Come to mama.

We all want to be healthy, and many of us do not consider it a chore to eat fruits and vegetables we love. Brussels sprouts, spinach, squash, greens, radishes, apples, mangoes, oranges — I could go on and on about the produce I adore.

Lots of us want to help out local producers, too, buying as much as we can from the farmers markets and produce stands. That’s an extremely worthy endeavor.

But do you ever have a really bad day and just decide you’re going to throw responsibility to the wind and eat something you hardly ever let yourself have? Something you’re a little embarrassed to admit you love? Something you never, ever want to see a nutritional label for because you know it will only ruin those fleeting moments of sheer bliss derived from noshing on something disgustingly fattening, preservative-laden or maligned by health food magazines?

Of course you do. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t.

I recently saw a great article idea I’d like to steal. The author went around to well-known chefs and asked them about their guilty pleasure food. It was hilarious to read about these star chefs sneaking stuff like Moon Pies and Cheetos. I want to ask some of our local chefs about their guilty pleasure food, but before I do I figure we can ease the way a little bit by admitting ours first.

The only rule to this game is that you can’t be mean to each other about your weird food love. You can joke and poke fun, of course, but no finger-wagging.

Having said that, I’ll go first.

Ahem… I love Taco Bell’s Nachos Bell Grande. I usually eat them while sitting in front of the television and watching something truly trashy, such as “Gossip Girl.” And in the summer, when we go to camp, I always take Little Debbie Nutty Bars.

There, I said it. Now you have to go!

Stock photo

It’s Good Friday, and any kids (or big kids) in households where Easter is celebrated are probably eagerly awaiting the moment they get that glorious basket stuffed with colorful candy and toys.

When I was growing up, Easter was one of my favorite holidays. The Easter bunny always had our baskets filled and waiting for us on the dining room table when we got up that morning, so we’d eagerly dash for the dining room to see what he brought.

It was a good bet that we’d get some Cadbury Creme Eggs, which are my sister’s absolute favorite. Well, they probably compete in her heart and tummy for Peeps, which are her other favorite. I generally went along with both of those, as well as any foil-covered chocolates and jelly beans the bunny felt like leaving. But my favorite was the chocolate bunny — especially if it was solid chocolate instead of hollow.

After baskets, it was time to hunt for eggs. As I’ve mentioned in comments earlier this week, the Easter bunny always hid real eggs around our house. We dyed the eggs and he got them out of the refrigerator and hid them. The hunt was almost more exciting to me than the baskets.

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File photo.

March is Frozen Food Month. There is a month for everything in the food world, as we know, but I do believe frozen food deserves some props at least once a year. What would we do without it?

Obviously, fresh ingredients are always preferred over anything frozen or canned, but when Old Man Winter turns the earth to rock and drags temperatures down to teeth-chattering levels, we must look to the frozen food aisle for many of our favorites, including fruits and vegetables.

Frozen produce shouldn’t have a bad name. Most of those products are flash frozen the same day they come out of the fields, retaining their healthy components and flavors. They are generally much more nutritious than canned produce.

In our house, our favorite frozen product is spinach. You will always find several bags of frozen spinach in the freezer. I use it in recipes, but more often it’s my go-to vegetable side dish on a night when I’m in a hurry. We probably consume one bag of frozen spinach per week, on average. We also like frozen turnip greens. Both are delicious with a little Tastefully Simple Bacon Bacon.

In addition, I like organic frozen burritos, ice cream and the occasional Kashi frozen dinner. And I always have a frozen pizza in the chest freezer in the basement in case of an emergency. And by emergency I mean, like, extreme laziness or craziness on a week night.

In honor of Frozen Food Month and the fact that, according to the weather forecast, we are about to be frozen ourselves, tell me: What is your family’s favorite frozen food product? Is there a frozen product you would never buy?

File photo.

Do you need an excuse to eat peanut butter? I sure as heck don’t.

If you do, however, this is your ticket to peanut butter heaven. It is your permission to slather peanut butter on everything you eat for the rest of the day, and also to slather it all over your face if you want.

Because it’s Peanut Butter Lovers Day, I think it calls for eating peanut butter right out of the jar with a spoon. Or putting peanut butter on your raw apples and celery and crunching away. Or buying some Reese’s cups from the vending machine. Or Reese’s Pieces, if you are E.T.

It might call for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with potato chips crushed on it, or a peanut butter and banana sandwich, or a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Or maybe if you’re feeling really crazy, you could make a sandwich that has all of the above shoved between two pieces of bread.

On Friday nights, dessert is allowed (I say so). That means you should probably opt for peanut butter pie, peanut butter cake, peanut butter cupcakes, peanut butter mousse, peanut butter balls or peanut butter trifle. Or peanut butter ice cream. Or chocolate ice cream with Reese’s cups in it.

