I had an onion bagel with avocado today.
In the latter part of the morning I went to the coffeeshop with Amanda to work. It is always easier, I feel, to keep your discipline when there is someone else around. I do much good work at home in the early morning while Clayton is still asleep just so I can look at him with disdain and tut-tut when he finally emerges from his room. But once he leaves the house I sometimes lose my focus, especially if I do not have to call into any meetings. So it was that I arranged to meet Amanda; I had not eaten all morning and I was hungry and wanted some fresh orange juice.
The last time we were at the coffeeshop Amanda had gotten an onion bagel with fresh avocado and she got the same thing again today. She broke the avocado slices into smaller cubes with a butter knife and spread it unevenly across her bagel. The bagel was toasted lightly, and flakes of toasted onion crisps fell to her plate as she lifted it this way and that. She did this with her plate next to her on the couch while artfully balancing her laptop in her lap, then held the bagel to her mouth to eat it.
The coffeeshop was unusually crowded with plenty of eye-candy and yet all I noticed was Amanda eating the bagel. I had a bran muffin myself and was nowhere near as satisfied with it as she looked. Amanda has this look about her when she has eaten well – she leans back and gets a dreamy look in her eyes. Once after a meal that I had cooked for her she leaned back in her seat, rubbed her belly with her right hand and said simply, “Mi piace.” It was the highest compliment I have ever gotten.
The French have this expression they use to refer to a need for something to happen – il faut – which I like using because there is nothing in English which comes close. Il faut conveys a singular urgency and necessity that no word in English can replicate. That urgency and necessity reflected exactly and completely my state of mind about the bagel and avocado – I most absolutely had to have one for myself.
I had never had bagels with avocado before and it seemed to me like a strange combination – especially with an onion bagel. Still, when mine came I went through the same ritual Amanda did with it, for fear of not having the same experience. The bagel was toasted to the point where the tips were crisp and crunchy to the bite and had the smell and taste of something burnt, but the inside was still soft and doughy and had all the goodness that bread and bread products have. The avocado was fresh and sweet and not all of it would spread easily on the bagel, but I did the best I could. I rationed my avocado with the bagel that I had perfectly so that my last mouthful was one with just slightly more avocado than all the rest. It was, as experiences go, as satisfying as they come.
I had an onion bagel, toasted, with avocado today, and it changed my life.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
A simple dedication
In the good days I would work with Morgan in the kitchen and I felt very secure in the knowledge of limitless possibility. He had a lazy grace about him and always moved very slowly so it seemed that he did not care about the cooking. But he always cared, and for him the point of it all was in the planning and the making of the meal. He was more alive in the kitchen than at the dinner table.
What Morgan really had was the discipline to always respect the food. I never saw him cut any corners or settle for the easy option when it was not the right one. He would do the best things he could with the ingredients and the tools that he had, and he worked with a simple dedication that was oblivious to time and effort and all the other little things that you needed to sacrifice to make a great meal.
It was Morgan who showed me that red pepper and basil go extremely well together, and we had made on more than one occasion tilapia fillets with red pepper-basil tapenade. It was the first of the recipes we had dreamed up together that I had written down in my notebook and it was the one that I turned to two nights ago when Natalia and Matt and Hunter came over for dinner. To start I made mussels in a saffron and white wine broth and I paired the tilapia with a lemon asparagus risotto. It was nothing I had not done before so I gave myself an hour to prep and make everything.
As I diced the red pepper I was thinking about the night ahead and what we would do after dinner. I opened the wine and sipped on it – the chef’s prerogative – as I stirred the broth in which I would cook the mussels. There is no radio in my kitchen but I put some tango nuevo on the stereo in the living room and it made me feel like I was dancing as I moved around the kitchen.
I ended up having less time than I thought because I stepped out to send a work email I had forgotten to take care of earlier. Risotto is a dish that consumes a lot of attention because to cook every grain you must stir it constantly over controlled, medium heat. Sadly I probably did not give it the attention it deserved even though it came out quite passable. The mussels also did not taste as good as the first time I had made the recipe; and I felt badly about the tilapia because I had intended on breading them but did not have the time to do so.
I had treated making the meal very lightly and now that it was done I felt very hollow inside. It was not anywhere near what it could have been and that had come about because I did not respect the food. I had been in a hurry and had wanted above anything to put the meal on the table and I did not concentrate on the making of the food like I should have. We ate and it was good nonetheless because the company was charming but I woke up the next morning feeling quite disgusted with myself.
What Morgan really had was the discipline to always respect the food. I never saw him cut any corners or settle for the easy option when it was not the right one. He would do the best things he could with the ingredients and the tools that he had, and he worked with a simple dedication that was oblivious to time and effort and all the other little things that you needed to sacrifice to make a great meal.
It was Morgan who showed me that red pepper and basil go extremely well together, and we had made on more than one occasion tilapia fillets with red pepper-basil tapenade. It was the first of the recipes we had dreamed up together that I had written down in my notebook and it was the one that I turned to two nights ago when Natalia and Matt and Hunter came over for dinner. To start I made mussels in a saffron and white wine broth and I paired the tilapia with a lemon asparagus risotto. It was nothing I had not done before so I gave myself an hour to prep and make everything.
