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Had good meals at The Local and Parallel 38. The Local is in my mind farm-to-table done really well, neither too austere nor too sloppy, both possible pitfalls of lesser restaurants. It's also considerably cheaper than its competitors in Charlottesville. Latitude 38 offered somewhat more exotic fare, mostly in small plates but also had a number of larger plates at similar to small plate prices. All the offerings were quite good and the larger plates (only available at brunch) were good deals. I would rank both well above a rather unsatisfactory meal at Ivy Inn.

Another stay in Greenville, I spent most of the time eating leftover ham and catching up on Amazon Original Series. Bacon Brothers continues to be fantastic to anyone who likes meat. Their pimento cheese with bacon jam is a match made in heaven. Went to Saskatoon Grill and it was okay. Nice (though of the over familiar and trying too hard style) service, okay prices and portions, and meat was cooked to proper temperature. But the (elk, ostrich, lamb, duck, and beef) steaks lacked flavor. Not planning on returning here unless I was dragged back.

(I doubt anyone will ever read this comment, since it's ghettoized in its own tiny thread. Too bad, this place is worth the repeated miseries of driving down I-95). A re-visit confirms our initial impression. This place is awesome. Wonderful modern American cuisine at good prices, fab cocktails and cocktail book. If ever there was a chef(s) driven restaurant, this would be it. We ate at a lot of great places in 2013 and 2014 and I can think of a number that are as good as Rogue Gentlemen, but I can't think of any that are "better". Off the current menu, the $15 foie gras and smoked mussel pasta are must orders, but nothing we ate wasn't awesome. We're plotting a weekend getaway here in January primarily for the purpose of eating more and drinking more here. The "Open 7 Days Until Midnight" tag for this restaurant is wrong wrong wrong. On both the printed menu and the website, no Monday hours are listed. The kitchen seems to close by 10 PM or earlier on a quiet night.

PS - also want to add a note about Royal Caribbean's formal nights as it was something that worried me before the trip. None of the specialty dining options observe formal nights. We saw men wearing very casual tops (practically Hawaiian shirts) and khakis in the Main Dining Room on formal nights, so I don't think there's actual enforcement of this policy.

A recap of our cruise on Grandeur of the Seas out of Baltimore. Overall, it was well kept up ship with a pleasant staff and a nice layout. Overall, we were quite satisfied with the Main Dining Room offering. The proteins were cooked correctly and seasoned appropriately, all the ingredients looked and tasted fresh, and there was a good range of options for each meal. Pasta and saucing seems to be the kitchen's weak spot "“ anything where salt and butter are the main seasoning tend to taste better than stuff with more elaborate seasoning. The dinner rolls are very good and they keep the butter at a spreadable temperature. The snails are great, we ordered them with every MDR dinner. The desserts had more hits than misses for us. Breakfast and lunches are not as good as dinner, I prefer Windjammer buffet or Park Cafe for those meals, though the lunch salad bar in MDR is quite nice. Some of the sandwiches at Park Cafe were very good "“ the made to order roast beef/pastrami sandwiches (they alternate between the two) were very tasty and used nice crusty rolls. After years of hearing about the horrors of cruise ship buffets, I was pretty impressed with what was on offer. The buffet food was fresh and properly seasoned. It was probably a better option for breakfast and possibly lunch, compared to MDR. We found the specialty restaurants to be underwhelming overall. They do use more costly ingredients compared to the MDR, but the cooking is less creative and not necessarily more skillful. We also found the wait staff at Giovanni's Table to be rather clumsy compared to the efficient MDR wait staff, but that may be due to recent staff changes. Chops is better than Outback Steakhouse, but a long way from a proper steakhouse like Ray's. The appetizers and desserts were good not great. Giovanni's Table had good lambchops, but nothing else stood out. Izumi's fish is fresh from the freezer. Not much flavor or silky texture. Maybe Wegman's level. Chef's Table was pretty good and a good deal. You won't confuse it for a dinner at CityZen but the food is well prepared and they're very generous with the wine pours. * We were able to test out our sea legs towards the end of the cruise, when we had to sail through 20 foot waves. I'm glad that I remembered to pack Dramamine.

