Blue Light Special

I did something I never thought I would do as a non-desperate, non-lonesome, non-desperately-seeking-my-own-divorcé single woman: I went to a bar by myself. A real bar, not just a bar on the side of a restaurant or while waiting for friends. I went there to get a drink and leave.

I legitimately have my own local bar around the corner, 440 feet east, 318 feet north. I haven't been because they turned a foodie friend (Tammy) away. Legitimate bars don't say no to Tammy, self-bottler of limoncello and canner of her own fig jams. So, I didn't patronize this bar just on principle.

However, in light of some upcoming travel, I've been acting, culinarily, like I am on death row. Macabre, yes. But this has often been an entertaining consideration of mine, as dreaming about my dream wedding has stopped being as entertaining. So, the mental inquiry becomes: what is the best meal possible or what would I want my last meal to be? I've been thinking those thoughts all week, and treating myself at places that have foods I could miss. Here's last night's decision, pictorially:

Don't judge; the billions and billions served are real people, you know.

I guess sometimes people pay with 100 pennies for dollar menu items.

Yes, those appear to be ice cream bubble geysers. And yes, I'm eating my sundae at home in front of my laptop with an accompanying bag of chopped nuts. But billions and billions aren't dumb enough to eat their food in sketchy McDonald's parking lots.

Last night's go-out-seeking food item was clearly a $1.09 sundae (after I took care of the bubbles). Tonight, I had a lovely dinner with friends at the Boulevard Wood Grill in Clarendon. The food was great: black-pepper crusted yellowfin tuna ponzu (prepared rare) served with a Nishiki rice cake with Asian slaw, miso-sake sauce, and gingered ponzu. This blog entry's magic food term defined is ponzu, citrus-based sauce commonly used in Japanese cuisine, very tart in flavor, with a thin consistency and a light yellow color.

So, anyway, after dinner I wanted some indulgence, but at 9:30, what's open besides McDonald's? I didn't want to comprisethe billions and billions served all by myself. So, I went to PX, some superlatively sexy bar, according to Playboy magazine. And just around the corner.

Friends have recommended this, and I like the Restaurant Eve/Majestic/Eamonn's chain, of which PX is part. So, disappointingly and sort of embarassingly, my heart was pounding as I approached the speakeasy's door at the top of a handful of steps, knocked, and then rang the doorbell, which seemed weird, but I did. I didn't want to deliver a package; I just wanted a drink.

So I eked out to the woman who slid the small speakeasy window open that I wanted a drink. I ascended the stairs lined with votive candles, and was genuinely impressed with the pretentious, yet admirable detail. In the bathroom, because that's where I went first.

Later, I sat down at one of the tall white bar chairs, impressively arrayed all at the same 45 degree angle. My bartender, James, spoke impeccable waiterese, laying open my menu, graciously offering a glass of water, using phrases like "the only cocktail we're not featuring this evening..", and being the most appealing kind of smug I've ever seen.

It was a genuine throwback to another era: detail in all the cocktail accoutrements (long stirrers, crystal-looking cocktails mixers, bitters), a dignified mahogany bar, carefully-chosen antique lighting, and a rotary phone that rang a clear, natural ring. It was all overwhelmingly nostalgic, until the doorbell--the tinny, digital kind that old people with bad hearing use--sounded. But, details.

I ordered a $13 cocktail, Blueberry Eyes. I got a free little bowl of housemade potato chips, though, so I'm not complaining. My drink was: blackberry and blueberry infused absinthe, liquor 43 (actually spelled licor 43, a bright yellow Spanish liquer made with 43 different ingredients, including citrus and fruit juices, vanilla and other aromatic herbs and spices), mint, and vanilla.

It was beautiful and not too sweet, but with a solid fruit flavoring. James answered my questions about what everything was. He had about 10 types of simple syrup, and then basil, mint, lox (what?), bacon salt (that's what's right above my chips), prehistoric salt (I might be mistaking the adjective but it looked like a rock), and some type of vinegar. It was sort of like being in a Harry Potter movie, with the array of bar-looking vials and potion elements.

The clientele was pretentious: lots of talk about Restaurant Eve and no talk about how colleage football season is only days away. But, James let me read my book, sip my drink, eat my chips, look around every once in a while, and savor the ambiance without interrupting me with silly small-talk, over refilling my water, or hovering. There's nothing better than finding one's local bar on the first try.

Curse of the Phantom Boyfriend

I haven't had a boyfriend since 2005. In 2005, I thought a fancy date was when my boyfriend spent more than two dollars on me at my local fast food taco restaurant. In 2005, I thought it was tolerable that more money was spent on my boyfriend's cat food than on gifts for me. It was easy. Sort of idyllic and peaceful. It was Oklahoma. But since then, I haven't been foolish enough to enter into a relationship with someone who doesn't at least hold the metaphorical capacity and willingness to spend those extra few dollars at a taco joint. I'm mostly fine with it and that's the truth.

This dearth of a boyfriend has manifested itself in a variety of ways. Like Tuesday, when I bought a coffee table that came in a 52-pound box. Single girl carried that all the way up the stairs herself. When she got promoted, that fancy dinner came out of her paycheck and she went alone. And when she decided she had a crush on two-plus guys at once, that's ok because she didn't have a boyfriend to care. Bugs get killed, parallel parking gets done, large electronics items get purchased, investments get made, stuff gets fixed and beer gets drunk in this apartment, all sans boyfriend.

So, imagine the egregiousness tonight of a woman who throws a party for herself at her apartment and along with the solo pre-party planning, coffee table solo lugging, and copious vodka drinking (because all she has to do is be sober enough to wish her guests goodbye and stumble to her bed) realizes that she has accidentally acquired a boyfriend since her party began five hours ago. She thankfully is sitting on her couch now, alone, talking about herself in third person and drinking more vodka because she missed so many opportunities before. But she's still perplexed by the odd progression (or nonprogression?) of events.

