summer squash soup

As is usually the case when I improvise a pot of soup, I can never remember how to make it again. In an effort to prevent that, here goes my first edition of summer squash soup. I'm liable to forget I posted this next year when yellow squash and zucchini are back in season, but then I just get to be creative again!

Ingredients
2 zucchini
3 yellow squash
1 Granny Smith apple
Juice from 1 lemon
1/4 stick of dynamite...I mean butter
2 shallots, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
~1 cup vegetable stock
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
Honey to taste

Melt the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan. Add lemon juice, garlic & shallots. Turn heat up, & sauté until the butter begins to brown.

While this is happening on the heat, peel, core, & rough chop the apple. Peel & rough chop the zucchini & squash. The ratio of squash to zucchini should be about 1:1. Ensure this at the store, I guess. Toss all in the pot with vegetable stock. Add enough water to just cover the contents.

When the liquid begins to boil, turn down the heat & cover. Cook until the squash is soft.

Puree the mixture. I love my immersion blender for soups such as this, but a regular blender or food processor would do the job just as well. Just be careful because the soup is, well, boiling hot. When it is to your desired consistency, return to saucepot & add minced ginger. Cook for about 5 more minutes over low heat. Taste & add honey a bit at a time. The soup is supposed to be a bit sour. The honey really helps cut that, but the ginger brings it together.

Serve with a dollop of Greek yogurt or sour cream if desired. I stared at my spice rack for some herbs to add to it to give it some more complexity, but I drew a blank. I'm certainly open to suggestions, if for no other reason than to try making it again!

fraiche

This is my first trip overseas. The trials and tribulations of going it alone for the first time have been minor at best. I have the knowledge of my better half's travel experiences to build upon. Stay in a hotel? Crazy talk. Apparently, eating out three meals per day for a week or more really wears on your nerves. Unfamiliar foods can induce culture shock. I've loved most of the meals we've had and merely liked the rest. More on that when I return.

Where to stay if not in a hotel? Rent an apartment, of course. It's brilliant. Where else can you get out of the tourist bubble and learn the ins and outs of shopping at the market? How else would I learn that you have to weigh your produce at the grocery store before going to the cashier? Actually, I think someone may have told me that tip in the past; however, it took me being in line and trying to pick up social cues before the memory was triggered.

Our first nights here, I made some pasta from the bottega with sauteed vegetables from the fruit stand and chicken from the boucherie. It wasn't too different from what we often make at home. Aside from the lack of spices and herbs, it was no different really. Homemade Italian food in France? Oui. Our French diet has been expectedly devoid of les légumes. This allowed us to indulge at lunchtime and not feel like our sang was turning into beurre.

Enough of the French-English mishmash. Time for tonight's recipe. I want to recreate this at home, but it may be a little more difficult. Tonight, I made what I'll call a Virginia cheese steak...minus the cheese, and pork instead of steak. Yeah, I need to work on the name. Suggestions welcome.

Ingredients
1/2 lb. center cut pork chop, cut into strips across grain
1 Granny Smith apple, cut into half circle slices
2 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
1/2 onion, julienned
1/2 zucchini, julienned
olive oil
1 baguette
Salt & pepper to taste.

1. Heat oil in pan. Saute onions & garlic until they begin to brown.
2. Add zucchini. Cook until they begin to soften.
3. Lay apple slices between everything in pan. Flip when browned.
4. Add pork. Stir until done.
5. Layer individual ingredients into baguette so that each bite will have every flavor. Bon appetit!

Fresh ingredients are clutch. A good recipe is only as good as the ingredients that go into it. I made this for less than ten euros. It served two. The key to recreating this sandwich at home will be locating a proper bakery that makes a good baguette. I fear that may be the hardest part. I know that adding to this recipe will be the easy part. Cinnamon or a dash of cayenne might make this just perfect. A soft cheese such as brie or gouda might also be a nice accompaniment.

variation on lasagna

I'm not sure why. Sometimes, I just get a hankering for some lasagna. Today was one such time. Spring break memories of the Tuscan lasagna made me think a variation of the traditional meat, cheese and sauce was in order. In the past, I've merely added ingredients. Portabello mushrooms. Italian sausage. More cheese. Tonight, I went outside of that modus operandi. I went Greek...sort of.

Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs. of shrimp, cooked & cleaned
12 lasagna noodles, cooked al dente and drained
1 small bag of baby spinach
Fresh basil to taste
Small bunch of parsley
2 lbs. ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
3 cups shredded mozzarella (or Italian blend)
10 oz. or so of crumbled feta cheese
Tomato sauce
Italian seasoning, if desired

Lasagna requires a lot of bowls for prep and a decent-sized countertop. Chop spinach, basil and parsley. Combine in large bowl. Set aside.

Make sauce. Yes, I said make sauce. Doing this right means doing all the steps right. If you want to use Ragu or Prego, stop reading this recipe and learn how to make your own sauce. It's worth it.

Beat egg in another large bowl. In order, mix in ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella. In small amounts, mix in green stuff until all ingredients are evenly dispersed.

Oil the bottom and sides of a 14" x 9" casserole dish. The deeper the better. Spread a thin layer of sauce on the pan and the first layer of noodles. Cover with half the ricotta and spinach mixture. Next layer of noodles. Layer in sauce, shrimp and feta. Next layer of noodles. Sauce and the remaining ricotta. Last layer of noodles and sauce on top.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes before plating.

Shrimp worked well, but shredded [fill-in-the-meat] or a vegetable substitute would work equally well. Perhaps an olive/peperoncini/roasted garlic/red pepper Greek twist instead of meat? I'm not really sure. I also thought a pesto instead of red sauce would go well, too.

Cooking ain't an exact science; experiment and enjoy the results

buzz bakery

When I was a kid, my dad would get a tin of chocolate-covered pretzels without fail each Christmas. It was always the round gift, wrapped strangely or not at all. It's true what they say about exposing kids to varied foods to make them less picky. Since those chocolate-covered pretzels of Yule and yore, I've always had a hankering for salty-sweet combinations. Pancake syrup and sausage links? Done. M & M's and roasted peanuts in trail mix? Delicious. Grape jelly on a chicken biscuit? Absolutely.

When I heard about Buzz's August cupcake of the month, I knew I would like it. How much depended on their execution of the ingredients.

Raise your hand if you like devil's food cake. I thought so. Light and airy, this element I knew they'd execute perfectly, having had some of their confectionary creations at a dessert wine tasting at Planet Wine in February.

Raise your hand if you like peanut butter. Ok, not as many of you, but still a good number. Take that peanut butter and incorporate it into a buttercream frosting, and you've got a winner in my book. Put that frosting on a chocolate cupcake; delicious. How about a vanilla cupake and toast a marshmallow on it? Fluffer-nutter cupcake. Ooh, write that down!

(Peanut butter chocolate note: ever notice how Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are at times saltier than they are sweet? The genius! Other companies that try to mimic it get it all wrong and make it sickeningly sweet, which doesn't work for peanuts in my opinion.)

Finally, who likes bacon? Salty, chewy, cooked-just-right, high quality, center-cut bacon...Mmm. I once had this delicious bacon at a school luncheon. It was baked with brown sugar until the sugar caramelized and served cooled. It was quite possibly the most delicious bacon I've ever had. Again, salty vs. sweet battling on my taste buds.

Ok, for the finale, here's the combination. Devil's Food cupcake. Peanut butter buttercream frosting. Real bacon bits (not from a jar, actually made at the shop) folded into the frosting. One complex culinary delight in one small paper wrapper.

(Thanks to Metrocurean for alerting me to this flavor festival!)

spectacular street grub

Most of the time when thinking of street vendor food, overdone hot dogs and rock hard pretzels are what come to mind. Every so often, you find a spot that has something resembling food you'd eat by choice, not necessity. Ever so rarely, you find a gem with typical street vendor food presented in a not so typical way. Pupusas. Fish tacos. Shaved ice.

I heard through the interweb grapevine about a street cart that just opened that is one such gem. I ventured there, and man, was I impressed!

Sliders are the main fare, but don't think White Castle or Krystal steamers. I had the lamb meatball slider. It had slaw and goat cheese aioli on it. You get two sliders in an order, not quite enough to fill me up, but at four to six bucks, two orders won't break the bank. Add a drink and a bag of chips for $1.50.

