It Was a Very Good Year

It wasn't. Well, it was fine, but it's the song, not the sentiment I want to write about. Frank Sinatra's song, "It Was a Very Good Year," as my mom pointed out years ago, is really quite sad. Frank sings about periods of his life that have passed, decade by decade, that make him reminisce and pine for the memories gone by, while taking some solace in the fact that he still remembers them.

Overdramatically, this is where I am tonight, and much recount food memories of nights past to carry me into the future. My sage city newspaper tells me on its online headline: "Snowfall Continues, May Turn to Ice Overnight." I've been well aware of this fact since I went running this morning and chunks of my hair froze. We've had snow, freezing rain, and unstocked stores all day. I sought to come home early today (I didn't) to graut Mexican tile on my pressed wood Target TV stand, butFedex didn't deliver my tiles anyway and Target didn't have the requisite graut. So, my evening consisted of defeatedly driving home in spitting mini-hails and buying snacks at Target, because I felt compelled to buy something or the 40 minutes of my life I spent going there would be wasted. So I purchased the below:

This is what budding crazy cat ladies buy at Target.

Anyway, getting to it, I want to write retrospectively about two recent dinners, because memories are all I have to console myself with on this dreary night. So, I hearken back to a fine meal I had a few weeks ago with my friend Tammy and her lovely new husband, Bob. New because they are newlyweds, not because she marries as often as I blog. This dinner was one of the best I've had in a while. She proposed the three of us go to Geranio or A La Lucia, and after I mentioned the blog (and that I had already visited and written about Geranio), she kindly said we could go to A La Lucia, though she in fact prefers Geranio. Tammy is a true culinary kindred spirit.

A La Lucia is just up the road but since it was bitterly cold, Tammy and Bob picked me up in the their taxi and we rode 3 minutes until we reached the urbanly isolated restaurant. We had lovely glasses of wine at the bar and I recounted my couch saga (it's been weeks of this), chatted with Tammy about all nature of lovely girl things, and learned a bit of history about the Marines from Bob.

Then, the feast began. Tammy is an extremely able orderer (which is rare), so I was completely at ease and didn't fret as I normally do, considering every item on the menu.

We started with an appetizer: salami with goat cheese and olives. It was beautiful, simple, colorful and tasted fantastic. Plus the bread was good, the olive oil was green, the wine was rich and tasted like Mediterraea, and my dinner companions were both charming and amusing.

Then our dinners came. I have such lovely friends: they all indulge me in my little writing project and this night, let me even take pictures of their food. Here's Bob's penne alla puttanesca, with tomatoes, anchovies, black olives and capers:


Here's Bob eating it:

Tammy ordered seafood ravioli and before either she or I had taken a bite, I had one of her raviolis on my plate, and it was just delicious. Flavorful but not too fishy, and with the chewy but not sticky consistency of freshly-made pasta.


I ordered a fascinating dinner: butternut squash ravioli with amaretti cookies sprinkled on top. It was one of the most inventive Italian dinners I've ever had (who knows, it could be the EasyMac of the pasta world, but I was very impressed).

I know it's not much to look at, but look how happy I was to have it before me. So happy, in fact, my eyes disappeared and the guy behind me tried to raise the roof in empathetic glee.

It was a treat. Then we had dessert. Tammy adeptly ordered well again, getting the cheese plate, with a sweet sundried tomato chutney (?) and toasted bread.

It was delicious and a lovely evening with a charming couple. Much better than my dates with my Blackberry, like last night.

I went to Raw Silk, a North Indian restaurant half a block from my house and that opened two weeks ago. The service was horrible. I ordered a glass of Malbec (I don't really know what it is myself, but I wanted it). The waitress squinted at my menu and said, "red? ok." I asked what kind of lamb dish I should get. She encouraged one because it came with rice; I then noticed they all came with rice. I changed my tack: lamb vindaloo or lamb paneer? She said lamb paneer came with those green things. "Spinach?" I asked, having the luxury of reading that as well on the menu. "Yes," she said. But surprisingly, it didn't matter. The glass of wine was huge, Malbec or not, and my seat was at the front, but tucked away in a corner so I could look out the window and not be bothered.