So this party was great. I had way too much beer and alcohol (I have four unopened wine bottles I bought, acquired two more, bought 60-plus beers and perhaps 10 were drank, and have a ton of alcohol left, unless I finish off that vodka tonight) and copious amounts of food (I sent five people away with leftovers and still have a tableful of food left), and was able to catch up with people prior to my trip.

Please note, this is after the party.

I even have extra basil, post party.

And what I have to try and fit in my beer-stuffed fridge.

Truth be told, I invited some single guys I may or may not have had a crush on. It's my party, I do what I want. So, at the risk of inviting (I think unjustifiable) scrutiny, I'll also admit I invited a guy with whom I may have gone on a few date with. In 2007. 20 months ago. And I thought girls hung on.

Since this is a food and romance blog, I'll admit that tonight the food had an inverse relationship to the romance had. So there's the tie-in to the blog theme, readily admitting that witnessing my written ire at 1 am might be just as justifiably entertaining. The beauty of having a party as a single girl is that you can talk to whoever you want. You can flirt with every single guy, or none. So imagine my surprise that despite my efforts to hostess in my apartment, I had a shadow. A presence that was not-so-subtly trying to publicly illustrate his primacy in the boyfriend front. Without coordination with the alleged girlfriend I'll note. This activity involved: staying forever, cleaning up, occasionally answering comments when directed toward me, and staying forever. I picked this young man up. To help out, and we agreed beforehand that I'd rather not drive him back because I would probably have drunk some and wouldn't feel comfortable. Our arrangement was he would carpool back. With someone else. Who lived near him. No one who came lived close to him and I waited for him to leave, as I understand that taxis run regularly throughout a metropolitan area. I mean, he was wandering around my apartment, reading book titles and even opening some. He was bored.

But he stayed. Silent, but present. And slowly the crushes left. And he remained. And started cleaning. And picked up all the cups. Except for mine. And when the last crush left, leaving me and phantom boyfriend, top crush probably thought that phantom boyfriend was real boyfriend. And that phantom boyfriend would carry coffeetables and kill big spiders and fix broken things. When I just see phantom boyfriend as getting the wrong idea and waiting with a gleam in his eye for me to acquiesece to let him crash on my couch. At least buy me a two dollar taco, PB. It's amazing phantom boyfriend has the presumption to request couch-crashing, when I'd spent the evening trying to flirt with anyone but him.

Thankfully, I had stopped drinking way before, fearing in my heart of boyfriend-less hearts, that he'd pull some nonsense like that. And returning to my car, it occured to me this was likely his plan all along, as his magazine was casually left in the car still.

It was the longest 20 minute car ride ever driving him back. But, thankfully, with his phantom status, we didn't actually have to break up.

Goodbye Harry's

I'm back. Maybe not in my best form, but I'm back. The man's keeping me down at work, I stayed there too late to keep the reservation for the fancy DC Restaurant Week choice I pored over, and my trash can smells like the unwanted food items that got evicted from my fridge (because that is what happened when I cleaned a few days ago). The fabulous life of a single urban dweller I do not lead.

I am, however, lucky enough to enjoy the friendship of Andy and Kerry, intrepid posers for amateur food bloggers' photographic endeavors and adventurous menu orderers. Andy this evening was our benevolent gastronomical benefactor (he footed the bill) and Kerry, a kind and avid reader of the blog, knows more about food and restaurants than I do and indulges me in reading and commenting on my blog. And they were there for my Ray's the Steaks dinner. We go back.

So it was nice: no weird patrons to mock out of the corner of my eyes, no major faux pas by the waiter (and I was only mildly disgusted when he admitted a fork probably wouldn't be too helpful for my sorbet), and we felt welcome to stay way past the busing of our last plate. I didn't have to discuss excise taxes with any of them (as may have happened on a recent dinner outing) and there was more than enough gushing on my end at least about the quality of my food (and more as a reaction to my fellow diner's delicious food choices than my own).

Harry's Tap Room is in Clarendon, on the corner away from the bustle of recently graduated frat boys and barely sober girls in tube dresses wearing too-long fake gold necklaces and stumbling along like dazed toddlers. It's a dignified place. And it's a place that doesn't fear the provision of bread: we had mini cornbread muffins, birdseedy wheat or rye, and half a loaf of white. For my appetizer, I had the Jumbo Lump Chesapeake Blue Crab Cake, with a delightful little salad of roasted corn (officially: sweet corn-poblano pepper relish and red pepper sauce). I have to admit I was just eating. Prefunctorily, quickly, and while talking.

I did the same thing during dinner. And dinner was savorable, but essentially I ate Valenciano street food: paella. Of course, it was unlike any paella I've had.. typically they are drier--still moist, but a bit clumpier--with more bright saffron color. I fear this paella's jaundice was colored by butter; still delicious, just slightful less...saffrony. But it was full of delicious shrimp, mussels, fish, chorizo sausage, and sweet peas. And it filled a tupperware container to the brim for lunch tomorrow. It was called Paella de Harry's so gets a pass on authenticity.

My fabulous friends, who were the ones who chivalrously waited 1.5 hours after our reservation time, made stellar dinner choices. Kerry, twice orderer of shellfish tonight and fearless sipper of high-end cocktails, got the Halibut, which was pan seared and served on a mascarpone-soft polenta with sweet corn sauce and red pepper puree (again, their description, not mine). It was great (and if hers had sticks of butter in it, they were better camoflaged than in my dinner).

Andy got the chicken. And a good candid shot of himself while at it. He ordered the tarragon roasted chicken breast, with summer vegetables and tarragon natural jus. These summer vegetables were the most intriguing part. Kerry knew what they were.. some type of mini zucchini, while I imagined they were gourds. Gourds? Really. I did see pumpkin beer at the liquor store yesterday though, so it's almost in time for gourd season; I don't feel quite as foolish.

