I think it is perfectly normal to see natural variations in the way seeds sprout and grow. In order for them to all sprout and grow just alike, they'd all have to be clones of one another, and they aren't. SunGold is always a vigorous grower for me, but I have grown some varieties that make it look a little slow. JD's Special C-Tex is one of them. This variety wants to grow and it wants to grow big time.Gary O Sena is the same way. In the hybrid tomato world, you often see the difference conferred on plants by hybrid vigor. Celebrity, for example, just sprouts and runs like the wind in its effort to grow fast and get big. Some open-pollinated varieties grow just as vigorously even though they lack the so-called hybrid vigor. Big Beef is another variety that sprouts fast and grows fast. Once the tomato plants all are in the ground, it is amazing how their growth seems to even out over the next few weeks. By early June, if I just stand in the garden and look at the rows of tomato plants, it is hard to remember which ones were the biggest and healthiest when I put them into the ground...it is like the slower ones have caught up and I never really think about it until I realize that it already has happened. I'm glad you're having such good success with your tomato seedlings, Sancho Panza. Once you learn to grow your own, you can try so many different kinds and are not constrained to growing only those which are readily available commercially. It opens up a whole new world to you in terms of tomato flavors, colors, shapes, sizes, etc. When I was a kid and we bought our tomato plants from the Greek family that ran a truck farm on the banks of a river near us, they had any variety of tomato plant you wanted as long as it produced fruit that was was round and red. Well, there was pink too....Porter. It wasn't until the mid-1990s and I had started growing from seed that I found out tomatoes came in all sorts of shapes, colors and sizes, including black, purple, pink, orange, yellow,white, bi-color, tri-color and even green-when-ripe. You can grow tomatoes that are striped, splotched, speckled...that look tie-dyed. Once you are raising your own from seed, the diversity available is incredible. Dawn

Ditto to what TeresaVa wrote (I assume your DH works in downtown DC?) DC is a big food-truck city. A couple years ago, there was a gathering of food trucks in a big parking lot offering their food so people could taste what they were about to put on the streets. I recall my response from a co-worker when she asked if I wanted to go: "Are you kidding? I think food trucks are gross. I would never eat at one!" She and another co-worker came back with mouth-watering tales. I blew it! But I have to say I'm not the most adventurous eater... Also, my work hours aren't "normal" ones, so I only see a food truck here and there packing things up. Spike Mendelsohn from "Top Chef" has a food truck (in addition to his Capitol Hill eatery), big-time chef Jose Andres (he's been on "Iron Chef America") has one ... OH: And if you have plans to visit DC, these food trucks are the best thing that's happened to tourists in a long time, I think. Previously there weren't a lot of "grab-a-bite-quickly" places to get food.

On a work trip to a conference in Portland, OR, a year and a half ago, i twice went to a nearby full city block of food trucks. There were so many choices it was hard to decide which ones to go to. I think there is another full city block of food trucks there. Locally many wineries and breweries will have food trucks. Some of them they have the same truck over and over, other have a rotating set of different trucks. Also on campus about two blocks from my office there are 4 trucks: one with Asian dumplings and side dishes, one with Austrailian meat pies, one with gyros other Greek food, and a new one with BBQ. Oddly though the Asian dumpling place will often have 20 to 30 people waiting in line, while there is no one at any of the other three places.

I think I can imagine how the MM coleslaw would taste and it's something I'd like! I pretty much love all salads though. The cilantro does make it dicey to serve to a crowd -- my dad and several other people I know have always said that cilantro tastes like soap to them. Rusty, if I imagine the taste properly, I'd think about substituting an optional garnish of sliced green onions (the green part only so it's more mild).