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I glanced at my muted TV just now and there is Dean on 9NewsNow, cooking in their new studio kitchen. Fresh apricots in pancetta, lamb chops, and a savory plum salsa. Great promo for Dino and for local farmers markets!

This week's Potomac Vegetable Farm (regular) share included: 3 ears of corn 1 lb green beans 1 lb tomatoes 1 lb potatoes 1 bunch Swiss chard 1 bunch anise hyssop 1 bunch Thai basil 1 lb onions 1 head garlic I wish I knew how to add photos, because the stuff is beautiful! ETA: I need to work on my plant identification skills! I initially mistook anise hyssop for lambs quarters. Good thing I did more research!

Do tell!

spring pea soup and fried green tomatoes with soft-shell crab at Vermillion burger at Ray's Hell Burger--got there about 3 minutes before a looong line formed on Saturday

I'm so sorry to see this happen! I'm glad that I already had a reservation for 7/26, but I will surely call to confirm that Stefano will be there before we drive all the way into DC. I wonder where he'll land next, and how plans for Nick's new restaurant are coming along.

I wish I could participate--it looks great and is a real bargain!

Here is a link to a nice explanation of kohlrabi and what to do with it, including links to a few recipes:Elise cooks Last year, I got one in my Bull Run share, and I think I shredded it and made a slaw with it. Delicious!

Oh, for heaven's sake, I saw this on epicurious.com today. It's official: it's everywhere!

You, too, huh? I thought it was just me getting that treatment.

You are correct.

So sad! No more anonymity for Rocks! That photo has surely been pasted to the wall of every restaurant kitchen in the Washington/Baltimore metro area.

I finally found Delia's in Springfield on Friday and had a Peruvian chicken sub. It was delicious! The fries were crisp, but I wish they would salt them a little when they come out of the oil. I have to go back to have the chicken souvlaki sandwich--I used to love their Greek sandwiches when we ordered delivery from them at work. The place was packed, but service was good. They are clearly comfortable working at full capacity.

Five quacks (out of five) for last night's dinner--my first, although my husband had been there previously. I'll let him comment on his meal separately. I started with the bone marrow, which seemed huge when it was served--3 long halves of bone. Spread on the toasts with roasted garlic and shallots, it was rich but not overwhelming, and I managed to finish it, slowly, with a little help from my husband. The Berkshire pork "rack" was enough for two hungry people! I brought about 2/3 of it home with me last night. It was perfectly roasted, moist, flavorful, and nicely seasoned. The sauce was nice, and the fruit with it (nectarines? peaches?) was a great complement (and I don't usually like fruit with my main course). The fries were almost as described above: large, crisp outside and soft inside, nicely seasoned, pretty presentation. But I didn't detect any difference that might suggest duck fat, as opposed to another frying medium. But maybe my palate was overworked in that department by the time I tasted them. The merlot I had with my pork was a lovely match, thanks to our waiter. I usually avoid chocolate deserts because the caffeine aggravates my insomnia, but I threw caution to the wind and had their hand-cranked chocolate ice cream with macadamias, and it was heavenly. Six dollars for an espresso (decaf) seems high, but it was a larger quantity in the demitasse than I've had elswhere recently, so I didn't mind. The space is beautiful, blending modern decor with homey baskets of produce and shelves of canned pickles and veggies. I can see that it might get noisy when it is full, but was not a problem for our 5:45 pm reservation. I loved the bar space, too, and would love to go there for a cocktail and a bite sometime. I know the restaurant is in a hotel, and as such welcomes hotel guests (tourists), but come on, people, you can do better than jeans and grubby tee-shirts. What kind of lesson are you teaching your children? If you're staying in the Park Hyatt, pack some slacks and a sportshirt, at least, for dinner.

Not really a ban. They just frown on it: the City Council unanimously approved a resolution last week opposing "the production and sale of foie gras" and encouraging residents "to avoid supporting this extreme form of animal cruelty."

Knowing that goat milk doesn't yield as much cream as that from a milk cow, I was skeptical, but I Googled and found that some people have successfully made goat butter. And Meyenberg offers it commercially. Given that goat milk is more expensive to produce (goats harder to keep, yield less than a cow) and the cream content is less, I expect goat butter to be very dear. And sure enough, Meyenberg charges $7 plus shipping for a half pound. As for "apple butter," maybe because it's spread on bread, like butter?

I wonder why it was so cloudy. I've only done chicken stock in my pressure cooker so far, and it came out clear. I wonder if you brought it to a simmer first and skimmed, and then put the lid on and pressure cooked, if that would help next time. Or maybe you did that.