If you are feeling savory, maybe you should opt for chicken in peanut sauce, or spring rolls with a peanut butter dipping sauce, or a peanut noodle salad.

Of course, since I am only just telling you this at 2 p.m., you’ve missed some chances to incorporate peanut butter into your diet today. That’s OK, because nobody will know if you choose to celebrate Peanut Butter Lovers Day the morning after. In that case, put some peanut butter on your toast, in your oatmeal, in your yogurt, on your waffles, in your smoothies and on your bagels.

Just do it. Do peanut butter*. And have a good weekend.

* If you happen to be allergic to peanuts, then please do not do peanut butter. Pretend it is Chocolate Lovers Day and carry on.

For today’s Front Burner column, I wrote about the websites I usually visit in order to find great restaurant recommendations before I travel. The column was inspired by our recent vacation, which was a cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale with stops in the Bahamas, St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos.

The very day we returned, the Carnival cruise ship Triumph suffered the engine room fire that stranded it in the Gulf of Mexico. The miserable conditions on board were all over the news, but that won’t stop me from taking another cruise. In fact, this was my second cruise and I can’t wait to take another.

I understand that cruises are not for everybody. I fell in love with this travel method because it’s a very affordable way to visit several different countries in one vacation. I don’t know that I could ever book travel to and between all those places, along with accommodations every night and food every day, for less money than a cruise. Even if I could, it would be a lot more work.

I still love traveling directly to one location and spending as much time as I want there, and I have stopped at ports where I wished I had several more days to explore (Dublin!). But getting a short peek at a destination helps me to determine whether I’d like to spend more time there in the future (Dublin!).

Before we get to the food, which is, after all, what this blog is all about, I want to address the comments I’ve heard from folks who say they’d never cruise now after what they saw happen to the Carnival Triumph and the Costa Concordia. My response is that there is risk inherent in any type of travel, whether it be in a car, a plane, on a train or on a ship. If you don’t want to take the risk, you don’t travel. I’d rather be on a cruise trip that’s in trouble than on an airplane that’s going down, but that’s just me.

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The Fridge Magnet blog may be looking a bit different on your screen this morning. That’s because our online team is in the process of gradually moving pages out of the old Roanoke.com wrapper and into the newly designed Roanoke.com. Not all of the website pages have been moved, but you’ll continue to see changes like this to the website in the near future.

What does the change mean for this blog? Well, you should be seeing a dark blue wrapper, an entirely different navigation at the top of the page, and different font in blog entries.

However, none of the features or tools you enjoy on this blog should be missing. So please poke around and make sure you see everything you need. If you have any problems navigating on the blog, please leave a comment or shoot me an email!

You can also click on the “News” tab at the top of the screen, then use the yellow “Feedback” tab at the right of the screen. That feedback tool is for any questions or comments you may have about the new website.

When the cat is away, the mice will play! (Photo by Lindsey Nair)

I’m getting ready to take a break from the daily grind, so after today, I will be away from this blog until Tuesday, February 12. But rather than let the blog go dark or schedule recipes to post every day, I wanted to try something new.

The last time Weather Journal blogger Kevin Myatt was out storm chasing , he had a guest blogger take over his blog. I’m going to do the same thing, except instead of having one person blog the whole time, I’ve asked several different folks from the community to each write one blog entry while I’m away.

The guest bloggers will be Virginia Egg Council spokesperson Mary Rapoport; an avid home brewer named Michael Quonce (who also happens to be the public relations/advertising manager for Hotel Roanoke); the very talented chocolatier Bayla Sussman, who owns Baylee’s Best Chocolates on Electric Road in Roanoke County; and Darla Mehrken, a graduate of the Culinary Institute at Virginia Western who is now a chef with Carilion Clinic.

You’ll still see my column on Wednesday and a restaurant review on Thursday, as well.

And lest you think comments will not be checked and approved, I have secured a very capable babysitter for the Fridge Magnet blog. My colleague, Caitlin Saniga, who works on the copy desk here, is also a great cook and has her own food blog outside of work. She shares the blog with her longtime friend Sarah. It’s called So Hungry I Could Blog, and you can check it out here.

Caitlin will keep an eye on this blog, approving comments, passing along tips and occasionally joining the conversation herself. She may even post a blog entry or two while I’m away.

I hope you enjoy this special occasion on the Fridge Magnet blog. Happy cooking (and reading). I’ll see you soon!

My brother-in-law, Jeff, had to be in Germany before Christmas for his job, so he and my sister, Kim, decided she would fly over and meet him and they’d experience Christmas in Germany.

Kim took a lot of food pictures to show me and she went through them this weekend and sent a bunch over. I was amazed by the gorgeous gingerbread displays, the brats and Wienerschnitzel and pastries. At Christmastime in Germany, they have lots of big outdoor markets where they sell food and other goods. As you will see, Kim and Jeff spent some time at these markets.

