You don't want to find big hairy green mold patches on the second slice of Havarti in the package after you just ate the first slice. I'm just sayin'...

(If I keel over and fall into a mysterious coma, I'd appreciate it if someone would show this blog post to the doctors.)

I think I've died and gone to heaven. I just had another bottle of Widmer Brothers' Snowplow Milk Stout. (This is a beer for those who are not hop-saavy.)

This is an incredibly smooth, chocolately stout with an amazing finish attributed to the milk sugar they add to the beer before fermentation. It's really quite unlike any beer I've ever had. (And I've had a lot of beer...)

I think I'll go have another.

Michelle and I had dinner at the Herbfarm this week with Scott and his wife Patti, our friend Angie, and our friend Mike. We've been to the Herbfarm several times before, although this is the first time in their new location (their first place burned down, then they were in a few temporary locations.)

Both Angie and Scott beat me to writing about the dinner in their blogs, so I'll leave you with their descriptions of the menu and evening. I will say, though, that dinner at the Herbfarm is always great and interesting, but boy, it's long. Six hours is quite an endurance test. I think it's easier to bear when the weather is nice since you can walk around outside between courses. A good group of friends who are active and scintillating conversationalists is a must as well (fortunately, we were covered there.)

Anyway, it was nice to see the Herbfarm is still wonderful. I'm looking forward to our next meal there -- after I've slept a bit.

Angie's view Scott's view

Yesterday in Taipei, we had a little press interview and went to kick off the Microsoft booth at InfoMonth, an immense trade show that was packed with people. We saw some cool stuff, especially the Cappuccino computer, a tiny desktop PC with full specs. Lots of cute booth babes (especially the Microsoft booth) topped off this great geek fest.

Afterwards, we had a great lunch at Ting Tai Fung. This is a super popular restaurant in Taipei (so popular they've opened additional branches including some in Tokyo.) It was listed by the New York Times as one of the ten best restaurants in the world. I don't know if that's true, but it was pretty damn good. The restaurant is nothing fancy and specializes in dumplings, which really I love. We had way too much food, but it was amazing.

We finished up the day with a trip to the National Palace Museum (great, but under renovation), a stroll through the Shihlin Night Market, and some shopping in the great electronics district.

The tropical storm took a turn out to see, so the rain eased up and didn't really cause much hassle for us.

I'm in Seoul now, and just had a great Korean bbq dinner. There's nothing better than a little kalbi (bbq'd short ribs) washed down with soju (Korean rice wine) -- except maybe a lot of kalbi washed down with soju. We had a lot of kalbi.

More meetings and MVP stuff tomorrow. Wahoo.

We picked up the last share of the season from the Root Connection, the cooperative farm that we belong to. As I noted at the beginning of the summer, I love the produce we get and the principles the Root Connection stands for.

It's always sad to see the last bag come. I'll have to savor the last bunch of carrots and Honey Boat squash (this is a real treat!) and make the memories last until next summer.

I finally went to the XXX Root Beer Drive-In today for lunch. This Issaquah, WA restaurant was the first drive-in restaurant in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to a fun 50's car atmosphere (they have huge classic car get togethers here), they have great root beer (I think I saw in The Week Magazine that they were on the top 10 best root beer in America list.) The burgers and milkshakes were good too.

Anyway, I can't believe it's taken me 14 years to go there. It won't be 14 years before we go back.

I have never been particular successful making truly great s'mores. In particular, the chocolate never melts; I've always envisioned a sticky, luscious mix of melted chocolate and marshmallow squishing out between the graham crackers. But last night, I think I hit on the right approach (now obvious).

First, the marshmallow must be thoroughly melted and hot. This means a long roast time to get the inside as goopy as the outside. No flaming torches here. Lots of turning and patience here.

Once you have the completely soft marshmallow and assemble the s'more, you need to let the whole thing sit for a few minutes so the heat of the marshmallow can melt the chocolate. This is hard with eager kids, so in practice, I could only do this after handing a frankly half-done s'more to each kid. M-m-m.

I suppose you could this with chocolate sauce instead of a chocolate bar, but that seems like cheating and frankly un-American.

That said, I discovered that I like just marshmallow and graham cracker better than the normal way with chocolate. It's a lot less cloying and doesn't have any of that annoying waiting around.

Since my trip to Provence, I've been jonesing for pastis, the anise flavored liqueur so popular in Provence. I've found a few restaurants around here that have it but have been unlucky about finding a bottle in the state owned liquor stores here (I'll rant about that another time.) I've been combing the liquor stores across Seattle for them, even using their website that purports to accurately reflect the inventory of the stores (it doesn't).

I guess Michelle got sick of me pining for my pastis and being gone for hours at a time wandering from liquor store to liquor store like some kind of desperate alcoholic (I know it might look like that...) She called around (she's the smart one) and found a store that just got a shipment. Happy day!

Much to my glee, I found not only the Ricard 45 I was expecting (this is the most common pastis in the US) but Granier as well. I haven't had Granier yet, so I bought both. Not sure I can tell the difference between the two yet to be honest, but I'll keep drinking both until I can. My dedication to my craft can be tedious, but it's all I know...

For a good article on pastis, check out this Taste Magazine (Williams-Sonoma) article.

How could something as tempting as a deep fried pork sausage kebab be bad? (Remember, everything is better deep fried.) Well, I guess "The Stonner" and its 1000 calories are bad enough to be considered the most dangerous fast food in Britain. It's bad enough that there's a sign in the shop saying they'll only sell one per customer per week.

I gotta get one.

More on this on the Washington Post.

Another one from Boing Boing.

You might think the chocolate coating on a Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookie would protect it from becoming stale. You'd be wrong.