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This Saturday (April 4) is the day for the fourth annual Kitchen Tour in Roanoke, which is organized by Virginia Amateur Sports. The tour raises money for the group's annual Get Healthy Virginia program.

This year's tour includes seven different homes, including four in The Preserves, a fairly new green development in Roanoke County. Visitors might get some ideas about energy conservation and other environmentally-friendly options by touring these kitchens.

At the home of Suzi Fortenberry at 6045 Roycroft Drive, there will be cooking demonstrations (at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.), refreshments and live music by Dan Chitwood. The tour lasts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., so if you are still looking for something to do on Saturday or you're in the market for some kitchen remodeling, this might be a fun way to spend the day.

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In case you haven't seen Jenny Boone's blog today, she reports that Red Clay, a restaurant that has taken the place of the former "The Mix" on Campbell Ave., is now open.

Before you assume that Red Clay will be another in a line of failed restaurants in that building, consider that there's already a successful Red Clay restaurant in Rocky Mount, so the owners are not new to the business.

Jenny's blog entry links to the Red Clay menu, which is broken into three sections at lunch. Those are the $6.50 choices, the $7.50 choices and the $8.50 choices. Those range from a basic burger or blackened chicken sandwich to homemade pasta dishes and comfort food classics like pork chops and fried chicken.

The dinner menu also offers a variety of options, and some of the prices are really affordable. I think the highest price I saw was $25 for the surf 'n' turf, but most were under $20. That's going to help them in this economy, I would think.

If you try it out, let me know what you think.

That's my Monday attitude. But it's not because I'm in a bad mood, it's because I found a gorgeous picture of stuffed mushrooms with a tasty recipe attached, and I started thinking about what a great addition stuffed mushrooms can be to anyone's appetizer repertoire.

Maybe they seem like a lot of work to the uninitiated, but stuffed mushrooms are really pretty simple to make. The hardest part is cleaning the 'shrooms and taking the stem off, and that's really not very difficult. Often, recipes call for chopping up the stems and incorporating them into the stuffing, so you don't even have to feel guilty about wasting them.

It's always helpful to start with a recipe, but once you've made this appetizer a time or two, you might find it isn't too hard to improvise a bit. I once had some frozen crab cakes on hand and decided to break them into pieces and shove a piece into each mushroom. It rocked!

Another improvisation I use is thawed spinach squeezed dry and mixed with bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and chopped mushroom stems. It's yummy and easy.

Here's a recipe for Paula Deen's Chicken Piccata Stuffed Mushrooms. It calls for cream cheese, capers, chopped chicken and panko bread crumbs. Oh, and BUTTER, of course!

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In true scatterbrained style, I'd like to talk about lettuce, butter and tofu today. Oh my!

First up, would you just look at that beautiful pot of lettuce? I bought that on the Roanoke Farmer's Market today from farmer Mark Woods. It contains some Red Sails, some Black Seeded Simpson and some Grand Rapids lettuce. All for $6. And it's already in need of some good thinning, so I'll probably be having a lovely salad sometime this weekend.

I opted for the lettuce pot to save space in my tiny garden patch. It's supposed to last all summer long if I take good care of it. We'll see...

Next up, we've been talking tofu for a couple of days now, and that's why I received a nice e-mail from Roanoker Hope Trachtenberg-Fifer. As Hope puts it, "in our family of six, 50% are vegetarians...  so we operate a pretty diversified kitchen!" Hope is also the mother of my co-worker, Jordan Fifer, who works in Roanoke.com.

Hope was kind enough to send along a few of her favorite recipes involving tofu. Below the jump, you'll find an Indian-style recipe for tofu with spinach sauce (very much like the Indian dish palak paneer) as well as THREE different recipes for vegan cheesecake. If you try them out, let me know what you think!

And finally, on to butter. This is just the tiniest of items, but I thought it was such a useful tip that I had to pass it along. How many of us have been about to bake something when we realize the butter, which is supposed to be softened, is hard as a rock? Usually, I try to put it on the warmest place on top of the oven while the oven preheats, but I generally end up melting it some. The microwave is no better.

Over at Simply Recipes, they offer this awesome tip: Place the butter between two large sheets of wax paper and roll it out to about 1/8-inch thickness with a rolling pin, just as you would do a pie crust. Then quickly use it, because once it gets mashed out thinly like that, it can get melty and too soft.

Whether you're eating lettuce, tofu OR butter, have a great weekend!

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Fried tofu

Recent discussions of vegan recipes made me realize that we've never really talked about tofu on this blog, even though I am a fan of the meat substitute if it is well-prepared. I've been known to order tofu dishes even when the menu was filled with meaty options.

I looked up the exact definition of tofu in "Food Lover's Companion" for the tofu virgins in the crowd: It is made from curdled soy milk extracted from ground, cooked soybeans. The curds are drained and pressed into the tofu in a process similar to cheesemaking. The firmness of that tofu depends on the amount of whey extracted. Some tofu is firm enough to slice and cook in slabs; others, like silken tofu, are made softer so they can be blended into creamy desserts and other concoctions.

Tofu has a very mild, nutty flavor. Lots of people believe that tofu is tasteless, and they claim to dislike it on those grounds. But if tofu is allowed to soak up the flavors of marinades and seasonings, it is delicious. Also, I have had a tofu mousse made with silken tofu that was extraordinary.

So, where are the best tofu dishes in town? I enjoy tofu in pad thai at the various Thai restaurants around town. I also like it in the pho soup at the Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant in the market building in Roanoke. Although tofu is really healthy, I like it best fried. It just tastes best fried, in my opinion. I'm sure I negate most of the nutritional benefits of tofu when I order it fried, but so what?

