What-I've-Got Seafood

The other night I came home, out of the bitter cold and falling snow, and (predictably) wanted dinner. Since it was so cold and nasty out, I did not want to go to the store to buy ingredients, and so I just started looking through my cookbook collection for ideas. One jumped out at me: crab cakes.

Being a good almost-Bay-Area kid, I love me some crab cakes. The problem, of course was that the only listed ingredients I actually had in my kitchen were oil and green onions. So, as per my usual M.O., I decided to improvise. What follows is my version:

1 can white albacore tuna, drained.
1 habanero pepper, chopped.
3 green onions, chopped.
Garlic salt.
Fresh ground pepper.
1 tbsp mayo.
2 tbsp grapefruit juice.
Half cup of walnuts, powdered in your food processor.

Shape into ball. Sautee in oil until brown, bake on a greased pan at 450 for 7 min on each side. Garnish with Old Bay Seasoning.

I recommend that you use 2 eggs instead of the mayo, as that will 'glue' the cake together better. For those who keep such things around, a sprinkle of breadcrumbs would help too.

Super Ginger Miso Broth (with noodles)

Miso is one of Japan's oldest traditional ingredients and was made as early as the 12th century. Today it is produced by combining boiled and crushed soybeans with a culture comprised of wheat and rice, barley, or other beans. The fermented mixture is allowed to mature for up to three years. (See instructions for making it here.)

The three grades available are shiro-miso (white, light in flavor, made with rice), aka-miso (red, medium-flavored, made with barley), and kuro-miso (black, strong flavor, made with more soybeans). The recipe below uses red aka-miso.

• Bring water to boil, add soba (sesame) or other kind of noodles. (I don't know how much; I don't measure things unless I have to.) Cook for appropriate amount of time. Turn off heat, drain, toss in a bowl with a little sesame oil, set aside.


• Bring 3c water to boil.


• Grate at least 1 Tbsp ginger, more if desired. Add to water.


• Add a splash of tamari soy sauce. Reduce the heat as low as possible, so that the mixture is not boiling.


• Add maybe 2-3 Tbsp miso paste, then stir occasionally until dissolved. Once the miso has been added, the mixture should not be allowed to reach a boil, as this destroys some of the nutritional properties* and subtlety of flavor. Cook on low heat until the miso paste has dissolved.


• Add a piece or two of kombu (sea vegetable) or some medium-cut strips of nori. Add earlier if using kombu, otherwise toss the nori in at the very end.


• Pour over sesame noodles and serve.

Ceiba: Proper Propaganda

Believe it or not, this actually isn’t a propaganda website for Ceiba, DC Coast, and Tenh Pen. Now that I’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, allow me to say that last night’s dinner at Ceiba was one of the best I’ve had in DC, and maybe one of the best on the whole US east coast. No, really.

zaf had requested Ceiba for her birthday on Sat (happy birthday you old squirrel!) and it remains as pretty and colorful as ever, the perfect setting to watch the snow drift down outside while savoring something spicy. Our lovely and unbelievably patient waitress Roberta proceeded to bring us the following:

• Cerviches Sampler - Raw shrimp in a tomato cilantro sauce, raw striped bass with sweet potato and chilies, raw yellowfin tuna in what seemed a coconut curry sauce, and raw grouper with lime and cashews. Bloody amazing.

• Conch Ceviche with a sweet shrimp salsa - This was a special, but get it if they have it.

• Steamed Blue Hill Bay Mussels – Bloody hell. This was a pepper and tomato sauce with onions in a large clay pot. It’s the kind of food where you stop every few minutes to cry desperately for water, try to breath through the heat, mop your streaming eyes, and then dive back in for another freakishly deliciously juicy muscle. Repeat as necessary.

• Spiny Rock Lobster – Alright, I thought I was full before this. I was wrong. Impossibly sweet and ocean-y tasting with a citrus salsa. I may never brush my teeth again. (yes you will. –amg)

• Warm Cinnimon dusted Churros – This is honestly the liquid I based my hot chocolate recipe on. Mine is good, but theirs is better. With crunchy dough to dunk. They win.

Our wine was a Verdejo, from Rueda, Spain - not what I would have chosen- which is good ‘cause I know nothing about wine- but exactly perfect for the food. It’s rare to have a meal where you can honestly say that nothing was even close to average. Well, the bell curve just got bigger. I’m still purring in culinary afterglow the next day.

Red Bean

Rumors are that the Red Bean, the Mt. Pleasant restaurant profiled in the Washington Post's Sunday Magazine, will close after tonight. Phone calls yielded no solid answers. I never ate at the restaurant, but followed the 'Adventures of Frank' every Sunday in the Post. Based on the articles, the restaurant struggled from the start with constant financial hurdles to get over. However, the opinions of the Cajun and Creole cuisine seemed positive.

Let us know if you have the low down on the Red Bean's fate.

Does Not Rhyme With Stone

Been outside recently? By choice?
It's nasty out there. Can't get off work, can't ski, and the snowballs won't pack. These are the days when you drag the stereo into the kitchen, close the door, and heat the oven.

Scones
It's pronounced Skahn, no O. Rhymes with nothing I know of. Overheard at the family reunion:

"Aye...you *can* call it a skown...but only if you're poncey. Or English."
"How can that be?" you say, "When I was in England everyone called it a Skown!" (1)

Yes, they did. But scones aren't English. You're thinking of crumpets.

Dry:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp white sugar
2 tsp brown sugar
--1/3 cup walnuts, chopped finely (optional)
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup butter (cold)

Wet:
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk or cream

Topping (2)
2 tablespoons butter (melted)
2 tablespoons molasses [or treacle, better yet, Lyle's Golden Syrup- ejg]

Directions:

• Preheat oven.
  
• In a bowl, combine flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and walnuts.
  
• Cut in the butter until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. (3)
  
• Put the eggs and milk into the flour bowl, and stir until it's just mixed.
  
• Pat it into an 8 inch round on a floured surface (between 0.5" and 1" high).

• Brush or dribble the topping onto the dough circle.
  
• Cut the round into eight wedges.
  
