Summer Activities for the Blog

Over the course of the summer I think I will start putting out restaurant, wine, food, and cheese reviews. This will be from places I have been before or just recently been, along with stuff I eat or drink with friends.

Just the other day (July 7, 2008) a few of my web geek friends and I went to the grand opening of the new Capitol Hill burger place Good Stuff Eatery, which was created by Chef Spike Mendelsohn who was on Season 4 of Top Chef and his family.

There was definitely a crowd that gathered for the grand opening, partially because folks wanted to see Spike and the rest like myself wanted to try his food that they had only seen on TV.

We got there about 7:15 PM and was directed by Spike’s dad of where to go to get into line to place are order. Once in line it moved along fairly quickly. They had a bunch of signs out asking to take it easy on the staff since they were still in training. They had three different cash registers open to keep things flowing. Once you ordered you were told to go to the end of the counter to see Spike.

We stopped to see Spike and he took our receipt and gave us one of those blinky buzzy restaurant things. This probably had to do with the fact that there were like 20 or 30 other people waiting for their food. The wait did not seems that long,even though it was about 30 minutes before one of my friends got his meal and then myself and one other guys was an additional 10 minutes. This made for a grand total of 40 minutes. I figure that Spike would rather people have to wait for the hand made burgers than get one that was not up to par.

The food was really good and well worth the wait. I had the “Spikes 5 Napkin” burger same as Justin Thorp. Who said “I had never had a burger with a fried egg on it before”. The burger was cooked just perfectly, had the right amount of cheese and sauce. Then sunny side up egg on top of the burger was a great surprise.

I just purchased a few domain names that I would like to use with your help to create a local DC food review blog. The types of places that I would like to review are the local joint that has character and really good food, staff, wine, cheese, local bakery, etc. I am normally looking for the cheap and inexpensive type of places, not the high end expensive ones.

If you would like to help create or be part of the blog/website please leave a note.

Posted in burger, chef, food, Good Stuff Eatery, review, Spike Mendelsohn | Leave a comment

Update Blog

Hopefully I can get information on some of the classes I have missed in the last two months so I can post them to the blog. I either been really busy with work, preparing for a web conference presentation I gave, or was not interested in making a class or to. I just needed some time to rest.

For any information I receive from people about their classes i will place the date the class was given as part of the title so people can figure them out correctly.

Posted in Missing Class | Leave a comment

Food and Wine with Chef Damon Hersh

Menu

  1. Vichyssoise (deconstructed)  – Wine: Grotta Del Sole Asprinio d’Aversa Spumante Brut – Italy – $14
  2. Tuna Tartare – Tuna And Mache Salad On Flatbread – Wine: 2006 – Cantine Botromagno Gravina – Italy – $12
  3. Chicken Florentine Tartlettes – Wine: 2006 – Vina Leyda Pinot Noir  – Chile – $23
  4. “Lobster” Newburg – Wine: 2004 – Sebastiani Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel – California – $22
  5. Lamb Wellington – Wine: 2005 – Maramonte Syrage – California – $17

Wines From Pearson’s
Bread From Calvert-Woodley

Posted in 2004, 2005, 2006, Califorina, Calvert Woodley, Dry Creek Valley, Italy, Pearsons, Pinot Noir, Red, White, Zinfandel | Leave a comment

Red Wines from tuscan region of Italy

Wine

  1. 2005 – Fabula Rosso Monteregio di Massa Marttima (DOC) – $13.00
  2. 2003 – Poggio Sughere Morlino di Scansano (DOC) – $18.00
  3. 2001 – Vecchia cantina Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Riserva (DOCG) – $21.00
  4. 2004 – Casakino Chianti Classico Riserva (DOCG) – $17.00
  5. 2001 – Mocali brunello di Montalcino (DOCG) – $44.00

Cheese

  1. Pecorino Tuscano (Tuscany) – young cheese by Manciano – $16.00/lb.
  2. Gran Cru Pecorino (Sardinia (aged 18 months) – $17.00/lb.

Wines – 1 – 4 Corridor Fine Wines, Laurel, MD and wine 5 Pearsons Washington, DC

Bread and Cheeses – Calvert-Woodley

Posted in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, Italy, Pearsons, Red | Leave a comment

My Wines might be Petite, but I’m Not‏ – Petite Verdot

Washington Wine and Cheese Seminar – March 18, 2008
Presented by – John F Croston III

Wine Shelf Price

  1. 2006 – White Hall Vineyards – (UnWined) – (VA)- $15.99
  2. 2004 – Ballast Stone – (Bell’s Wine) – (AUS) - $15.99
  3. 2005 – Petite Petit – Michael David – (Bell’s Wine) – (CA) - $22.99
  4. 2006 – Yard Dog – Red Heads Studio – (UnWined) – (AUS) - $10.99
  5. 2005 – Deen De Bortoli – Vat 4 – (UnWined) – (AUS) - $10.99

