weezy

I won't make it due to other commitments, but I will raise a glass in dr.com's honor nonetheless

I used that as an example because the difference was so striking. When they first started offering the crab & corn chowder at GAR it was quite a fine soup, but it had been losing appeal a bit at a time. However, during the era that the Sweetwaters were being opened, overall I felt the food just became more Sysco-fied.

I think GAR benefitted to a point from expansion, but about the time the 2nd-3rd Sweetwater opened, I think it started to lose the food flavors that had put it a couple of big steps up from places like Chevy's. It started tasting more and more mass produced about then, IMO. I hadn't noticed so much except that I had a crab bisque at The Wharf one night and the next day at lunch I had the crab & corn chowder at one of the GAR locations, and the difference in the vibrancy and pop and cleanliness of flavors was huge. Wharf's tasted like cream and crab and broth, and GAR tasted like a lot of slurry with some crab thrown in.

Thanks! Now I'll have to figure out something else to use my groupon for at the garden center.

I've seen several DC area chefs now on this competition and they all have been cut in the entree round. I'm beginning to feel like a Cubs fan.

I was going to put in a kitchen herb garden over Easter weekend and went over to a local nursery where I had a groupon for half off and the only herbs they had were mints, chives (which have already overtaken a garden box, so I've got aplenty of them) and oregano. I figured I might as well plant weeds as those garden thugs! So the herb patch is on hold until I can buy something that I actually want to plant.

I've got it on my calendar and plan to be there. No word yet if I'll be bringing more people with me but I'm going to invite some friends along and hope to get some takers.

I have a 30-inch 4-burner cooktop and I can't imagine trying to work with a 5th burner in that same space. I can just barely maneuver as is if I'm using a stockpot and a skillet on the two large eyes when I've got smaller saucepots going on the small eyes now. I like the idea of getting a freestanding solo burner to use as/when needed. That's a great idea! I've also seen a small kitchen in Manhattan that had a swing-out counter that was about 15x24" that fit between the regular countertop and the top of the lower cabinets that was pulled out for use as needed. You couldn't work with very heavy stuff on it, but it was a great help for some extra space for chopping salad fixings or doing plating.

So you didn't like the flavor or texture of the (significantly more expensive) dry-aged ribeye that you ordered recently, as compared to the less expensive ribeyes that you've ordered there previously. Fine; you're the eater, your taste is your taste. However, please don't conflate the facts. The traditional wet-aged ribeyes are still priced in the mid-upper $20 range. You ordered something entirely different and didn't enjoy it, and I'm sorry you didn't. But I don't think it is fair to fault the restaurant due to your unfamiliarity with dry-aged beef (and is it Roseda beef? I don't remember, but if it is, the flavor will be quite different than corn-raised beef) about the differences that are clearly delineated on the menu. It isn't that you're "taking on Ray's." It's that you're complaining about oranges tasting bad when you obviously ordered apples.

The biggest difference is that the ice cream is stuffed between the cookies of whichever variety and wrapped and allowed to meld. The cookie draws some moisture from the ice cream while it is freezing, and then becomes softer and more pliable as it thaws and thus becomes a better match for the ice cream stuffing. It's the last minute prep that really makes it difficult to eat.

I'm very bendy.

Just a quick note that dinner last night was fabulous and the folks lined up for the Saturday dinner are in for a wonderful meal. On the way home I was thinking if I could have the choice of having that pork again or the best sex of my life, after careful consideration, I'd go with the best sex because there's the possibility I can recreate the pork solo. But it was still a tough call.

I would call around to the halal markets in the area. I can get a lot of goat milk cheeses at Mediterranean Market in Alexandria, but never thought to look for goat's milk itself.

A friend has reported that Maizbon is Maiz-gone. Closed, and a new Thai placed called Rice & Spice is in it's spot.

corned beef hash with a poached egg on top.

Potomac Longfin?

Apparently Teaism opened in the past week or so. Checking out the website & menus, they don't have their liquor license yet but have applied for it. From 4:00 until the kitchen closes, they've got a bar menu already, about 8 choices running in the $6-$10 range -- tuna with avocado, chicken yakitori, etc. I'll probably try it out for lunch in the next week or so.