• Separate the wedges and place them onto a greased cookiesheet. (5)
  
• Let the little wedges rest on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes.
  
• Bake at 450 degrees(6) for 13-17 minutes, or until golden brown. 7)

Store them in a paper bag on the counter. If they get dry just toast 'em. I like to layer the bottom of the dough with raisins before I press it into a round.. When you press it out on the counter the raisins stick into the bottom and cook into the scones.(8)
---------------------------------------------------
(1) In hindsight this could have been directed at Z. It's not.

***If you're having trouble with your piecrust (also an un-yeasted bread type thingy) try rolling it out on a cold surface. The butter will flatten into sheets without melting into the dough. In the dripping height of summer in DC I have resorted to freezing the rolling pin and setting icepacks on the counter until it's chilled.

Washington, D.C.'s Best Restaurants?

AOL's CityGuide has posted their 2005 all around "Best Restaurants", broken down by category. It's worth a quick read, especially as they encompass the whole D.C. metropolitan area, and I found a number of restaurants listed that I'd never heard about.

However, I've got to comment on a couple of the findings, including:

• Best All-Around Restaurant: Lebanese Taverna - Now, I'm a huge fan of Lebanese Taverna; the food is some of the best in the city. But the restaurant came in as the best "overall" restaurant, beating out restaurants that have ambrosia-quality food, such as Citronelle and Galileo. The category itself is probably to blame, however, as it doesn't account for price range.
  
• Best Breakfast: Bob and Edith's Diner - I haven't eaten here, but I've heard it's amazing, so no arguments. However, The Original Pancake House on Rockville Pike came in #2, and their breakfasts are mediocre at best. And they certainly don't come even close to the breakfasts at the Broadway Diner.
  
• Best Chinese: Meiwah - Oh, come on. Meiwah is fine, but it isn't Chinese for your true Chinese-food lover. Even the ever-venerable Full Kee ranked only 6th, and Gaithersburg's banquet-hall-sized Dim Sum house New Fortune came in 8th. The amazing Chinatown Express didn't get a mention, nor did Rockville's fantastic Joe's Noodle House. Clearly, these people don't know good Chinese.
  
• Best Takeout: Five Guys - Alright, they got this one right. Best fast-food burgers in a 100 mile radius, no questions asked. Although I'm less sure it should rank first for Best Burger all around. It's hard to compare a fast food burger with a juicy, slow cooked restaurant burger.
  

Let us know what you think in the comments section. If you've got other suggestions that AOL CityGuide missed, let us know - we're always looking for new places to try!

(Link via AOL's Notebook: Washington, D.C.)

The MSG witch hunt

As many fads do, the Anti-MSG paranoia that has swept the USA in the past probably confuses the outside world. An American population permanently on the look-out for 'the next cool thing to fear' apparently missed the fact that the entire population of China does not go around clutching their heads in pain. After all, MSG (literally, boiled sea kelp) had been a staple of the Chinese diet for thousands of year, you figure they would have noticed by now.

No, the entire hoopla can be linked back to a single letter to the editor to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968, written by a man commenting that he sometimes felt strange after eating Chinese food. No research, no testing, the concept of MSG being bad for you is based on the equivalent of one one guy's preference for Thai.

Of course, just after an alien movie comes out, UFO sightings go up. It was only a matter of time before reports of "strange MSG-related phenomenon" started coming in and "caring" Chinese restaurants were forced to put out the "no MSG signs".

i assume most of this has died down by now- recent tests show that MSG is no more harmful than a similar amount of sugar, salt, or a piece of bread- any effects people might perceive are usually caused by the standard sugar rush when eating heavily on an empty stomach.

Incidentally, a food with much more MSG in it than Chinese that somehow managed to evade the witch-hunt? Cheddar Cheese.

No, I'm not going to footnote sources, this is a blog, dammit, not an academic paper. I just got out of a 3 hour meeting about department policy and currently hate the world.

Stuffed Pepper Subterfuge

Remember when you were younger and your parents used to trick you into eating food you didn’t like? You know the drill – telling you food was something it wasn’t, hiding peas in just about anything. I recall my parents conning me into giving lobster a try by convincing young Missy it was actually “lobster chicken.” Their trickery, however, backfired when I instantly became a shellfish addict, eager to forsake the nice, affordable kids’ menu for snow crab and shrimp at the age of about five…

I’m not above using culinary deception on myself. As a silly, naïve teenager, I went through an anti-green pepper phase. I loved the filling of stuffed peppers, but always left the vegetable shell on my plate. To remedy this, I decided to try baking the dish like a casserole, chopping up the peppers into little pieces and throwing them in the mix. Somehow, the tiny, diced pieces of green were easier to take than the monstrous whole pepper. A new dish was born: Inside-Out Stuffed Peppers.

Nowadays, I’ve grown to love green peppers, but I still prefer the dish prepared in my wacky way. An older and wiser cook, I’ve also lightened the recipe to use ground turkey instead of ground beef, and brown rice instead of white (either way tastes great). I’ve tried the recipe with red peppers instead of green, to appease a friend whose dislike of green peppers pervades no matter how tiny the pieces—the result is sweeter, but still tasty. Here’s my recipe for Inside-Out Stuffed Peppers.

½ red onion, minced
1 cup mushrooms, chopped
2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 can tomato sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 package ground turkey
2 large green peppers, diced
2 cups cooked brown rice
olive oil.
Salt, pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375.

Heat skillet. Sautee onion and garlic together until onion is tender. Add ground turkey (seasoned with salt and pepper) and mushrooms to the pan, and cook until ground meat is browned. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer.

Dump contents of skillet into large casserole dish. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Serve in bowls with garlic bread on the side.

Splenda, the soap opera continues

As if the huge Splenda shortages this season weren’t enough, apparently a few weeks ago a group called on the FTC to investigate into Splenda's advertising campaign. You know, the one where they claim that Splenda is just a calorie-less form of sugar. So apparently it’s not.

Nope, apparently, ‘Splenda is a chemically created product that uses chemicals such as chlorine and phosgene, a poisonous gas’ and even their own scientists have admitted that ‘any link between Splenda and sugar is impossible to prove.’

