Bread

I want to have dinner with Lea Berman [" Want to fix Washington? Go to dinner ," op-ed, Aug. 6]. I'm a liberal who fits best into the Democratic Party, and I also believe that the current "us or them," "leave no survivors" approach to public issues is a death sentence for democracy. Let's discuss the Nationals or the Orioles over pâté, or the weather (minus speculation about who or what caused it) between bites of chocolate mousse. Most of us were brought up to believe that politics and religion are never polite topics of dinner-table...

WICHITA, Kan. — The winter wheat crop is expected to be far smaller this season compared to last, particularly for hard red varieties used in bread, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Friday. In the first government projection on the harvest's anticipated size, the National Agricultural Statistics Service estimated winter wheat production will be down 10 percent to 1.49 billion bushels, due to fewer acres — 32.7 million acres, some 6 percent fewer acres than a year ago —...

Dear Heloise: I've always wanted to know, since a lot of recipes call for SALT OR KOSHER SALT, what is the difference? Do the two salts differ in times of bread rising? Please explain. -- Anna in Virginia There isn't really a difference between types of kitchen salt, as the main ingredient is sodium chloride. However, there is a difference in the processing. Table salt usually has calcium silicate added to keep it from sticking and clumping together. It can be bought either plain or with iodine added.

NEW YORK — Lay's potato chips are getting cheesier. Fans voted to keep the potato chip maker's Cheesy Garlic Bread flavor on store shelves for at least the end of the year as part of the company's nearly yearlong promotion that solicited customers' flavor ideas. Cheesy Garlic Bread beat out two other fan-submitted flavors: a maple-syrup tasting Chicken & Waffles and Sriracha, which tastes like the hot sauce often used in Thai dishes. Karen Weber-Mendham, a children's...

CORRECTION: This article incorrectly identified the name of the building in downtown Washington that houses Potenza restaurant. It is the Woodward Building. Also, in some editions, a recipe for Potenza Tomato-Rosemary Focaccia omitted an ingredient. The corrected recipe appears online at www.washingtonpost.com/recipes; leaves from 1 sprig of rosemary, finely chopped (1 tablespoon), should be sprinkled on the dough just before the cheese. It's 8 a.m., or Hour Two in a typical workday for 2941 's baker Patrick Deiss.

There is no more potent symbol of Egypt's economic fragility than the pocket bread that is a staple of life here. Every day, the Egyptian government allocates 25-pound bags of subsidized flour to designated bakeries to produce the Frisbee-shaped loaves, which Egypt's impoverished and working poor buy for about eight cents per 10 loaves. But sometimes, there is not enough to go around. While fertile land is abundant in Egypt, particularly along the Nile, the country relies on foreign producers for nearly...

The bread lines didn't form overnight. The banks didn't buckle all at once. And no one, despite urban legend, is known to have jumped out of a window in sorrow over financial ruin. Instead, the worst would come later, sometimes months and even years after Oct. 29, 1929, "Black Tuesday. " On that date -- 79 years ago today -- few people could conceive that an economic apocalypse was gathering, even as the ominous news soaked in. But the ripples would soon begin. In 24 hours of trading, starting Oct. 28 and continuing into the next...

This spring, Bread for the City is expanding its food program by building City Orchard, a 2.75-acre fruit orchard in Beltsville. The Maryland orchard will have 1,000 organically maintained saplings growing apples, Asian pears, blueberries, blackberries and persimmons. "It's a huge project for a food pantry to take on, but it's in line with our nutrition initiative to provide balanced options," said Jeffrey Wankel, 25, a Shaw resident who works as the food program specialist for ...

The introduction of Elisir in downtown Washington in fall 2011 was a gamble starring a $75 tasting menu, a stage set of a kitchen and the illusion of outsize champagne bubbles on the wall. Regretfully for its chef, Enzo Fargione, customers didn't bite — or at least didn't dine in his first restaurant in the numbers he anticipated. Attempting to salvage his dream, Fargione shuttered the upscale Italian restaurant for 10 days in March and stripped the place of many of its plush details.

For those (like me) who enjoy affixing highfalutin terms to humble snacks, we're living in a golden age of tacos . You no longer have to venture to the hinterlands for a good one; you can remain right in the District and trust that someone with a general understanding of taco engineering has constructed your plate of stuffed corn tortillas. This is one byproduct of America's obsessive food culture for which we can be thankful. The only downside to this local invasion of Mexican-style...

