Yes. My name is Dahlink and I am addicted to Dining@Large. And evidently I have a lot of company.

I missed your review of crack cocaine.

Thinking of your trip and jealous of the time you will get to spend with your daughter (My daughter also lives out of state), made me think of a column for future publication. Perhaps not the blog but a full length article on "restaurants recommended by the city's finer hotel concierges." I would like to hear if they recommend the locals or high end chains. I also question if the responses are based on personal knowledge or sales pressure or gifts.

Good idea.

Concierges are scum. They get cash kickbacks from restaurants they recommend. Quid pro quo, baby! It's an open secret. It would be a waste of virtual ink. It's just straight up crooked. Never trust a concierge in Baltimore.

Oh, nobody posts on Dining @ Large anymore; it is too crowded.

Since Sam spends nearly as much time on this blog as you, maybe he will agree to stand in for the week. Nah, that is too much power for him! You would have to stage a coup whenn you got back.

Rev. Ed, don't stereotype. I do know that some clients staying at an un-named hotel downtown were referred to several small, family owned Fells Point and Canton locals that would definitely be on my go to list. I have also tipped many a concierge after having a good meal at a restaurant suggested.

I may have already said this (senilty, please forgive), but the last cross country trip I did, I was under the same constraints. My friend was moving from being Super at Fort McHenry to Asst. Super at Glen Canyon in Northern Arizona/Southern Utah. I could take one bag and my laptop on the 5-day road trip. We were carrying a sea kayak and a bike on our little Subaru wagon.

All day, we'd jot notes of funny things we saw, placed we drove by and things we ate. For example:
* Toad Suck, Arkansas
* The "such" at Uncle Bud's Catfish and Such isn't pepper parmesan dressing. It's actually white gravy, so don't put it on your salad.
* The "Christ, His Grace Is Sufficient (eh) Church and Mobile Home Sales" is worth an illegal u-turn.
* There are dry counties in Arkansas.
*Lake Powell at Glen Canyon is as long as the Chesapeake Bay!

We took hundreds of photos, many the drive-by shooting kind, saw rainbows in the fog outside of Albequerque, crossed the Continental Divide and the 100th parallel and ate at Earls (the Rallo's of Gallup, NM). We never at any fast food, tried to eat local specialties, visited Graceland and celebrated our safe arrival with Champagne and poptarts.

It was one of the best trips ever and we documented it all through a series of pre-blogging era e-mails to our collective family and friends from the road. When I returned to Baltimore, I assembled our e-mails and the responses into a slim volume for the participants.

Woohoo! First time. I don't know if they are all scum, but my ex definietly was (for some reasons better left unsaid). He never paid for dinner when he went out, which was SO romantic going to places where the owner would give him an envelope of cash. Yeah that's what they do here (concierges), at least he and his friends did. And the dumps they sent them to! No names, but you could guess.

Blogging may be addictive, but it may save your sanity. Spending days in a car with your daughter may tax your very being. I not-too-fondly remember the college tours with both of my children. Seven or eight days locked in a moving vehicle with stops for food, sleep and interviews. Their mother was smart -- she stayed home.

As for the addiction: I check here frequently during the day and I haven't lived in the Queen City of the Patapsco Drainage Basin for more than a year.

If I dare to change the subject from The Open Road and Cheez Doodles, I feel it's my duty to announce that today is Elizabeth Large's birthday.

Regina,

If Dining at Large were in my hands, the world would be next.

Elizabeth Large would be powerless to stop me ... unless she were to distract me with Cheez Doodles ... my only weakness.

How could you not tell us? (Thank you Gailor) So even if your blog doesn't come with music (is everyone in the sandbox ready):

Happy birthday to you
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthady Lady Elizabeth
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOOOOOUUUUUUU

Mr. Sessa, I recently spotted whole wheat cheese doodles. As our now designated cheese doodles, as weird is whole wheet cheese doodles?

I hope you're getting some kind of treat on your special day!

I came back to tell you about the message that John Hancock is showing on his blog, "i will be offline until March something or other." I don't know that we could stand being out of touch for that amount of time. You have spoiled us. But what do I find but this is the anniversary of your birth. So, add my best wishes to RTSOs. You go girl! And as for Sam, lock him in the closet and throw away the Cheez Doodles. I told you he could not be trusted! lol

Lizbeth-

Since you're heading back to L.A., I hope you'll consider some of my recommendations during your last trip. There's some truly fantastic places to eat in L.A.

Gailor, we should sing Happy Birthday Cake by Cibbo Matto to your mom.

I came back to tell you about the message that John Hancock is showing on his blog

Like Generalissimo Franco, John Hancock is still dead.

Presumably you meant Jay Hancock.

All the best birthday wishes! And many, many more!

Joyeux anniversaire Elizabeth! I will keep my eyes on Sam Sessa on your absence. He will not whoosh your blog! Be vigilant Sam Ssesa!

And a Happy Birthday to you!