As I diced the red pepper I was thinking about the night ahead and what we would do after dinner. I opened the wine and sipped on it – the chef’s prerogative – as I stirred the broth in which I would cook the mussels. There is no radio in my kitchen but I put some tango nuevo on the stereo in the living room and it made me feel like I was dancing as I moved around the kitchen.
I ended up having less time than I thought because I stepped out to send a work email I had forgotten to take care of earlier. Risotto is a dish that consumes a lot of attention because to cook every grain you must stir it constantly over controlled, medium heat. Sadly I probably did not give it the attention it deserved even though it came out quite passable. The mussels also did not taste as good as the first time I had made the recipe; and I felt badly about the tilapia because I had intended on breading them but did not have the time to do so.
I had treated making the meal very lightly and now that it was done I felt very hollow inside. It was not anywhere near what it could have been and that had come about because I did not respect the food. I had been in a hurry and had wanted above anything to put the meal on the table and I did not concentrate on the making of the food like I should have. We ate and it was good nonetheless because the company was charming but I woke up the next morning feeling quite disgusted with myself.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Isn't it pretty to think so?
DC Coast
1401 K St NW
Washington, DC 20007
202-216-5988
I very often muse to myself that I should have been alive in other decades, and one of my favourites is the Roaring Twenties. Art Deco and the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation – I could go on. Last night I had dinner with the always lovely Laura and Amanda at DC Coast, and at fleeting moments throughout the night I felt transported back to the good old days of modernity and mechanisation. It was a strange feeling. At other times I simply exulted in the company of these two good friends – there is nothing quite so relaxing at the dinner table as familiar faces. And even though Laura did her level best to ruin the night with some inappropriate yet hilarious and, strangely, pertinent conversation concerning certain bodily functions, I had a smashing time anyway.
DC Coast is in the heart of downtown DC, and surrounded by tall, concrete office buildings with setbacks – banks and hotels and whatnot built in the style of modern architecture. It is a Saturday night, so there is little bustle on the streets; and a certain quaint and lazy ease in the air almost in defiance of the craziness of the workweek gone by. I walk into the restaurant with Amanda, and it is hard not to have your breath taken away. The room is sprawling and the ceilings soaring, and there are beautiful Beaux-Arts fixtures and arches punctuating the walls. There is a bar to the left of us that stretches the length of the room, and behind it large oval mirrors hang on the walls, making the room look even more impressive than it already is. I felt like one must have in the Gatsby mansion, and resolved to live out the night with the requisite pomp and circumstance.
My pre-dinner drink of choice is the usual Tanqueray and tonic, and the bartender makes it good and stiff. This sells me on the place almost immediately. The service was prompt and personable, and they do not hurry us one whit as we wait for Laura to show up. In fact, throughout the course of the meal the staff that serve us are wonderfully patient and exceedingly quick to accede to all our requests – including a particularly obnoxious one for larger wine glasses, made by a certain individual who shall remain unnamed. They run a pretty tight ship at DC Coast, and I am impressed.
It appears, too, that the kitchen is as competent as the house. Laura and Amanda both start with soups, and I have a shrimp risotto that fills me with food envy, for while the lightness of the risotto was all well and good I secretly craved the spice and splendour that was Amanda’s lobster bisque. I follow that with the yellowfin tuna, seared and cooked to a beautiful rare, with the inside barely warmed. It was paired with cold calamari ceviche, which gave the dish that citrusy tang that complements seafood so well. I looked up in the middle of my meal, surprised to find Amanda holding out her plate across the table – she had cut out a piece of sea scallop and was offering it to me. She is a sweet, sweet girl, and so much of a better person than I am that it embarrasses me.
Dessert is stellar as well – I had a panna cotta that rekindled my infatuation with the vanilla bean. Then we all closed our palate with espressos and I felt very European. It says something that when we finally left the restaurant and went our separate ways, I had little recollection of the nuances of the evening’s conversation – except for Laura’s interesting aside – and even less idea of how much time had passed. Yet it had been a good two and a half hour dinner, and we had seen a couple at the adjacent table come and go.
As we parted and I walked the dinner off en route to yet more shenanigans, I could not help but think about what I like to call the CAV/Mills debate. CAV and Mills Tavern are respectively my two favourite restaurants in Providence, RI from when I used to live there. I like the former because it is an intimate and personal place, the sort of restaurant that nourishes more than it feeds. But I also love the latter, formal and proper and deferential to the notion that cooking is the highest of arts, and should be performed on a stage that gives it its due.
Funny then, that I was at Nora two nights ago, a place that nurtures, that provides, that makes people happy much in the vein of CAV; and then the following night at DC Coast, majestic and thorough and a similar style of restaurant to Mills Tavern. I cannot decide which of these two types of restaurants I like better, and I hope I never have to choose.