I put the photos in a slideshow so we can take a pretend trip to Germany on this dreary Monday. Thanks for sharing the pictures, Sis!

To experience this slideshow properly, click play and then immediately click the bottom right button with the four arrows to expand it to fill your screen, then click “Show info” at the top right of your screen to see the captions describing the photos.

Have any of you been to Germany before? What’s your favorite German dish?

Hey, gorgeous. Photo by Lindsey Nair l The Roanoke Times.

Do you ever get on a kick for a particular kind of food, and you’re not sure why? Like, you suddenly crave roasted Brussels sprouts or onion rings or can’t get enough BLT sandwiches?

That’s where I am with grapefruit these days. I’ve always liked grapefruit, but I sure have been in love with it lately. It started when I was getting over the flu, so maybe it’s because I was dehydrated and looking for something cool and juicy, or maybe my body needed vitamin C.

It could also have something to do with the time of year. Although grapefruit is in season somewhere in the country pretty much all year round, I often associate it with Christmas. When my sister and I still lived at home, my grandmother sometimes sent our family a case of Florida grapefruit. I can still picture those beauties nestled in layers of brown egg-crate packing. Now, we always have grapefruit for breakfast on Christmas morning with my in-laws.

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File photo.

The Virginia Cooperative Extension is looking for a Master Food Volunteer for the Roanoke region who can help with education and outreach for the Family and Consumer Sciences program.

These volunteers go through training to learn about basic nutrition, meal planning, cooking techniques, food safety, exercise and healthy living and working with diverse audiences. The training entails a 30-hour Master Food Volunteer training course which costs $50 and includes lunch, training materials, apron, tote bag and other supplies. Scholarships may be available for those who cannot afford the training fee.

After they are trained, the volunteers assist with such events as health fairs, food demonstrations, farmers market displays, grocery store displays, 4-H programs, food preservation demonstrations, cooking classes, after-school programs and much more.

Volunteers who go through the training must reciprocate by doing 30 hours of service within one year of the training.

If you enjoy cooking, are hungry to learn more about food and nutrition, and are looking for a great volunteer opportunity, consider this program. Classes begin in late January.

If you want to apply or if you have more questions, contact Deb Chappel at 772-7524 or email her at dchappel@vt.edu.

Fridge Magnet file photo.

Well, we’re heading into one of the most popular party weekends of the year, which means lots of you will be going to a shindig where there will be piles of great food. What do you eat and what do you skip?

Decisions, decisions!

This might be a good time to share these holiday eating tips. I last posted these in 2010 after somebody forwarded them to me in an email, but they’re so good that they bear repeating. I’m off early, but I’ll be approving comments. I hope everybody has a great weekend!

Holiday Eating Tips

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Holiday spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door where they’re serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It’s rare. You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It’s a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It’s later than you think. It’s Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

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The Roanoke Times is seeking a creative, energetic freelancer to review restaurants in the Roanoke Valley. If you are a foodie with a talent for writing, this may be just the opportunity for you.

Qualified candidates must have knowledge of food and of the Roanoke area. They should be up-to-date on new restaurant openings, and it is imperative that they be able to meet deadlines. Reviewers are required to visit each restaurant twice per review and must maintain their anonymity.

To apply, please send in:
* Your full name, address, email address and telephone number.
* A written statement (300 words or fewer) about why you believe you would be a good fit for the job. Include two restaurants you’d like to review.
* A review (500 to 600 words; published or not) of a Roanoke restaurant that includes information about the ambiance, food and service.
* If applicable, a link to any blog for which you write on a regular basis.

Submit application materials via email to lindsey.nair@roanoke.com or mail to The Roanoke Times, c/o Lindsey Nair, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, VA 24010.

The deadline to apply is 5 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 14, 2013.

File photo.

One of the reasons I love cooking is because it provides me with an endless opportunity to learn. Even cooks who live to be 100 years old can still be amazed by kitchen hints they’ve never heard before. I’ve been writing about food for six years and I probably only know about 5 percent of what there is to know about the topic. Or less.

That’s the beauty of books that offer lots of kitchen tips and tricks. One such book is “How to Squeeze a Lemon” by Fine Cooking magazine, which promises “1,023 kitchen tips, food fixes, and handy techniques” between its covers. I’ve been holding onto this book for long time with the intention of sharing some of its best hints with you. So here goes:

* Protect your nonstick cookware by placing sheets of bubble wrap between them in the cupboard (that is, if you can keep yourself from obsessively popping all the bubbles first).

* To clean broiler pans, lay heavy-duty paper towels on the dirty surface of the pan and wet them with hot water. Let sit for a while. A lot of the gunk will supposedly stick to the paper towels. I haven’t tried this, but if it works it’ll be magnificent.

