astrid

Well, there's one coming our way, scheduled to arrive today. I'm going to fill up on gas, charge up all my electronics, and buy some dry ice. Just to be on the safe side.

Anyone else read this and get really freaked out?

The 24 hour outage we experienced was a great vindication for purchasing this. (Actually purchased for long vacations, but it a great relief to have backup power for our cellphones during the 24 hours of uncertainty).

We were told several times that bear bells and bear whistles may actually attract bears. We put off buying bear spray because they cost about $30 and cannot be taken on planes. The supposedly best option is to hike in a large group and talk loudly, especially before blind corners. When confronted with a bear, give them space to pass. We did all that, and had a bear that slowly followed (freaked out) us on the trail for several minutes.

I am pretty happy with the tortas that I tried at Tortas Frontera, when we recently passed through O'Hare twice. We tried the Cubana, Pepito, Cochinita Pibil, Choriqueso, and Smoky Garlic Shrimp. Also tried the tortilla soup. Of these, the Cochinita Pibil torta is definitely the best of the lot. It comes with an extremely spicy habanero sauce that's hotter than many bottled hot sauces. The Pepito and Cubano were also good. ORD

Jackson; Grand Teton; West Glacier; Butte; Yellowstone I fear that I must disappoint Rieux. Park Cafe's pies have taken quite a dip, the slice I had was doughy and uninspired, even though it was a flavor recommended by the staff. We did find pie bliss elsewhere. The good - Rendevous Bistro in Jackson is excellent, relaxed setting with good food and knowledgable staff. This was a clear favorite of the trip. - Snake River Grill in Jackson is also very good, in a see and be seen sort of way. The interior was straight out of Architectural Digest (fancy Western ski lodge). Maybe a bit too much artiface for my taste, but the food is undeniably good and the staff knows how to make you (in our case, dirty unwashed hikers) feel important. - Peaks at Signal Mountain Lodge (Grand Teton) has decent to good food, great views and good service, and quite possibly the best blackberry pie I've ever had. Flaky, light as air crust and tasty filling. Get this pie. - Belton Chalet, near West Glacier, serves very hearty and tasty fare. This is not food you can eat everyday or even every week, but it really hits the spot after a good dayhike. - Izaak Walton's, near Marias Pass (this is an alternate to Going to the Sun Road when traversing from East Glacier to West Glacier) is very good. Fun interior and theme, good waitstaff, good ingredients cooked to proper temperature and somewhat creatively (for the region) sauced. The desserts are also delicious. - Kalispell Grand Hotel - nice alterntive to chain hotels. This place is 100 years old and neat as a pin. Their breakfast has a nice selected of homebaked goods and they give out tasty cookies in the afternoon. The only downside is that the location can be relatively noisy. - Johnson's of St. Mary - hearty and tasty food, the supper options are very good. The sides (esp. mashed potato and gravy) came out of the box. Good soup. If you have a big appetite and are not picky, consider the Zack's Bear Attack option. It will make the most disgusting chain fast food offerings look sedate by comparison. Ours also happen to be really tasty. - Uptown Cafe in Butte - Good food for the price. Nothing world changing, just good food with good service, at a good price. The acceptable - Yellowstone Lake Lodge Dining Room - a major step up from our other Xanterra experience at Mammoth Dining Room (see below), but still not good. The prices are high, the cooking temperatures are off, and the saucing is pathetic. Still, if you're in Yellowstone and don't have a choice, this might be one of your better meal options. - Park Cafe (outside of St. Mary) - decent diner food with lots of atmosphere and friendly staff. However, the much vaunted pies were not good. Thin doughy crust (they tried for flaky, but maybe it just sat too long and ended up doughy) and the fillings were not that tasty. This is a long way from Peaks. - Vimy's (Waterton) - The food is okay. We sat at the lounge and it was a nice place to relax. - Pioneer Grill at Jackson Lake Lodge (Grand Teton) - average to decent diner foods. The service can be erratic as the location is staffed by 18 and 19 year olds, some of whom are ditzy. It's a big diner setup, which might be an interesting place to take the kids. The awful - Mammoth Dining Room. Stale cold bread, overcooked meats, and badly prepared brought back my worst middle school cafetaria lunch experiences. Clumsy inexperienced staff. Other matters If you plan to backcountry hike, buy bear spray at the start of the trip. Otherwise you'll freak yourself out. The bears are definitely here, especially in Glacier National Park. I found hiking much better in Glacier and Grand Teton. Yellowstone's soil doesn't support the diversity of plant life, so there's less to see. Most of Glacier's classic hikes don't really open until mid July, which is a major drawback of going early in the season (in addition to the uncertainty about Going-to-the-Sun road opening). The upside of going early is that the crowds are small and it was easy to find accommodations and parking spaces. There are lots of bison in Yellowstone. Also, lots of idiots who are willing to walk within 5 feet of a bison to pose for pictures.

Though I suppose high night time temperature may play a role in total sugar accumulation, Western US tend to have much more dramatic diurnal temperature changes due to the drier climate.

I don't think high temperature is the primary culprit. When I lived in California, the daytime temperatures were even higher but the farmer's market strawberries were much sweeter and more fragrant than any I've encountered on the East Coast. I find this true to be true of other fruits as well, melons/stone fruits/citrus from arid regions tend to be much sweeter than those from rainy climates. Ice wine is sweet because it's essentially made with raisin juice. The prolonged ripening and noble rot process partially dries the fruit out, so the juice is more concentrated.