And dessert was good, but I was already off the clock by then. Kerry brilliantly got the peach cobbler, Andy the Carnegie Deli cheesecake, and I got the lemon-ginger sorbet with an anomalous pirouette cookie. It was like asking for Parkay when you can have truffle butter. Or bologna when steak if offered. I had 25% melted lemon juice with a chocolate cookie that didn't match in flavor and am still complaining that this still-edible mess took about four bites to consume. But it was a new flavor, so I won't complain. But it was lovely.. sorbet a meal does not define and Harry's and the company of my friends was a fitting beginning of my farewells.

Caboose Cafe

Despite my best efforts, there is no clever theme uniting the two culinarily significant things I did tonight. There are, however, some good (by which I mean temptingly unredeeming) reality shows on tonight, so I'm going to focus on precision tonight. I ate at Caboose Cafe. This, despite not being a reality show, was a largely unredeeming meal generally, but it was different enough to be remarkable. Caboose Cafe is a little place along Mount Vernon Ave. in Del Ray and blends into the charming neighborhood around it in the afternoon, offering sandwiches and salads. At night, however, my new friend Rhoda offers the same fare, plus a selection of Ethiopian dishes, as she is Ethiopian.

I indulgently sat at a table for three, had a beer, and ordered the Caboose vegan Ethiopian sampler, five items set atop spongy ingera.


In the middle is Miser Watt (spicy red lentils), above that is Gomen (chopped collard greens), to the right is Kik Alitcha (yellow split pea stew), below is Harvest Veggie (translation: green beans and carrots), and on the side was a cabbage/potato salad. Only the red lentils and the cabbage were really flavorful, but I used my fingers to eat it all and I'm fairly certain the two little girls in dresses at the neighboring table were jealous I got to play with my food.

And while the food wasn't the most inspired (man, two solid nights), like last night, the surrounding charm would bring me back. Plus, new friend, proprietor Rhoda, upon my affirmation that it was my first time there, gave me a full loaf of ciabatta for free.

Now, what's a girl who's had a bagel, rice, beer, bread, and Ethiopian bread today supposed to do with an entire loaf of her own? After 17 seconds, I realized that tonight was the night to try a made-for-blog gift provided to me by a certain loyal blog reader from Massachusetts.

So, tonight, I made my first Fluffernutter sandwich. To begin, I obtained an entire loaf of bread from my local Ethiopan baker:


Step two: I sliced and toasted that loaf, and pre-assembled the Fluffernutter, one part nutter, one part Fluffer.


Notice the peanut butter slowly hugging the curves of the porous piece on bread on the left. Notice the Marshmallow Fluff slowly warming to the receptive bread. However, to arrange for this love story to happen, I had to go buy peanut butter, as I had none. And there is something creepy and over-prefunctory of having to go to Walgreen's at 9 o'clock at night to buy one item, along with the neighborhood homeless lady who's buying a Coke, the drunk guys wandering the aisles for who knows what (Mike and Ikes?), the guy buying deodorant, the uptight business traveler buying a phone charger, and me, buying peanut butter so I can make a Fluffernutter.

Anyway, it was fabulous... it started off with just hints of marshmallow, then the next bite featured the forgiving crustiness giving way to the malleable center. Then, when I reached the middle of the sandwich, for four perfect bites, I had equal part melty peanut butter and melty marshmallow fluff. Thank you Massachusetts and thank you, Phil, for my first taste of what kids on Massachusetts playgrounds have savored for most of their lives.

And for the final non sequitir food account of the night, my dad's dinner in Taos: he got the mixed grill with buffalo tenderloin, whole baby quail and rattlesnake/rabbit sausage with a wild cherry glaze.

Bocas Plural

It's been a while. I'm not sure I still have it. I subsist on various iterations of pasta, enjoye flavorless oatmeal in the morning, and participate in team breakfasts (I used to eschew breakfasts with the common colleague). I even bake brownies from mixes now and don't feel guilty. I've capitulated in some regards, sometimes enjoying (the horror) the company at restaurants more than the food, keeping more preoccupied with the beer than the dinner, and other times, just refraining from pulling out my camera while eating (although I have very little shame in portraiting food anymore). Tonight, however, was a departure. An intervention, of sorts, with two women who had no idea they were to be involved in such a significant event in the life of an amateur food critic (but really, I now view eating popovers as a life-changing event; I haven't written about that yet, but I will).

Tonight was the inaugural event of the Alexandria Ladies Dining Club. I call it that when really I think the informal title was the eating club (no caps). Two married ladies and a single girl met up tonight at what has become one of my new favorite local eateries (mostly because of aesthetics), Columbia Firehouse. The nice thing about a dining club with married ladies (ladies because of their charm, not age) is that we can discuss things unrelated to my self-deprecating love life. I love myself some self-indulgent commiserating (this isn't to malign the single girl exploits I listen to from my friends, because they are much more interesting than my own). But at a dining club meeting, the focus was food. Foreign food, Alexandria food, dive bar food, hangover food, romantic dinner food (my mouth was closed during that one), cheap food, pricey food, tourist food, patio food. It didn't occur to me until after dinner that I attended a real food club meeting because the conversation so naturally centered on all things gastronomical.

However, I realized that being an amateur food critic, I need to start holding my own. No one really buys my "amateur" self-designation (to their detriment) and questions have more recently been posed in my direction implying that I am some authority on food. This is becoming dangerous. Two questions I could not answer tonight: what is Indonesian food like and what is a financier (on the dessert menu, not one eying me from the bar). To redress my educational shortcomings, when I feel so inclined to overachieve, I will do more than talk about men and eating food here. So, for one sentence of non-drivel: a financier is a light sponge cake that usually contains an almond derivative (almond flour, flavoring, or crushed almonds).

