www.roanoke.com

From time to time, I receive calls and e-mails from readers who are looking for my advice on recipes, cooking techniques, restaurants and the like. I received two such e-mails this week, and I've decided to share the requests with the rest of my blog peeps to see if you can add anything helpful.

First e-mail from Jeff:

I need your faithful blog reader's help. My family is having a family reunion on August 1st and we are looking for a place to accommodate 50 (maybe a few more) people for a sit down dinner that evening... We checked on The Homeplace, but it's $18 for each adult and $9 per child, and not everyone in the family can afford that. Does anyone know of a place that serves an informal family style dinner that would be a little less expensive?

That's a tough one. The place has to be able to accommodate a large number of people, but the price must be affordable. I suggested The Roanoker Restaurant for starters. Debbie says they are willing to go with a caterer, too. In these tough economic times, let's band together and see if we can think of a good spot for Debbie and her family.

Oh, and if you were as unimpressed as I was by the Top Chef finale last night, head over to That TV Blog and whine with me. Or feel free to leave your comments here.

istock.com

I love silly press releases. Nothing brightens up a sleepy Monday morning (or in my case, a sleepy Tuesday that feels like a Monday) like a ridiculous notion disguised as a good story idea.

This morning, I came in to a gem titled "Diners bring home doggy bags more often during the recession." It came from a public relations representative who works for a New York restaurant called Brasserie. This is my favorite part:

Even Brasserie’s Park Avenue clientele is now taking home the last few morsels of steak frites that would have normally been tossed.  Once considered taboo, extending a meal to the next day is the recession-friendly choice for getting the most bang for your buck when dining out.

When and where have doggie bags been taboo? I guess in the kind of hoity toity restaurants where customers couldn't be bothered to either eat their entire chunk of prime rib or be responsible enough to save part of it and bring it home for a great steak 'n' eggs breakfast the next day. I understand, however, that some diners are traveling and it's not convenient to have leftovers on the road.

Still, I have always been a fan of saving part of my restaurant meals and taking them home. Even if it's just a section or two of a quesadilla, it makes for a good snack later on. My husband and I have a habit of eating half our sandwiches when we eat out and taking the other half home for later. I firmly believe it has saved us both money and calories.

What do you all think? Is it tacky to take a doggie bag home from a fancy restaurant? Am I being too hard on this poor PR person?

www.cookingbytheseatofmypants.com

We've all done it -- tried to use skim milk in place of buttermilk, failed to let the cake cool long enough before removing it from the pan.

A wonderful conversation with two readers yesterday got me thinking about these kitchen disasters. I have always wanted to believe that the more times a cook messes up, the better a cook she becomes. Besides learning experiences, kitchen failures can also be moments of hilarity that are never forgotten in a family. Or never lived down.

I fail in my kitchen on a pretty regular basis (just ask my husband). Only two weeks ago, while trying to make potato nests for my Super Bowl story, I turned out hash browns instead. But one of my favorite food disaster stories is when my pal Stacy tried to make her first bundt cake. It came out a steaming pile of... well, cake and apples. Yes, Stacy, I'm bringing this up again --but only to urge all of my readers to cough up their most embarassing kitchen disaster story.

You know you've done it -- fess up!

Not your coffee mug, your good-looking face!

Those who have commented recently on the Fridge Magnet blog may have noticed that your comments are being paired with a pretty snowflake design. Mine, though, shows a teeny picture of my face. That's my "avatar," and anyone else who wants to share a picture (of anything, really - it doesn't have to be you) with their comment can do that pretty easily.

Just go to the Web site Gravatar.com, sign up for free (using the e-mail address that you use most frequently on this blog) and download the picture you want. Your face, your dog's face, your tomato plants, your favorite cup, whatever!! If you do this correctly, your avatar should show up the next time you leave a comment on the Fridge.

If you don't want to do this, the snowflakes are awfully pretty, too. Your comments are what count to me!

Wow, this diner thread is quickly rising to one of my favorites on the blog thus far! My mouth is watering reading all the comments, and the opinions about what makes a true diner are fairly consistent.

Here's what I'm hearing: A true diner should be locally-owned, preferably for a long time. It should serve affordable blue plate special-type meals like meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken, liver 'n' onions. It ought to have a darn good breakfast and good coffee that keeps coming in a timely fashion, daily specials, a good cheeseburger and very friendly service that makes everyone feel like a regular. Fountain drinks and a veggie plate are good, as are booths and an old-fashioned counter with stools (extra points for the old-school metal stools with vinyl cushions). Extra-extra points if they serve breakfast all day or the building is actually an old diner car or looks like an old diner car.

As far as the local list is concerned, I suggested Hale's on U.S. 460, the Blue Ridge Diner in Floyd (which is also famous for its butterscotch pie, I hear -- I had a loaded grilled cheese when I ate there) and Little Chef in Roanoke. It has been a long time since I've visited Little Chef, too, and my experiences have been hit or miss. But it seems to at least meet the definition of a diner in many ways.