1401 K St NW
Washington, DC 20007
202-216-5988
I very often muse to myself that I should have been alive in other decades, and one of my favourites is the Roaring Twenties. Art Deco and the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation – I could go on. Last night I had dinner with the always lovely Laura and Amanda at DC Coast, and at fleeting moments throughout the night I felt transported back to the good old days of modernity and mechanisation. It was a strange feeling. At other times I simply exulted in the company of these two good friends – there is nothing quite so relaxing at the dinner table as familiar faces. And even though Laura did her level best to ruin the night with some inappropriate yet hilarious and, strangely, pertinent conversation concerning certain bodily functions, I had a smashing time anyway.
DC Coast is in the heart of downtown DC, and surrounded by tall, concrete office buildings with setbacks – banks and hotels and whatnot built in the style of modern architecture. It is a Saturday night, so there is little bustle on the streets; and a certain quaint and lazy ease in the air almost in defiance of the craziness of the workweek gone by. I walk into the restaurant with Amanda, and it is hard not to have your breath taken away. The room is sprawling and the ceilings soaring, and there are beautiful Beaux-Arts fixtures and arches punctuating the walls. There is a bar to the left of us that stretches the length of the room, and behind it large oval mirrors hang on the walls, making the room look even more impressive than it already is. I felt like one must have in the Gatsby mansion, and resolved to live out the night with the requisite pomp and circumstance.
My pre-dinner drink of choice is the usual Tanqueray and tonic, and the bartender makes it good and stiff. This sells me on the place almost immediately. The service was prompt and personable, and they do not hurry us one whit as we wait for Laura to show up. In fact, throughout the course of the meal the staff that serve us are wonderfully patient and exceedingly quick to accede to all our requests – including a particularly obnoxious one for larger wine glasses, made by a certain individual who shall remain unnamed. They run a pretty tight ship at DC Coast, and I am impressed.
It appears, too, that the kitchen is as competent as the house. Laura and Amanda both start with soups, and I have a shrimp risotto that fills me with food envy, for while the lightness of the risotto was all well and good I secretly craved the spice and splendour that was Amanda’s lobster bisque. I follow that with the yellowfin tuna, seared and cooked to a beautiful rare, with the inside barely warmed. It was paired with cold calamari ceviche, which gave the dish that citrusy tang that complements seafood so well. I looked up in the middle of my meal, surprised to find Amanda holding out her plate across the table – she had cut out a piece of sea scallop and was offering it to me. She is a sweet, sweet girl, and so much of a better person than I am that it embarrasses me.
Dessert is stellar as well – I had a panna cotta that rekindled my infatuation with the vanilla bean. Then we all closed our palate with espressos and I felt very European. It says something that when we finally left the restaurant and went our separate ways, I had little recollection of the nuances of the evening’s conversation – except for Laura’s interesting aside – and even less idea of how much time had passed. Yet it had been a good two and a half hour dinner, and we had seen a couple at the adjacent table come and go.
As we parted and I walked the dinner off en route to yet more shenanigans, I could not help but think about what I like to call the CAV/Mills debate. CAV and Mills Tavern are respectively my two favourite restaurants in Providence, RI from when I used to live there. I like the former because it is an intimate and personal place, the sort of restaurant that nourishes more than it feeds. But I also love the latter, formal and proper and deferential to the notion that cooking is the highest of arts, and should be performed on a stage that gives it its due.
Funny then, that I was at Nora two nights ago, a place that nurtures, that provides, that makes people happy much in the vein of CAV; and then the following night at DC Coast, majestic and thorough and a similar style of restaurant to Mills Tavern. I cannot decide which of these two types of restaurants I like better, and I hope I never have to choose.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
So fresh and so clean
Restaurant Nora
2132 Florida Ave NW
Washington DC 20008
202-462-5143
There are restaurants, and then there are restaurants. This past week marked an annual tradition in DC – Restaurant Week – where a whole litany of otherwise unaffordable eating establishments offer a 3-course prix fixe menu for $30. The downside of this, apart from having to dine with the riffraff, is that there are only so few participating restaurants that put their usual heart and soul into their cooking this week compared to others, and there is every chance you will wind up with a thoroughly unsatisfying meal. Fortunately, there are some who maintain their dedication to gastronomic greatness – Corduroy, for example, offers its full menu for Restaurant Week – and I had the pleasure of dining at just such a place yesterday, the famed Nora.
Nora is, quite frankly, a damned good-looking building; the corner rowhouse at the end of one of many beautiful tree-lined streets in the area. A short ways off the main drag that is Connecticut Ave and nestled on the edge of what I like to call the sleepy side of Dupont Circle, it is muted red brick and looks more like home and hearth than anything else. The inside is made out to look like a stable and is equally lovely. A model airplane hangs from the pine beams that criss-cross the high ceiling, and a collection of Amish quilts are framed and draped on the painted brick walls. Doors lead to steps that lead to more rooms, and people appear from out of nowhere. It is the kind of place that makes you feel like exploring, but puts you too much at ease to start.