They're open 7 days a week, and I plan on stopping by the next time I'm in the neighborhood, whether I'm hungry or not. Hey, it's for a good cause!

Spy Diner
9th & F Streets, NW

ethiopian adventure

"Well, what do you want to eat?" I asked.

"Ethiopian food," he replied, "Can't get that in Gainesville."

There's a few options for Ethiopian food in the area. Never having eaten it myself, I had to do some research. U Street seemed to have the largest enclave of Ethiopian restaurants and shops. Several sites actually called it Little Ethiopia. How many cities have one of those, outside of Addis Ababa anyhow?

Sorting through the recommendations, I decided on Etete (1942 9th Street NW). It won several Washingtonian magazine awards, the reviews were plentiful and (mostly) good. We got off at the U Street/Cardozo/African American War Memorial Metro stop. (Sidenote: Quite possibly the longest Metro station stop in the system!) People watching all the while, we followed a foursome of out-of-their-element girls into Etete. Go figure.

Candler and I ordered honey wine and sambusas before the main food came out. The honey wine tasted a bit like a dessert wine with a hops bite. Not bad, but not great. The sambusas were delicious. Lentils and meat and jalapenos and other veggies. Flaky crust on the outside. An African empanada, more or less.

For the main course, we opted for a veggie sampler, kifta, and a lamb stew. All of the veggie mounds were delicious. Kifta is a spicy blend of ground meat that is often served raw. We opted for medium, but it came out looking like browned ground round. It was infinitely tastier though. The lamb stew was rich with a slight vinegary bite to it. All of the dishes came out on a giant platter with a basket of rolled up injera. Injera is to Ethiopian food what chopsticks are to the Far East. I liken it to a chewier pancake. We used it like pita to pick up bite-sized morsels of the entrees.

All told, we couldn't eat all the food we ordered. Too much deliciousness. Knowing we were headed to Gibson's afterwards, we boxed it up anyways. Not five steps out of the restaurant, a homeless man in a wheelchair asked for some spare change. I offered the leftovers instead, and he graciously accepted.

twinkie, deconstructed

And here it is, book number one of the summer reading blitz under my belt. Twinkie, Deconstructed is an interesting book that sometimes reads like a PR spot for processed food manufacturers.

Who am I kidding? It is pure propaganda, plain and simple. Each and every industry Ettlinger gets a nod to greatness from the author, all because of the simple question his kids posed about ingredients on a Twinkie label. Brilliant in in its concept, fell short in execution.

In the end, he does make some good points about why manufacturers have moved away from natural ingredients in supermarket-ready foods. All in all, I think books like this will certainly drive me more towards organic grub and being a locavore, so as to avoid all these additives and processing that are in the seemingly innocuous Twinkie.

Honestly, I can't recall the last time I ate a Twinkie, but I know for sure now after reading this book, it ain't just Twinkies that get the scientific treatment by food scientists. I could go home right now and find all sorts of additives and preservatives and replacements for "natural" ingredients. Sure, they're "generally regarded as safe" by the FDA, but the acids and chemicals used to produce them are anything but.

To be perfectly honest, that kind of scares me.

fast food nation

Here it is, my short and sweet review of Fast Food Nation. If you're unaware of what the book is, it's an interesting take on the fast food industry and what it has meant to American consumers, even those of us who choose not to eat at such establishments. It has quite a bit of history on it, which was fascinating and disturbing at once. The business acumen and lack of ethics on the part of most of the magnates of the industry brought us what we know today. A McDonald's or 10 in every city, Ronald McDonald being second to Santa Claus in recognition, and the golden arches being one of the most recognizable corporate symbols in the world.

I can't say I'm going to be a vegetarian after reading this book. I don't have the willpower or the nutrition knowledge to make a go at it. Too much of my cooking skill involves grilling or roasting or frying. Pasta wouldn't cut it.

