weezy

Favorite moment from tonight's show.......... When they were showing the vote totals for fan favorite who should come back between CJ and Josie. CJ=94% Jose=6%.

Sunday sounds more doable for me (I say now, as life is biting off as much of me as it can chew right now).

Stopped in here for a quick lunch (Alexandria location) today and had a very pleasant Palak Paneer with brown rice and raita. It was spiced simply with cumin being predominant. To my palate, many Indian dishes taste muddied, rather than nuanced & complex, from the overuse of too many spices. So, this was a pleasant surprise to have such a clean flavor in addition to the spinach & cheese. The paneer was nicely chewy, the spinach tender and warm & stewy, the raita a nice cool tangy counterpoint to the rest of the dish. The rice was slightly underdone; not quite tender throughout the grains. For a little under $10, a quiet place to eat with some good people-watching, a worthwhile stop.

I may be able to do the VA event on the 16th. I want to -- I need to check schedules of people flying in that day that I have to meet at the airport. I'm thinking they are mid-afternoon, so may conflict

Pretty pitiful, I agree.

Weezy +1, please!

Simply from the description, I would say the Laotian restaurant in Seven Corners, near Hong Kong Palace -- the name is escaping me at the moment

It will be a later dinner this evening. I'm roasting a turkey breast on the bone and made a pork-less mushroom based dressing to go with. Will serve with Penzey's raspberry delight sauce and some roasted green beans Edited to add: because dinner will be late, we're going to have dessert first: peanut butter cup/chocolate Talenti's gelato.

I have found out definitively that I will *not* be +1. I don't know if a place was being held.

That looks like the bar at Society Fair.

Read the blog entries. I still wonder if behind the scenes people were directed to keep Josie off track or what? I can't fathom a chef with that much experience as a line and a sous being so blatantly insubordinate to direct orders unless there was something else at work here. The only other reason than interference I'm coming up with is someone being too stoned to find the way to the soup pot.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! You know the behind-the-scenes folks engineered that elimination.

Me, please. Will advise on a +1 later today (if there's still room by then).

Apparently, it is my computer or DSL line that has the problem, not the DR site. I've had it crop up 2-3 other places this afternoon.

FYI, I tried click into the Ray's thread to read the latest & greatest there, and it wasn't loading, so I went and typed up a few letters and did some filing and came back and the page still hadn't loaded -- maybe five minutes? with the connecting icon circling the drain. I know the longer threads sometimes take longer to pull up, but not in the minutes / seconds range I do have the Java console turned off right now on this computer; don't know if that impacts the problem or not.

See, from my POV, that's half a plate-- the other half being already eaten before the picture was taken -- so the sloppy plating theory goes out the window. And one of those ravioli is half-eaten (the one center on top of the other three) showing a creamy white stuffing. It's a restaurant that doesn't have tablecloths. So a plate of 5-7 ravioli total when served. Argia's? Dino?

I've seen the EPIC COKE MACHINE at Firehouse subs at the Pincecrest shopping center in Annandale on Little Rivert Tpke.

That was going to be my guess as well

I can certainly see eating bugs -- I like shrimp and lobster, and those are ocean bugs. But someone is going to have to capture, kill & prep them for me 'cuz I'll be in a corner screeching GET IT! GET IT!

Have a chuck roast braising right now, will serve on polenta, with steamed broccoli with lemon butter and a horseradish cream to drizzle on top.

Finally, a Thai restaurant in Annandale! Ordered delivery from here last night -- I get the impression they are not focused on the delivery aspect of the biz, and prefer their patrons to dine-in or take-out, but they were still gracious and accommodating. http://www.immthai.com/ (note -- techno-jazz-pop music on home page) Got the Phitsanulok big bowl noodle soup, a hot-and-sour soup with many flavors. I'm suffering that blasted cold/cough that's going around and thought the hot-and-sour soup would be just the thing, as that's what I get from the Chinese take-outs when I've got a case of crud. The big bowl soups are easily enough for two typical servings. The roasted pork, rice noodles, herbs and veg came packed separately from the soup liquids that had the ground meat, crushed peanuts and fish balls in it. I took a big spoonful of the broth to sample when it got there and quickly discovered the chilies used in the Thai soup are either a very different type of chili or much more forward than in Chinese hot-and-sour, and it sent me into a huge coughing fit. Not the comforting quality I was looking for. When mixed together with the noodle components, it was still spicy but not intolerable, but the sourness was not very noticeable. The roasted pork seemed a bit overdone to me. I've not had fish balls before and I didn't particularly care for them -- a 1" round, dense, chewy, fishy-flavored white ball that I'm guessing was made with rice flour. Similar to the rice cakes that you can get in the Korean groceries but with a more spongey texture. Also got the crispy chicken with sweet chili sauce that was sort of a Thai chicken nugget strips with a sweet undertone and served with steamed broccoli. A pretty, non-offensive dish. Also tried the duck roll, which was duck and veg rolled in a crepe with a sweet dark soy-based sauce that was so-so. I think it probably suffered some in traveling from the restaurant to my house. Just under $30 for all three dishes with delivery. I'll try some more things on the menu, and it is so nice to have Thai close by, but I found this was a middling meal for a first try.

I've had more success with stew-y sorts of things when I cook on low, starting with frozen meat chunks, and add my herbs & spices in the last hour or so of cooking. For example, 2 frozen skinless chicken breasts, a can of black beans drained, a can of Ro-tel (reg. or spicy), a can of corn. Makes a good , simple enchilada filling (I add sour cream once the cooking is done), or you can add some broth near the end and torn up tortillas for chicken tortilla soup. And if you're doing enchiladas and don't have time/mental energy to make your own sauce that night, Target sells Frontera (Rick Bayless's brand) enchilada sauce and it is yummy! It comes in plastic pouches instead of cans -- I almost didn't spot it on the shelf b/c of that. Now I try to always have it in the pantry.

pea tendrils -- although I had to learn that I need to chop them up before sauteeing or they tie themselves into a giant mass. sumac -- adds a wonderful bit of acid and pop of color to things. making turnip pickles for sandwiches Cherokee heirloom tomatoes -- a dark purply-red and tops that split easily, but the taste is divine! And far too few of these were grown by the farmers who set up at the Falls Church market, more's the pity. Oh, and the bicolor sweet corn that Toigo Orchards had at the end of the season, starts with an M, I think...so good.

I've made stock from the bone and bits of the prime rib I had at Xmas dinner. Will turn it into french onion soup sometime soon.

Any sauce that would taste good on zucchini will taste good on spaghetti squash. The strands are more tender than celery strings; maybe like pea tendrils, if that helps.