I didn't get a financier, though, and opted for a longer polysyllabic foreign word at the outset, an Ommegang Witte from New York (this is a beer). It tasted like lemon juice sieved though a thrice-used cheese cloth. The bar was rife with old people (I'm not ageist, but these were the types that negotiate divorce settlements, not the ones who make financiers for their enfants). So while the oldies were leering, I was able to secure a seat at a stool at a bar counter that backed the true bar and watch the customers come in. It was very single-girl friendly and a good way to wait for the arrival of club members.

Fellow club members joined and we sat in a lovely atrium-style dining room. I've eaten at this restaurant before when it was Bookbinders, but as the new place, it's less stuffy and buoyant with the natural light. We started with blue crab hushpuppies with sweet pepper mustard. And they were great. There was something refreshingly disorderly about hush puppies not shaped like large gumballs: think free range antithesis-of-Captain D's hushpuppies. You could taste the crab and corn (and see traces of both!) and they weren't too greasy. The bread (with chive butter) was also fresh, crusty on the outside, and meanderingly holey on the inside.

For dinner, Laura and I both had the meatloaf sandwich. My mom knows this, so I'm not spilling some family jewel secret, but I never really liked meatloaf (it was an age thing, and a preternatural fear of gristle). I just couldn't put enough ketchup on top to hide the taste of the meat and would reward my toil by eating the little pieces of bacon my mom put on top for last. For some reason, tonight a meatloaf sandwich sounded better than steak or scallops (guess I'm subconsciously preparing for my Texas trip). But, I might be able to find elementary schools that do it better. It wasn't really that bad, but there was nothing remarkable about the meat's preparation: it had carrots inside and was set atop sundried tomatoes.. it was also situated on a focaccia-consistency roll, with undulating little bread peaks. But, it was out of proportion, with way too much bread to meat (a quick-developing food pet peeve if the proportions are going the wrong way). But the sandwich was accessorized with mache (I think, and if not, it at least elicited nostalgic memories of greens-eating in France) and French fries (good, but not remarkable, but with sea salt). I tried club member and new friend Nikki's hanger steak, which was delicious and had a beautiful presentation.

Dinner was good, not amazing, but had potential. But the prices were good, the atmosphere was stellar, and there were more windows (both curvey transparent ones and sophisticated stained glass ones) than divorce lawyers there, which is a proportion going the right way. And to be part of a club, an order, even..perhaps even a society of food lovers equally invested in exploring the visscitudes of gastronomy and unwittingly and undemocratically having me as their secretary...that's reason enough to start writing again for.

Oklahoma Part One: Avgokopsi and Culinary Car Tour

Oklahoma makes me hungry. A state is a good state if you can be hungry even when its 100-plus degree heat in other places would normally dull that sensation. And Oklahomans and their restaurants can accommodate: increased temperatures mean cheaper Sonic drinks, increased threats of tornadoes are met with more outdoor grilling, and the the condensation that more rapidly forms out the outside of beer cans makes their contents more appealing. After a delayed then canceled flight out of DC yesterday, multiple phone conversations with United associates in India, research into prices for cross-country bus and rail travel (thankfully financially prohibitive enough I didn't act out of desperation), eventual flight re-routing, a Dallas airport bad-Taco-Bell-meal, I arrived in Oklahoma, a surprisingly lucractive locale for culinary adventures for an amateur food critic.

My Yiayia yesterday had me, my visiting brother, and my parents over for one of the finest homemade meals I've had probably since the last time I was home. She prepared makaronia me bouturo, which still stands as one of my top meals. But, in making what may be my new favorite Yiayia-cooked meal, we also made a startling discovery, critical to both mine and my mother's understanding of food taxonomy and nomenclature: real dolmathes are actually cabbage, not grape leaves.

This may sound like silly quibbling for adeherents to the foodie, Greek, or pretentious-food-blogging subcultures, but it's a critical differentiation to a food purist who thought cabbage rolls were the bastard child to the dignified grape leaf, whose sheath was reverentially taken from the same vine as the nectar of the gods.

So, I stood corrected and saw the creation of an avgolemono sauce for the dolmathes and by extension, witnessed the culinary act of "avgokopsi"-ing.

A cabbage roll contains rice and seasoned meat, all lovingly wrapped in a cabbage roll that is tender but has enough fortitude to keep its shape while being steamed and avgokopsied. To create the avgolemono sauce (from αυγό for egg and λεμόνι for lemon), Yiayia stiffened egg whites, later added the yolks and lemon juice, and slowly added at the end the sauce left over from the cooked grape leaves. My mom poured the sauce over the grape leaves and my Yiayia made kissing noises. This is a critical part of the avgokopsi process for unknown reasons, but almost certainly has something to do with evil spirits, evil eyes, or potential bad luck to offspring and their ability to avgokopsi.

Yiayia with the avgokopsied dolmathes.

And it was a thing of beauty, as makaronia, cabbage leaves, tabbouleh, hummus, and Kalamata olives were served on fine china; what a homecoming.

Lunch today was sedate. Tonight we're headed to a fancy steakhouse that has a neon red-colored bar and where I will find the Oklahoma oil baron who will underwrite my blog, or whatever enterprising amateur venture capitalists would do to financially support amateur food bloggers. We went to the Prairie Thunder Baking Company, a cute local bakery and sandwichery that unfortunately is staffed by women who seek to cast themselves as nouveau pin-up girls (deliberately messy hair with flowers in it). Sort of unfortunate when all you want is to order a roast beef sandwich. It was tasty, though: sandwiches on airy foccacia bread that wasn't too greasy and had about one needle of Rosemary every two square inches.