Recently had dinner at Rogue Gentlemen and came away impressed. Impeccable cooking, a great cocktail program, nice atmosphere, good service, and plentiful neighborhood parking. And the prices are indeed quite moderate on the pocketbook.

Has anyone seen Kirkland parchment paper at any of the DC area Costco locations? I'll need a new roll soon and couldn't find it in Pentagon City.

Costco's October coupon book has discounts for both Victoria marinara sauce and Palermo thin crust margarita pizzas. I find that Victoria has one of the freshest and least processed tasting sauces, so it's a good base sauce for cooking with.

I definitely second Joe's opinions about the town of Staunton. It's a delightful and lively downtown area, very safe, and quite walkable. There are a number of high quality cultural attractions as well, so there is more than enough to fill up any weekend visit. My favorite would be the Frontier Culture Museum right outside of Staunton. Think Colonial Williamsburg except more rustic, intimate, and you get to actually touch stuff. The volunteer/re-enactors there are top notch. The American Shakespeare Company was a really fun experience too. The actors are enthusiastic and talented, the intermission programing is great fun, and the theater space is delightful. Sunspot Studio lets you watch glassblowers anytime that they're working. Their store has some really lovely pieces. The Saturday Farmer's Market is very good. A very diverse variety of vendors, some of them selling some very well grown heirloom vegetables that I've rarely seen elsewhere. In addition to The Shack, Zynodoa's kitchen also turned out a very fine meal for us. Crab Tree Fall and Woodrow Wilson Museum were rather disappointing, however.

If you like listening to audiobooks, you may want to check out LibriVox. They have a very fine selection of audio files for out-of-copyright books. I really enjoyed 1491 and 1493 by Charles Mann. Great non-fictional detective stories would be how I'd describe them.

No direct experience with either fruit, but I put up raspberries and sour cherries (unpitted) in booze every year. Never had any problems with spoilage. I use vodka for raspberries and Seagrams 7 for everything else, so about similar proof as brandy (I think they're all around 40% alcohol). Top it off with a spoon or two of sugar and wait a few months for things to settle. Sour cherry is hands down the favorite, followed by raspberries (the firm California berries tend to do better than softer PYO raspberries from local orchards). Tried with sweet cherries and blackberries, but the results tasted too much like cough syrup for my liking. Sweet cherries are much better pickled.

If you are in the market for a nice canner, Costco.com is selling All American pressure cookers at pretty good prices right now. I'm almost tempted to get one but I have an unsuitable glass cooktop plus I've basically stopped bothering to can anything other than jam and jellies. (Blanching and freezing or refrigerator pickles are just so much easier to do in a pinch).

We recently tried all 5 pastas on Ghibellina's menu and I think Copeland has the best overall pasta (?program?) in DC. While most good Italian restaurants in DC seems to have one or two pastas that really stand out (while the others are marred by issues with the pasta or sauce or temperature), all the pastas at Ghibellina are fantastic.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! Our cruise has been booked. The itinerary will be West Caribbean, so no St. Maartens unfortunately. We'll stay cautiously optimistic on the food and sights (though, having been to Hawaii and New Zealand, we may already be hopelessly spoilt). Grandeur was hit with a norovirus outbreak in April, so I hope that means they'll be extra vigilant regarding food safety.

Anyone taken a cruise with Royal Caribbean in the last year or two? We're thinking of taking a 10-day Caribbean cruise with them out of Baltimore in December to test out our sea legs (if we like the experience, we might consider fancier cruises in the future). From the post here, it sounds like their food is pretty decent if you're willing to pay surcharges. We're mostly looking for a relaxing and easy vacation with some opportunities to snorkel, so entertainment and excursions options are not important to us.