The introduction of Elisir in downtown Washington in fall 2011 was a gamble starring a $75 tasting menu, a stage set of a kitchen and the illusion of outsize champagne bubbles on the wall. Regretfully for its chef, Enzo Fargione, customers didn't bite — or at least didn't dine in his first restaurant in the numbers he anticipated. Attempting to salvage his dream, Fargione shuttered the upscale Italian restaurant for 10 days in March and stripped the place of many of its plush details.

For those (like me) who enjoy affixing highfalutin terms to humble snacks, we're living in a golden age of tacos . You no longer have to venture to the hinterlands for a good one; you can remain right in the District and trust that someone with a general understanding of taco engineering has constructed your plate of stuffed corn tortillas. This is one byproduct of America's obsessive food culture for which we can be thankful. The only downside to this local invasion of Mexican-style...

Asad Sheikh says he had reservations about putting the kitchen of his glitzy new restaurant, Curry Mantra 2 in Falls Church City, on display for diners to see. The cooking staff is "way too loud in an Indian restaurant," says the owner of the spinoff of Curry Mantra in Fairfax City. Moreover, he worried whether pungent spices might overwhelm customers seated close to the action. In the end, Sheikh decided an exhibition kitchen was the best way for his audience to see how Indian food is prepared.

The cheftestants get off the cruise ship in Juneau, Alaska, and are greeted by Padma Lakshmi and Alaska's most famous chef . . . uh, wait. Strike that. Never mind. They're greeted by Padma and Charleston, S.C.'s most famous chef, Sean Brock . (Sure, why not.) Padma tells them they're standing in front of Juneau's No. 1 food destination: some chick's king crab shack. Now, just because some place is a city's No. 1 destination *cough, cough* Ben's Chili Bowl * cough, cough (or, in the case of my...

When it comes to the romance of home-baked bread, nothing beats the notion of sourdough. It's the Holy Grail of doughs, much like DIY charcuterie and naturally thickened jams. Truth is, I like sourdough bread when someone else makes it — say, the corner French bakery. It takes dedication to nurse the slurry of flour and water into a mature, sour, puddinglike glop that can yield a great exterior and those characteristic big, gaping holes inside. The machismo of superb sourdough (and, trust me, it's a competitive venue of...

DAVUTPASA, Turkey — It was dinnertime at the dilapidated four-room house where at least 75 members of the Jasem family have been living since they fled the flooded cave in Syria where they first sought shelter when their village was shelled, and Hasnan Jasem was planning to serve potatoes and bread. Nothing else, just potatoes and bread. The refrigerator was almost bare. It held only a small bowl of dried yogurt that a neighbor had brought, half a stuffed baby eggplant left...

As a kid growing up in Northern Virginia, Oliver Turner could never get a classmate to swap for the lunches his British-born mother packed for him. No kid raised on peanut butter and jelly on Wonder bread would think about trading in the tried-and-true for cheddar on brown bread, especially when the cheese was slathered with something too exotic to be recognized. "It blew the deal when they saw the huge chunks of chutney," Turner says, ruefully. Several decades later, chutney's niche appeal doesn't pose quite as much of a...

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it impolite to whisper at the dinner table? GENTLE READER: Yes, but Miss Manners admits that there are exceptions. You are allowed to whisper, "I think there might be some food caught on your teeth" or, "If you don't stop putting your hand on my knee I'm going to stab you with my fork. " DEAR MISS MANNERS: I like to give gifts that have meaning to me with the receiver in mind. What should be the purpose behind the type of gift that is given? For example, this...

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it impolite to whisper at the dinner table? GENTLE READER: Yes, but Miss Manners admits that there are exceptions. You are allowed to whisper, "I think there might be some food caught on your teeth" or, "If you don't stop putting your hand on my knee I'm going to stab you with my fork. " DEAR MISS MANNERS: I like to give gifts that have meaning to me with the receiver in mind. What should be the purpose behind the type of gift that is given? For example, this Christmas I mailed...

In an emerging model for corporate giving, WilmerHale — one of the District's largest law firms — signed a contract this month with D.C. nonprofit Bread for the City that locks the firm in to donate a set amount of money to the group over the next three years. Government grants and foundations have long made charitable contributions this way, but the idea of private companies making a multi-year financial pledge is relatively new, said Kristin Valentine, chief development...