Some odd facts. Ray Kroc bought out the McDonald's brothers for a paltry $3ish million. His empire is clearly worth billions. Most franchisees go into debilitating debt to open a restaurant. There's a reason why immigrants staff the lowest levels of the American workforce; even managers in this industry make chump change and work lawyer-like hours. Ninety percent of children in this country visit a McDonald's every month. Why? Probably because they are the largest private operator of playgrounds in the country. A McDonald's hamburger is healthier than McNuggets.

Someone needs to import In-N-Out Burgers from California to the District. Their food is better quality, they pay their employees living wages, and their management style is ethical. Five Guys wasn't mentioned, but judging by the taste of their food, I bet they're in the same league. So what's this mean for Mr. J? As with all my reading on Wal-Mart, I'm avoiding fast food joints from now on. I haven't set foot in a Wal-Mart in almost two years, and I don't plan on starting.

My fast food corporation boycott starts...now!

rub a dub dub

Two nights of great grub! I've found a new awesome place to eat. Ok, not really found, but I spent a bit more time there this weekend than most people would consider normal. Food's that good. It's called Astor Mediterranean. They have one in Adam's Morgan also that's been open longer. It's a little off the beaten path, but it's pretty easy to get to.

The service is fast and friendly. The food is delicious with large enough portions to satisfy me. Friday night, I was going to go for the lamb kabob. Ravi Kabob makes a pretty mean lamb kabob, and I figure Astor would be the same. When I got to the counter to order, the cashier politely pointed out the ribeye special. I caved. Good choice! Well seasoned, a little overdone for medium, but it was still moist and delicious. It came with two sides, rice and spicy chick peas. Also excellent. I was pretty hungry on Friday, too. My mom was in town, so the three of us split an order of baclava and rice pudding. The baclava is served to share. Very thick, dripping with honey, flaky phyllo dough. Incredible. The rice pudding was rich and creamy with raisins, cinnamons, and coconut shavings garnished.

She and I brought her friends there last night. The cashier recognized me, said hello, and quietly thanked me for bringing such a large group. The girls all ordered something different. Raves were given to the hummous, which for $3.50 is quite a steal! The girls all had leftovers for today. Me? I polished off a deliciously messy Mediterranean chicken pita. Not recommended for a first date as there is no way to eat it neatly. It is delicious though!

Go. Eat. Enjoy. You may just see me there.

presenting his excellency

Pope is a helluva guy. So much so that I dismissed my feelings of hatred towards a Capitol Hill staffer favorite called the Hawk & Dove. The link leads you to the story of my last visit to the old watering hole. Separate the plausible from the implausible based on what you know of my nonviolent nature.

Anyhow, Pope is a fraternity buddy of mine. He is the epitome of an outlier. He is universally beloved by those who know him and a terribly hard fella to keep track of. He's teaching English in China. He's also an incredibly dapper dresser. Granted, he'd been at an interview, but a three-piece suit?

Well played.

Anyhow, Thursday night found me in and out of my element in staccato style. Perfectly comfortable on my way, knowing where I'm going, until a missed microscopic sign dumped me back onto 395 during rush hour. Lovely. Driving around southeast in a new car after dark, not a great idea. Drive with purpose and floor it at the first sign of trouble?

You got it.

Bad feelings about Hawk & Dove subsided upon arrival. Bubs, Pope and I had a great time catching up. The ladies enjoyed themselves. Best news of the evening, interview went well, and D.C. may be his home base for years to come. Good food, good company.

Enough to make a bar seem like home for a few hours. I love when friends visit!

i almost forgot!

a month or so ago, i fell in love with a delicious burger from good stuff eatery in capitol hill. on monday night after the gym, i fell in love with a burger much closer to my home. this may be dangerous.

ray's hell burger. is. king.

i'd link you to some reviews from the local critics, but as critics are, they tend to be pissed off and nitpick every detail, especially soon after a grand opening. that was what i found with good stuff initially, and what i found at ray's.

simple menu. build your own burger. pick how you want it cooked, it's all fresh ground quality stuff. i got mine blackened, medium rare. topped it with sauteed onions and 'shrooms with white cheddar. i was starving, and it didn't disappoint. i could eat a bowl of the onions and mushrooms on their own. they were delicious. with so many topping choices, i could make a different burger every day for a month and never have the same combo. some of them might get a little pricey, but such is life with artisinal cheeses, foie gras, and bone marrow options (yes, seriously).

