Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Home Run Inn.

Tacoma Boys rocks! A thousand wines, incredible cowboy steaks, nice cheeses, un-ordinary pasta, and they practically force you to taste all the produce so that by the time you've finished shopping, you've eaten an entire fruit and/or vegetable salad.

chiff, your linguini makes me want to dive right into the bowl. Just beautiful, better than some magazine photos.

cybercita, here's a bit of restaurant first aid:

Wash the cut well.
Dry it gently but well; try to keep it from dripping.
Dollop it with some Neosporin Plus (or the generic equivalent--make sure it contains an anesthetic).
Wait a couple of minutes, then gently dab away the excess.
Smother the cut with Super Glue.
Wait for it to dry.
Cover it with a large Band-Aid, positioning it in a way that prevents the cut from reopening.
Wear a finger condom AND a disposable glove.

No blood-borne pathogens in anyone's food, no nasty bits to infect your cut, and you're back to prepping and cooking in no time.

I vote for dbcurrie's multi-ethnic anything except Italian, Mexican and Chinese. How about something Anthony Bourdain has eaten on one of his shows? A Cajun/Creole theme would be fun, too.

A green party: I have a nephew who spent a year of his early childhood not eating anything unless it was green. He's normal now.

A Democrat party: All the food has to include fruits, nuts or flakes, or has been made in a crock pot. Ba-dum-dum. Hey, it's okay for me to say that--I am one.

Christmas Eve dinner for me and son #5: arroz caldo (gingery Filipino chicken rice soup, one of our tradition), pork tacos and fresh-baked cookies. Son #4 returned from his wife's grandmother's house with a giant platter of very hard and stale green and pink Rice Krispies treats with sprinkles on top, burnt PB sandwich cookies filled with green powdered sugar icing, some decent peanut butter fudge and a bowl of watery fruit salad (red and green apples, halved grapes, papaya chunks, canned pineapple and walnuts in instant vanilla pudding). Before the grandkids had taken off their coats and put away their shoes, DIL had already tossed everything except the fudge.

Snacks while waiting to see Rudolph's nose (there's always a plane flying somewhere on Christmas Eve, so we look out the front window and scan the skies for a jet's red light--Rudolph's nose--so the kids know Santa's near and they have to hurry up and go to sleep because everyone knows he doesn't bring presents if you're awake; we've spotted Rudolph's nose for 30 years now, through fog and cloud cover in IL and WA): hot cocoa with candy cane stirrers, big soft ginger cookies, those hard candy rainbow ribbons and chocolate-filled candy straws.

Christmas Day brunch for two grandkids, two sons and a DIL: I made a giant frittata using American fries, ham, red pepper, swiss, mushrooms and green onion. Raisin toast, apple turnovers and fruit on the side.

Dinner for 12: The perfect prime rib (THANK YOU, KENJI!!), cheesy twice-baked potato casserole (lumpy mashed baked potatoes, cream cheese, shredded sharp cheddar, butter, cream, green onion tops, bacon, S&P), crisp-tender broccoli (salpico, Na-na-Na, Na-na-Naaa), fresh green beans with bacon and red pepper flakes and sliced almonds, popovers, a run-of-the-mill tossed salad with lemon and olive oil dressing, key lime cheesecake (made with bottled juice) and Perfect Party Cake (Dorie Greenspan's recipe using seedless raspberry jam between the layers). There's a couple of slices of cake left, a small portion of cheesecake, and a couple of plates of cookies and candies leftover.

We're full of merry and bright! On to the New Year!

Winter ham: Seedless toasted rye, butter on one side, cream cheese on the other.

Summer ham: A sturdy while roll with cole slaw.

Isn't it wonderful that we're all able to make the people around us feel comfortable enough to express their appreciation by "talking" with their rear ends?

And I'm guilty of criticizing the food on other people's plates. Not outsiders, just my sons', as in "I don't see anything green on your plate." Jeez, the youngest is 25, the oldest 39--you'd think I'd get over it already.

I don't mind listening to puke stories--most of them are really funny or so gross that I can't help but laugh--but just don't tell those stories at the dinner table. Likewise, poop stories.

Yee-haa!

Psst. . .Pass it on.

I'm with gastronomeg. It would be awfully hard to choose one, but if I absolutely had to, I would choose from the Irish or the English (I don't think Jamie Oliver can single-handedly rescue the entire nation from boiled-to-smithereens vegetables) or whatever the Scandinavian country is that invented lutefisk.

Po-Boy's in Puyallup, WA and Branks in Sumner, WA--both smokers are in the parking lots, so you can watch. And sniff!

Not cookies, but we love yogurt pie when it's hot out. It's just half yogurt and half whipped cream sweetened with a little powdered sugar, in a graham cracker crust. Freeze it, let it sit at room temp for 10 or 15 minutes, cut and serve. You can turn the filling into frozen yogurt bars, too.