* To clean a blender without taking it apart, fill 1/3 full with warm water and add a squirt of dish soap. Put on the lid and turn it on for a few seconds, then pour out water, sponge off any remaining residue and rinse.

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Veggie melt with black-eyed peas at Tupelo Honey Cafe in Asheville. Photo by Lindsey Nair l The Roanoke Times.

Technically, I’ve been to Asheville, NC, four times. But since the first three times were spent at the Biltmore Estate, I could never really say I knew much about the city itself. During a visit to my sister in Spartanburg, SC, recently, Mom and sis and I decided to make the one-hour drive to Asheville to check out the downtown area.

Having lived in Roanoke for 15 years, I’ve heard a lot about Asheville. Most of what I’ve heard have been comparisons between Asheville and Roanoke, which are both located on the Blue Ridge Parkway with easy access to outdoor activities in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A lot of folks seem to think Roanoke should be just like Asheville, and I’ve heard a lot of complaining about the fact that it isn’t. So I was very curious about the place.

We arrived at noon on a Saturday, found a parking spot in a pay lot and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around in the vicinity of Haywood Street and Patton Avenue. We checked out the Grove Arcade, an upscale shopping center filled with independently owned shops. We walked around the little craft vendor area outside the arcade, popped into some shops along Haywood (including a candy store called Kilman’s and a “fru-fru” dog store, as my sister put it, called Three Dog Bakery, where we bought some fru-fru treats for my sister’s dog, who had suffered some kind of allergic reaction the night before that made her entire head swell up).

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It's time to get geeky about the subject of pizza. I'll start by posting this geeky picture of myself. The Roanoke Times l File photo.

Southwest Virginia has no shortage of Italian restaurants.

Whether you’re in the mood for a casual sub and pizza shack or a sit-down dinner with candles and chicken Marsala, it can easily be found here. I feel as if I am always reporting news of a new Italian restaurant (Mirko Pasta, Leonore’s) or editing a review of an Italian restaurant (Toscano’s in Radford last week, Luigi’s in Roanoke this week).

Sometimes readers suggest that there might be too many Italian restaurants around. When my colleague Amanda Codispoti reported in late June that Leonore’s would soon open in downtown Roanoke, reader Tass wrote “Pastas … Pizzas … Subs … Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..” and reader P. Jenkins wrote “Just what Roanoke needs…another pizza joint.”

Still, I don’t see an inordinate number of Italian restaurants closing, so there must be a demand for this cuisine. Some folks are apparently on a mission to find the BEST Italian restaurant in Southwest Virginia. Consider an email I received from reader Ray McKee a while back:

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Internet media now/Flickr

Last week, we looked at the most-searched recipes on the Internet so far in 2012, and some folks were surprised by how simple they were. Could this mean people truly do not know how to make spaghetti, mashed potatoes or baked chicken?

I don’t want to tire you out on the Miller & Rhoads luncheon theme, but it did seem appropriate in light of last week’s discussion to share with you a portion of Mary Rapoport’s speech at the luncheon on Friday. Mary, a member of the Peacock-Harper Culinary History Friends (the committee that put on the luncheon) is also the Roanoke spokesperson for the Virginia Egg Council. You may have seen her on various local cooking segments.

I found Mary’s talk interesting, particularly the part where she discussed how people fed their families around the 1950s or 60s. So here is a portion of her talk. At the end, you’ll find the recipe for M&R chocolate silk pie. And remember, if you would like a copy of the Miller & Rhoads Tearoom recipe booklet, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the address listed here.

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The folks over at The Daily Meal, a national food blog, got curious about what Americans have been interested in cooking these days. So they conducted some research, using the most-searched terms on their own website and several other leading search engines in the country.

According to The Daily Meal editor Anne Dolce’s report, here’s how they continued the research: “From there, we dove even deeper into our research to find out not only what foods the country was craving, but what people wanted to do with those foods. By using average monthly searches for highly searched recipes, we crafted a unique algorithm that weighted The Daily Meal searches against other search engines to yield a search score for each recipe that would help us rank the recipes.”

My kind of chili -- with beans! (AP Photo)

When the weather turns cool every autumn, I begin to crave more soups and stews, hot baked breads and casseroles. Most of all, though, I crave chili. And I know I’m not the only one.

This morning, my colleague told me she had dinner with friends last night at Beamer’s 25, a new restaurant on Salem Avenue. She ordered a bowl of their chili, which she said was very good and came in a huge portion served with bread, cheese and sour cream. She also mentioned that it’s bean-free chili, and that’s when I wrinkled my nose – because personally, I want beans in my chili.

I know, I know! I’m being inauthentic. Chili con carne (Spanish for “chili with meat”) originated in Texas, where the use of beans is largely frowned upon. They want their “bowl of red” to be thick with meat and spices, not with legumes. But as Lyle Lovett would tell me, “That’s right, you’re not from Texas.” And when I say I prefer my chili with beans, Texas might not want me anyway.