So maybe that shortage isn’t such bad news after all. On the other hand, if you wish to take this claim with a grain of…salt, keep in mind the identity of the complain-er: Splenda* rival, Equal.**

* Which has been found to cause damage to thymus glands, liver and kidneys, lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus, reduced growth rate, decreased red blood cell count, aborted pregnancies, and diarrhea

** Which has been found to cause Epileptic seizures, migraines and headaches, depression, brain tumors, and autoimmune diseases

Food sick

Goddamn, is zaf sick. She's rolling around on the mattress muttering about butterflies and the Department of Labor. The only thing that could cause such behavior would have to be that most dire combination of maladies, the flu a cold, and food poisoning.

So what do you give to the invalid to whom everything tastes like vaguely salty hair, but without the excitement?

• Garlic – Reduces cold congestion

• Horseradish - likewise

• Ginger and Scallions - If you're into new-aged stuff, apparently this will help with 'wind-cold invasions'

• Raspberries and blueberries – I'm not sure why but apparently this helps

• Citrus Fruits – Popular for boosting your immune system, especially if you smoke

• Decaf tea - Just drinking tea is not enough. Stick those fluids back inside you with decaf.

• Decaf tea with honey and some apple cider vinegar – Stick fluids back in and incidentally cure your cough problems

• Chicken soup – Because I said so

Hey, butterflies! Wooooo.

Baltimore is for Italians

On the east coast there is the joke, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change. In Baltimore, if you don't like the neighborhood, go five blocks and it will change. And as with all good urban villages, each village has its distinctive restaurants. There is Greek-town with its Greek restaurants, Inner Harbor with its tourist meccas like the Cheesecake Factory, ESPN Zone, and the Hard Rock Café, and Little Italy, with its plethora of Italian cafes.

Little Italy is crammed between Inner Harbor and Fells Point, near the waterfront. It is about 8 square blocks chocked-full of Italian restaurants and, presumable, Italians. I have eaten at most of the restaurants of Little Italy in my quest for satisfying food, and have met with many nights of disappointment at the soggy calamari, and the over-priced menus. However, two beacons of hope still shine.

The first is Amicci's, located at 231 South High Street. This is not only one of the cheapest Italian restaurants in the area, but also, in my mind, the best. The food is generally filling (plan on taking some home with you) and hearty, but still light and enjoyable. The tomato and mottzerella appetizer features rich, delicious mozzarella cheese, the calamari (plan on sharing this with someone as it is huge) comes light, crisp, with minimal breading and an excellent marina sauce. Main courses of note include the eggplant Parmesan, made with silky eggplant, crusty breading and lots of cheese, the pasta amicci, pasta with peppers, mushroom, Italian sausage, and other interesting bits, and the gnocchi, which is light and airy in a pleasant pesto or cheesy marinara sauce. Be prepared however, to wait a bit for a table.

However, Amicci's does not serve dessert. So, if you are still mobile, go one block over to Vaccaro's. Some of you may know Vaccaro's from its outpost in Union Station; however, the one in Little Italy is the original. The menu consists purely of dessert beverages including various types of coffee and liquors, and Italian desserts; everything from cannolis to gelato, granita, tiramisu, sfogliatelli, etc. The servings are generally large, the quality is excellent, and the wait is long. Specific items of interest include the granites, which are fat-free, the wide variety of gelato, and the colloseos, which are enormous sundaes on a Belgian waffle. Additionally, on Monday nights, you can order an all-you-can-eat option. Should you try this, come very hungry, as the servings are enormous and you cannot order the next dish until you have eaten at least half of current one (note: you can order half-dishes for some of the larger items). At the front of the restaurant is also a take-away counter. For more information about Vaccaro's visit http://www.vaccarospastry.com

Corporate never tasted so good

It's a surreal twist of fate that has placed the best chocolate chip cookies in Dupont, not at Teaism with it's Cakelove-created baked goods, and not at Marvelous Market or Firehook Bakery, lovely tho their other products are. The best chocolate chip cookies in Dupont are at Joe Muggs café in Books a Million.

No, this isn't an elaborately sarcastic joke about corporate something or other. Joe's coffee is average and the other beverages are saccharine and undrinkable. But how could you expect such devoted cookie experts to know anything of liquids? The Blue Ribbon Cookies are, according to their website, 'handmade, handcut, and contain no preservatives'.

More a ball of chocolate held together by cookie cement, these things are as big as your fist. You will never again settle for the pancake-flat offerings of Soho or Starbucks. Or at least, I wont.

The many uses of Pepper

Pepper is a wonderful spice, single- handedly causing bloody trade wars in the Middle East, and allowing Europeans to eat taste-disguised rotted meat in the middle ages. Carrying on that great tradition A whole bunch of protestors at yesterdays inauguration got themselves pepper sprayed on Pennsylvania Ave . We hope everyone's alright.

Picture from NYTimes.com. I know, I know, if pepper spray actually has any pepper in it it's probably the other kind of pepper. Forgive, its hard to come up with a pun in a hurry.

What to do with a metro shutdown

While dandruff is just fine for making Maple Syrup Candy, I prefer snow. Making candy is easier than shoveling, and you have to get rid of it somehow (the snow, not the dandruff, for which shoveling should only be used for the most extreme cases). When you're snowed in this weekend thanks to weather-induced metro shutdowns, you can crunch away on this stuff comfortable in the knowledge that you're doing your part to keep the walkway clear.

• Fill a large flat tray with well packed snow

• Pour about two cups of maple syrup into a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly

• Test if it's hot enough by pouring a dollop on the snow. It should stay on the surface, hardening into a pretty amber squiggle. If it sinks into the snow you have a snow cone. Tasty, but it won't get you out of shoveling.

• When the syrup starts staying on the snow's surface when you apply it, pour the rest out in long thin strips. As soon as it cools, remove and dry the pieces.
  

