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weezy

Farmers Markets Forum Host
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Everything posted by weezy

  1. Virginia has closed all public access to courthouses statewide starting tomorrow. Maryland put it in place today.
  2. I just saw that Jose Andres is closing all his DC area restaurants and paying staff for 2 weeks. Some of the restaurants will be serving as community kitchens and open from 12-5 handing out meals at a side door.
  3. Here's the thing -- age and risk factors shoot up the severity of the illness dramatically. 30 year olds no other issues, about the same. 70 year olds, no other issues, 2-3x worse illness. 70 year olds with issues, big problems. Seasonal flu in the most at-risk population has a little under 2% mortality rate; Covid-19 has a little under 15% mortality rate with the numbers known about a week ago, and requires a huge amount of intervention to keep it that low (ventilators and blood oxygenation transfusion) in ICU for 21-30 days, plus on supplemental oxygen for another 3-6 weeks. Covid-19 causes interstitial pneumonia, which basically means the aveolar sacs in the lungs cannot function and these sacs are how the oxygen we breathe in transfers into our bloodstream. USA is expected as of 3 days to have at least 200,000 serious cases; USA has ~45,000 ICU beds. A friend who used to run human drug trial studies has read early reports that there might be a correlation between ACE2 receptors and higher risks, which can explain why kids are less likely to get Covid-19 even if they carry the coronavirus; they're just too young to have developed arterial plaques. Folks on ACE2 blockers have a lower incidence of Covid-19 (so far) than people with the same health issues not on blockers. Because the blockers can cause dangerously low blood pressure, prophylactic prescription is not recommended. However, protease inhibitors, which are antiviral drugs similar to what is used in HIV treatment, might be a line of defense. Naturally occurring protease inhibitors in plants include most legumes cereals, bananas, apples, raisins, pineapples, cucumbers, spinach, cabbage and potatoes. So, time to make a big batch of lentil-spinach soup, right? I know I will!
  4. Falls Church City schools closed until April 14.
  5. Thai by Thai in Annandale is closing on March 27, according to a sign on their door. It says the Fairfax & Sterling locations will remain open and any rewards points from Annandale can be used at the other locations.
  6. that Taco Bamba has almost zero seating, just FYI. Curry Mantra is about a mile or so east on 236, but I don't know how good it is lately. Maruramen is near Mama Chang's
  7. I know my regular Americanized Chinese take-out has a different (worse) cook on Mondays & Tuesdays. I'll wait until Wednesday to get some dinner on the way home.
  8. Ate here about 4:30 on Sunday at the new location in Falls Church. They have moved to the shopping center with Haandi, about 2 doors down. Only a handful of people in there, considering the time of day. New location has two rooms, a long skinny room up front with booths on one side and 2-tops on the other, plus a back room with 8-10 large tables, so they have probably doubled or nearly tripled their seating. I got the moussaka that comes with a Greek salad and the roasted potatoes. My sister got the daily special, which was basically a spinach-and-gyro phyllo burrito, also with the salad & roasted potatoes. They serve now on cafeteria sectioned plates, which I dislike. Potatoes used to be served in a bowl and had a lot of great garlicky lemony juice with them; no more, they were on the dry side but did have a reasonable lemony flavor. Salad was difficult to corral, as it kept sliding off the side of the plate, and was barely dressed, with flavorless olives & feta, obviously out their respective brines much too long. The moussaka itself was very nice, well spiced and harmonious flavors with creamy slightly tangy bechamel on top. We were given one small side pita cut into quarters that was also mostly texture, no yeasty flavor. $14.95 for each dish.
  9. My sister teaches in Falls Church City. She said there was a meeting yesterday where the teachers were told to prepare lesson plans for 20 days (a full month) in case of a shutdown.
  10. Not paranoid. Even with delivery services, trucks don't run if the drivers aren't available to drive them. I've got a packed freezer and plenty of jars of stuff, but in the next week or so will probably add in extra TP, tissues, frozen fruit juice concentrate, dried beans, dry yeast and some extra flour in case I need to bake bread, plus double check I've got a full load of salt. And maybe some tetrapak milk.
  11. I know that if I go to Peking Gourmet Inn, I ask for containers to be brought to me so I can package up the leftovers. If I let the kitchen do it, suddenly there is only 20% of the amount of food in the box vs. what was on the platter when it got whisked away.