I had made this reservation a month and a half ago, so I was understandably excited. Allison, though, was even more so than I. She lives just a couple of blocks away, and as we walked over from her place I had to struggle to keep pace with her. We finally arrive though, right on time for our reservation, and are ushered right to our table. There is a shaded paraffin lamp on the table, and a bottle of olive oil – both lovely touches. When dining with one other, I like to sit at right angles; facing the other person directly always makes me awkward. I continue to fidget throughout the duration of the meal and am calmed only when there is food on the table or wine in my glass; it must have been a sorry sight.
It is so important, in food as in any and all other endeavours, to begin well. And we do, unequivocally. Allison and I both start with the vichyssoise – light and refreshing and quite delicious. There is a slice of something or other in the soup which we find out later is a tuile – French for ‘tile’ – a thin cookie made from wheat or potatoes that is placed over a rounded object when still fresh from the oven. Whatever the case, it is a detail that is much appreciated, as were the efforts of our waitress to find out for us. She was extremely nice, equal parts whimsy and charm and had a smile that made me think of my momma for some reason.
I go on to order the wild mushroom and corn risotto, while Allison has the Atlantic salmon baked in parchment paper. I don’t particularly care for salmon, but I had a bite of hers and the freshness was overwhelming. My own meal was – shockingly, vegetarian – but an explosion of colours and flavours that warmed my heart. I have a long and lovely history with mushroom risotto, from when Morgan first taught me to make it, right through to the days when Jose would bring chanterelles back from his work and we would break out the truffle oil and eat like kings. This, then, was another scenic step in what I am sure will be a lifelong love affair.
Nora’s whole deal – and possibly why the a la carte prices are so high – is that it is dedicated to fresh, local and organic ingredients. It was, as we read, the first restaurant in America to be certified organic – and the cooking certainly let that shine through. Everything we tasted was so good and wholesome and fresh, and to paraphrase something Allison said – made me feel like a better person.
We close out with dessert and I have a coffee to ward off the food coma; the night is young yet, and so are we. As we walk out I cast a glance back to look for our waitress, but I cannot see her anywhere. I am sure, though, that our paths will cross again, for I must certainly return to Nora; and so I am content to save the wave goodbye for the next time we meet, or never, as it were.
2132 Florida Ave NW
Washington DC 20008
202-462-5143
There are restaurants, and then there are restaurants. This past week marked an annual tradition in DC – Restaurant Week – where a whole litany of otherwise unaffordable eating establishments offer a 3-course prix fixe menu for $30. The downside of this, apart from having to dine with the riffraff, is that there are only so few participating restaurants that put their usual heart and soul into their cooking this week compared to others, and there is every chance you will wind up with a thoroughly unsatisfying meal. Fortunately, there are some who maintain their dedication to gastronomic greatness – Corduroy, for example, offers its full menu for Restaurant Week – and I had the pleasure of dining at just such a place yesterday, the famed Nora.
Nora is, quite frankly, a damned good-looking building; the corner rowhouse at the end of one of many beautiful tree-lined streets in the area. A short ways off the main drag that is Connecticut Ave and nestled on the edge of what I like to call the sleepy side of Dupont Circle, it is muted red brick and looks more like home and hearth than anything else. The inside is made out to look like a stable and is equally lovely. A model airplane hangs from the pine beams that criss-cross the high ceiling, and a collection of Amish quilts are framed and draped on the painted brick walls. Doors lead to steps that lead to more rooms, and people appear from out of nowhere. It is the kind of place that makes you feel like exploring, but puts you too much at ease to start.
I had made this reservation a month and a half ago, so I was understandably excited. Allison, though, was even more so than I. She lives just a couple of blocks away, and as we walked over from her place I had to struggle to keep pace with her. We finally arrive though, right on time for our reservation, and are ushered right to our table. There is a shaded paraffin lamp on the table, and a bottle of olive oil – both lovely touches. When dining with one other, I like to sit at right angles; facing the other person directly always makes me awkward. I continue to fidget throughout the duration of the meal and am calmed only when there is food on the table or wine in my glass; it must have been a sorry sight.
It is so important, in food as in any and all other endeavours, to begin well. And we do, unequivocally. Allison and I both start with the vichyssoise – light and refreshing and quite delicious. There is a slice of something or other in the soup which we find out later is a tuile – French for ‘tile’ – a thin cookie made from wheat or potatoes that is placed over a rounded object when still fresh from the oven. Whatever the case, it is a detail that is much appreciated, as were the efforts of our waitress to find out for us. She was extremely nice, equal parts whimsy and charm and had a smile that made me think of my momma for some reason.
I go on to order the wild mushroom and corn risotto, while Allison has the Atlantic salmon baked in parchment paper. I don’t particularly care for salmon, but I had a bite of hers and the freshness was overwhelming. My own meal was – shockingly, vegetarian – but an explosion of colours and flavours that warmed my heart. I have a long and lovely history with mushroom risotto, from when Morgan first taught me to make it, right through to the days when Jose would bring chanterelles back from his work and we would break out the truffle oil and eat like kings. This, then, was another scenic step in what I am sure will be a lifelong love affair.