Searchability

I'd like to take a moment for the really odd strings that readers enter into search engines to get here. Just from this last day or two, a couple of my favorites:

• Is soho a train
  
• Fire Marshall Bill
  
• babies cooked in china
  
• girls in white shirts
  
• “Chicken and Dumplings” and “Wine Pairing” (This person was from Arkansas, no surprise there)
  
• what route did the dutch take to Wisconsin
  
• german stroller
  
• creamy pie girls
  
• pricing on 3 legged canes
  
• cash cubes
  
• black sheep restaurant job
  
• What is the size and shape of Uruguay ?

And my favorite, we are the 182nd result for the word “panties” on MSN search. Keep on searching, folks.

Stalking Alton, Part 2: Baltimore-bound

Well, I finally got to meet "Good Eats" host Alton Brown, and boy, did I make an impression on him! The man finds me…irresistible? No. Unsanitary.

Let me back up a bit.

After last night’s 1100-person debacle in Virginia, my friend and I decided to get there at 5, and were handed numbers along with the 20 other individuals lacking enough of a social life to show up that early for a book signing.

We were joined by five other friends and fellow fans. After we chatted, watched “West Wing” episodes via laptop and were stalked by members of an Alton Brown fan club (how comforting to know there are those taking the obsession to an even geekier level), 7:30 finally arrived. After mocking the B&N’s less-than-stellar sound system, Alton opened with a correction, warning us that his new book, “I’m Just Here For More Food,” has a mistake printed in it. He instructed us to open to a page and find the one ingredient that didn’t belong.

“Is it flour?” he asked. “Is it yeast? Or is it …aspirin?”

Yes, apparently someone in the printing process took some liberties and ended up substituting “aspirin” for the ingredient “children’s chewable Vitamin C tablet” (creates a better acidic environment for the yeast), a substitution AB found rather ironic.

“I myself am deathly allergic to aspirin,” he said. “So I now have a book that contains a recipe that would KILL me if I ate it.”

Fans at the Baltimore signing (employees said the crowd numbered "a couple hundred" but didn't have an exact figure) learned that Alton creates all his wacky inventions, such as a smoker locker, himself (“I like using my brain better than I like using just about anything"); that the show is NOT taped in his own home (it has been taped in two different houses, and now films on a soundstage replica of one of them); and that he occasionally consults Georgia Tech physicians when he has science questions.

(As a side note, those of us hardcore followers who’d attended both signings ALSO learned the man isn’t above repeating jokes, as the term “beanie weenies” was thrown around again, and the man seems fixated on Morimoto’s predilection for kelp.)

When asked if he will ever compete on Iron Chef America himself, he quickly went from bravado (“Those sissies are so scared of me!”) to humility (“I would get my clock cleaned”). We found out a few things we won’t ever see on “Good Eats” as well; he wishes he could do an episode on sweetbreads, but the show calls a sampling of regional stores for availability before an item can be included in a recipe. And cooking game on TV apparently is off limits.

“Nobody wants to kill Bambi,” he said. “I don’t want to kill Bambi either. I just want to smoke it.”

Finally it was our turn to meet Alton in person. I asked him about his favorite DC and MD restaurants (he claims he never has time to sample the local cuisine when he’s on tour), and proper technique when using a Santoku knife (it’s not a rocking motion, like a chef’s knife, for those who are curious). He was happy to answer my questions, but when I handed him my salt container for an autograph, he decided to sign inside its lid rather than on its base. And, well, apparently I could have done a little better job washing my salt container before bringing it to Alton.

“Not too into being sanitary, are we?” he said (or something along those lines; remember, I was a little starstruck). I responded (probably with something unintelligible), and Alton proceeded to mock me for a good few minutes for my less-than-anal ways. And then, he did the unthinkable. He licked the inside of the container’s lid. And TRIED TO ANALYZE what I’d eaten last.

“Hmm….pork chops, I think,” he said. The eerie thing? Pork chops WERE what I’d cooked the night before. I’m praying the man’s psychic (or a lucky guesser), and that I really DIDN’T have any sort of pork chop residue on my salt container. I’m already damaging my credibility as a food writer by telling you this story in the first place!

But hey. Alton Brown licked my salt container. Talk about a motivation for never washing it again!

How to Tofu

Oh no! Not tofu! Everyone's favorite food to hate no matter how many times we're told it's healthy. Just think of it as an edible sponge that soaks up flavors - well…maybe not, how about as a cheese made out of soymilk instead of cow's milk? That any better? OK. Guess not.

The problem is that packaged grocery store tofu, whether silken (soft) or firm, is just bad. Bland, and usually grainy. The solution: fresh (NOT packaged) tofu from your Asian grocery story. Whole different food - custard-y textured and delicious.

It's usually found in a vat covered with water and you fish out how many blocks you want. At home cover with fresh water changing it every day or two and use it soon, it doesn't keep too well. If it smells sour - toss it. Right before using it I pour a kettle of boiling water over it just to wash it - it's not absolutely necessary but it was sitting in an open vat in the store and I like to briefly sterilize its surface. But it is so much better than the pre-package kind that this extra step is worth it.

I often make this Traditional Chinese favorite (click on extended entry)

-MHF, guest blogger

Ma-Po Tofu

3 large blocks of fresh tofu from an Asian grocery cut into 1 or 1/2" cubes as you like (I go bigger)
1/4 lb ground pork or turkey (you can use 1/2 lb if you like more meat)
1 TB each: chopped ginger, garlic
1-2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ground Szechwan peppercorns
3 fresh scallions
Sauce:
1 TB shaoxing wine or dry sherry
1 1/2 TB light soy sauce
1 TB ground bean sauce (the Koon Chun brand - the best- just calls it bean sauce)
1 TB hoisin sauce (same sauce as Asian Eggplant entry, Jan 7)
1 tsp chili garlic sauce (same sauce as I used in the Asian eggplant entry, Jan 7)
1 TB Chinese fermented black beans, rinsed and lightly mashed with a fork

1. Sauté ginger and garlic very briefly with a tsp or 2 of oil, add the ground pork, stir fry until cooked. Add the sauce and about 1 cup water, allow to come to a boil.