it's been open for less time, there's less hoopla surrounding it, and it's not on pennsylvania avenue. we were able to order quickly and find a seat with no problem. old dominion draft root beer and lots of napkins. i was set.

dammit, now i want another one.

good grub, good stuff!

today i had a frat boy meeting, again. this colony re-expansioneering is a helluva time gobbler. that makes three events this week alone. i'm hoping it settles soon so that i can honor my commitment. i like my free time. i like my 80s movie nights with my better half. i like riding my bike. i like climbing. i realized something last night. i'm not the intense delt i used to be. the guys i keep up with have moved on with their lives, in that it's not the sole focus of their lives. do they hang out mostly with delts? yep. is it a result of our days at 1926 west university avenue? most definitely. i find that the guys i keep up with up here are almost anti-delts in their commitment to those days past. i was asked last night where the 10 or so boys of ol' florida were at the alumni events i've been to recently. absent. that's where. we'll work on that.

anyhow, the weather was supposed to be awful today. i walk out of the meeting, and it's a sunny, windy day. for some odd reason, i decide to kill my time by walking from foggy bottom to capitol hill. for you non-locals, that's about 3 miles as the crow flies. as you may know, i do not sport black feathers. it was a pretty nice walk. i passed a couple of protests for the G-20 summit, saw about a million dc cops, and ambled past a proposition 8 rally in front of the capitol. it was a nice day for a protest.

by this point, i'm starving. sandwich? nah. burrito? nah, too hit or miss. bar food? probably....WAIT A SECOND. good stuff? i like where your head's at. if you're not a top chef devotee, last season had a contestant named spike. kind of polarizing, but he opened a burger joint in capitol hill. i'd heard the buzz, and for once, i happened to be hungry and in front of its doors.

best. burger. ever.

i liked it so much, i went back after the game and had some fries and onion rings and a milkshake. all delicious. i've been craving a good burger for a while now. i think i might be a new addict.

seriously? seriously!

after the whirlwind weekend of driving and relaxing and yoga-ing and strolling and bicycling and visiting, emphasis on wind, i realized that i had not a speck, not a crumb of food in my refrigerator to take for lunch this lovely fall day. that aside, i've learned in this new routine up here, it's best to plan around the climbing schedule when it comes to food shopping. when i've gone to the grocery store after climbing, i spend approximately 3,152% more than if it were a normal night. that's just a ballpark figure; i'm still double-checking my figures. i think it may be a tad too low.

back to the topic at hand. i needed grub at the grocery store. off i went. the first stop is always the deli to get my quality luncheon meats and cheeses for delicious sandwiches for lunch. recession or not, i'm not gonna skimp on my sandwiches. store brand cold cuts (or worse, prepackaged ones!) just don't cut the mustard. last night, empty shopping cart in the deli with my reusable shopping bags that i'd resisted purchasing until this year. now i'm actually in the habit of using them.

again, i digress. i get my delicious deli meats, virginia ham and swiss cheese this week. a loaf of dark german wheat bread and spicy brown mustard await the pairing at home. i do the rest of my shopping, searching in vain to replenish my nutella supply, and head to the checkout. when i arrive, i pull my bags....er, bag out from underneath my purchases to bag my groceries.

wait, a second. i had two bags in my car. i had two bags in the parking lot. i had two bags at the deli...somebody stole one of my bags? seriously?

seriously. it's a dollar, folks. i appreciate your desire to be more green, but stealing to accomplish that end? that's like ecoterrorism on a smaller scale. earthfirst activists blowing up logging trucks. but much smaller. you do know that the very same store where you committed your petty larceny sells the very same bags brand new?

i guess i'll be buying a shiny new one for myself. ooh, maybe i'll get the limited edition redskins bag while you use my grimy, year-old stanky one. take that!

cookeration

it seems when i plan to make a meal, it doesn't turn out the way i expect it in my mind. leftover vodka sauce, frozen for months, on frozen gnocchi turned out to be a far better meal than the night i first made the sauce. unplanned meals lately turned out pretty well. thought i'd share.

