But I did eat the cherries. Today on [Gourmet.com](http://www.gourmet.com/):

Beyond Pie Filling

> So around the Fourth of July, my family rolled up to the generous reader’s front yard, armed with buckets. I was worried this would be some kind of scrawny, homegrown cherry tree with inferior fruit, and we’d have to politely pick cherries and then toss them in a Dumpster on the way home (the fresh-fruit version of “your home-brewed beer is delicious!”). Instead, I found a towering, mature tree, bearing bushels of the same bright-red Montmorency cherries I was paying $7.50 a pound for at the farmers market.

Thanks to [Dana Cree](http://www.tastingmenu.com) and [Lara Ferroni](http://www.cookandeat.com/) for making this story possible; I was just the cherry pitter and scribe.

Sorry for the off-topic post, but I wanted to point out a couple of recent changes to Roots and Grubs.

First, you should be able to edit your own comments for a short time after you post them, in case you write “Thomas Killer” or something. I’ve found that the feature works but it’s a little finicky; let me know if you have any trouble with it.

Second, people (such as my mom) have asked if I would make it easier to see when someone has posted a new comment. I played around with having recent comments in the sidebar but couldn’t find a design I liked (this is also why I don’t have links to [my favorite blogs](http://theyummymummy.blogspot.com/)). But I did add a sidebar link to the [Comments RSS feed](https://rootsandgrubs.com/?feed=comments-rss2), which you can add to Google Reader, Bloglines, or, if you really love me, an RSS-to-email gateway.

If you just want to know if someone has replied to your comment on a particular post, individual posts have always had links to their own comment RSS feeds at the bottom of the post, just above the comment box.

If nothing in this post is helpful to you at all, don’t worry, tomorrow I’ll be back to complaining about how Michael Pollan won’t let me eat at Momofuku Ko, or something.

I noticed something cool and possibly new (or maybe just new to me) in the fresh herb section at QFC. You know those expensive herbs in plastic boxes? They’re now selling blends. Like the poultry blend, the pasta blend, etc. It’s not the idea of using all the herbs at once that excites me; it’s that you can get up to four different herbs in the same box for $2, instead of a fairly large amount of rosemary that you won’t actually use up.

Today in the New York Times, Frank Bruni reviews [Momofuku Ko](http://www.momofuku.com/ko/default.asp):

> There’s no hard liquor, no tea, no regular coffee and above all no choice. You eat dishes of Ko’s choosing in the order it chooses, and most everybody around you is having roughly the same meal.

Last week, the Times visited Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc:

> If you are someone who must have the sauce on the side or who spurns butter in that sauce, Ad Hoc may not be for you. If you have food allergies or aversions, staff members will try to please you. (They once improvised a gluten-free fried chicken on the spot, and they’ll gladly give your child plain pasta if that’s all he’ll eat.) But this dining experience is an exercise in giving up control. You don’t choose, they do. That’s the game.

> “For most people, the definition of luxury is multiple choices,” Mr. Keller said. “But if I don’t have to make a choice, if I’m taken care of and everything’s great, to me, that’s luxury.”

Neither Momofuku Ko nor Ad Hoc is blazing new ground here, of course. Chez Panisse has been serving a set menu since day one. Here’s tonight’s menu, for example:

* Venetian-style fried sand dab with sweet-and-sour spring onions
* Green pappardelle noodles with spinach, ricotta, and wild mushrooms
* Spit-roasted Laughing Stock Farm pork loin with fennel gratin and mashed fava beans
* Frozen almond cassata with Meyer lemon confit

Coincidentally, that’s exactly what I’m making for dinner at home tonight. Just kidding.

Anyway, I’m with Keller. When I go out to eat, I prefer no choice. Deciding what to have for dinner is something I have to do at home almost every day. I don’t enjoy it. (I like the cooking and eating part just fine.) How about you?

Last night Iris brought me a dried soba noodle. “If you break this noodle, you can make a single wish,” she said. “It’s called the Wishing Noodle.”