I don't know how organic they are or strive to be, but American Plant (formerly American Plant Food), with 2 separate locations on River Road in Bethesda, is a very nice smaller nursery and carries a good mix of ordinary and more out-of-the-ordinary plants. Garden District is good but TINY and has a fairly limited supply. They did recently open a second location just down the street, where they offer more pots and other non-plant supplies. Very much an urban nursery, but there are a lot of other interesting shops on that stretch of 14th St. so it might be worth checking out as part of a general shopping trip. Also check out Ginkgo Gardens in southeast DC, another urban nursery but a bit bigger with a surprisingly good selection of plants and supplies. Just a few blocks away, Frager's Hardware has a good selection of plants & gardening supplies. Both are just a few blocks from Eastern Market and worth a visit on a nice Sunday morning in the spring. Outside the city Behnkes, with 3 locations in Maryland, is one of the biggest local nurseries and a great source of gardening supplies and plants of all kinds, including trees and shrubs. However, despite their huge selection of plants I've had trouble finding anything there that is especially unusual in recent years.

koreyk>>the vinegar is a preservative that keeps the acidity of the final sauce low enough to prevent microbial and fungal growth outside of a refrigerator setting. Generally speaking in a home made hotsauce, salt is irrelevanet although in the quantities that Tobasco uses, it also is a preservative. If you don't want to add vinegar at all to your hot sauce, you probably need to ferment using lactic acid fermentation (whole long other discussion, not going into here..:)). This also provides you with the required low acidity to store outside the refrigerator. If you don't mind storing in the fridge and possible having to throw some away if it goes bad you can pretty much do whatever you want and don't have to add any preservative agents We make hot sauce that is vinegar based. We put the chile pods whole or sliced into jars filled with 5% vinegar(kind you buy at store) and store the jars for atleast 6 months. This allows the vinegar to mellow and the chile flavor to infuse. Then drain the vinegar off (but save it), put the softened peppers in the blender/cuisinart and blend until smooth. Add the vinegar back to the mix until you get a consistancy that you like. Add any other flavorings you want (i.e. garlic, cilantro, tomato, onion etc) and mix. Depending on what you add and how acidic it is you can store outside of the fridge or inside the fridge. kendra

Hard question. There was a time I was a fan of Meijer's which is a superstore here in Michigan. They have every thing from Tofu to shells for my .30-06. Much of their advantage is simply turn over... the produce is fresh because they just recently put it out. In college I had 3 of them within a 30 minute drive... Okemos, Lake Lansing, and the old Lansing store. Recently prices have been rather steep on basic things like beans and rice. Walmart is my favorite because they are the only place open at 3am. I won't buy meat at Walmart... I used to buy the uncut round roasts but those went away. For awhile I could get decent lamb chops but I think I was the only person in the store buying them (Tuna loved lamb). We have a meat market in town that does nice pork. A 30 minute drive and I can get short loins for under $7/lb so they get most of my steak business. My "hamburger" I buy from a local dairy farmer which is currently $3/lb in one pound frozen packages... also get free hearts, tounges, and oxtails with my hamburger. Simply love oxtail soup. Local market had a baker that worked there for many years. When she retired the baked goods section just faded to nothing. The third time in my life a baker has retired and it changed my life. Growing up there was a wonderful bakery in the middle of town... cinnamon twists to die for. Then they closed and we had Stanley's. Then they closed so it is store bought bread or bake your own. Unions are not perfect but they can do good. Much of what is wrong with Unions is the direct planned actions of Management. A common stunt is to pick a Union worker and allow them to get away with anything... being late, poor work, being drunk, sitting around doing nothing. The idea is to make the normal workers angry at the Union for "protecting that guy". On the other side my non-Union employer has sent me for drug testing twice this year because I wear a respirator. I been sent for "medical" examinations and had blood draw 5 times this year by direction of the company. No I don't think people should be high at work and don't object to genuine concern about my health but things are getting a bit sadistic. Even after the company's comp Doc advised me to continue wearing the respirator the Plant Manager informed me the company does not think I need it. I now have written orders from my MD and if there is more trouble over this the next "doctor" will be a JD. Either God or the Devil loves me because my lawyers has been working for free... as the regulars here know I've a running battle over Safety issues (yes, I am the Safety person). : ) lyra

Well I would never miss Wave Hill in the Bronx if it were summer, and the Cloisters nearby should be great any time of year.