recipe one. ok, so it's not a meal, but it's a damn fine vegetable side dish. ingredients, two tomatoes, one small onion sliced thinly, three cloves of garlic minced, scallions, olive oil, rice vinegar. almost forgot, a pound of string beans. first, clean and cut the beans. sautee the onions, garlic, and scallions in oil in a skillet. when the onions carmelize, add the beans and cover. cut tomatoes into bite-sized chunks. when skillet lid is steamed up and beans begin to sweat, add tomatoes. turn down heat. cook beans to your liking, i like 'em crispy. turn off heat, toss with rice vinegar. serve on side. even better the second and third day.

recipe two. this one's a product of actually learning from a reality show on how to play with flavors. ingredients, chicken breasts, bacon, coconut shavings, fresh pineapple, onion, garlic, vegetable oil, rice. butterfly the breasts and roll with bacon. skewer them with toothpicks or skewers to hold their shape. sautee onions, garlic, pineapple, coconut and about a half-cup of rum in oil (onions and garlic first, then add the remaining ingredients). when alcohol has cooked off, put chicken in pan, and cover. turn down heat. cook 'til chicken's done. serve with rice and the sauce. it wasn't perfect. i'm going to try to get it together into some sort of casserole so the flavors all go together better. the sauce it cooked in was great, the chicken was a little tough. needed the flavor of the sauce.

bon appetit!

frozen custard and wine

two new vices found down the street from one another on church street in vienna.

vice number one. frozen custard. for the uninitiated, frozen custard is like ice cream. i believe it has egg in it, hence the custard name. it is the richest, creamiest, most marvelous version of ice cream you will ever put in your mouth. i was going to be bland and get cookies and cream. then the counter people let us try the pistachio. heaven. chocolate shelled. heaven squared.

fat and happy from custard, we discover vice number two. church street cellars. think stubbie's, but wine and self-serve. they had these bad ass wine dispenser coolers. run a tab with a card, try a whole bunch of different wines. this is the most brilliant idea for a wine bar that i've ever heard of. no talking to snooty sommeliers about the hidden flavors of currants and kiwis. bottles bottles everywhere to buy when you find one that you really like, from that $10 bottle to the $155 bottle.

next visitors to the district, we will be winos and eat custard, ok?

big food

foodies tell me that new york is a food lover's paradise. in fact, in the book 1,000 places to see before you die, there are several entries about new york's restaurants. not being one to doubt a book that i actually own, food was the priority as far as we were concerned. we mapped out the places we were going to eat and decided what other sights we were checking out based on that. no street dogs or pretzels here, though it would've been much cheaper no doubt.

stop one, joe's shanghai restaurant in uppper manhattan, home of the soup dumpling. soup dumpling, you ask? yes, soup dumpling. as in a dumpling that has soup in it. pork or crab, these were not to be missed. step one, carefully lift the dumpling into your spoon. step two, nibble a hole in the dumpling. step three, carefully sip the broth out of the dumpling after letting the steam escape. step four, eat the rest of it. marvelous. my search for these in the district has begun.

after the met, stop two was a cupcake bakery for a late-afternoon sweet treat. apparently, new york has quite a few shops that specialize in cupcakes. since i'm dating my very own betty crocker, she wanted to check out the competition and see what she's up against if she veers from her current career path. buttercup bake shop was a tiny little place, curtains and a simple glass case. she had the red velvet cupcake and wasn't impressed. not traditional in her eyes. i had a chocolate cupcake with marshmallow frosting. frosting was good, cupcake so-so. hers are better.

stop three immediately thereafter was a trendy joint in chelsea called the spice market. appetizers and drinks before the show. i think i might've enjoyed it more had there been some milder choices for her, and i'd actually been able to enjoy the conversations above the din of the restaurant and had normal seating. probably good for a small group, but not sixteen boisterous italians.

stop four followed the show. shila used to work there. no lie, it was called good. a misnomer, it was. better than good, but not quite great. broad range of dishes, diner-style seating arrangement. i had a pork chop with sweet potato homefries and bacon and pecans. very tasty. no one had a complaint about their meal, except for maybe portion size being overgenerous. go figure!