  12. 700 for the Great 8, a stellar moment in a lackluster losing effort to a team they should have beaten handily. Will he beat Gretzky's record? Maybe, but even at the rate he scores, it's still a 4-5 year effort and in hockey terms, he's getting to be an old man. Still, accounting for the huge improvements in goaltending since Gretzky played, 700 is just a mind boggling number. These guys are in a profound slump since mid-December. Still time to turn it around, but they're ignorning the basics and aren't working as a team. Maybe the focus will come back now that the magic 700 has been reached.
  13. I think he's working at different locations to give their other chefs a few days off and he gets a paycheck while he develops dishes and menus for the revamped Alexandria location
  14. There's another location at the BuildAmerica strip in Skyline / Bailey's Crossroads. It's a pain in the butt to navigate that end of the parking lot there, so I imagine most of their business is walk-overs from the offices around there and the NOVA campus. What I had there was pretty good, but it's been quite awhile so I can't recall specifics.
  15. I'd like to join in. I only have a couple of dates that wouldn't work, so I'll wait to see if others have a tighter calendar to pick from
  16. Met up with 5 friends for lunch at Mama Chang today and we got a fairly wide variety of dishes. steamed pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings x2, bubble scallion pancake x2, chow mein, pepper pickled mustard pork (family style = enough for 3-4 to share), dry fried cauliflower, cumin duck legs & feet, with a couple of pots of jasmine tea. Lots of sczechuan peppercorn in most of the dishes, and I've found that for me, after several bites of any dish with Szechuan peppercorns, all I end up tasting is salt. That said, the dry fried cauliflower was very nicely done, I thought the bubble pancakes were interesting but too greasy for more than a couple of bites, good pork dumplings with nice hot chili sauce for dipping (I didn't try the shrimp, I would say they were average b/c one went uneaten), didn't get a chance at the duck ....there was nothing left but some webbed feet...and the pork dish I couldn't tell you b/c the peppercorns had kicked in by that point, but there was none left in the pot by the end. Service was nice but seldom to be seen when not specifically carrying food to the table. For the 6 of us, everyone kicked in a $20 and that covered it all with a generous tip. We got there about 1:30 and it was busy but not quite full, a handful of 2-tops and a couple of banquettes still open. I'd like to go back and explore more of the menu and pick a few more dishes without the sz. peppercorns so I could get a fuller understanding of the flavors.
  17. Ended up using my banana cake recipe instead with a papaya/cardamom/ginger substitution and it turned into a very nice, moist tasty cake. Gave it a cream cheese frosting. Can recommend if you're stuck with a ripe papaya and dont' know what to do with it.
  18. The week went a little screwy and I didn't use up a lot of stuff I had purchased last weekend and now have to make something of it all. So I've got a pear pie with an oat streusel topping in the oven now. Tomorrow I'll be using up a very ripe papaya that I got unexpectedly gifted, using a banana bread recipe and subbing in the papaya and flavoring with cardamom, cinnamon & basil and hoping for the best.
  19. It's a very tough call b/c the most important defenseman is the goalie. Plus you have to look at who is available to trade for, and frankly, I'm not sure there are any high-caliber D-men that we can get at this point in the season who play a similar enough system that slotting them in is better than a crapshoot. Thankfully, Jensen is starting to hit his stride and has learned the system and the stats show definite improvements for when he is on the ice, and Siegenthaler keeps getting better and better. That long reach of his and his willingness to block shots is great.
  20. I've been reading some sites and it seems very unlikely that we'll be able to keep Holtby after this season due to the salary cap, what Backstrom will be paid going forward, what goalies are going for on the market these days ($10M), and looking ahead to who else we need to sign / re-sign looking at the future. Caps have been excellent about finding and building goalie talent in their pipeline. Samsonov is getting back-to-back starts and will be in net against the NJ Devils tonight, to start bringing him up. Copley is solid as a #2 and can be brought up from Hershey and Vanachek in Hershey could also be brought up to work as a #2. I've seen a couple of rumors of trading Holtby before the end of the season to get maximum value for him and buying some better blue-liners, but that seems pretty far-fetched to me, as it's unlikely you give up a Cup-winning goalie as you're heading into the playoffs.
  21. Sharpening the old knives is certainly worthwhile, cheaper than buying new (even inexpensive) knives. If they are cheap knives, they won't hold an edge very long but they aren't used as often or for prolonged chopping, so overall the edge should last fairly well. Happy to do your knives as well, of course.
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