Other nominations:

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I'm reading a book called "Blue Highways" by an author named William Least Heat-Moon (he has Osage blood) who traveled the country in a pimped-out van and tried to avoid interstates at all costs in favor of the back roads.

The people he met and the places he visited during his travels (which actually happened back in the late 70s or early 80s-- it's an older book) are interesting to be sure, but I became most engrossed when he described his road meals. So far - I'm only about 1/3 of the way in - he seems to have a preference for diners that are off the beaten path. He even has a little rating system for these diners which is based on how many wall calendars they have hanging in the place. I assume he's talking about those calendars put out by the local plumbing company or the local butcher shop -- stuff that shows the locals are a fixture in that particular cafe.

All of this has me thinking again about a story I've been longing to do. I want to provide a guide to some of the best roadside diners in Southwest Virginia. First, though, I have to determine what constitutes a roadside diner worthy of being featured in this story. I doubt if the wall calendar formula still applies.

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In case you haven't seen today's front page of The Roanoke Times, Ukrop's in Roanoke is urging customers to shop more at their store, citing low sales. Nobody at the company has used the "c" word, but president Bobby Ukrop told our retail reporter, Jenny Boone: "For us to continue, we need to substantially increase our business."

You guys, the food shoppers of the world, know better than any analyst why folks aren't flooding to Roanoke's Ukrop's store. Is it their prices? Their location? The fact that your old grocery store routine is just too ingrained in you?

For me, it's probably a combination of everything I just mentioned. I live in Northwest, so I'd have to be on that side of town to shop at Ukrop's. I also have been going to my neighborhood Kroger store for years, so I know where everything is located and how much it's supposed to cost. To top it off, I usually do all of my grocery shopping on Sunday morning, and since Ukrop's is closed on Sundays, that rules them out.

What are your thoughts? Why, after all the hoopla over the store's opening, do you think sales have dwindled?

Blog reader Emma was the first to send a picture of her kitchen, along with her wish list, to my e-mail address. Here's what she had to say:

Hi, Lindsey!

Here's my kitchen. It's really pretty nice until you realize that it's a shared kitchen that used to be a dorm room (it still has a closet rod hanging over the fridge!)

So my wish list really starts with my own kitchen, but since I live on campus that's not going to happen any time soon! So failing that:

An immersion blender
A mandoline
A wok (and gas burners to go with it!)

Happy Thanksgiving!
Emma

Emma, when I was right out of college, I hit up a lot of yard sales and found quite a few kitchen gadgets to tide me over until I could afford new ones. In some cases, I'm still using the old stuff because it worked so well! I know it may be hard to find a good immersion blender at a yard sale, but I'll bet you $1 you could find a wok -- probably for $1!!

I received an e-mail a few weeks ago from a reader named Susan who is looking for a little foodie advice. Here's what she wrote:

I'm new to the area, having lived in the Western half of the country for 30+ years. We moved into a house in Salem last year and have reaped a bountiful harvest of all sorts of fruits and nuts.

... I was hoping you might look into what the heck I could do with chestnuts. I actually got to them before the squirrels this year and have a whole box full of them.

Well, Susan, besides chestnut dressing and roasted chestnuts, I can honestly say I don't know. My own personal experience with chestnuts has not been positive. I don't really enjoy their flavor and I spent too many seasons puncturing my hands through the gloves trying to remove the darn husks from my yard after the squirrels had their way with them.

But "Food Lover's Companion" says they can be roasted, boiled, pureed, preserved and candied; used in desserts or savory sides. You should store unshelled chestnuts in a cool, dry place and refrigerate shelled ones in a covered container, the book said. I also came across a whole Web site about cooking with chestnuts that offers up recipes for soups, breads, desserts and even a sweetened chestnut puree.

If someone brought me a Chocolate Chestnut Tart (recipe below), I might be convinced to rethink my dislike of this ingredient. Does anyone out there have a great chestnut recipe?

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A reader named Craig has asked a very compelling question of Fridge Magnet readers. In case you didn't see it in the comment section, here it is:

As a frequent reader of 'Restaurant news' at the Fridge Magnet I am always curious as to how many of you ever bother to visit the Virginia Department of Health website and review the health inspection records of your 'favorite' restaurants - such as Alejandro's. With all the recent furor over the problems in the Market Building why is it that no other dining establishment in Roanoke is deemed too dirty to eat in? Just how many 'critical violations' is too many for you guys?

This is my response:

To be quite honest, Craig, I haven't checked health inspections in a very long time. And that's because I think the Virginia Department of Health does those inspections for a reason -- so they can shut a restaurant down when it gets "too dirty to eat in." That's what happened at the Market building.

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