final stop was a nyc deli on sunday. carnegie deli had a line out the door, so that landmark will have to wait. fortunately, within sight was the stage deli. open for 70+ years, we figured it was a good bet too. sandwiches as big as your head. not being one for pastrami or corned beef, i opted for the howie mandel triple decker. chicken salad with a hard boiled egg. [bald joke?] i destroyed it. the turkey sandwich defeated her, i polished it off for lunch yesterday. the tiger woods reuben defeated max too. poor guy. the nyc cheesecake was six inches thick. i quickly protested that we asked for one slice, which prompted nearby tables to look and gasp at the size. that came home in a bag too.

so ended our gastronomic tour of the big apple. we quickly rolled out and were back in the district in the right amount of time. no need for dinner that night. salad last night. it's just not the same...

inspiration

the new season of top chef appeared unknowingly on my dvr last night. i admit it. it is the only reality show i'll admit to watching. i apparently programmed it months ago for the new episodes only. for those of you not in the know, it's survivor meets iron chef. a cooking competition. budding chefs vie for a feature in wine and food magazine and exactly $100,000,000,000. i may be a little off on that figure...

one of the features i've figured out on this show is that a lot of fancy chefs merely reimagine classic dishes with flair. there are several flavors you don't want to overdo, as they'll compete with one another. sweet. salty. spicy. you wouldn't put strong versions of any of these together. i'm still trying to figure out how to balance these competing flavors when i create on the fly.

tonight as i watched that episode of top chef, i tried again. mostly because i forgot my climbing stuff to go to the gym on my way home, but partly from television inspiration. ingredients. a whole chicken. two sweet potatoes. a can of french onion soup. brown rice. black pepper. garlic. cooked the rice, mixed it all together, shoved it in the chicken, and spread it around the chicken in my casserole dish. cooked it for an hour and change. screwed up by cooking it upside down, but it turned out pretty damn good. i might just have to make it again sometime.

when i have a guest or three...

gastronomic delights

this week is d.c. restaurant week. prix fixe three-course menus at the best restaurants in and around the district. $20.08 for lunch, $30.08 for dinner. last night, she and i went to bobby van's steakhouse on new york avenue. described online as the birthplace of the power lunch, i had high hopes for a great meal. having been to bern's in tampa though, bobby van's had a high bar to meet as well.

appetizer. we both had the mussels and vegetable chowder. great for the nasty, wet weather we encountered in our two block walk from the metro. a little thinner than most chowders i've had before, but it was phenomenal. yes, it helps that mussels are probably my favorite shellfish. i'm going to see if i can replicate it sometime soon. the salad that looked the best to me had a grapefruit vinaigrette on it, and i'm not a fan of grapefruit at all.

main course. i the filet mignon, she the penne pasta with sausage and cream sauce. the filet was the only steak choice on the abridged menu, i felt obligated to try their steakhouse fare. i was not disappointed. perfectly seared, melt in your mouth perfection. i shared some with her, and she didn't eat another bite of her pasta. not because the pasta was bad, the steak was that good and she didn't want to lose that great taste. the pasta is currently in my fridge. i think she forgot about it!

dessert. i was going to order the chocolate pineapple flan, but i was "told" i was having the cheesecake. it was good, but the flan was better. amazing. i may go to bobby van's for a beer and the flan sometime real soon.

oh yeah, i almost forgot. the wine list only sold by the bottle, which i guess i should've expected at a quality steakhouse. i asked for a guinness instead. rebuffed by the waiter, "we don't serve guinness." asked then what the gentleman at the next table was drinking (which i could see was clearly a stout), he replied, "murphy's irish stout."

perfect.

mangia!

friday night, i discovered (with a little help) an italian deli in arlington. brought me way back. when you walk into an italian deli, there's a certain smell. the mixture of fresh-baked bread, deli meats, and miscellaneous sweetness, with a hint of nutella for good measure.

after making homemade sauce on saturday, i decided i needed to get some fresh pasta for said sauce. barilla nor mueller's don't deserve homemade sauce. on tonight's menu, purchased from the italian store (yes, that's the name): gnocchi! better start the water...

fortune cookie

"you have an unusually magnetic personality."

i think i should play the lucky numbers on the back of this one!