Nora’s whole deal – and possibly why the a la carte prices are so high – is that it is dedicated to fresh, local and organic ingredients. It was, as we read, the first restaurant in America to be certified organic – and the cooking certainly let that shine through. Everything we tasted was so good and wholesome and fresh, and to paraphrase something Allison said – made me feel like a better person.
We close out with dessert and I have a coffee to ward off the food coma; the night is young yet, and so are we. As we walk out I cast a glance back to look for our waitress, but I cannot see her anywhere. I am sure, though, that our paths will cross again, for I must certainly return to Nora; and so I am content to save the wave goodbye for the next time we meet, or never, as it were.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Letter from Portugal
Aug 13, 2006
It finally happened. I have had my dose of tripe.
There are two kinds of tripe and two kinds of people. In terms of people there are, as you so cleverly put, Fools for offal and people who wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. I think that I am in the former, not because I like it, but because I like the idea of liking it. There are, of course, some offal all-stars: sweetbreads and foie gras are as close to my heart as my lungs. In terms of tripe there is feathered and honeycomb. I can't tell you exactly where they come from in a pig's intestines but I know that I was eating honeycomb.
North Portugal and Porto particularly are famously known as "Tripe Eaters", ever since they gave all their pork to Henry the Navigator for a voyage in 1415, keeping only tripe for themselves. One realises very quickly in Portugal that the menu options can be pretty limited: grilled or fried salty pieces of meat and fish with potatoes and rice, maybe some salty lettuce. Before long you begin to look at a menu and to say "I haven't heard of that one before." Yesterday it was 'Dobrado com feijão branco" which is to say "doubled with white beans" Turned out to be a spicy stew of pork liver, tripe, hot peppers and beans served over rice (two kinds of offal equals doubled in this crazy country).
Delicious! To crown all, I was in a dive restaurant where you got soup, bread, a plate, dessert, wine and coffee for 4.50 Euros. It don't get much better than that.
- Morgan
This arrived in my mailbox last evening and was warmly welcomed. At that very moment I had other foods on my mind – people were coming over and I was in the midst of grilling a curried pork shoulder – but it nevertheless simultaneously excited me and gave me cause for lament. Granted, I am not looking hard enough, but I have yet to find my own butcher or meat market here in the District. Eastern Market will do in a pinch; but what I really crave is a butcher shop right down the street from me that I can stop by every day on my way home from work, get whatever cuts of meat or entrails catch my fancy and bring it home wrapped in yesterday’s paper.
Tripe is a difficult thing to like, and as Morgan puts it – much easier to like for the idea of liking it. I may have started out that way myself. Now I can honestly say, though, that I do like it. Like other offal, it is a unique and complex flavour; and a particularly feisty one that requires a certain culinary expertise to tame. I did not grow up an adventurous eater, but that has changed somewhat. Some things remain off the list though – I was once served chicken heart in a churrascaria and could not bring myself to physically put it in my mouth. I still do not think that I can today, either.
The last time I had tripe was at that bastion of New York Italian restaurants – Felidia in midtown. It was perhaps a different meal from Morgan's homely €4.50 dinner in the land of port, but I must say that I particularly enjoyed it. Felidia has a classical elegance, yet remains convivial, hospitable and all things heart-warming – much like that rare breed of graceful women with the uncanny ability to make everybody in the room feel at ease. My primo was superlative – a maccheroni chitarra with clams and speck tossed lightly in a spring onion pesto flavoured with borage. I did not know it at the time, but borage is a medicinal herb also known as starflower – with a sweet honey-like taste – and it rounded out the dish perfectly.
Then I had the tripe, a simple trippa alla romana – with tomato and pecarino romano – complemented with polenta. It was homage to the history of tripe: the food of the working classes given its place on the flashy, fickle stage that is haute cuisine. The thing about tripe is that I can never eat too much of it at one go. Tripe has a hearty, almost obnoxious, taste that overwhelms the palate and demands undivided attention. It knocks me over. It wears me out. I was a broken man at the end of that meal – senses overloaded, appetite exhausted – but a contented one regardless.
Of all the offal there is to eat, tripe may be one of the lesser lights. Liver in general is ridiculously good, foie gras unbelievable of course. Bull’s tongue is surprisingly delicious and delicate. And there are some among my immediate circle of friends I would kill just for sweetbread. The list goes on. But that night at Felidia I washed the tripe down with a robust Italian red and, despite wearing me out so, it made me happy and courageous enough to smile at the lovely lady at the adjacent table with the brown hair and the green eyes.
It finally happened. I have had my dose of tripe.
There are two kinds of tripe and two kinds of people. In terms of people there are, as you so cleverly put, Fools for offal and people who wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. I think that I am in the former, not because I like it, but because I like the idea of liking it. There are, of course, some offal all-stars: sweetbreads and foie gras are as close to my heart as my lungs. In terms of tripe there is feathered and honeycomb. I can't tell you exactly where they come from in a pig's intestines but I know that I was eating honeycomb.