Unfortunately, the bread to meat ratio was way off, just as typically pin up girls have more eye makeup than eye surface area. But it was tasty, the view of downtown OKC was great, and the sweets were satisfyingly pretty to just admire. I

Afterwards, we drove around and I ogled at all my favorite restaurant signs that were also satisfyingly pretty to just admire. This might be a very boring series of pictures (like the equivalent of how interesting pictures of birds would be to people who collect stamps) but it's a selective snapshot of OKC's culinary ethos.

The famous Braum's milk bottle: Braum's is a local creamery and only recently put their logo on the bottle. The structure was built in 1930 and has been added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

Taco Bueno: proprietor of the finest tripartite chips' dip plate, MexiDips and Chips. I can't believe one, that that menu item is copyrighted, and two, that the phrase MexiDips and Chips appears twice on the pages of an aspirationally pretentious food blog.

Braum's: the best place in Oklahoma to get crinkle fries, peppermint ice cream, cheesy poofs, and a hamburger in shiny pink and silver foil, all in one spot.

And, finally, Sonic: hallowed temple of fountain drinks, with a legitimately-good-priced happy hour.

And because we're piously good customers, a glimpse inside the sacred edifice:

Northern Virginia Summer BrewFest

God bless America, and her beer brewers. Yesterday, I attended the most sophisticated event ever associated with beer, in a truly inspiring celebration of fizzy drinks that up until yesterday had seemed pretty indistinguishable. I joined my friends Rob and Laura at the Northern Virginia Summer BrewFest (yes, there is also an autumn one), and it was superlative in every respect: lots of beer, lots of beer samples, lots of different beers, tons of local American breweries, multiple men and women with conspicuously weird tattoos, women with alarmingly small halter tops, emotional making-ups and making outs facilitated by lots of beer, and an impressive selection of fried/grilled food.

We started with one cup:

This was the golden ticket. Well, it was the receptacle for what the four tickets you get with your admission will get you. But I bought more.

I had or sipped, but did not photograph, beers from the following breweries:

Allagash Brewing Co. (Tripel) Hook and Ladder Brewing Company Magic Hat Brewing Company Mountaineer Brewing Co. (some beer the representative said girls prefer) Raven (watery sip)
Abita Brewing Co. (Jockamo IPA, cute label) He’Brew Beer (Pomegranate ale, described as "chick beer but 8%")
Kona Brewery (Walua Wheat ale with passion fruit) Atwater Brewery (Atwater Vanilla Java Porter, probably my favorite)
Bells Brewing Inc. (warm glass of Amber ale from the bottom of the barrel)

The bottom one is becoming my new favorite pick. Yes, yes, it's brewed in Michigan.

Everyone was happy, even including the kettle korn popper, who gave us a lesson in kettle corn making (add a ladel of oil to the kettle, add a scoop of popcorn kernels, soon after, add twice as much sugar as popcorn, and stir).

And the Confederate soldiers who presumably came from some re-enactment made me feel right at home. Literally.

Lunch, after about 6 mini beers and multiple sips, was of course fabulous. The tent we patronized had a grill full of onions, peppers, meats, and spiraled sausages, in a beautiful array of greasy, ostensibly pre-hangover food.

I got an Italian sausage. It was great: impossibly large to eat and with my post-7-mini-beer skills or general clumsiness, managed to rip off a piece, have it drop off the foil wrapping and hit both my shirt and my shorts and wipe mustard on me during its fall to earth.


Laura made a good decision to order a "Hole in One," or a donut, right off the fryer, covered in ice cream and sprinkles. It was impressive that that tent had both a donut fryer and a freezer to hold at least four types of ice cream. That's fair-food innovation for you.

The culinary find of the afternoon was the turkey leg: the unadvertised, dripping-in-poultry-juice, sinewy, Medieval, feudal-lord-invoking turkey leg. Rob found it and served as a turkey leg ambassador to other fair-goers who wanted a turkey leg, but couldn't find its source either.

Of course being part of the turkey leg eating club means you instantly find affinity with other turkey leg eaters.

Passion Fish

Dinner tonight was just good. Sometimes when I dine alone, the dinner is good intellectually: I spend time deconstructing the ingredients, criticizing minor chef decisions, eyeing other patrons, lamenting their poor conversation, and searching to find familiar and rewarding tastes in each bite. Other times dinners are good with friends because the food pales to the conversation and glides by one's senses without being noticed. However, some rare nights, the company and the food proceed in parallel, equally satisfying and varied. Tonight was a night like that...there was forboding lightning on the horizon but a patio table was open and my friend Mike and I had dinner at Passion Fish in Reston prior to a big step forward in his life.

Dining in Reston smacks of disingenuous; it's like claiming you went to the bowling alley and had a really delicious filet. Pretentious of me? Of course. But Reston means eight lane thoroughfares, Best Buys and Home Depots every block (interspered between Starbuckses), and architecture that looks like any other new, green glassy, high-risey amalgamation anywhere in Northern VA. But tonight we found a gem. Or maybe the whole place is full of gems and the abundance of SUVs driven by suburban environmentalists prohibits my seeing them.

The restaurant was charming. It was in the vortex of a semi-creepy planned community/shopping district (creepy in its formality, ninety degree angles, profusion of BMWs and men in boat shoes), but just on the cusp so that the panorama was calm with just casual passers by. We sat on the patio and soaked in the beauty both on our table and passing by on plates being delivered to neighboring tables. The couple behind Mike both ordered an entire fish. With its erect little tail saluting us as it was carried by above our heads. How fabulous.

So Passion Fish is fishy and Mediterranean, but with a splash of Asian. And the flavors are much more complementary than expected. Mike ordered a blue crab and corn chowder soup with crab meat and green onions. It was smooth, flavorful, and not overwhelmingly creamy; even hot, it was as refreshing as soup in the winter is soothing.

On the bottom left, you can see the silverware had little fish tails. It was really too cute by half, but somehow worked, even to an increasingly cynical diner and professional young woman like I appear to have become. It was like the Mickey Mouses ears-shaped butters at Disneyworld or ice cream creations where an upside down sugar cone is a hat...trite but visually consoling.