Personally, I'd be happy to hear about your travels and all of the places you found to dine. I'm sure there are going to be many interesting stops along the way, depending on which route you take heading back east.

As a kid, our whole family relocated from NJ to CA and we took 5 days to drive across the country by way (mostly) of I-80. We stopped in St. Louis, saw how flat Kansas really is etc. Good trip!

Have a great time!

Safe travels. Southern California has some great places to eat (most of them non-chains). Give your palate a treat of the good stuff. They'll thank you. Not sure where to eat? Go where the locals go- they usually know what's good.

You must be a new reader to this blog. I go out to LA about every four to six weeks. The locals are my daughter, who lives in Hollywood, and younger brother, who lives in Silver Lake. Please use the search function to see some of the places we've eaten.

Silver Lake ... home of Silver Sun Pickups! rat-a-tat-tat

I am late on this as well Elizabeth, but I hope you had a very happy birthday. A couple more days and you would have been a leapling yourself.

As a child, that was my dream (except I wasn't born in a leap year.)

Happy birthday, Elizabeth, and MANY more!!

Here's my concierge story. A few years ago my stepson got married in Athens GA. The next day we drove to Charleston SC fpr a "mini vacation." It was our anniversary, so we asked the concierge to suggest a restaurant where we could have a special dinner. Turns out she also worked at a bistro downtown, so she had them fax a menu, and when we decided to go, she made a reservation for us. It was one of the nicest meals we've ever had. The next year when we returned to Charleston for a longer visit, we had our anniversary dinner at the same bistro. So, I guess the upshot is, not all concierges are smarmy and "on the take."

Dark and terrible times are coming. During these days we much huddle together and not kill each other. Since our aging leader still has to produce topics until THE TRIP begins, may I suggest that we submit topics that may be used during these terrible times to come. This is not the time to respond or comment on the ideas, just develop a lists. Since I'm certain our combined IQ is a solid two digit number (despite the not inconsiderable drag my number has on the total) and we aught to be able to keep things at D@L stumbling and lurching forward during THE TRIP.

I'm not sure I like that adjective. I may have to kill my daughter for spilling the beans even before the road trip begins. However, assuming she makes it up to me, I love the idea of topic suggestions.

She sent you to the other place where she worked. How objective. Just because you enjoyed yourself doesn't mean she didn't get a kickback. At least she disclosed her conflict of interest.

Oh, I'm sorry, that's what good editing (or bad editing) is about. From my notes, clearly I meant: beneficent, serene. and really really tolerant chick.

Very excellent. You are a quick learner.

Rev. Ed, lighten up, please...not everybody is on the take.

Very excellent.

Ooh, trying to lure Mr. McIntyre over here again? That's straight from the Department of Redundancy Department. :-)

I have been known to try to ruffle his feathers.

I suppose that not all concierge's are corrupt but I do know that many are. That's all. A cautionary flag.

I have something to post later and wanted to see if you accept foreign character sets.

It's not really whether I accept it, but whether our crack blogware will. Never hurts to try.

FotO, it is very much a hit and miss proposition. The first time I tried to post something a diacritical marks none came through. Subsequent copy and past of various foreign alphabets have come through. The HTML tags seems very limited. The nice web lady told me some but others I have tried are as good as RR's cooking.

Hello, FotO! Can you tell us when our esteemed OMG will be returning to us?

R(tSO) can you give a list of HTML that works, if it's a short one and I'm guessing that it is? Thanks.

Rosebud, see my post on the newish topic with the luggage model.

A very happy belated birthday, Big Ace! Gailor better treat you to a decent meal while on that road trip.

I remember the road trip that brought me and my partner to Bmore. It was the trip from hell. I had to leave my car behind because the rented car carrier was malfunctioning. It took 18 hours to drive the truck here - and it's only 800 miles. We were so afraid of having our stuff stolen that we never left the truck alone and only ate at rest stops. I flew back home for the car and drove nonstop because I had to be at work Saturday afternoon (I was a church musician at the time).

My point? I don't have one. Except to say that I hope your trip is stress-free and that you and Gailor get to try some new culinary adventures. And, if necessary, leave D@L to us ... I'm sure we'll not be wanting for topics and controversies! Besides, we have to keep our eyes on Mr. Sessa - and his funky shoes.

I'm still hoping to get some topic suggestions. I'll make a separate entry closer to the date.

The Rev'd Ed:

HTML class -01 (read negative 1. It ain't even 01 let alone 101.)

Bold and Italic (here's an experiment) Bold Italic. Just hit preview and bold italic displays. Since others (OMG if I recall) have noted that preview and actual display differ, we will see. The lovely Ms Lauren told me strike through works but previous attempts by me have failed. Previewing now Failure.

Now for those with a recessive geek gene here's how you impress your 10 olds.