North Portugal and Porto particularly are famously known as "Tripe Eaters", ever since they gave all their pork to Henry the Navigator for a voyage in 1415, keeping only tripe for themselves. One realises very quickly in Portugal that the menu options can be pretty limited: grilled or fried salty pieces of meat and fish with potatoes and rice, maybe some salty lettuce. Before long you begin to look at a menu and to say "I haven't heard of that one before." Yesterday it was 'Dobrado com feijão branco" which is to say "doubled with white beans" Turned out to be a spicy stew of pork liver, tripe, hot peppers and beans served over rice (two kinds of offal equals doubled in this crazy country).
Delicious! To crown all, I was in a dive restaurant where you got soup, bread, a plate, dessert, wine and coffee for 4.50 Euros. It don't get much better than that.
- Morgan
This arrived in my mailbox last evening and was warmly welcomed. At that very moment I had other foods on my mind – people were coming over and I was in the midst of grilling a curried pork shoulder – but it nevertheless simultaneously excited me and gave me cause for lament. Granted, I am not looking hard enough, but I have yet to find my own butcher or meat market here in the District. Eastern Market will do in a pinch; but what I really crave is a butcher shop right down the street from me that I can stop by every day on my way home from work, get whatever cuts of meat or entrails catch my fancy and bring it home wrapped in yesterday’s paper.
Tripe is a difficult thing to like, and as Morgan puts it – much easier to like for the idea of liking it. I may have started out that way myself. Now I can honestly say, though, that I do like it. Like other offal, it is a unique and complex flavour; and a particularly feisty one that requires a certain culinary expertise to tame. I did not grow up an adventurous eater, but that has changed somewhat. Some things remain off the list though – I was once served chicken heart in a churrascaria and could not bring myself to physically put it in my mouth. I still do not think that I can today, either.
The last time I had tripe was at that bastion of New York Italian restaurants – Felidia in midtown. It was perhaps a different meal from Morgan's homely €4.50 dinner in the land of port, but I must say that I particularly enjoyed it. Felidia has a classical elegance, yet remains convivial, hospitable and all things heart-warming – much like that rare breed of graceful women with the uncanny ability to make everybody in the room feel at ease. My primo was superlative – a maccheroni chitarra with clams and speck tossed lightly in a spring onion pesto flavoured with borage. I did not know it at the time, but borage is a medicinal herb also known as starflower – with a sweet honey-like taste – and it rounded out the dish perfectly.
Then I had the tripe, a simple trippa alla romana – with tomato and pecarino romano – complemented with polenta. It was homage to the history of tripe: the food of the working classes given its place on the flashy, fickle stage that is haute cuisine. The thing about tripe is that I can never eat too much of it at one go. Tripe has a hearty, almost obnoxious, taste that overwhelms the palate and demands undivided attention. It knocks me over. It wears me out. I was a broken man at the end of that meal – senses overloaded, appetite exhausted – but a contented one regardless.
Of all the offal there is to eat, tripe may be one of the lesser lights. Liver in general is ridiculously good, foie gras unbelievable of course. Bull’s tongue is surprisingly delicious and delicate. And there are some among my immediate circle of friends I would kill just for sweetbread. The list goes on. But that night at Felidia I washed the tripe down with a robust Italian red and, despite wearing me out so, it made me happy and courageous enough to smile at the lovely lady at the adjacent table with the brown hair and the green eyes.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to
It gives my friend Reed a certain perverse pleasure to see her name in print on this page, and since I love and hate her as dearly as I love and hate myself, I afford her that luxury probably more often than is healthy. For truly, the self-indulgence of an internet soapbox does have its perks.
(I am convinced that blogging is a phenomenon that has arisen in equal parts due to our generation’s unshakeable conviction that we each have something that the world should listen to, and a corresponding waning inclination to listen to what others have to say. I mean, I only started this blog because my friends wouldn’t read my emails to them.)
But I digress. What I meant to say was, Reed visited me in the nation’s capital a while back and among the other dining establishments we went to was a brunch place on the U Street Corridor called Crème. I will write about this place some day, but what I like about it is first, that it serves the Velvet Swing – in my opinion the best Sunday morning hair-of-the-dog Champagne cocktail but one that precious few bartenders know how to make – and second, that it serves fried chicken for brunch. On top of waffles. Genius – pure, unadulterated genius.
So anyway that in turn got me thinking about dishes that I would serve or eat at any given time in the day; and the one thing I realised after way too much time and effort spent ruminating is that anytime, anywhere, you can always serve potatoes lyonnaise. What I mean to say is that I don’t think this humble (side)dish gets the credit it deserves. It is easy to make and such a great foil for everything: so comforting in its rustic charm, so understated and yet so, so satisfying. Here is how I make it.
Chez 1734 Potatoes Lyonnaise
(I usually make a potato per person, this serving is for 2)
2 large potatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
crumbled thyme
healthy dash of paprika
dash of cayenne
dash of Old Bay
considered splash of chicken stock
large knob of butter
s/p
Preheat oven to 350F. In an ovenproof skillet, melt half the butter and then add garlic and onions. Season with thyme and cook on medium heat till onions begin to caramelize, about 8-10 minutes. One of the first things I learnt in my culinary education - which I accredit to Morgan and has stayed with me ever since - is how goddamn amazing onions and thyme smell when cooked together. I make it a point to always lean into the skillet, close my eyes, and inhale slowly.