2. Reduce heat. Gently add the tofu and heat through. As you stir, the tofu will break up a bit which is fine with me.

3. Mix 1-2 tsp of cornstarch with equal amount of water, add to sauce to thicken - can use 1 TB if you like it thicker. I always add ground Szechwan peppercorns about 1/2 tsp here. You usually find them whole and have to pulverize them yourself. I think it makes the dish.

4. Slice fresh scallions into thin diagonals. Add the white, cook 1 minute more, put tofu into a plate, and strew the green part over. Serve. Sometimes I sprinkle a bit of cilantro over too if I have it.

Yeah, the sauce is a bit of a hassle to prepare if you're in a rush, so I often make it up in quadruple the recipe and keep it in the fridge and then use it as I want. Meal in a minute.

-MHF, guest blogger

Stalking Alton, Part One: The Trek To Tyson's

Each of the Food Network hosts attracts a certain type of fan. There are the housewives who think Tyler Florence is hot, the couples who find Emeril's "Bam!"s and "Another Notch!"es zany and enthusiastic rather than phoned-in and phony. And there are those who can manage to get past Rachel Ray's saccharine and excessive use of the term "E.V.O.O." to enjoy her quick-and-easy recipes.

"Good Eats" host Alton Brown doesn't attract fans. He attracts disciples.

You know the type: they tape his episodes and have the remote control at the ready as they prepare their turkey on Thanksgiving, ready to pause as Alton guides them on temperature, amount of time and amount of thyme. They ONLY use kosher salt when cooking, and proudly display theirs in an Alton-inspired vessel. When their kid is suffering from a fever, their digital meat probe's probably more at the ready than a normal thermometer.

Those disciples—1100 of them, in fact, according to one employee—were out in droves Tuesday evening, as Alton appeared at the Border's at Tyson's Corner in Vienna to promote his new book, "I'm Just Here For More Food." And I was one of them.

By the time my friend and I fought traffic and arrived at the store, the place was mobbed with those eager to worship at the altar of Alton. Fans clutched books, aprons and, in my case, that ubiquitous kosher salt container, hoping for an autograph. So many people were there, in fact, that we came in at number 600 or so, and were given the devastating news: we wouldn't hear the Good-Eats-guru speak (numbers were past the fire-hazard mark) and couldn't be guaranteed a chance to get our merchandise signed, either. Discouraged, we were about to head home when our fortunes changed. Thanks to a little stealth (and a lot of luck), we managed to use a well-timed trip to the upstairs restroom to disappear into the crowd of Good-Eats-groupies.

Wary of zealous Borders employees, we did our best to blend in quickly with the mob of fans. It wasn't hard - it was a diverse group. There was the family of four, all devoted fans, with a young son who'd dedicated his elementary school science project to the Three Chips For Sister Marsha episode. There were teenagers perched on top of Borders' wooden shelves, hoping to get a better glance at AB (my 6-foot+ friend took that route as well, lost his balance and managed to take a shelf and a large stack of books on tape down with him in the process).

All of us smushed together to hang on Alton's every word, and he didn't disappoint. He shared with us pearls of wisdom ("I never knew anybody who got anywhere great by playing it safe"), and told us of the pride he's earned teaching basic science to fans old and young. He promised that he hadn't let fame go to his head ("Seeing this crowd, that ends tonight!" he amended. "No more being humble; I'm the man!").

Curious fans learned his favorite meat (lamb), his dream Iron-Chef matchup ("Ronald MacDonald and Julia Child's corpse - no, that'd be the secret ingredient!" he proclaimed, drawing groans) and his motorcycle brand of choice (he's a self-proclaimed "BMW man.").

Alton talked about his new "sweet gig" hosting Iron Chef America, and the challenge he's found in cramming as much food knowledge as possible into his head to prepare for an episode. He dreads learning the Japanese pronunciations and obscure facts that come into play when chefs like Morimoto take the stage ("I'm on a show where I devote an entire episode to making meatloaf, and here comes Morimoto with his 15 cartons of kelp"). His goal is to match illustrious chefs with less-than-illustrious ingredients - like vienna sausages ("These guys think it's pocket-full-of-truffles. They're gonna have to get down and dirty with the Beenie Weenies!"). And he shared with us his latest project - a two-hour Food Network special where he'll ride (on motorcyle, of course) from Chicago to LA on Route 66 in search of authentic American road food.

Alton was ready and willing to chat with fans, answer questions afterwards and sign anything except "furbid quadrupeds" (apparently the man had a bad experience with a gerbil at a signing...). Unfortunately, my friend and I didn't get a chance to chat with Alton personally. On the bright side, this means when we follow him to Charm City tomorrow, he won't recognize us for the stalkers that we are.

Catch Alton tonight at the B&N in Baltimore, 8123 Honeygo Blvd, at 7:30 p.m.

Jandara. Kittens.

The worst thing that can happen to your body, barring bus collisions, falling off a cliff, or using any product from the Body Shop, is to live next to a Chipotle. But right up there at # 2 is knowing that Jandara of Woodly Park is on your way home from work every day.

I am not even gonna try to be unbiased here. In a city of mediocre Thai restaurants, Jandara is tasty and fast. In an area of touristy, food, Jandara is cheap and incidentally very pretty. One evening you look up after picking your plate clean to discover that these factors have brought you back there every day for a week.

After much research entirely in the name of culinary inquiry, I suggest:

• Chicken with green curry - Actually, get this just for the chili coconut sauce. I’d drink that stuff like water if I could

• Jandara Noodles - Sweet yellow curry on a dry chow fun style noodle. At night this dish will take over your usual dreams of being chased by big hairy tentacle monsters or showing up naked in class.

• Tom Kha Gai – An excellent version of an old favorite. Lemony, coconuty, cheap

You leave Jandara with your tummy purring like a nest of fuzzy kittens all snuggled around each other. Then you promise to come back the next day.

Moorish-ish Salad

On Saturday, I got ventured to fellow Füd’ers Will and Liz's apartment to cook dinner and watch movies. Movies ended up being Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life,” followed by the first part of the BBC’s “Human Body” documentary (an oddly appropriate combination), preceeded by cooking to the Scissor Sisters CD (because they'd never heard it, and it was still in my head from Wednesday).