Kat, I hope you will write after your dinner to let us know where you did dine and how it was. I have never been to Corduroy, and only to CitiZen for a private party, but have been to Komi twice. My husband has been to all three, and he would emphatically recommend Komi. Although they tend to book up ahead, and don't accept walkins on weekends, it might be worth calling to try to get a table. There are two choices on weekends: Dinner ($84 as of 6/28/08) and Degustation ($104). In the former, the diner is able to choose a pasta course and a meat course. In the latter, the diner is asked about dislikes and allergies, and all of the dishes are Chef's choice. Either way, dinner starts with a series of "Mezzethakia"--a variety of small tastes of foods. It would not be correct to think of these as separate courses--more like a series of canapes, hors doerves, amuses. On 6/28 one was a shot glass of gazpacho, while another was a spoonful of scallop ceviche and super-thin slices of raw diver scallop edged with mustard/mayonnaise. Each of these amounts to one or two bites of food, and takes the diner on a real adventure, IMO. The pasta and meat courses are not huge, either. Thinking of them in the context of main dishes at an average restaurant is incorrect. They are the right amount in the context of the whole dinner (again, IMO). Whether you order the dinner or the degustation, you will have many tastes of foods you might not find anywhere else. You'll also have fun, as many of the presentations are playful (make your own pita sandwiches of roast suckling pig, or bite into what looks like a crouton to get a mouthful of "Caeser salad". Last time I went, there was a nickel-sized cream puff harboring a tiny soft morsel of foie gras among the tastes. I confess, I was full after the degustation, but not uncomfortably so--basically satisfied. Whatever you choose, best wishes for a very happy 30th birthday!

Potomac Vegetable Farm share on Wedenesday: Basil lettuce (at least 3 types) Swiss chard garlic sweet onions (red and white) garlic scapes cabbage

I buy butter from Jersey cows kept on beautiful green pasture. It is priced according to the season in which it is produced. Spring butter, from milk produced when the cows are eating the fast-growing spring grass with all of its nutrients, goes for about $12/lb, while winter butter, made when the cows are eating the hay the farmer grew the previous summer, is about $7/lb. The rest of the year, it fetches about $9.50/lb. I'm not a baker, and I use butter mostly for sauteeing vegetables or making sauces, so my consumption is not that great. A pound will last me a couple of weeks. I buy this butter because of the CLA it contains, which has been shown to help protect against cancer, and my husband and I both have a lot of cancer in our families. I think of it as a nutritional supplement as much as a fat for cooking. And it has a flavor unlike that of any supermarket butter!

It was still the corpse of Red Sage when we drove by Saturday evening (on our way to Komi).

From the Washington Post last Wednesday: "Texas Vietnamese : The state's coastal fishing and shrimping industries drew many Vietnamese immigrants in the wave after the fall of Saigon in the 1970s, and Houston is home to the second-largest community of Vietnamese Americans in the United States, according to the Smithsonian."

Myanmar for take out last Wednesday: fermented tea leaf salad and squash fritters. The latter probably are better eaten in, but they were good. Peking Gourmet Inn last Thursday: Chinese leek dumplings and chicken with Chinese leeks. Tasty steamed rice with a couple of peas and flecks of scrambled egg accompanied. Komi Saturday night for the degustation menu--a fun date! Lunch today at A&J in Annandale. Pork potstickers, smoked chicken, and cucumber salad were all delicious revelations, and it was another fun date, introducing my husband to the place.

Cibola usually has buffalo bones, and Smith Family Farm may have beef bones (I haven't checked). Both are at the Burke farmers market on Saturdays, 8-12, in the VRE station parking lot. H-Mart has beef bones frozen, and sometimes fresh. I shop more frequently at the Merrifield outpost, but the Fairfax City branch surely has them as well.

I got a digital pressure cooker for Christmas, after hearing Bobby Flay comment that he had learned to use one on ICA and now finds it extremely useful. I opted for digital, because with my attention span issues, I'd walk away from a stovetop model at the wrong moment. It took me a little while to figure out how to cook some of my favorites, but I've made short ribs, beef pot roasts, and pork braises. The butter chicken recipe I found in a PC cookbook was out of this world! This morning I tried cooking rice (brown Basmati), and it didn't turn out quite as I expected, but still usable for my purpose (a little too much water, not long enough pressure time at first, too much oil). What has worked for you in your pressure cooker (and what went bust)?

Stephen, were you in the bistro or the tasting room?