Add potato chunks and the rest of the butter, then salt and pepper the mixture HEAVILY. The greatest crime ever visited on the humble potato is under-salting; the second greatest – Dan Quayle’s gross misspelling of the word itself. Season the potatoes with the paprika, cayenne and Old Bay and sauté until the potato chunks start to turn golden brown on the edges, again about 8-10 minutes. Add the chicken stock, combine, and then move the skillet to the oven. Cook at 350F for 30 minutes or until potatoes are at desired consistency – I personally like them to keep their shape but break apart into a mushy mess at the slight touch of a fork.
The best part? In the 30 minutes that you are waiting for this to cook, you have all the time in the world to make a main dish. I made this for dinner the other night and had it with steak nue, which is what I like to call steak grilled without any adornment, just salted and peppered at the dining table. I wanted to open a bottle of wine but Clayton said he would not drink any and it was the worst news I had heard all day.
(I am convinced that blogging is a phenomenon that has arisen in equal parts due to our generation’s unshakeable conviction that we each have something that the world should listen to, and a corresponding waning inclination to listen to what others have to say. I mean, I only started this blog because my friends wouldn’t read my emails to them.)
But I digress. What I meant to say was, Reed visited me in the nation’s capital a while back and among the other dining establishments we went to was a brunch place on the U Street Corridor called Crème. I will write about this place some day, but what I like about it is first, that it serves the Velvet Swing – in my opinion the best Sunday morning hair-of-the-dog Champagne cocktail but one that precious few bartenders know how to make – and second, that it serves fried chicken for brunch. On top of waffles. Genius – pure, unadulterated genius.
So anyway that in turn got me thinking about dishes that I would serve or eat at any given time in the day; and the one thing I realised after way too much time and effort spent ruminating is that anytime, anywhere, you can always serve potatoes lyonnaise. What I mean to say is that I don’t think this humble (side)dish gets the credit it deserves. It is easy to make and such a great foil for everything: so comforting in its rustic charm, so understated and yet so, so satisfying. Here is how I make it.
Chez 1734 Potatoes Lyonnaise
(I usually make a potato per person, this serving is for 2)
2 large potatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
crumbled thyme
healthy dash of paprika
dash of cayenne
dash of Old Bay
considered splash of chicken stock
large knob of butter
s/p
Preheat oven to 350F. In an ovenproof skillet, melt half the butter and then add garlic and onions. Season with thyme and cook on medium heat till onions begin to caramelize, about 8-10 minutes. One of the first things I learnt in my culinary education - which I accredit to Morgan and has stayed with me ever since - is how goddamn amazing onions and thyme smell when cooked together. I make it a point to always lean into the skillet, close my eyes, and inhale slowly.
Add potato chunks and the rest of the butter, then salt and pepper the mixture HEAVILY. The greatest crime ever visited on the humble potato is under-salting; the second greatest – Dan Quayle’s gross misspelling of the word itself. Season the potatoes with the paprika, cayenne and Old Bay and sauté until the potato chunks start to turn golden brown on the edges, again about 8-10 minutes. Add the chicken stock, combine, and then move the skillet to the oven. Cook at 350F for 30 minutes or until potatoes are at desired consistency – I personally like them to keep their shape but break apart into a mushy mess at the slight touch of a fork.
The best part? In the 30 minutes that you are waiting for this to cook, you have all the time in the world to make a main dish. I made this for dinner the other night and had it with steak nue, which is what I like to call steak grilled without any adornment, just salted and peppered at the dining table. I wanted to open a bottle of wine but Clayton said he would not drink any and it was the worst news I had heard all day.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
It's a friend thing, friends are everywhere
Stella
1525 Washington St
Boston, MA 02118
617-247-7747
Worlds colliding is always a tricky thing, but I keep trying to orchestrate it because it is so hard to meet good people these days that it seems unjust not to try to bring said good people together. And so it was that I had dinner on Saturday night in Boston with Reed and Margaret and Sarah – each a wonderful friend from a different time in my life. Dinner was delightful: if there was any tension at the table I was most certainly oblivious to it – I am after all not the most sensitive of souls, and particularly not when there is good food to be eaten and good (enough) wine to be drunk.
I must confess that I was not initially impressed by Stella – I had a glass of very ordinary Tempranillo at the bar, and am also generally not a huge fan of the white-on-white, South Beach mod look with clean lines and back-lighting and lots of vertical space. Let’s just say that I have never eaten good food off of a Philippe Starck table. But the staff was charming and pleasant, and the bartender as cute as a button. I have somewhat of a thing for bartenders: for at the risk of sounding misogynistic I must ask, what manner of woman could be better than one who brings you alcohol? So I held off judgment on the place, and basked instead in the company of these dear friends from whom I have been separated not by choice but by circumstance.