My dish (I’m sure Liz and Will will share their recipe soon enough) began in one of Jamie Oliver’s books, called a Moorish Crunch salad. Now, I’ve made that before, following the recipe, and never been quite satisfied...this time, I decided to experiment a little bit, which turned into experimenting a lot. And so, without further ado, I present my very own Moorish-ish Salad:

• About 6 oz. baby carrots, sliced into matchstick-sized bits (I do this by cutting them in three, lengthwise, and then again in three, lengthwise).
• About 6 oz. radishes sliced very thin, in semi-circles.
• Three Pink Lady apples, thinly sliced. You don’t have to use Pink Lady, but they are best here in my mind: very crisp, and have enough tartness to hold up but are sweet too – somewhere between Granny Smith (would be too tart) and Mitsu (would be too sweet). For best results, cut the apples last, so they don’t oxidize.
• A good handful of parsley, chopped.
• A couple handfuls of fresh spearmint leaves, roughly torn up. A couple handfuls of raisins (sultanas might be better, but I used raisins).
• Two heavy tablespoons of black sesame seeds.
• 4 tablespoons of good red wine vinegar.
• 6.5 tablespoons of olive oil.
• 1.5 tablespoons of sesame oil.
• 1 portion of dressing (see below)

Mix it all together, let stand 15-20 minutes and then serve.

Dressing!

The Naked Chef’s recipe calls for a tablespoon of tahini here, but I don’t like tahini, and previously found it added nothing to the salad. So, I decided to
improvise, and came up with a dressing, which could also be a dip or sauce or marinade, that is delicious.

One heaping teaspoon of organic all-natural peanut butter (you know, the really gooey runny kind).

½ tablespoon olive oil.

 ½ tablespoon sesame oil.

2 splashes white vinegar.

Two or three shakes black sesame seeds.

Put all this into your mortar, and grind it up into a more-or-less homogenous paste with your pestle. This takes some work, as the seeds are small, but getting a good grind is key. Yum!

Rusted Iron Chef

Here's a recipe for the folks over at the Food network: Take one awesome show. With a fine sieve, extract everything that made it at all fun. Serve with cheese.

I know it’s a small subsection of society that watches Iron Chef on purpose instead of pausing there for a few minutes on your way to the sci-fi channel. But even so, what was up with that? I picture the food network like a used car dealership, a guy out front saying, 'This is just so much fun it could be dangerous!' And then someone takes him seriously: hey man, can't have dangerous fun, better get rid of some of that!

The Chairman:

• Japanese Version: Awesome grinning eccentricy guy in nifty crazy clothes, prone to temper tantrums and freaky shaggy hair.

• American version: A friendly, skinny, shaved-headed acting-college student in a somber suit.

The Iron Chefs

• Japanese Version: Scary, self confident uberchefs who never break a sweat while blithely slapping their opponent up with culinary jujitsu. And wearing silk Kimonos

• American Version: I can only speak for Bobby Flay who continues to disappoint, freaking out over each dish, cursing out his kitchen staff, playing prima donna like a spoiled frat boy. While wearing trucker shirts.

The Judges

• Japanese version: A surreal collection of badly dubbed tabloid psychics, giggling third page girls, guitar-playing folks singers, and other well-qualified individuals who apparently have eaten sometime in their life. Favorite well-informed comment: "Awwwwoooo, I wanted desert!"

• American version: Well informed culinary experts giving commentary on techniques and ingredients being used. Alright, maybe this last one isn’t a negative.

Anyway, overall it takes something pretty special to make me miss the Simpsons, and Iron Chef America wasn't it.

Dragon Stew

It's amazing how many children's stories revolve around food. There was the story of "Stone Soup", where a wandering soldier duped villagers into pitching in a potato here, a carrot there to add to his simple meal of rocks and water. There was Frances the bear, who would only eat bread and jam for dinner, until one day she discovered she actually liked eating veal cutlets along with all the grown-ups. Even Harry Potter has his Butterbeer and Everyflavor Beans.

When I was a kid, my favorite food-friendly fable was "Dragon Stew," a now-out-of-print story my mother read to my sister and me. Years later, it's hard to remember the details of the tale, but I do remember the twist: Dragon Stew was not, in fact, stew made from dragon meat, but rather stew cooked by a dragon chef. My mother would drag my sister and me into the kitchen, convincing us to help with mealtime by letting one of us "be the dragon" for the evening. Her cajoling paid off - now you have to drag me OUT of the kitchen.

Here's the recipe for Dragon Stew, courtesy of my childhood.

Some people like their stew more potato-heavy than the recipe requires. Instead, I top mine with good, old Bisquick-box dumplings. It feels a bit like cheating, but hey, that’s how Mom used to make it. Excuse me. That’s how the dragon used to make it.

1 pkg beef for stew (about 2 lbs)
canola oil
flour
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
1 red potato, cubed
1/2 package portabella or “baby bella” mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 cup frozen peas
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen corn
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp white pepper, or to taste
4 cups beef broth or bouillon
1 cup water
kosher salt
black pepper
Lawry's seasoned salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Season meat with salt and pepper; season flour with Lawry’s. Lightly coat meat with flour. Preheat canola oil in skillet. Brown meat in skillet. Set meat aside.

Deglaze plan with beef broth. In large casserole dish, combine remaining ingredients, seasoning with white pepper to your desired spiciness. Add broth to casserole dish.

Bake in oven for one hour and twenty minutes. If making Bisquick-box dumplings, add to stew after approximately 1 hour (cooking without a lid for 10 minutes, and with a lid for the remaining 10).

Remove bay leaf. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Refrigerator Pancakes

Authentic refrigerator odor is the key to this ill-conceived variation* on the classic breakfast staple.

1. Combine 2 Tbsp sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt with 1 1/2 c unbleached all-purpose flour from the sack that was stored in your freezer and then forgotten for over a year. You don't want to waste all that flour, do you?