Before the word you want to format, hit shift comma and that arrowhead thingy will appear. Add a b or i and then shift period and the other arrowhead appears. (BTW you can't get the arrow heads to appear .) To turn off the formatting type the same thing, but add a slash before the b or i (/b /i) and whilst looking odd in the box, in preview, magically you get This. Hint (because I just tried it: don't combine the tags. bi gets you nothing but scorn and ridicule from the 12 looking over your shoulder. (What ever happened to see Jane run?) And since I'm getting bored with this I don't think upper case will work, either.

Class dismissed.

Last note on the concierge issue. Just because someone is given a gift or cash doesn't mean they are not giving the best advice available. Ask any doctor how many lunches, dinners, "consulting" fees, etc. they receive from the drug companies. Most of us still take their advice.

Untitled


Here is a new sentence.
I want to strike through this and not here and

underline

I tried importing code form an html generator above and no luck. I also tried using every letter of the alphabet and most of the special characters from my keyboard and no luck either. I did find that text bounded by bracketed "a" and "/a" will yield this, which is absolutely useless. Thanks.

Concierges get quid pro quo sometimes. If you go to a place that they send you, they get compensated. That's why they will gladly make that reservation for you.. That's not a gift with no strings attached, that's a fee for services; they are essentially an employee of the restaurant in sheep's clothing.. And the doctor logic is ridiculous; that's one reason why they prescribe so many useless and harmful drugs. When Sir Francis Bacon was confronted with allegations of taking bribes, he said yes I took bribes, but they didn't influence my behavior. That didn't fly then either. I can't believe people are sticking up for bribe takers; it feels like a form of betrayal to me.

The Rev'd Ed: let's just say the Tribune Company did't spend a penny more than necessary for the blog software. It works like an electric typewriter (even has automatic carriage return) when the world has moved on to wireless notebooks with more power than the Pentagon's '50's (maybe '60's)era mainframes.

What's weird is that this is ad supported and staffed by a paid writer, but it blows compared to even the fairly lame talk forums on baltimoresun.com. They have user photos, colored text, animated emoticons, user profiles, links to all user posts, number of user posts, etc. This is a freakin' ghetto compared to that.

Clearly EL has functions available to her that we don't have, like strike-through and links.

Batlimore Sun, I would like to introduce two things to you: Left Hand and Right Hand.

1-2-3-4, I'm starting an I.T. war! Dudes, get together on this. It's not like you're Klingons and Romulans.

Cool. However, you have links too. I just don't know how to tell you and have it show up as code.

See, and I was trying to be kind and not bite the hand that feeds you.

Imagine a world where members of the sandbox could be creative with the look of their posts, not just the language.

rev ed said:

I did find that text bounded by bracketed "a" and "/a" will yield this, which is absolutely useless

The tag is an anchor tag, which is used for making links. They work fine here if you use them properly. The blog software has enough shortcomings without blaming it for user error/lack-of-knowledge.

That was supposed to say: the <a> tag is the anchor tag. It showed up correctly in preview, but got garbled in the actual post. Let me try again.

Look, I found roadtrip food (just practicing my new linking skrillz).

Full marks, class.

Zoinks. Yes, the bold+underline has uses for links, what I meant was that on its own it is useless stylistically. In the olden tymes this was a sad substitute for this because typewriters didn't have italic fonts. Oh kill me, I am so olde.

Yes, the bold+underline has uses for links, what I meant was that on its own it is useless stylistically.

The bold+underline is just how this particular blog software renders links (from the <a> tag), it's not something the writer chooses. Other browsers can display links however they choose.

If you want to write bold text, you can do so by using a <b> tag. I don't think this blog software supports underline (<u>) tags, but I may be wrong.

Ummm, it doesn't look like there have been any new posts to the roadtripfood.com website in almost two years, and there aren't any entries about specific places to eat.

The experts in the field of road trip food are Jane and Michael Stern. Unfortunately, their website, http://www.roadfood.com, is a subscription site, like Zagat -- you have to pay for full information, but you can still do a search by city and state and get some information and ratings on restaurants. The Sterns also have a public radio show, The Splendid Table, which is on WAMU-FM 88.5 Saturdays at 2:00 p.m., with an accompanying American Public Media website at http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/whereweeat/.

Even though some parts of Roadfood.com have a paid component, the message boards are free. That site has a lot of dedicated users from all over the country. No matter where you are going in the country, all you have to do is post a message asking for suggesstions for your trip, for example Altoona Pa, or Baltimore to Cincinnatti via U.S Route 50. You'll get dozens of suggestions and comments.

Wow...when you search the archives, you find very useful stuff. Look what I learned this morning:

bold not bold

italic not italic

(I know, this is old hat for y'all, but I've never been beaten with a geeky stick, so I get excited over the little things.)

Thanks, RevEd for your post of 2/29/08, from which I gleaned this nugget of knowledge.

Personal growth is tiring...I'm done for the day. Play nicely in the Sandbox.

If you check the Commenting category to the right on the main page, you will find out many other useful things, such as how to link. EL