Was there recently for a special occasion meal and loved it. I think the move to a working farm has improved Tarver King's range. The ingredients and preps are more rustic and interesting. A bit of refinement might have lost along the way, but the execution is still precise and exciting. Really love the snacks and appetizers currently offered. The service was casual but quite good. If you've been thinking of coming here, go now as the unseasonably cool temperatures right now are perfect for al fresco dinners here.

Funny how our senses differ. We were back at Rose's Luxury recently and really liked the new bread and butter. The ash did not taste at all bitter or unpleasant to me, but worked beautifully with the highly whipped and sweetened butter. I'm afraid I'm not so in love with the renovation done to the rest of the menu, they're good but not as good as the dishes they replaced. The pasta options, in particular, fell quite short of Ghibellina's pasta dishes sampled earlier in the week.

Rus Uz deserves a mention here. The prices are moderate, the portions generous (3 huge lamb shish kabobs for less than $20), and the food is very tasty. They're getting more popular, though we've been able to walk in and get seated each time.

Your best bet for hot weather lettuce is probably Jericho. Shade cloth and daily watering will help a lot too. You can also start new plants now and plant them out in late August, as well as direct seed September into October (they'll survive most winters in the area and get an early start next spring). I don't bother with summer lettuce because it's a lot of hassle and by mid July there are lots of other goodies competing for my stomach and attention. For summer greens, the curly kales (if you can keep the bugs off) and Swiss chards seem to be the best bets in this area. I can usually get a couple weeks of lamb's quarter tops from weedy patches, before they start elongating and getting nasty.

Is there any evidence that buying from smaller/local fruit and veg producers would reduce exposure to food borne illnesses? I understand the logic behind meat and dairy outbreaks being tied to large processors. But for fruits and vegetables, wouldn't bigger packers would actually have better control of possible outbreaks, since they have more standardize sanitation procedures and often have good refrigeration chains from the orchards to the supermarket? Anyhow, we bought and ate a crate of peach that was on the recalled list. No sickness. But I am very annoyed that it took them almost 2 months to discover and report this issue. Shouldn't they be doing this on at least a weekly or biweekly basis?

It'll definitely set without the waterbath "processing". I usually refrigerate the last few ounces of jam of each batch, and they set just as firmly as the ones that get processed.

Here's my varieties list. If you're interested, let me know by Saturday, as I will need to get the plants from my parents on Sunday. Edit: the list is shorter now. PM me if you're interested.

I planted a few pomes (purchased as gallon size plants) last August and the roots all survived the winter with a light cover of mulch. Even some of the stems survived. And two of the varieties were not reputed to be particularly hardy - Red Silk and Agat, so I think most Central Asian varieties have a good chance in DC as long as they are not planted in a frost pocket or in a cold suburb. If size or hardiness is a concern, pomegranates grow well in large pots and can be overwintered in garages. Pot culture can also help control moisture during the ripening process to avoid cracks, as well as buy more time for late maturing varieties. Like a lot of fruit trees, the important thing with hardiness is to avoid wet feet while dormant and hope they don't encounter a cold snap following an early warm up. Salavatski and Kazake are generally considered the hardiest, but USDA did not offer them as cuttings. I have Lubymi and a few others that fall into the next tier of hardiness.

If anyone here is interested in adapting a couple baby pomegranate plants (or a couple dozen), please let me know. I propagated about 150 plants from cuttings I received from USDA 3 months ago. Right now, they're growing happily in 3"x3"x8" plant bands and ready to plant in the ground. The plants are free, though all the interested parties will have to come by my home in Arlington to pick up the plants. I'll post the varieties later. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of choices and these were picked for flavor and hardiness. They should grow and flower in DC, especially if they're grown in large pots. I know pomegranates are considered marginal for zone 7, but I know of people who successfully grew them outside in zone 5 (with protection) and zone 6 (without protection). Here's a bit more on Pomegranate cultivation Here's a lot more on Pomegranates.

I forgot to include Shirley Delicious, which is on the way to Port Renfrew. It was okay food and a charming establishment, but you would do much much better by picking up provisions at Fol Epi or getting lunch at Point no Point.