2. In a blender, combine 1/4 c water, 1 1/4 c milk or soymilk or whatever, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 2 Tbsp flaxseeds. Blend until smooth.

3. Notice the powerful fridge smell wafting from the dried ingredients in a bowl several feet away. Convince yourself that the fridge odor will "cook off" once the pancakes are fried and then doused in honey and maple syrup.

4. Combine wet mixture with dry ingredients. Fry pancakes in a skillet, then serve hot with your favorite toppings. With every bite, try to ignore the fridge odor, now manifested as overwhelming fridge flavor and assaulting every tastebud in a palatable finger-wagging over your poorly-organized freezer and irregular baking habits.

5. Admit defeat, discard the remaining old flour. Go to the store and buy a fresh supply.

* Alternative version: Use fresh flour. Your pancakes probably will taste good.

BlueState: A potable triumph.

Those of you bouncing around our little gritty city know that for the best in refined entertainment nothing beats an evening of balletic inebriation at one of DC's finest cultural establishments.

Last Saturday (1) was Bluestate at the Black Cat backstage bar. Four hours, four DJs, four dollar rail. (And three-fifty beers but that doesn't square with my quartenary fetish. Get it? "Square" with...).

So break out your church-keys and swizzle sticks--we're going to review the drinks, learn about beer, and maybe learn a little about life (2).

Part 1
or: Righfully ashamed of your heritage.

The choices at the bar (3) were Domestic, Furrin, and Rail.
Now there seems to be some sort of mental block about American beer amongst the mildly educated. It's ok for British beer to taste like watered down weasel piss because "It's Supposed To". It's all right for Irish beer to taste like rotting coffee grounds because "I.S.T.". Similarly, no one notices the German removal of all whimsy from their beer and the Belgian beers crafty substitution of fruit for flavor because (say it with me) "They're Supposed To".

Normal American beer taste likes the alchohol-reduced proceeds of a dialysis session because it's supposed to (4). But please keep in mind that its signature "flavor" developed in an era (5) when people were pretty much blitzed 24/7. They'd have hard cider for breakfast, whiskey at dinner and spend all day in the sun. Picture this: your wagon wheel just snapped again, you're hot, tired, and that 5am eyeopener is starting to turn on you. You may choose one of the following: warm mucousy milk, raw throat-peeling whiskey, cloudy cholera-ridden water, or a cool refreshing barely alcholic, lightly-flavored beer. If you have to think about this you've been insufficiently exposed to the elements. I recommend being duct-taped to the hood of an LA-bound Greyhound in August.

That being said, I'm also not going to defend American beer's flavor. Proctoscopy and root canals have their place but they aren't something to be proud of.

Part 2
or: Yer eether with us or agin' us!

Import beers as commonly stocked are a cruel joke. Instead of taking the opportunity to provide a balanced bar and serve some novel flavors, most bars serve whatever tastes the most like the domestics they already provide (6). It means that you can be guaranteed a Mexican beer with a piece of fruit jammed in the neck to disguise its flavor, an imported lite beer that no one's heard of in the old country, or a German beer that you couldn't give away to a homeless alchoholic in Berlin. If they won't drink 'em back where they came from why would you? It's like dating foreigners; don't drop your standards just because of the cute accent. (7)

Part 3
or: Where am I and who are you?

Rail drinks are the barometer of bartending. Broke? Poor? Just plain beat-down? If you can walk up to your bartender and ask him for a vodka tonic sure in the knowledge that you'll be getting enough off-brand nail polish remover to lift off the top of your head, then you're at the right bar. The Black Cat is a huge winner here. The bartenders are fast, generous, and happy to provide the drink-appropriate fruit accompaniment. My lovely assistant had a turpentine and cranberry that was just slightly pink and my other colleague was given a drain cleaner and tonic that betrayed the presence of tonic only by the barest hint of carbonation. These guys know that when you're ordering rail you don't need the comfort of not-tasting-the-booze.

So three cheers for the Black Cat bartenders, long may their heavy hands slosh paint thinner!
-------------------------------------
(1) Some of us need multiple editorial revisions before we can so much as sign our name. Please bear with the delay.
(2) You won't learn anything about life, I promise.
(3) As far as those of us on an age-appropriate income are concerned, call drinks aren't a viable option.
(4) As opposed to Sam Adams style microbrews which taste like that because they were brewed by guys with a PHD in marketing and no taste buds.
(5) The era when people who dressed like the Amish were called hipsters.
(6) Not to mention that by the time a big shipment of beer makes it across the ocean and is distributed, a disturbing number of the bottles have become skunked.*
(7) Unless it's that breathy Persian accent. You can totally drop your standards for that.
---------------------------

*Would you drink wine that had become corked? Of course not! Spew that mouthful of stale brew right back at them and don't take any of the bartender's "Imports are supposed to taste like that" crap.

DC Füd Invasion: Vidalia

Last night, which appears to have been the last night of this mini-summer here in DC, I joined NM, Kanishka, and Richard for Restaurant Week dinner at Vidalia.

Vidalia is really all about the food; the entry is so unremarkable as to be entirely too easy to overlook, with no menu or even indication of restaurant-ness in the window. Entry is down a flight of stairs into a lovely, pale onion-colored (that *must* be intentional!) basement dining room. Not too dark, but a bit chilly for my taste. We were escorted to our table, in the far back room, with a window to the wine cellar/room. I sat closest to said window, always wanting to be as near to the wine as possible.

Drink orders were immediate. Two Gibsons, mine with Sapphire and Kanishka's with Stoli (a Martini, except with onions instead of olives or a twist. Richard had his from the bar), and a tasting portion of wine. Our server arrived shortly with two Martini glasses and two small shakers, which he shook and poured. He even knew to be more vigorous on the Sapphire than on the Stoli - gin is best well broken. Richard said he'd had better onions, but they were soaked in booze, so I at least didn't mind. We drank and chatted and munched on mostly unremarkable cornbread made divine by addition of luscious apple butter.

Many of the items on the menu had added costs ($4 for appetizers and $6 for entrees, mostly), and after some deliberation, including much discussion of Restaurant Week pricing here and at other places around town, we ordered.