What is your favorite way to eat tofu? Any tofu dishes at local restaurants that you would recommend?

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Apparently not, according to Bryant Terry, the Oakland chef who authored "Vegan Soul Kitchen," a new cookbook I received recently in the mail. Terry boasts that his recipes are "fresh, healthy and creative African-American cuisine."

When I think soul food, I think fried okra, chitterlings or hog jowls, gravies, greens cooked with fatback and cornbread. None of those foods could even remotely be construed as vegan -- or healthy --  under normal soul food cooking conditions. That's why Terry's book is so wonderful. He seems to have spent quite a bit of time thinking about his own background, the backgrounds of his ancestors and all the ways he could lighten up some of that delicious cooking.

For example, Terry writes in his introduction that collard greens were always a staple at his family table. His grandmother simmered them for hours until they were tender, but they had also lost all of their bright color by then. So Terry decided to experiment with a different cooking method that involved blanching in salted, boiling water, shocking in ice water and then sauteeing quickly with olive oil, garlic and sea salt. The resulting dish was healthier and more vitamin rich than the old school way.

Examples of his other creations include Wilted Swiss Chard and Spinach with Lemon-Tahini Dressing, Blackened Tofu Slabs with Succotash Salsa, Quinoa Cornbread and Smoky Pickled Purple Okra.

I'll share a few of those recipes here. Let me know what you think!

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Tony Pope Bistro & Wine Bar

The closure of Tony Pope's Bistro on Crystal Spring Avenue in South Roanoke has once again stirred up the issue of whether some restaurant locations are "cursed," or never able to maintain a successful business for very long. The big, white two-story house where Pope's Bistro was located has housed a long line of restaurants, from The Meeting House to Eric's to The White House to Spoon on the Avenue.

And now, a little more than one year after it opened, Tony Pope's is moving out. Pope says he will reopen his restaurant in another location very soon, adding that the Crystal Spring building was "too much overhead." Maybe that's been the problem for other restaurateurs there, too. Of course, all kinds of factors, not just location, can impact the success of a restaurant.

At any rate, our former business reporter, Christina Rogers, did a story in 2007 about such "cursed" restaurant locations. If you're interested in reading it, here's the link:

Can you think of any locations that are not mentioned in Christina's story?

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Have you ever had a monster sushi craving but your dining partner is a sushi wuss? Well, now you don't have to force your pal into ordering a couple of California rolls just so you can satisfy your own selfish desires.

Last Friday night, we finally had a chance to check out Cafe Asia, a new restaurant located in the Bonsack shopping center that is anchored by the new Kroger store. Feng Chen, a partner in the Szechuan restaurant chain, opened Cafe Asia with the idea that it would serve cuisines from several different Asian countries.

Indeed, the menu includes sushi, Korean barbecue, Szechuan stir-fries, Thai curries and noodle dishes. So you can travel Japan (figuratively) while your buddy dips his or her toes (figuratively) in the warm waters of Thailand.

I can vouch for some of the sushi, because I tried the salmon skin make roll, a spicy tuna roll and one specialty roll that was identical to Ben Gui's Red Dragon except without the roe. The Red Dragon is better, but Cafe Asia doesn't do too badly. Also good at Cafe Asia was the sesame-garlic asparagus, which is sold as a meal but we ordered as an appetizer.

Chen outdid himself on the decor at Cafe Asia. It's one of those strip mall restaurants that makes you forget you're in a strip mall once you step inside the front doors. Check it out yourself and let me know what you think.

Have a great weekend!

My editor noticed last night that Tony Pope's Bistro on Crystal Spring Avenue in South Roanoke was closed. On the door was a "For Lease" sign.

Fearing that Tony was the latest victim of the harsh economy, I rang him up to see what gives. He tells me that they have indeed closed the Crystal Spring restaurant, but that doesn't mean Tony Pope's has left Roanoke for good.

Within the month, he hopes to open up the bistro in a new location, although he is being secretive about where that will be. Still ironing out all the details, he tells me. But he wants to assure his loyal customers that this "is a positive thing, not a negative thing."

The big, white house on Crystal Spring Avenue was just too much overhead, he said. With the new spot, he'll be seeking that cozy, intimate bistro feel.

Thoughts?

Remodeling is underway on the new Fork in the City. Photo by Sam Dean/The Roanoke Times

In this morning's Extra section, I had a story about the new Fork in the City restaurant that will soon open in the old Gary's Bar location at 6th Street and Marshall Avenue in downtown Roanoke. And on the front page, reporter Mason Adams had an article about a developer who wants to turn the old YMCA building into affordable apartments with a restaurant on the ground floor.

We didn't plan to run those articles in the paper on the same day, but they both help to tell the story of an edge of downtown Roanoke that is finding new life. New condominiums in the old cotton mill on 6th Street, the new YMCA, the Jefferson Center, Fork in the City and now, perhaps, a new restaurant on the ground floor of the old YMCA at 5th and Church all may mean that the vibrancy of downtown is creeping west.

Anthony Smith, the proposed developer on the old YMCA project, says he "plans to bring 'a well-known restaurant from Richmond' to occupy the first floor," according to Mason's article.

Two questions: Do you think the new Fork in the City location is a good idea? And what could be the "well-known" Richmond restaurant? I haven't got a useful guess... but my husband would be happy if it were Bill's Barbecue. Maybe that would mean we wouldn't have to stop in Manakin EVERY TIME we pass through Richmond.