I ordered lamb vindaloo in the end; it was delicious, really, and the naan was fresh and soft. After I finished dinner, the owner came and talked to me She and her husband both work full-time jobs and run the restaurant, but her in-laws are currently working there during the day. There is no sophistication in the decor or service; I appreciate the charm of run-down hole in the wall ethnic places (my favorite place in college was a 5 dollar Indian buffet run by a woman and her daughter, who wore LA Lights shoes), but it doesn't quite work when you don't know whether you're offering ethnic comfort food or a loungey-type atmosphere for young professionals (which had more an air of a hastily thrown together festiveness, like an After Prom). I'd go back; the food was delicious and the service, though spotty (I had to get up to ask for the check, which is the peak of bad service), was friendly and curious about my perception of the food.

Plus, I felt like it was a neighborhood place in my neighborhood: I saw bristly mustached Irishman walk by (he parallel parked right in front of Raw Silk) and the questionably tranvestite woman from whom I bought Sonia's picture frame for her birthday, who works at a card store chain on King Street. Just another day on my block, or... on the block of my mind's culinary memory?

Weekend Smörgåsbord

Sometimes a weekend is so thoroughly remarkable in its banality, it deserves to be written about, but only with Swedish punctuation (ah, admirable Swedish dots and circles). Unfortunately, Friday was marred by a late evening at work. Dinner was reheated leftovers (pre-frozen in bulk by me) and I think I watched Super Nanny.

Saturday, in its banality, was all business (thanks for making it to the second paragraph after my admission of watching Super Nanny). Serious run in the morning. Pick up photo at Walgreens that they hadn't developed. And argue with Restoration Hardware staff on why it would behoove them to sell me the couch I wanted, while applying the discount the 35 coupons I had bought off of three different vendors on Ebay would give. They didn't.

In addition to Restoration Hardware's employment of customer servants with large deficits of customer service skills, Restoration Hardware's jpegs also have an excessive amount of surrounding white space.

They didn't, so I curse them by hoping they never derive any pleasure from reading anyone's food blog, ever. I was mentally discouraged, so mustered enough courage to enter a restaurant with communal dining, my local fish and chips place, Eamonn's. (PS, I have actually wanted to eat here forever, but vowed never to go alone because eating fried fish alone is the culinary equivalent of entering a brothel, but I ran in the morning, so felt some sort of entitlement.) The helpful order-receiver was a friendly Irishman with a bristly mustache who put me at ease. I ordered a small order of cod and a small order of chips. Thankfully he asked if I wanted chips, because I wasn't sure if ordering chips when I call them fries was the preferred method of ordering (I would have likely stood there for a minute deciding whether to call them chips or fries, so thankfully he made it a yes or no question). I snagged a seat at a mirrored bar and watched myself eat and tried to read the menu on the chalkboard behind me backwards in the mirror.

My lunch was delicious--the chips/fries/salted, thin potato sticks were perfectly crisp. And the fish was so wonderful. When something is remarkably tasty, all I can think to myself is that it tastes like candy. The batter was thick and chewy, but still a bit crispy, and the fish was fresh and juicy and flavorful. I ate it plain some bites, sprinkled a bit of malt vinegar on other bites, and on some bites, dipped it in my curry sauce (see below).

I got a beer because the 35 unused Restoration Hardware coupons in my pocket made me do it. Also, the slightly disgusted voice of the Irishman who told all nature of yuppie Alexandrians and tourists that they were in a "fish and chips place, we sell fish and chips" started to get on my nerves, after I stopped laughing.

Then I went to Tyson's Corner and bought my couch and relieved myself of the albatross-like coupons in my pocket (metaphorical neck; plus, I got my discount).

Sunday was notable food-wise for a few different reasons. First my mom sent me photos of dinner rolls she made. Sundays are days for dinner rolls, even if you only look at digitized versions of them.

My friend Sue and I met up for brunch. However, we pre-brunched at her new apartment and ate a homemade breakfast roll each. She was kind enough to give me some, which I took home and photographed. Poor exploited rolls.

Afterwards, we went to OHOP (Original House of Pancakes), left because it was too busy, and legitimately brunched (or second breakfasted) at Starbucks, each having oatmeal and coffee. It was lovely: we discussed all manner of lovely girl things in big green velour chairs.