As a primo I had linguini in an asparagus cream sauce infused with truffle and thyme, served with a poached egg. It was, to the chef’s credit, a very light dish – almost too light, for it left me craving a stronger hint of truffle. (Apparently Reed and Margaret – gourmet convenience cooks that they are – are exponents of the pasta-and-egg combination. I shudder to think what other atrocities have been served in the halls of 17 Pitman. Margaret has never cooked for me, but I have seen a picture of her making pasta – so she can and does cook, that much I know. I liked that picture because both Margaret and the pasta looked extremely delicious.)
But my secondo was fabulous – a spicy cioppino with mussels and shrimp and cod and potatoes, the latter being a very rustic Portuguese touch, I feel. It was almost the perfect consistency, with the various bits of seafood still maintaining their structure and texture – not cooked to death, as is the danger when making stews. To explain, cioppino is a fish stew with Mediterranean influences that apparently originated on the shores of California thanks to Genovese fishermen – much in the style of bouillabaisse, but earthier and cooked for a shorter period of time. Seafood is all so tasty that I can never make up my mind what to eat, and cioppino removes that dilemma altogether. This is also why I am a fan of other stew-type dishes like cassoulet and bouillabaisse and étouffée. I mean, the words themselves make my mouth water.
Reed got a pork Milanese that she took literally two bites of and then had packed to go. It looked mighty fine and had I been able to stuff anything else in my mouth I would certainly have tried to make a go of finishing it for her. I cannot eat like I used to anymore, and it pains me - for the one requisite for any serious gourmand is, of course, a healthy appetite.
So Stella was a nice surprise – a see-and-be-seen place with food that is surprisingly more than decent and prices that are more than reasonable. The various regional dishes do approximate quite admirably the Italian cuisines they are meant to evoke, and our waiter’s endearing earnestness was quite charming indeed. Curiously enough, his name according to the receipt was also Jason H, so we left him a good tip and went off to ply ourselves with more alcohol elsewhere.
1525 Washington St
Boston, MA 02118
617-247-7747
Worlds colliding is always a tricky thing, but I keep trying to orchestrate it because it is so hard to meet good people these days that it seems unjust not to try to bring said good people together. And so it was that I had dinner on Saturday night in Boston with Reed and Margaret and Sarah – each a wonderful friend from a different time in my life. Dinner was delightful: if there was any tension at the table I was most certainly oblivious to it – I am after all not the most sensitive of souls, and particularly not when there is good food to be eaten and good (enough) wine to be drunk.
I must confess that I was not initially impressed by Stella – I had a glass of very ordinary Tempranillo at the bar, and am also generally not a huge fan of the white-on-white, South Beach mod look with clean lines and back-lighting and lots of vertical space. Let’s just say that I have never eaten good food off of a Philippe Starck table. But the staff was charming and pleasant, and the bartender as cute as a button. I have somewhat of a thing for bartenders: for at the risk of sounding misogynistic I must ask, what manner of woman could be better than one who brings you alcohol? So I held off judgment on the place, and basked instead in the company of these dear friends from whom I have been separated not by choice but by circumstance.
As a primo I had linguini in an asparagus cream sauce infused with truffle and thyme, served with a poached egg. It was, to the chef’s credit, a very light dish – almost too light, for it left me craving a stronger hint of truffle. (Apparently Reed and Margaret – gourmet convenience cooks that they are – are exponents of the pasta-and-egg combination. I shudder to think what other atrocities have been served in the halls of 17 Pitman. Margaret has never cooked for me, but I have seen a picture of her making pasta – so she can and does cook, that much I know. I liked that picture because both Margaret and the pasta looked extremely delicious.)
But my secondo was fabulous – a spicy cioppino with mussels and shrimp and cod and potatoes, the latter being a very rustic Portuguese touch, I feel. It was almost the perfect consistency, with the various bits of seafood still maintaining their structure and texture – not cooked to death, as is the danger when making stews. To explain, cioppino is a fish stew with Mediterranean influences that apparently originated on the shores of California thanks to Genovese fishermen – much in the style of bouillabaisse, but earthier and cooked for a shorter period of time. Seafood is all so tasty that I can never make up my mind what to eat, and cioppino removes that dilemma altogether. This is also why I am a fan of other stew-type dishes like cassoulet and bouillabaisse and étouffée. I mean, the words themselves make my mouth water.
Reed got a pork Milanese that she took literally two bites of and then had packed to go. It looked mighty fine and had I been able to stuff anything else in my mouth I would certainly have tried to make a go of finishing it for her. I cannot eat like I used to anymore, and it pains me - for the one requisite for any serious gourmand is, of course, a healthy appetite.
So Stella was a nice surprise – a see-and-be-seen place with food that is surprisingly more than decent and prices that are more than reasonable. The various regional dishes do approximate quite admirably the Italian cuisines they are meant to evoke, and our waiter’s endearing earnestness was quite charming indeed. Curiously enough, his name according to the receipt was also Jason H, so we left him a good tip and went off to ply ourselves with more alcohol elsewhere.
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