I am aware that many Americans fall into the no-beans category when it comes to chili preferences. According to those folks, the chili I make would be all kinds of bastardized. It contains several different colors of beans, as well as vegetables (onions, green peppers, chiles, sometimes even diced squash or sliced mushrooms).

But at least I’m consistent. I like hot dog chili with beans, too (gasp!). And I generally just adore beans in every way, whether they be cooked with a ham hock and served with cornbread, tossed cold onto salad, refried, or added to soups, stews and other recipes. I love beans! I’ll eat them straight out of the can. My chili recipe is based on my mother’s recipe, which always contained dark red kidney beans. After supper, I’d be caught in the kitchen picking out and eating the kidney beans. Did I mention that I love beans?

OK, since chili season is in full swing, this is a great time to conduct a little poll.

The question is simple: When it comes to chili, BEANS OR NO BEANS?

Photo by Dwayne Yancey l The Roanoke Times

I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a laugh. And I sure did laugh when my colleague, Dwayne Yancey, showed me this photo he took outside the Texas Tavern in downtown Roanoke about midnight on Friday.

Apparently, someone rode their horse downtown for the evening and stopped at the TT for a bite to eat. As long as the TT has been open, maybe this isn’t the first time someone tied up a horse out front. I’ve heard a few other co-workers say they think they’ve seen this horse downtown before.

I hate to steal Dan Casey’s “caption this” contest idea, but this picture sure does provide a lot of opportunity for goofy jokes. So whoever leaves the funniest comment (in my opinion) on this blog entry wins a copy of “Big Ranch, Big City Cookbook” by Louis Lambert.

I apologize in advance to my friends at the Texas Tavern, which is sure to be the butt of some of these jokes. Paybacks to me will probably come in the form of snarky comments about The Roanoke Times, since this horse is tied up right next to one of our newspaper boxes.

Jessica and Louis Tudor stand in front of Tudor's Biscuit World on Thursday, just after announcing the closure. Photo by Stephanie Klein-Davis l The Roanoke Times.

As most of you have already heard, Tudor’s Biscuit World will close on Sept. 14, one week from today. Here’s a link to my report in today’s newspaper. Many a downtown worker nearly cried over this news yesterday (and maybe some actually did cry).

Regardless of your personal opinion of Tudor’s, which opened almost 30 years ago, this is another big blow to the Roanoke restaurant scene. Just last week, I reported that Little Chef, a restaurant that had been in business for more than 50 years, was closed. And I have yet to report the closure of Downtown Soul on 1st Street in downtown Roanoke — consider it reported now. The restaurant closed about a week ago.

I have had people ask me, even after reading my stories about these closures, why these restaurants are closing. The question kind of surprises me because aren’t we all aware that the economy right now is brutal? Frankly, I’d be surprised if more beloved restaurants do not close this year. I hope that isn’t the case, but the situation right now is extremely dire.

These restaurateurs are citing a variety of factors in their decisions to close, but chief among them is the economy. It is the rising cost of food, which has caused them to raise menu prices, as well as the cost of other commodities. The Tudors told me their last electric bill was $1,400. Hopefully none of us are paying a residential electric bill that’s anywhere near that price, but I know we have all seen our own bills go up.

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I’ll be out today covering Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, an event that was organized by Mike Huckabee. On Friday, there’ll be a National Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A locations. That event is being organized by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

I probably don’t need to explain what prompted the planning of these two events. If you would like to participate in our poll, click here. If you are going to participate in either of these events and would be interested in being interviewed by me, please give me a call at 540-981-3343 or email me at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com

Meanwhile, if you’d like to be distracted from the whole chicken flap, how about a picture of an apple that kind of looks like a duck? This photo was submitted by reader LeeRay Costa, who got the apple in her fruit CSA from Good Food Good People. She says the cute apple was grown at Berrier Orchard in Cana, Virginia.

Photo courtesy LeeRay Costa.

Photo by Lindsey Nair / The Roanoke Times

Connie Jenkins of Northeast Roanoke stopped by the newspaper office today to show me this Mortgage Lifter tomato she grew.

She thinks it looks like twin fetuses facing one another, but I told her I think it looks like a heart from the side opposite the stem. Either way, she said she didn’t think she could bring herself to eat it.

I’ve gotten several nice Golden Boys from my vines so far this summer, but nothing oddly shaped. There is still time this season, though.

Got a funny veggie or fruit? Send me a picture at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com.

Happy Friday!

Hey, there's nothing good in here! Photo by Lindsey Nair.