It's on Savored, which makes it an even better deal.

Yes, fruit crops need a lot of sun to produce sufficient sugars and produce well. They also need relatively low amounts water during the ripening period, or the fruit will be watery and insipid.

Thanks Kate and Rieux! We'll probably be in Jackson for one or two meals. We're planning to spend most of the time in the parks (and eating Xanterra food), but we're certainly willing to drive a bit for a memorable (food and/or scenery) meal.

We're touring Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier in June. Anyone have restaurant or local foods recommendations for the region?

I’ve heard of fried buns (shunjianbao is the most delicious variation), but not baked buns. In China, at least, if they’re baked then they’re either (bread) or bin (flatbread). Defining the range of East Asian dumplings is pretty impossible. Dumpling is just a word used by Westerners to describe a huge range of fabricated foods in a dozen countries.

With the exception of xiaolongbao, which are really specialized shumais, buns are leavened. Chinese buns can be sweet or savory, filled or unfilled. Their main characterists are that they are cooked by steam and are leavened (typically with baking powder though occasionally with yeast).

I don’t think of shumai as dumplings, though they certainly share similarities with wontons, which are often considered dumplings (though dumplings seems to be a catchall phrase for English speakers, for a very wide variety of unrelated Asian foods). Shumai can have any kind of filling, as long the filling consistency is sticky enough to hold everything together. The main characteristics of shumai are (1) its shape, which provides an opening for the filling on top (2) a thin skin, similar to wonton skin, and (3) is cooked by steaming. Based on the Wikipedia entry, it looks like it started in China but spread to much of East Asia (I'm guessing by the way of Chinese emigrants in the 19th and 20th century). The shumai I see in this country is very different from what I ate growing up. Here, the shumai fillings, even at Cantonese teahouses, have very finely minced meat and shrimp fillings that have a similar texture to fish balls. The ones I grow up eating had glutinous rice based fillings, usually with pork or shrimp and flavored with soy sauce.

Snakeheads are perfectly acceptable fish in Chinese cuisine. It's not highly regarded, but to me it tastes much better than tilapia (which has all the same dirty water fish farming issues). They're quite tasty as misleadingly named shun yu (meaning smoked fished even though they're not smoked). Cut into 2"x1"x1" chunks, lightly dredge in flour and deep fry. Then add the fried fish to a marinade (traditionally soy sauce and sugar based). They're probably okay for stir frying as well.

We tried the fried pizza special this week. The crust is amazingly light and greaseless, and the toppings added a lot of flavor. I hope they'll add a few fried pizzas to their regular rotation - this is a pizza that's worth gaining weight for!

Perhaps I’m misreading it, but Heather’s comments had rung a lot more of the “you should stop commenting because criticism is elitist and unrealistic” rather than “I think your criticism is elitist and unrealistic”. Also, I don’t think anyone commenting here ever thought their comments would change Mendelsohn or Isabella or the public’s behavior, so she seems to be building a strawman argument that ignores the actual context of the discussion – which is the first world problem of some famous chefs not being nice in the way that certain patrons of $100/head establishments would like them to be. Now, I need to gently extract my foot from my mouth and tend to my other first world problem, of buying some spring outfits for my pygmy giraffes.

Also - does that extend to other sorts of behavior that I personally find unacceptable - say in Congress or Wall Street or corporate board rooms? What should I muzzle my opinions because it happens and some people profit by it? I don't actually give a flying F about either Isabella or Mendelsohn, beyond that I don't wish to patronize. But Heather's censorship really disturbs me.

If the alternative is listening to Creed, I plead guilty to elitism - but what gives you the right to define what constitutes elitism? I'm not sure what universe hating Creed is considered unacceptable elitism, but regularly commenting on $50-100/person dinners is ?acceptable? elitism.

@ Heather: I may be mistaken, but your comments sound a lot like censorship justified by the popularity of the erstwhile target. I disagree, just because there are the 90 minute idiots and the creed enthusiasts, doesn’t mean I can’t be annoyed by their existence or do what I can to withhold support from things that I find distasteful. The original article and discussions on this board has certainly dampened my enthusiasm for Graffiato. I doubt I would patronize the place now, even if it gets raves. I don’t have the ability to change the world, but I do have the right and responsibility to behaved in a way that is consistent with my sense of decency.

Also - it is very gauche to advertise about your "retail therapy" trips when plenty of good restaurants and restaurant workers who are struggling.

What's offensive about Mendelsohn and Isabella is that in their self promotion efforts, they regularly put down other chefs and potential clients. It's not enough for them to argue that their restaurant is deserving of patronage, it's that DC was a two-bit town without good chefs or good food culture before their arrival. Lots of celebrity chefs and local favorites are huge self promoters (Jose Andres and Dean Gold comes to mind), but they tend to do so in a big hearted manner that elevates the overall food culture.

If you live near DuPont Circle and want to participate in a CSA, Clagett Farm's CSA is signing up to new members on March 6, at 5 PM. I mention this one because it's a pretty well regarded CSA and usually impossible to get into their DuPont Circle shares, but they have a relatively large number of open spots this year because they didn't secure a delivery site until very recently. More information at http://cbf.typepad.com/clagett_farm/.

What a lovely day today. Got to plant my lettuce tonight before it rains again tomorrow.