good (IMHO not as good as Daikaya, but nice noodles/broth/toppings). The raw salmon was fresh and high quality. The mixed fried plate was decent but not as good as the others - all well prepared, but just lacked a certain oomph that really good tonkatsu or really good kara-age (I think Izakaya Seki has the best version locally).
  12. astrid
    It's the iceberg salad accompanying the miso soup that comes with their entrees. The ingredients were fresh and it was clearly intended to be presented this way, but the flavor was yucky to me. Interesting that you thought the prices were a couple notches lower than Sushi Taro. We actually thought Sono's prices were higher than the equivalent items at Sushi Taro, albeit for portions that are somewhat bigger than what we get per order at Sushi Taro. (Though it's really easy for me to go crazy with Sushi Taro's menu, since they typically have so many choices for both raw fish and small plates. It's easy to order a couple rounds and then be faced with a big bill.)
  13. astrid
    Sorry to say that my first experience here was rather disappointing compared to its reputation. The positives are pretty high quality fish and rice. Downsides are price, limited range of sushi/sashimi offerings, and a rather awful iceberg salad dressing (may be petty of me, but as a big fan of Momo's fantastic iceberg salad, Sono's inedible version was a big disappointment for me). And while most of the fish in our sashimi moriawase were good (especially a tender flavorful octopus), the tuna cuts were sinewy. I would say that at this price level, I'd stick to Sushi Taro, where we had some very good sashimi earlier last week.
  14. astrid
    It's worth the fuss. It's so intensely smoky that my kitchen smells like a smoky bar after cooking, and so dry that it cooks with minimal splattering. The drippings are wonderful for cooking any kind of breakfast food. (Benton's country ham, on the other hand, I do not understand the fuss at all. It's really salty with no other flavor.)
  15. astrid
    Our experience resembles Porcupine's experience here. The environs and service were lovely, the breads were great, but the "curries" were meh. We got the lamb korma and the chicken tikka masala, and both were very underspiced (and the chicken dish didn't have any of the delicious grilled flavors associated with tandoori chicken) to the extent of not tasting like much of anything. I think Rasika is much much better.
  16. astrid
    Some of the food here is quite good, but be prepared for the most ridiculously lackadaisical service here. They were out of 2 of 4 entrees available, so we went with the highly recommended lamb dish (haneeth), which had great flavor that was nicely enhanced by the fried onions and rice. Our waitress kindly steered us away from the 2 person portion and told us 1 person portion was enough - it was huge, we ate to fill and had plenty of rice to take home. The Maraq soup was nice. The sambousa was pretty good but we've definitely had better. The Ma'soob (only available in a size suitable for 10 people) wasn't worth the calories. The Shafout was again enormous and rather weird tasting. But the most memorable thing was the lack of service, despite being nearly empty (no more than 6 diners at the most) and 4 people (all very nice when we were able to get them to interact with us) who seemed to be tasked to serve food, we were ignore for very long stretches and had trouble waiving someone down for a check. We must have waited at least 30 minutes (maybe closer to an hour) after dessert, in an nearly empty restaurant, to get our check and pay.
  17. astrid
    Ate lunch here during extended Winter RW. Pretty favorably impressed with the place. The grilled scallop sushi ceviche was the best dish and the grilled short rib was very tasty. The other dishes were all well made and well seasoned, and I like how they incorporated smoke and char into every dish.
  18. astrid
    Ate here during Restaurant Week and really liked everything, though we thought the steak was the weakest part of the menu. Didn't notice any salting problems and thought the flavors all popped really well. The wait staff seem very well trained and were very pleasant and attentive.