This photo shows what Howard and I spent the evening doing last night, and I’ll bet it is a familiar sight to many of you. For those who lost power for an extended period of time and still have not cleaned your refrigerator/freezer, here are some tips. I would add that the easiest way I found to clean all the shelves and drawers from my unit were with a Brillo pad in the bath tub. They are just way too large to wash in a standard-size sink without making a big, wet mess of the kitchen.

Having a nice, clean fridge is a silver lining in all of this, but I am not looking forward to seeing the total on my bill when I go to the grocery store this weekend. Fortunately, we were able to save some food but the only meal-starters I have left are a package of chicken thighs and a small pork tenderloin. I was most disappointed to have to throw out my last few packages of venison and several big containers of homemade chicken stock. But, oh well. Life goes on.

As we all try to move on from this crazy week, I thought I’d share reader Ray McKee’s thoughts on Red Palace at Valley View Mall. Please remember, as always, that if you have a recent restaurant experience you’d like to share, you can email it to me at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com.

Click “Read More” to see Ray’s review.

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Floyd's new farmers market is one of many changes since our last survey. File photo.

In January 2008, I ran a column about “gastronomic gems,” or the 50 greatest food finds in Southwest Virginia. If you’ve been reading this blog since then, you might remember that list was a team effort – I took reader suggestions and wrapped them, with my own ideas, into an ode to the culinary treasures of our region.

I decided recently to dig through the archives and find that list to see how much it has changed. As it turns out, things have changed mightily for the better – and for the worse. Some gems, such as local farmers markets, have shown considerable growth. Other items, such as several of our favorite restaurants, have disappeared for good.

I’d like to share this updated list to see what you all think, then do an updated version for a future column. Have I missed any restaurant closings? If businesses have moved or changed ownership, are they still good enough to be on our list? What culinary gems has Southwest Virginia gained in the past 4 1/2 years that we can use to update our list? I wonder if we could get to 100 this time…

My update notes are in bold font. Go to the bottom of the list for a few of my ideas for additions. Feel free to disagree!

1. Artichoke-brie soup and veal marsala at Carlos Brazilian International Cuisine.
2. [GONE] El Palenque desserts (Yes, I know El Palenque closed. But their cakes and cookies can still be ordered at www.galvancakes.net. [No, they can't])
3. Southwest Virginia farmers markets: Peaches! Tomatoes! Flowers! Potatoes! You name it, it’s fresh and we love it.
4. Floyd County, a virtual mecca of homegrown produce and pasture-fed livestock.
5. Ethnic markets: J&L on Brambleton Avenue and the Oriental Market on Williamson Road are just the beginning. [J&L is still open and we've gained some new markets, but we've also lost a couple]
6. Hotel Roanoke peanut soup and spoonbread (recipes inside).
7. Sausage gravy at The Roanoker Restaurant.
8. Roanoke Weiner Stand chili [downtown location closed temporarily, but it'll be back!]
9. Good Things on the Market fudge [Closed]
10. Crabcakes by Capt. Paul’s seafood market in Salem.
11. Bagels at Roanoke Bagel Co. [expanding!]
12. Picking berries at Crow’s Nest Farm in Blacksburg. [under new ownership]
13. Authentic Middle Eastern dishes at More Than Coffee in Blacksburg. [Now Pita Vera]
14. Crawfish etoufee (no longer on the menu), softshell crab (seasonal) and Big Easy-style platter at Stephen’s Restaurant in Roanoke.
15. Burger in the Square: the burgers, of course! [Moved to Brambleton Avenue]
16. Subs and pizza at On the Rise bakery on the Roanoke market.
17. Table 50 in downtown Roanoke: Caribbean chicken salad, seared jumbo sea scallops in Armagnac cream sauce.
18. Taco soup at Little Dipper’s on the Roanoke City Market [Closed]
19. Rare roast beef sub (with slaw, not lettuce) at The New Yorker Delicatessen on Williamson Road.
20. Orange Dog at Towers Shopping Center (The restaurant is opening a second location in downtown Roanoke.) [The downtown location was not open long. The Towers location is under new ownership and is now called Rescue Dog]

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I'll be back - I promise!

OK, not really, but I had to get my Canned Heat reference in. And I am taking a little time off this week to do some cooking, good eating and general recharging of my batteries.

The ole Fridge Magnet blog won’t be as active this week, but there *will* be a pretty cool Front Burner column in the Extra section on Wednesday that I hope you’ll check out. Designer Terri Macklin did an awesome job with it.

Check in on the blog Wednesday if you’d like to talk about the topic of the column, and feel free to leave comments on any other blog entry this week because they will be approved.

I promise if I do find a place where the water actually tastes like wine, I’ll clue you all in. Have a great week.

My cake pendant from Inedible Jewelry.

This past weekend we went to Campout East, a music festival at Glen Maury Park in Buena Vista that featured two of our favorite bands, Cracker and Southern Culture on the Skids. Several food vendors were set up on the site, as was an amazing artist/crafter/jewelry maker who founded a business called Inedible Jewelry with her sister.