Then I had Sunday dinner, because lunch was an unsatisfying mix of a Special K bar/nuts that been uneaten for 2 months/veggie crisps, because I needed sustenance while at work. I photographed, more to chronicle the irony of my dinner than to delight in it:


My dinner included feta cheese, tomato sauce, fresh basil and Kalamata olives, all served with pasta. With a side of bread and butter pickles. The two defrosting containers are my meals for the beginning of the week, the righthand container being spaghetti squash with Mediterranean accoutrements, the lefthand container being some obscene pasta mix from two weeks ago that was frozen and forgotten. My weekend was productive, staid, and mostly adult (I did spend last night putting together pressed wood furniture while watching Miss America), but I can delight in the fact that I got everything done before the second installment of PBS's Wuthering Heights broadcast. And if that doesn't challenge one's banality, I don't know what will.

Anachronistic Cowgirl

My new Blackberry smells like cigarette smoke, because I smoked three cigarettes tonight. I fear I am too sleepy (but admirably dedicated to updating my four loyal readers, right?) to be too coy with my subject line tonight, so I'll cut straight to the chase. My dinner tonight--with good friend and avid reader Andy--at the Cowboy Cafe in Arlington made me realize that dining out can force one to confront both space and time: namely, is it ok to consider myself a modern diner while still enjoying a passe cigarette (or three), and more broadly, is innovation/renovation necessarily improvement? In between puffs of cigarettes over the course of our dinner, my Blackberry would silently clamor for my attention, blinking red anytime I received a phone call, email, text message, or obscure update to my Facebook profile. Electronic distraction simply is not relaxing while smoking a cigarette, the most non-essential food event I really could partake in, and which ultimately is to facilitate relaxation. However, I pine for this new technology at the same time I want to indulge in the dying and maligned practice of smoking.

I value highly the Cowboy Cafe's insistence on still allowing smoking--a dive bar isn't a dive bar without poor ventilation and smoke clouds--but I also have to admit that while it's indulging old-school bar patrons by permitting smoking throughout the restaurant, it's trying to abandon its anachronism, by updating and shedding its historic charm for modernity. The Cowboy Cafe is one of the few bars I've visited in the DC area where an aging frat boy, lonely retiree, deer hunter, aspiring musician, or quirky young professional would all feel at home. However, as Andy and I noted while dining in the renovated "annex" of the Cowboy Cafe, small "improvements"--including new wood floors, brighter lighting, a fake fireplace, and menu items like homemade kielbasa sausage--burnish the repuation of a bar/restaurant that is appealing because its NOT sophisticated and hasn't adapted to the times.

But before I write into the next millennium, what did we eat already? First, I ordered an Abita Restoration Ale. Abita beer, brewed just outside of New Orleans, is the beer that made me like beer. One day, while in New Orleans to watch my proud football team lose another national championship (still bitter), I tried Abita beer and magically liked beer. I remember it fondly, as one nostalgically recalls a first kiss or first car. The Cowboy Cafe has two kinds of Abita beer on tap, and for that, I wish them a fruitful future.

So I had three of those. For dinner, Andy got the Beef Brisket Reuben, which was delicious. Apparently his pickle was also quite tasty, but time passed too fast before I was able to steal a bite.


My dinner was fantastic too. I will even add that this may the first time during my stay in DC I have actively sought out BBQ, and not out of desperation. I ordered BBQ brisket, collard greens, baked beans, and Texas Toast. The brisket was well-flavored (although there wasn't enough BBQ sauce, the meat was fatty, and it was sliced too thick), the beans were tasty (although a bit watery and not nearly sugary enough, but that's my own KC bias), and the Texas Toast could have been called overly-buttered-but-damn-good-toasted-foccacia, because that toast would get laughed out of even Plano. But the collard greens melted in my mouth.

The I ordered dessert, and Andy was kind enought to indulge in helping me. We got Butterfinger bread pudding, and it was pretty amazing. The consistency was most delightful: it had a consistency slightly more solid than marshmellow fluff, and was bready and Butterfingery. Plus, it had the most poofy whipped cream, a succulent strawberry, and drizzled chocolate and caramel sauces: a perfect combination in any century.

Andy, one second after he raised an eyebrow about how surprisingly good the dessert was.

After dessert, we retreated to the main bar, full of smoke clouds, poor lighting, girls with big lower-back tattoos, and tables of men who can smoke cigarettes more consistently than I. We enjoyed really stellar conversation about relationships, the working world, running, smoking (ironic paired together), and creative ventures. Despite the endless effects the ebb and flow of time brings, it's nice to know that good conversation can be constant, regardless of the day's circumstances.