I decided to go for it, and got the cost-extra Grillade with Grits to start. The plate is gorgeous, a rectangle of veal cheek over a clover-shaped mass of yellow grits, covered in a deep crimson sauce and garnished with alfalfa greens. The sauce, a compote mainly of dried tomatoes and onions, is exquisite, with what I think was a hint of chipotle. The grits were perfect, not overly sticky and with just enough, well, grit. The veal cheek was so tender it was almost jelly, but I felt like its flavor was too delicate to withstand the sauce. I would have preferred a gamier cut, but the sauce was so good I don't actually care. I abashedly admit I have no idea what my compatriots had for appetizers - mine was so engrossing. One thing noticed and discussed by all was the extreme curviness and heft of Vidalia's forks. NM and I agreed to be unsure how we felt about these, but in the end, since flatware is generally so boring, I like seeing some variety, and these were unique.

By this point in the meal, I was ready for a wine. The wine list is extensive, and expensive, full of names I don't know, which really surprises, excites and impresses me: it's rare I don't know anything about any of the wines on a list, except by varietals and year. So I picked one that looked interesting, and asked our server.

"Light and pineappley," he said.
"Not with what I'm eating," I replied, and away he went, promising to return full of ideas.

Return he did and I sampled a wine which was suggested by the restaurant's sommelier. It was lovely, so I had a glass. Our meals arrived soon thereafter.

NM had Atlantic Salmon, which she said was "OK," but reminds herself that after visiting Iceland, she ought not to order salmon ever again. Richard ordered the Southern Style Cassoulet, which looked lovely, and he said was great, a nice mix of meats and beans, well sauced. Kanishka had Fluke, a light, flakey fish that he said was again "just OK," and the anduille was not as spicy as he'd have liked, but the dish was really made by its sauce. My chicken and dumplings was really good, rich (but not heavy), and savory cream sauce. Most remarkable though was the wine pairing - while relatively light, it had enough acidity to it to break up the richness of the food, and the flavors, some fruit and mild herb, set off the food beautifully.

Then came dessert. Two of Vidalia's famous Lemon Chess Cakes, and one Pecan thingey, and an assortment of sorbets. The Pecan thing was very yummy, not too rich or molassessey. The Lemon was very good too, although not my thing, so I shan't say more. The sorbets were ... mixed. The red (presumably raspberry) one was nice, tart and smooth; the yellow (not sure what the flavor was) was earthier, sweeter, and lovely; the pale yellow (I think lemon or lime) was basically nothing.

The service was very good: timely and well-timed, gracious, helpful. The trick of restaurant week is that while your meal may be much less expensive than you normally expect at a given restaurant, drinks are not. $11 is, frighteningly, not too steep for a Sapphire in DC, but I have now fulfilled by annual quota of one glass of wine over $10, and it was well worth it!

On the whole, from what I had and heard from others at the DC Füd table, Vidalia is a sauce place and more traditionally Southern dishes do better than other types. That's fine by me, since I am (technically) a Southerner, and do love Southern food. I look forward to going back to Vidalia, especially to try the ribs, shrimp and grits, and catfish.

For those interested (and my own faulty memory), the wine I drank was this one: Argiolas Costamilno, 2003 (Italy).

Vidalia
1990 M Street, NW
Washington DC, 20036

(Editor's Note: You can read Kanishka's review of the meal on his blog, Mainly About Food. -AG)

Iron Roberto

Apparently, Iron Chef America will have Roberto Donna from DC's Galileo on it this season, so sayith the NYtimes and they are never wrong. About anything. ever.

Maranoia

Maranoia – the fear that people will be out to get you if you soak pieces of meat in strongly spiced liquids. Of course, you're only maranoid if it's not true- I myself need a restraining order to keep me away from a good steak properly marinated, as many terrified chefs cowering under tables across the world are aware.

Things to marinate: Flank or strip steak. Cucumbers. Chicken. Pork. Shrimp. Oranges.
Things not to marinate: Light, flaky fish. Your left hand. Potatoes. Fillet mignon. Your friend's left hand.

Here's a recipe for Teriyaki Steak sure to cause extreme maranoia in all participants.

• Trim and lightly score a large flank steak across the grain

• Mix two cups teriyaki sauce, black pepper, two minced garlic cloves, two teaspoons of ginger, two chopped chives, and a dash of cinnamon in a bowl or ziplock bag. Toss in the steak, seal airtight, and let it sit for 24 hours.

• Broil for 5-10 minutes on each side until brown and yummy looking. Lightly coat with sesame oil. Carve at an angle perpendicular to the grain and top with crumbled blue cheese. That's right, blue cheese.

De-Lurking Day(s)

Apparently, last Wednesday was De-Lurking Day -- at least so according to the food-loving DCFoodies.com. Since over here at DCFUD we're always a bit behind schedule, we're declaring today and tomorrow DCFUD de-lurking days.

We know you're out there. We can read server logs. We see you floating in from various government agencies, reputable (and not so reputable) publications, and corporations and non-profit organizations whose acronyms we can't even begin to decipher.

We're not asking you to unmask your identity. But we are flesh and blood and we, too, crave love. So if you've been enjoying DCFUD the last few months, have been hating DCFUD the last few months, or just stumbled upon us today, please leave us a note in the comments. Let us know your favorite restaurant in the D.C. metropolitan area, offer suggestions on spices, or simply say "Hi, DCFUDders!" But please let us know you're out there!

On a related note, DCFUD needs some new writers. We'll probably post more on this in the coming days, but if you like what you've seen here and want to contrinbute, send an email to dcfud.writers@gmail.com with an example or two of writing you've done (nothing formal necessary) and/or some topics you'd like to post on. This is, of course, unpaid. But it gives you a good excuse to eat out and try new recipies. Plus, you can claim you're a blogger within the great Smorgasblog family of bloggers. It's a great way to pickup guys or girls at your local hipster party. Really. I swear.

Choose your nectar (living la vida yerba)

For those who aren't feeling the coffee love or are looking to expand their beverage horizons, there are options. Yerba m