Jessica and Susan Partain make and market these itsy, bitsy food items made out of polymer clay. They make them into earrings, cufflinks, charms and more. As you can see from checking out their Etsy site, their masterpieces include hamburgers complete with tiny toppings, little lattice-crusted pies, olives, sushi, honey bears, tacos, doughnuts and TONS of other items.

Well, I couldn’t walk away from this tent without making a purchase, so I settled on this adorable slice-of-cake charm, which I’m using as a necklace pendant on a silver chain. Despite the size of this picture, it is really quite small – about the size of the last digit of my pinkie finger, or smaller.

Check out how incredibly detailed it is, right down to the swirls of frosting, the colored sprinkles and even the TEXTURE of the cake layers themselves! I just have to shake my head when I think of how much work went into it.

Inedible Jewelry is based in Charlottesville, so technically it’s a bit outside of our coverage area. But you can purchase the product online at the Etsy site. The sisters have received a lot of press attention, including an appearance on the Martha Stewart Show, which you can watch here. You’ll also find instructions at that link for making tiny lemon or lime slice charms.

When you watch Jessica make a lemon slice charm on the Martha Stewart Show, you’ll see how much work it requires. Martha seems a little baffled to me, actually. I think this is one of those things you’d be better off letting someone else make for you!

If you checked out the Etsy site, did you see a food item you’d wear?

Being the big food lovers that you are, I would not be surprised if many of you are already using Pinterest, the hottest new social networking tool on the Internet. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of folks out there who don’t know what it is or have not had a chance to check it out.

Pinterest is, essentially, a virtual bulletin board where you can “pin” images of all sorts of interesting things, from recipes to works of art to pieces of furniture. These pins almost always include a link back to the original source. So if I pin a photo of a delicious stuffed pork tenderloin, it really isn’t going to do anybody else any good unless it links back to the recipe for said delicious stuffed pork tenderloin. Because of these attached links, Pinterest is a great way to create and maintain a collection of visual bookmarks, so to speak, that lead you back to information you want to save.

I love Pinterest, and here’s why:

1. Because it is like eye candy, and I find it very pleasurable and stress-relieving to peruse the boards and look at all those pretty images.

2. Because I can share links with others, learn what interests others, show a bit of my own personality all WITHOUT having to read stupid comments, status lines, arguments and more. I am all for promoting the written word (obviously), but sometimes you have to tune that out. While commenting is possible on pins, I have yet to see anything insulting or offensive. Now, I’m sure the trolls will get there eventually because they’ve slithered into all kinds of nooks on the web. But Pinterest comments usually are along the lines of: “Ooh, that’s a pretty wedding cake” or “Oh, I can’t wait to try this recipe” or “Hahaha!! That just made me almost fall out of my chair laughing!”
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Who doesn't like lasagna? Stock image.

From time to time, it becomes painfully clear to me that I should have used a recipe to make a dish. But lasagna is one of those fantastic meals that can be made 101 different ways and usually turns out delicious. No wonder so many people make it for potlucks, dinner parties and ailing friends.

When it comes to lasagna, I usually go with what I’ve got on hand and/or what I’m in the mood to use. Sometimes I make my own sauce, sometimes I use a jarred sauce or a combination of the two. Sometimes I add mushrooms, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I throw in something random from the vegetable drawer. I used to use the long, ripple-edged noodles that have to be boiled in advance, but I’ve grown to love the no-boil option.

Last night, I had a nice package of grass-fed local ground beef, a package of mushrooms, half of an eggplant left over from when I made curry a few nights ago, and a jar of Wolfgang Puck tomato-basil sauce. That seemed like the beginnings of something amazing. Let there be lasagna!
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Stuffing of the pie holes. (Seattle Municipal Archives/Flickr)

Whenever I hear about an eating contest, I cannot help but think of the pie-eating contest scene in the movie “Stand By Me”, which concludes with… well, this blog is supposed to be about stimulating your appetite, not suppressing it. But if you really want to know or revisit that particular scene, click here.

Eating contests can fall into two categories: The kind where contestants end up eating an absurd amount of food in order to win the prize or the kind where the type of food is a challenge in itself (i.e. raw habanero peppers), so the contestants don’t eat until they bust but it’s still a difficult and uncomfortable task.

It is probably a rite of passage for any teenage boy to be involved, at some point, in an eating contest — even if it is an unofficial one which takes place at the school cafeteria table. Or should I say ESPECIALLY if it takes place at a school cafeteria table? I am here to admit that while I have never in my life been a teenage boy, even I took part in a pseudo eating contest, challenging myself in front of my friends to jam as many marshmallows into my mouth as possible.

It wasn’t very entertaining for my friends or myself.