I had Peruvian ceviche. I have done ceviche a lot, most of it hovering somewhere around medicre to unremarkable. Tonight it was truly new and admirably innovative.

I was hungry so the picture is blurry, but yes, that's popcorn on top of my ceviche. It was fresh and spicy (with red onion, habanero pepper, lemon juice, and green olive oil) and the popcorn added salt and crunch that made it somehow taste like both beach and fair food. And you'll notice that it's encased in a bowl of ice. Someone tonight cared more about my food than I did and that makes me happy.

We stuck with light stuff to sample more. The following probably looks like an unappetizing mix of influences, but it fit. I'd try and more effectively weave in the theme of tastes proceeding in parallel, but I'm too tired. But, Mike got grilled octopus (with lovely squishy/crunchy suckers) with grilled halloumi cheese, all atop a little Greek (horiatiki) salad and drizzled with Tzatziki. Plus it had a purple sauce drizzled on top and baby croutons.

I got a mojito (with thick clusters of mint leaves and an unfortunately splintery piece of sugar cane) and a prettily-displayed California roll. The sushi may appear to diverge from these Mediterranean flavors, but I tasted the faintest glimmer of lemon juice in it, which brought the dinner back full circle. And it came with a cute little tagine-looking soy sauce holder.

The service was good; the waiter seemed to have bypassed the long sushi chef order backlog for us (we were hurrying) and was attentive, knowledgeable, and gave confident recommendations on both my drink and ceviche. The forboding lightening edged into the horizon, the rain never fell, and the press of time, like a current, took us off the patio and back out into the world.

Vermilion, or Why Fish Guts are Better than Lemon

When a girl is in a summer dress, anything is possible. The world seems like such an oyster, walking three blocks in stilettos seems tolerable, even recommendable. Partaking in homemade limoncello (provided by a blog reader and friend) prior to dinner seems requisite to an evening out at an Italian-inspired place. And sweeping into Vermilion after 8 pm seems like what a girl should do when in a floral frock. And that's what I did.

Pre-dinner limoncello aperitif in my kitchen.

Unconsciously in my mind, I was preparing for a date with dinner; my preposition choice here is key. Some girls in their lives take a date to dinner. In my life, sans viable dates, I spend a romantic evening with a fine meal. The waiter usually is the facilitator, chaperone, or third-wheel of this date. And since these meals are usually the first of their kind, this waiter-role isn't inappropriate or awkward. But these aren't the desperate longings of a single girl; these are the longings of an amateur food critic who wants her waiter to stop acting like he's about to nervously ask her to prom.

It occured to me tonight that being a single girl dining out is also like volunteering to go on a blind date with your waiter. You want to be paid attention to, flattered, get the same treatment as other girls/patrons concurrently on other dates, have him notice small details, and be comfortable, conversational, and genuine. And this is the life after bourbon, where service may never be as singularly attentive. But I've always expected more from a guy with a plastic ear piercing plug thing: that he'd skated with all manner of righteous, diverse dudes so he'd be at ease with any patron, or would admire the uniqueness of a woman dining out, like a rock fan is proud of the young woman who makes her way to the front of a Tool concert.

I didn't get this. I sort of got the treatment of a grandmother who might pick up her grandson in her pink minivan in a very public spot after his having a successful shopping trip at Hot Topic. My waiter presumably wasn't embarassed of me or disappointed in my lack of ostentatious black ear decor, but he certainly didn't treat me as the sophisticated diner my flowery dress should have suggested to him that I was.

I didn't get the specials, my amuse bouche was delivered by the water boy, my bread didn't come until my dinner (unlike other diners), my waiter tried to steal my amuse bouche before my bouche was fully amused, he was terrible recommending items on the menu (damn equivocating men), and was just generally awkward. I define generally awkward as the act of forming sentences that begin at about 2 words a minute then quickly crescendo into a fevered pitch of a question in a tone too urgent and uncomfortable for most men to replicate.

To begin, just after ordering, I got a mini stein of chicken broth. I thought the water boy said it was argula and pasta, but I think it was chicken broth, garlic, and maybe a head of Parmesan. 0 for 1, but raw garlic makes me thankful I'm single so I don't have to excercise restraint in eating it.


For my appetizer, and after a series of follow-up questions posed to my waiter as to what I was eating, I had rabbit "porchetta." It was pretty impressive. On the left is the "porchetta": a melange of rabbit meat and aromatic herbs, encased in a rabbit body. So, like bunny sausage. Except I wasn't reminded of the cuter, more Disney-esque word for rabbit until just now, so I could indulge in peace. A sourdough cracker formed the dividing wall to a celery remoulade. My waiter told me it was a fennel salad. 0 for 2. The salad had too much dressing (some sort of mustard-based mixture); its consistency--dense, watery, crisp, and cool--made it fun to eat, but not quite as fun as pickled pearl onions. I was 2 for 2 on consuming every last bit of bad-breath-giving food.


But I got bored. There was no one around, I was sitting in the corner where the sideways glances of passers-by somehow reminded me of being a lady for rent in a red light district (I was right against the window), and I might as well have been my waiter's least favorite English comp teacher, so I took a photo of a light.

At some point, I accidentally flipped the lights off with my shoulder blades during my dinner and another waiter came by to turn them back on. I lose a point, but my waiter doesn't get one because he didn't turn them back on. Score.

Dinner, however, was fabulous. As the plate was set down, the waiter reminded me I ordered halibut and I cursed to myself that I did it again: ordered flavorless, pallid fish (a fear motivated by my repeat ordering the same fish as my last dinner but not by the appearance of tonight's dinner). But this fish had much more personality than my waiter: it was smeared with fish guts ("scraps" or some other nicer word) and then pan seared, so it had the crisp exterior my waiter promised. It was resting atop smashed fingerling potatoes (really smashed but still intact), cipollini onions, delicious greens (tasted as delicious as freshly-cut grass smells), all in a red wine-butter sauce. It was a triumph.