Waving Wheat

In Oklahoma, even the wheat is friendly. It waves and it smells sweet, just like Mr. Hammerstein said it did. So, what better way to commemorate the nexus between food and love (of power? of change? of radically re-nomenclatured policy?) on this 20 January weekend than at the Oklahoma State Society Inaugural Ball.


On Sunday night, my OSU friend and I gussied ourselves up and enjoyed one of the finest (and freest) balls I've ever attended, at the National Museum of the American Indian, a Smithsonian museum on the National Mall. It's a beautiful museum... fountains and sculpture surround the rugged, white clay-colored building on the outside, and the inside opens up to a cavernous atrium. We skipped the exhibits, though, because the food was too good.

I'm a big fan of keeping to one's culinary roots, and the museum didn't disappoint: sweet grits with whole corn kernels; a cold salad with crunchy green beans, sweet potato, and sunflower seeds; barbecued pork; roast beef with mashed potatoes; a shot of a wintery, squashy soup; crab dip; cornbread with jalapeno peppers; and black eyed pea salad were all expertly presented on two buffet tables. My grin should attest to my delight with the spread (and free champagne):


We thought about mingling, but what was the point? I didn't have some high-profile aide position I could brag about (while taking delight in the fact that all I did was give ill-informed Capitol tours to petulant constituents) and I was too interested in the buffet offerings to risk approaching some intriguing be-suited man when I'd probably be intercepted on my path over by some aide who gives ill-informed Capitol tours. So we broke away from the dinner buffet table and hovered around the dessert table:

Sorry for my vanity (with more photos of me than food), but my friend was good enough to bring her camera, so the photos were more traditional than fetish food close-ups. However, for a distant food shot, see below. The plants were our lighthouses, providing us direction and shelter from our hunger. And that's a jazz band.


A plateful of overly sugarly trifle and cheesecake-on-a-stick later, we posed for photos with Oklahoma Governor Brady Henry, who told us to stop by sometime. We said ok. After seeing the governor, there wasn't much else to look forward to, so we rode the elevators. I think I was so excited to have a Cape Cod with clear cranberry juice, I couldn't help but pretend I was a Broadway star. No one can ever say I won't publicly humiliate myself here to recount a food detail.


9:15 struck, the music stopped, and the food was swept to the kitchen before I could figure out how to get something to-go (it's not the size of one's purse, but the intensity of one's desire to risk public approbation to score leftovers that counts). We spent half the walk back to the metro complaining about how horrible our shoes were until we saw this irresistible photo opportunity, fodder for giggle all the way back to L'Enfant Plaza.

Woodchuck and Moby Dick's

My favorite scene in the surprisingly delightful movie, "The Wedding Planner" (yes yes, the one with Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McC....et cetera), shows her sitting alone on her couch eating a simple dinner on a TV tray, meticulously arranging her napkin and fork at 90 degree angles, and watching PBS, when just before one of her clients sighed at how enviable her life must be.

I wanted to record tonight that food memories can be created from the simplest of pleasures, and that I haven't taken up eating foods that should be italicized every night. However, my day could have shaped up to be quite glamorous. If I hadn't taken so long to shower today and if my gas tank hadn't been nearly empty, I might have instead stopped at Starbucks to get a $4 cup of soy milk foam and sugar. If I hadn't had to stay late at work, I could have gone on a possibly intriguing date with a complete stranger at a fancy restaurant (but one that also got panned on this blog). Also, if I hadn't been so busy during work, I might have been able to eat the warmed remnants of my petite filet, creamed spinach and mashed potatoes from last night's dinner at the fine restaurant Ray's the Steaks, at a table with other people.