While many eating contests have no real purpose, some are competitive sport or part of fundraising efforts. Big Lick BBQ (formerly Henry’s Memphis BBQ) is having an eating contest on May 26 to benefit OMNI (Orphan Medical Network International). Prizes will be awarded for eating the most slaw, potato salad or mixed beans (your choice of which side dish); for eating the most pulled pork sandwiches; and for eating the most ribs. Sounds messy, huh?

I’ll post the rules and other information for entering the contest at the bottom of this entry. Who among you is man or woman enough to go through a pile of ribs like Bugs Bunny goes through corn on the cob? Or risk the painful result of pouring whole beans down your gullet? I know you’re out there!

I’ll finish with a poll: How many of you enjoy watching or participating in food-eating contests? How many are disgusted by them?

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aMichiganMom/Flickr

It happens to me at least once a week: I go in the drawer where I keep my measuring spoons and they’re not there.

Usually, if someone hasn’t put them in the wrong drawer (ahem), they’re either in the dishwasher, the dish drainer or under some other dirty dishes in the sink. It’s a solid score if they’re in the dish drainer or the dishwasher is clean, because that means I can use them right away. But if they’re anyplace else, I have to stop what I’m doing and wash them.

That’s not a big deal, really, but it made me realize we probably all have kitchen items that always seem to be dirty when we need them. That must mean they’re pretty important to us, because obviously we use them all the time.

I’ve attempted to solve my measuring spoon problem by buying a couple of inexpensive spare sets so I can rotate through them and wash them less often. Of course, I always prefer my nice metal set but I do find that they are sometimes too big to fit inside certain spice containers. So one of the more shallow sets is nice to have.

I’d be interested to know what item you are constantly looking for in the kitchen and always finding in the dishwasher or sink. So tell me, how would you fill in the blank?

I’d like to draw your attention to a post over on the RefreshRT blog, which was created to provide our readers with a place to offer suggestions as we work to redesign Roanoke.com.

This particular post is about comments. Specifically, what do you think should be the rules for commenting on Roanoke.com? The RefreshRT team is looking for your top three rules.

I rather like this rule from TUAB (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) that was shared on the RefreshRT post:

“Be nice, stay relevant and don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to someone in person.”

But that’s just me. If you can provide some input, please click here to read more and comment on this topic. Thanks!

My dad smoked these ribs a couple of summers ago. Photo by Lindsey Nair (moi).

Blog reader Bill has won the random drawing for “America’s Best Ribs” by Ardie A. Davis and Paul Kirk.

Bill said he likes baby back ribs the best and prefers a dry rub. He said he likes to start his ribs in the oven and finish them on the grill. Congrats, Bill. Now you can experiment with some different cuts and cooking methods.

I notice that of the 17 or so comments left on the cookbook giveaway entry, most of you said you like baby back ribs the best. That’s no surprise, considering how meaty and tender they are. But Jeff makes a good point when he says there are more affordable cuts which, if cooked properly, can also be delicious.

Check out these cuts (details from the book):

PORK

* Country-style ribs: Cut from the shoulder end of a bone-in pork loin. Not technically ribs, but they are boneless and, when cooked low and slow, can be very tender and succulent.

* Spareribs: From the lower breast belly section of the pig. Less meaty and less expensive than baby backs.

* St. Louis-style: Spareribs trimmed of the rib tips and skirt meat. Very meaty and generally consistent in size, which helps when cooking

BEEF/BISON

* Short ribs: Off the plate or chuck (flank) section of the animal. Often cut short, especially for Asian recipes.

* Back ribs: A full 7-bone slab

* Bison ribs: Bigger and less fatty than beef ribs

LAMB/MUTTON

* Lamb breast ribs: A full slab with 9-12 bones. Fatty and a little tough, but trimming helps.

* Denver ribs: Lamb breast ribs that have been squared off on the small end.

* Mutton breast ribs: Breast ribs from a grown animal. Stronger in flavor than lamb.

So, now that we’ve broken down the rib varieties a little more, how many of these have you guys tried at a restaurant? How many have you cooked at home?

I know everybody who entered to win tickets to the Celebrity Chef Tour dinner at The Palisades in Eggleston is eagerly waiting to hear whether their name was drawn.

I am going to allow Palisades owner Shaena Muldoon to pick the winning number today, and will announce the winner before the end of the business day. So stay tuned!

Meanwhile, let’s have an open thread about what we cooked over the weekend. I wonder if you, like me, took advantage of the cool, rainy weather to do some roasting or baking. It occurred to me that it might have been one of the last weekends when I could comfortably crank up the oven.

I had friends over Saturday and we made chicken Marsala with roasted potatoes and grilled asparagus, along with a wonderful chocolate cake (I’ll have to share that recipe later this week). Yesterday, I made a nice pot roast with mushrooms and lots of sweet onions. Yay for leftovers!