Cheese (Calvert Woodley) Shelf Price

  1. Tomme de Savore - $16.98/lb
  2. Bella Colina Provolone Picante - $10.99/lb
Posted in 2004, 2005, 2006, Australia, Bell's Wine and Spirit, Cabernet Sauvignon, Calvert Woodley, Lodi, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Petite Syrah, Petite Verdot, Red, UnWined Wine and Gourmet | Leave a comment

Stryker Sonoma Winery

Tuesday, February 26 promises to be a special night at the Washington Wine and Cheese Seminar. We will present five outstanding wines from the award wining Stryker Sonoma Winery.

Louise Shelly and Jeff Kominers have done an outstanding job of putting this tasting together, and we will all get to enjoy their efforts! Stryker gave us some great discounts, some at 40%, to permit us to present higher priced wines. We’ll start with three terrific lively Zins, then a special blend, and finish with a super full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon.

  1. 2004 – Stryker Old Vine Alexander Valley Zinfandel – $20
  2. 2004 – Stryker OZ Alexander Valley Old Vine Zinfandel – $25
  3. 2003 – Stryker Speedy Creek Knights Valley Zinfandel – $32
  4. 2003 – Stryker Jen’s Blend Sonoma County Blend – $20
  5. 2003 – Stryker Speedy Creek Knights Valley Cabernet – $38

Cheees

  1. Taleggio – $13.99
  2. Saint-Nectaire - $10.49
Posted in 2003, 2004, Alexander Valley, Alexander Valley, Califorina, Red, Sonoma County, Speedy Creek Knights Valley, Zinfandel | 1 Comment

Italian Immigrant Winemakers in California.

Lynne Cool will be guest presenter for the class tomorrow night. This is one you will not want to miss. In addition to exploring the contributions of Italian winemakers to the wine culture of California, Lynne will discuss the much-disputed origins of the Zinfandel grape and it’s relationship to the Primitivo grape of Italy.

 

Wines will be from both sides of the ocean. From California, there will be two of my favorite Zinfandels from Sonoma County, Seghesio and Trentadue, as well a a wonderful Barbera from Boeger in El Dorado County. From Italy, there will be a Primitivo from Puglia in southern Italy and an outstanding red wine from Friuli in Northern
Italy. This last wine is from a winemaker who was educated in the United States but returned to his winemaking family in Italy taking new world techniques.

 

There will of course be two cheeses (one creamy and one hard sharp cheese) which were selected to pair well with the wines, as well as plenty of crusty bread.

 

Please join us for this educational and delicious event!

  1. 2006 Seghesio Sonoma County Zinfandel – $20
  2. 2006 A-Mano Puglia, Sicily Primitivo – $13
  3. 2005 Trentadue Sonoma County Zinfandel – $20
  4. 2006 Boeger El Dorado, Ca Barbera – $16.50
  5. 2006 Just Me Friuli, Italy Merlot – $31

Wines from Bell Wine Shop

Cheeses:

  1. Edel L’Cleron – $18.99
  2. Cabot XSharp Cheddar – $8.99

Bread and Cheeses from Calvert-Woodley

Posted in 2005, 2006, Bell's Wine and Spirit, Califorina, Calvert Woodley, Italy, Merlot, Red | 1 Comment

Still Getting Spammed

It’s been almost a week now and about every four minutes one of the blog posts about Lori, Jill, and Carol wine tasting keeps getting hit with spam comments. They are coming from a website in Amsterdam, NL and are about casino’s, gambling, bingo, and other stuff like that. I have it set up to just mark them as spam, so I can delete them all in batches.

We had deleted about 250 – 300 manually until I got the last part set up, since Wednesday morning we have caught almost 1,200 more.

Even by mentioning it on my own blog over the weekend using the blog post title has gotten about six or so spam comments on it.

If I inadvertently delete your comment by mistake I apologize in advance.

Posted in Spam, Spam Comments | Leave a comment

Comments Turned Back on

Over the last 24 hours the blog was getting spam comments every four or five minutes for close to 24 hours. In the end they tried to post over 350+ comments about casinos, bingo, and the like. Once I got Akismet (spam blocker) working this morning it was not as bad to get rid of them all.

The long and the short of it is comments are now back on.

Posted in Spam, Spam Comments | Leave a comment

Comments Turned Off Getting Spammed

I have temporarily turned comments off, since the website was getting SPAMMED every 4 minutes with junk comments from outside USA.

If you have already commented before you should be able to do so still. Once this stops I will turn them back on.

Thanks, for reading any way.

jfc iii

Posted in Spam, Spam Comments | Leave a comment