However, I ate cold leftovers alone at my desk, at 3 pmmsupplemented my lunch with two oatmeal packets, missed my date after work, am currently drinking Woodchuck Draft Cider in bed, and have dirty dishes in the sink. Tonight, I am not writing about the intersection of love and food in the traditional sense. However, I received the loveliest letter tonight from my Yiayia, which included her recipes for Beef Pot Roast, Banana Cream Pie, and Meringue, that my handful of readers may recall as items from an especially delicious meal she cooked for me at her house over Christmas. With my upcoming self-exile this Inauguration weekend, I might even try to replicate that fine dinner for myself. While receiving her letter was a wonderful cap to a mildly uninspiring food day, dinner proved to be predominately pathetic but still delightfully indulgent event. A project kept me at work past dinnertime, so I ran out to Moby Dick's for takeout for myself and colleagues. I ordered Combo III (see left), rice with both lamb and kubideh (Persian kafta, which is ground sirloin with onions and spices). I drowned it in yogurt sauce (essentially tzatsiki), stole my friends grilled tomatoes after eating mine, ate chilly dolmathes (stuffed grape leaves) and enjoyed delicious, freshly-baked bread. We were all waiting for someone else to finish something before we each left, so we were able to take the moment to enjoy a lovely restaurant-style dinner on a table that usually is host to an opened bag of sunflower seeds that's been there for two weeks (that functions as a detachable feed bag for one of my colleagues) and serious work discussions.

Geranio

I'm back with a mini-vengeance to recount my dining experiences, and I must admit, it's very satisfying. Sort of like the majority of my meal this evening. The weather is miserable: rainy and hazy and it fogs up my windows and turns my fingertips white. After work, sitting saturated in my car, I realized I have a unique opportunity few people have: I can do whatever I want, every night. I can eat candy bars for dinner or go bowling or see a movie or buy galoshes or drive to West Virginia. I decided to take myself to a nice dinner at Geranio on King Street, which my friend Tammy recommended for their risotto and because I am renewing my project to dine at every restaurant in my neighborhood. I parked 1.5 blocks from my apartment, but right in front of the restaurant. This seemed like an obviously good idea, because of the rain and my reticence to pull out my umbrella. I entered, despite the candlelight, and realized this is only the second restaurant I've dined at alone with only votives for illumination; the first time was fine (ok, sort of depressing because I had just moved to town and didn't understand how it was possible that a 24 year old could have nothing to do on a Friday night and just stumbled in). This time, the candlelight was also a negligible factor in my enjoyment of the restaurant.

I ordered wine and was served delicious crusty bread with perfect little butter balls and green olive oil (what Yiayia says is best). The waiter was fine (I didn't understand what "lovster" risotto was until he left) and I ordered my salad: three warmed mozzarella balls wrapped in prosciutto, with a sauce of braised tomatoes in the middle, entirely drizzled in balsamic vinegar and basil oil. It was magical. Hearty but not too rich, delicate but not fragile, and very sophisticated until I realized the taste it reminded me of was Applebee's mozzarella sticks. I'm regressing.

During the consumption of I think my second cheese ball, some idiot woman backed into my car while she was parallel parking. This is the problem of watching people park around your car while eating. I went out, cheeks flushed, checked the damage and there was none. I lost a bit of my appetite out of anger that a thoughtless woman picking up some obscenely large gift basket can't use her mirrors. Then, my waiter didn't ask me for a new glass of while. I guess I'm a petulant customer, but I don't feel like I should have to ask for either more bread or more wine at a Mediterranean place, because I certainly don't have to ask for oxygen--another necessity--there either.

I ordered mushroom risotto, and despite my disappointment that $17 worth of rice didn't buy me a complete lunch for the next day, I enjoyed the flavors immensely. It had two kinds of delicious mushrooms, English peas, pancetta, shaved Parmesan, and white truffle oil. The truffle oil was disconcerting because it elicited bad memories of an even worse date, where my companion was discussing the merits of a $30 bottle of truffle oil and I wanted to douse him in it and accidentally strike a match. Ok, that's mean. He's probably only worth a coating of vegetable oil anyway. But, it was delicious... very sophisticated but homey, without being too cheesy or creamy. While perusing the dessert menu, I noticed the table next to me oooh'd at a car parallel parking that hit the car behind it--a silver one. My silver one (I saw no damage in the dark, but took his plates too).

I tried concentrating on the dessert menu (eventually deciding upon an almond/pear tart with a hazelnut anglaise). However, the building fury at the criminal treatment of my poor car and the molasses-speed movements of my waiter made me lose my sweet tooth (that rarely happens), haughtily give my credit card to the waiter before seeing the bill, and return home to find my tax forms waiting for my in my mailbox. I'm just too fragile for fine dining I suppose.