And just as a bad first date doesn't catch hints, my waiter didn't pick up that my fork and knife were arranged in a parallel fashion at 3:00 on the invisible plate clock. For longer than a waiter should. He immediately noticed, of course, when I finished my wine and asked if I wanted another. The stud I encountered only appears to have been in his ear.

Dessert was delciousi: I had a yogurt "parfait," which was a series of small poppy cake squares (dense but shallow pieces), perched on mounds of lemon curd, blueberries, and granola, with some sort of blueberry sauce and an inkling of yogurt drizzled around. It was innovative, delicious, deconstructed but easy to reassemble, and fresh. I was Roxane to the chef's Cyrano de Bergerac, with the incompetent waiter/emissary getting in the way.

And while tonight's service was disappointing--as most first dates are--it's some consolation to me that I have paragons. While I look for a man like Mr. Darcy, I'll quest for a place with Bourbon Steak-style service. A girl's gotta dream.

Life After Bourbon

I hardly remember my life before Bourbon Steak (that life of six hours ago). Back then, I could walk into a restaurant, confidently order, resist being overwhelmed, confidently talk to waiters, and competently photograph the food. Perhaps because I've not dined critically or dined alone in a while, these skills are less refined, but I doubt it. Also, perhaps passing the shiny black sports cars in the parking lot and changing from flip flops to grown-up shoes in Georgetown's Four Seasons lobby humbled me somehow, but I really don't think that's true either. I think I just genuinely enjoyed being put in my place by a restaurant tonight, in the nicest of ways...it's refreshing to be so overwhelmed by good food and service that your critical eye just stops working (well, mostly).

Tonight was a Kennedy Center ballet night. So, instead of getting a Subway sandwich to go and spilling lettuce all over myself while I hurriedly eat it on the Kennedy Center terrace, I decided to plan ahead, meander through Georgetown, and find a nice place to eat. After scoping out other recommendations, The Four Seasons seemed fine: good location so when I was running late before the show, I wouldn't have far to go (I anticipated correctly).

So, I changed shoes, walked on an important-feeling black carpet, and approached the hostess stand. And they were friendly; if there was false pretense, my fevered brow (it's summertime) distracted me from it. They were genuinely nice, asked for my name (last name included), asked if I wanted reading materials (accommodation of solo diners?!), and walked me to my table.

Half my view was obscured by booth or pillar, but I could catch a glimpse of the Georgetown canal and the large important man down the banquette from me. And the fabulous-looking wait staff who were all pleasant. I ordered then my waiter guided me in the direction of the ladies room. I returned and my askew napkin was re-folded, my glass of wine was waiting for me, and after I sat down, another waiter put the napkin in my lap. I know I sound green, but the flutter of linen delights.

So, one sip later, I get amuse-bouche one: french fries. Three types with three sauces, so nine ways to celebrate a fried potato stick. On the left are duck-fat fries with pickled ketchup, in the middle are onion fries with onion mayonnaise (which I almost ate by the spoonful), and the third were cheddar fries with barbecue sauce or something. My bouche was amused.


"And for more free food," my waiter introduced, "a lobster corn dog." I'm not kidding. Tonight I had some of the best fair food I've had so far away from Big Tex.

(I hate acknowledging any utility Texas offers so present my sidenote in parantheses to deride its importance to my broader story and the world. Big Tex, above, presides over the Texas State Fair, where one can get a foot-long corn dog, quite possibly the best fair food ever.)

And then the bread came out: four beautiful rolls that had merged together (and had to be plied apart as they were baked in one cast iron pan) that were covered with truffle butter and sea salt. As part of my overwhelmedness, I don't have photos of them. Or my appetizer or entree. I tried, but either out of forgetfulness or impatience with my phone's limited memory (that petulantly told me twice after photographing my food that they wouldn't save), there is no visual record.

But, for my appetizer, I had citrus cured fluke sashimi. It was beautiful, really. Thin slices of opaque white fish, strewn with wisps of radish, hibiscus, aromatic herbs, and spicy flowers and drizzled with oil and vingear and a red flower reduction (I think). But it was festive and light and I surgically had two bites a minute to prolong my enjoyment of it. I think the waiter may have been a bit confused why it took so long to eat, but he patiently endured my silent gushing and timed every interaction perfectly.

My entree was surprisingly unfabulous, but somehow this was less damning than it usually is. With the price I paid for it, I could have bought off half the catch from the guy fishing on the Key Bridge, but it eventually worked out ok (only a few paragraphs more, I promise). I got wood-grilled halibut that had been basted with some vinaigrette. The presentation was nice...enthusiastic looking fish with bit of green herb on top, a stroke of balsamic vinegar reduction across the plate, and a grilled lemon, but it didn't taste like much and needed salt. Of this $36 piece of fish, I probably didn't eat the last $9 of it because I was bored with it. Plus it was mushy and took too much effort to put on my gleaming fork. Criminal.

I didn't feel like telling the waiter though, in unsurprising passive-agressive fashion, so just simmered as he convinced me to order a single espresso and dessert. I wanted to, but after I did a little eviscerating. But I forgot my wrath when I sipped from my mini cup. Then any remnant of anger was hewn away by my dessert: passion fruit panna cotta. In a large, shallow bowl, panna cotta was covered by three little mounds of grapefruit, passion fruit, passion fruit seeds, and avocado and a small oval of coconut sorbet. After presenting the dessert, my waiter drizzled a lemon grass concoction over all of it.