FYI, not a cart, but a truck I hadn't heard of before. I saw it heading up Duke Street toward 395 this a.m.: "Great Afghan Food" No other details at this time

I have known Bernie Hoffman for about seven years now. He has been in the building trade for many years and has worked on everything from doghouses to being general foreman for 20-story+ office buildings and everything in between, so he knows what actually works and what is builder BS and he doesn't make empty promises. Benrie has taken his own tiny Arlington rambler and made it into a 2-story Dutch Colonial. I've seen him take a tiny old Arlington condo kitchen (if there were 2 people in there, you couldn't open the refrigerator door) and fit it out with so much usuable storage it would make a yachtsman proud. He just finished replacing all my doors and windows and all I needed to do was hand him the keys and leave the coffeemaker set up for him to turn on when he got to work. If he needs a helping hand, he has Frederico come along, who has worked on jobs with him for 15 or more years. And if the owner doesn't object, Katy his loveable black lab will come along to oversee all efforts as well. My neighbors all came by while he was working and want him to work on projects at their houses because they have had an opportunity to see the care and quality and dedication to doing the job right that Bernie brings to his work. His phone number is 571-220-1688 and his email address is bernie.hoffman@verizon.net. Tell him Weezy recommended him to you. Louis Comminaki

Dined with a friend at the Alexandria location last night, my first time at RedRocks. A nice space, high ceilings, warm tones, tables spaced far enough apart that it didn't feel crowded even when it was full. Tuesdays are half-price bottle of wine, so we shared a bottle of Valpolicella (reg. $40). She got a mixed greens salad and I got a Caesar ($7 each). Hers was better. The dressing on mine had a nice olive oil in it but didn't have enough acid balance, the croutons were small and very hard, and it had a lot of large tender slices of parmesan, which to mean indicates a young cheese so the parm didn't have the crystalline salty quality that comes with age. The portions were generous I ate about 2/3 of the salad and almost none of the croutons. For the pizzas, they had a lot of leopard spotting & blistering on the crust. I got the salipocella (?) with kalamatas and italian sausage and it was tasty but I wish I had selected something a little less salty, so my bad there. Good portion and distribution of toppings. I prefer the flavor of the crust at Cafe Piazzoli (my typical pizza stop), which is still a step or two down from Pupatella's. I like a yeastier tang. The service was friendly and efficient. I like that they provide a large carafe of water for each table when you're seated. Overall, a good experience and probably the best pizza in Old Town, if I'm going to walk for pizza. If I'm in the car, I'll head for Piazzoli instead.

Met up with friends here tonight and had a wonderful meal. Started off with the Special Soup, even though it was such a warm night out, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Slightly sweet cream of tomato base with a fair amount of heat. We also tried the chicken drumsticks, which are not drumsticks at all but gently spiced golf-ball sized spheres of chicken meat that are deep fried and then served with ketchup that you doctor up with the chili paste at the table. These were tasty but not addictive. We also got the sizzling shrimp with garlic sauce, a good solid dish; manchurian chicken, which was also a sizzling dish in a slightly sweet and spicy sauce a little similar to a Gen. Tsao's type sauce and the favorite of two of us at the table; and we got the chicken chow mein masala, which was my favorite dish, tender noodles stir fried with chicken and green peppers and a few diced veggies and dusted with a garam masala spice blend, positively addictive! And the mango ice cream for dessert -- which comes from the Point Of Rocks creamery, so if you're really jonesing for some of that ice cream but don't want to drive that far, you can get it here. And get an order of the noodles while you're there, you'll be glad you did. Oh, and we upgraded to the egg fried rice from the plain. So all that food for $67 before tip. Excellent value. The owner and the service was all very friendly and helpful. He came over and told us about the sourcing of his food and the preparations, reliance on food that's not processed but really prepped and cooked on premises. Oh, they've got almost all the artwork up on the walls, only 2-3 paintings left to hang. Modern, abstract canvases, about 4' square, and well displayed on the deep warm red walls. It's a handsome restaurant and deserves a good following. It was very quiet in there tonight, although I know that Mondays are slow for restaurants generally, and more so when the weekend has had a holiday in it, but there were only about 4 tables in there tonight and this food should be getting more attention.

I scored between a 9 and 12. I'm in the bubble but I can pass for bubble-less if I have to.

Thanks, zora! Now that I've got the grinder attachment, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities in food prep

there are some very good deals on the internet, such as www.linencompany.com, but it does mean buying in bulk. They've got a wide selection of fabrics, finishes and sizes.

I took my first venture into sausage making this weekend. A friend gave me a venison rump roast from his recent hunting trip and I decided to turn it into venison cheese brats. I used a mix of about 3/5 venison and 2/5 fatty pork shoulder roast (about 5 pounds of meat total), and a similar 3/5 : 2/5 mix of Penzey's venison sausage seasoning and their bratwurst seasoning with an addition of a teaspoon or so of caraway seeds. The cheese was extra-sharp Cracker Barrel cheddar. I'm happy with the job the grinder attachment did on the meat. I used the meat cut in cubes and semi-frozen, and fed in a few lumps of pork fat first to grease everything up well for the meat to follow. One grind thru on the large plate, which I then seasoned and mixed lightly, then ran it thru again on the small grinder plate, to which I added the grated cheese and some ice water, then mixed and chilled again before stuffing. Actually stuffing the casings was the most difficult part of the task for me. I kept catching air bubbles in the feed chute that then would cause bubbles in my sausages. And keeping the weiners uniform in length and girth was challenging as well. The first run was especially eclectic. At the end of it all, though, I had fun and a bunch of very tasty brats to share with my friends