  19. astrid
    After being really impressed by the Rogue Gentlemen last fall, we made a weekend getaway to Richmond for a deeper dive of Richmonds restaurant scene. genericeric kindly suggested a couple great places and we gathered other recommendations through Yelp perusal. Favorite to least favorite L'Opossum - sorta French with a lot of flair and playfulness. The lobster taco with chef's surprise (a big hunk of seared foie gras) was awesome, as were lots of other things. (The Rogue Gentlemen) - the latest visit wasn't our favorite because they ran out of a couple things that we really loved, but overall, this place is great and deserves to be packed every night. Dog and Pig Show - best shrimp and grits I've ever had, and very good everything else. This place tries a little too hard to be hip and trendy (I didn't have the heart to tell the proprietress that there is nowhere near enough light to grow herbs on her wall installation), but with food this good I won't complain. Rappahannock - never ate at the DC branch but the Richmond branch is excellent Roosevelt - delightful brunch, highly recommended Magpie - overall a very good meal and a chill place. But our Miyagi oysters all had shell fragments in them. Sub Rosa - the breads are pretty good, the laminated dough pastries were very good, esp. the various croissant variations. The selections are quite limited though. Chow House - most of the menu was pretty solid, but the Korean beef didn't have great flavor and they gave out straight soy sauce to dress their house kale salad.
  20. astrid
    Finally made my way here. The crudos are marvels, the appetizers are great, and entree/desserts are very, very good. Nice cozy space that's calm enough for adult conversation and good knowledgeable staff. Our dinner here is an early contender for my best meal of 2015. I'm much more eager to go back here, than to go back to Rose's Luxury or Little Serow, line or no line.
  21. astrid
    Have to agree with Rorkin, unfortunately. Our recent experience here was bland and muddle flavors, distracted staff, and great disappointment compared to Black Salt of 3-4 years ago. I used to think of Black Salt as roughly equivalent to Hank's, albeit with somewhat different focus. But that dinner falls far short of any meal I've ever had at Hank's. At similar prices, you could have an amazing meal at Fishnook or Rappahannock.
  22. astrid
    Is this a good deal? I'm intrigued but I've never paid this much for chocolate http://www.costco.com/Neuhaus-Belgian-Chocolates-"Leather-Style"-Box.product.100080845.html
  23. astrid
    Washingtonian's comments about recent changes at Inn at Little Washington were pretty negative. The vegetarian option sounds particularly gruesome. I was very underwhelmed by my dinner at Blacksalt this week - it was good but it wasn't spectacular. A recent meal at Fishnook was spectacular. My recommendations would be Fishnet or Restaurant at Patowmack Farms, if they can accommodate the vegetarians. Another possibility is Sushi Taro's Omakase. Rogue 24 is a great experience, but the commitment of eating 16 or 24 intricately crafted courses might be too much unless they really enjoy that sort of thing.
  24. astrid
    A non-foodie friend suggested Lucy Ethiopian Restaurant for dinner last weekend and we came away quite impressed. +1 ordered the Girgiro, the chef's own creation that came out on a "fire plate" - very tasty and tender and very generously portioned. I ordered the Gurage kitfo rare and it was excellent - nicely warmed with lots of flavor and generously portioned. We sampled a bit of the lamb tibs and vegan platters ordered by others - they were pretty good for what they are but not nearly as good as the Girgiro or Gurage kitfo. The injera was good and they also serve a good kocho (a chewy thicker flatbread that's served in wedges, which is also available at Enat). The service can be a bit slow and erratic at times in the busy restaurant, but it's actually quite nice and attentive for an Ethiopian restaurant. The menu is quite extensive, so there's a more here to lure us back.
  25. astrid
    I don't think there's a thread for this yet. So what was your best meal of 2014? Lots of standout meals for us in 2014. The best overall is probably Willow Inn on Lummi Island, Washington (though Mitsui No. 30 is a strong runner up). Best locally is probably Restaurant at Patowmack Farm (though FishNook and Rogue Gentlemen are very strong runner ups). (Honorable mentions to Fishnook, Ghibellina, Rogue Gentlemen, Pok Pok, Hawksworth, The Point at Wickaninnish Inn, Beast, Little Bird, Roe, Ulla, Fol Epi, Shiro's Sushi, Spur Gastropub, Walrus and Carpenter, Cascina Spinasse, El Corvo, Roberto's 8, Vernick Food & Drink, Le Cheri, Bangkok Golden, Sushi Kyotatsu, and Mitsui # 30.)
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