The service was stellar: attentive all around, cooperative, friendly. With two espresso sips left, the general manager approached me to ensure everything was ok. He was charming, so I was fine and we discussed what brought me here and how I liked it. Then he asked about the food and I inquired if halibut was typically mushy (slightly less confrontational than that). I confessed my distaste, he apologized, and mentioned I should come back and he would buy me a glass of wine. Then he fetched his card, gave it to me, and insisted again I should come back. And that I should e-mail him. I think I missed the explicit instruction as to whether I was supposed to email him when I was coming so he could prepare the glass of wine ahead of time or if he was hospitably offering me an online ear to which I could therapeutically explain my inevitable nightmares of being haunted by limp, flavorless halibut.

$102 shorter but with a free glass of wine in my future, I bounded out of the restaurant and headed toward three (!) hours of ballet. In the lobby, I saw a young woman who looked like Reese Witherspoon holding hands with a guy who looked like Jake Gyllenhaal. The goofy grin of a hotel bellhop bragging about the photo he took confirmed it. They might get free fries and lobster corn dogs, but I doubt free wines from general managers are in their futures.

That's (not) amore!

For those of you still reading, don't worry, I'll return to writing about food soon (mere paragraphs away!). But once a girl declares war on dating, she can't back down. But, instead of dwelling on the fact that after my last post, yes, already after having declared war on dating (a mere eight days later) I was stood up on a date, I must carefully strategize on how to successfully write a blog on food and love without totally abandoning one and indulging overly in another... And strategize on how to not to sound bitter in two posts in a row. The most criminal thing about the evening-that-shall-not-be-named is that my dinner--in preparation for my date-dinner (incidentally at someplace I've already blogged about)--consisted of three appetite-saving soy nuggets and a bowl of edamame. It was truly the meal of jilted lovers (before they even knew they were to be jilted).

However, to navigate through these troubling culinary times (criticizing soy nuggets I imagine inherently is a detriment to an amateur food critic's bona fides), one can legitimately and should therapeutically take consolation in memories of the gastronomical past. And create those in the present. For example, Target sells tri-color gnocchi from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy (where I got kissed post-espresso) and I ate some tonight. I can't imagine what my soulmate from Bologna would think about my $3 purchase, but he didn't get stood up on Friday, did he?


So, I'm back to cooking, somewhat. You may notice that the basil went straight from the pot on my table to be ripped up in the kitchen, returning to the table integrated into my gnocchi. Sustainable agriculture, yes?

So, let's go back in time to when a young innocent girl's only romantic troubles were with the creepy Bologna restaurant owner she didn't know she'd be kissed by. Circa April 2009, I visited Italy to see my brother, the aforementioned brother who dines well and adventurously. It wasn't crazy... I didn't dine on horse or copious amounts of calamari, but I had 34,309 delicious grams of carbohydrates throughout the week and will recount my delights below. I just bought the Maria Callas version of La Traviata on ITunes, so if I try to make out with you while you're reading, that's why. I know making jokes about jokes I myself made probably gets old, but my double shot of soy foods on a Friday night buys me some humor latitude, right?

Our story begins with two siblings, both alike in dignity, In fair Roma, where we lay our scene. After grabbing my first gelato (coconut), I met my star-cross'd brother in front of the Pantheon. My brother gave me explicit guidance to not stand out as an American, and wandered up to me with an OU hat and shirt, flip flops, and a plastic bottle in-hand for his Big Red spittle. Bella Roma. Then my dear brother and I wandered through the alleyways catching up and found our lovely hotel.

It was adorable. The double-paned windows were not super useful when it was so hot we had to keep the windows open anyway and listen to night-time revelers.

After dropping off our luggage pre-check-in, we went to a nearby restaurant listed in my Lonely Planet book. While unrecommendable because of the steep prices, it was extremely notable in the good service that allowed my brother and I to catch up.


Justin got his Caprese salad, I got my melon and proscuitto. He didn't even mind too much I was embarassing him taking pictures every 20 minutes.

Somehow he got outraged, but I'm not sure if I was photographing his outrage of his delicious mushroom pasta. Ok, I'll be fair, he was much calmer over his plate of mozarella, tomato, and basil minutes before:


Later that evening, we met up with Justin's charming friend, Aurelio, who took us to a fabulous pizza place. I'll readily admit I was so overwhelmed with the language, meandering streets, and throng of people outside the restaurant that I don't recall the name, but it was beautiful. Aurelio was admirably enterprising. Despite the throng, Aurelio boldly entered, asked the host the owner's name (Carlo), found Carlo, asked Carlo if he remembered him, and after Carlo's pressured/uncertain acquiescence, we got our table seven minutes later. I'd never seen any Mediterranean waiter work harder, more quickly, or more sarcastically (despite the language barrier) than ours. With Carlo and our waiter at the forefront, it was a feat of good taste and good service.

And gigantic Peroni bottles.

And amiable proprietors named Carlo.

I was too staid to want to embarrass my brother in front of sophisticated Romans (Aurelio brough his friend), so I didn't take photos of our beautiful meal. The best thing I had in Rome was fried fiori di zucca (which I tried for the first time that night), or lightly fried zucchini flowers. It was the equivalent of having the poultry breast of one of those bluebirds from a Disney movie. It was too delicate to eat, but somehow it was done in a way where you didn't feel the least bit guilty, although perhaps less inclined to make good analogies. The pizza was fabulous too...it had egg yolk and other things on it, but the egg yolk was like eating Italian sunshine. Then we went to a bar in Campo de Fiori and ran into people from Oklahoma and Sweden and witnessed Italians playing beer pong. Renaissance art, Italians can do; beer pong is something best left to Americans in converted garages in college towns throughout the Midwest.

Our bar was called the Drunken Ship.. nautical!

The next day, after Justin and I dined in the basement of our hotel (I had nutella, capuccino, and other less memorably delicious items), Aurelio picked us up for a ride around town. A man of my own heart, he drove us around a bit, showed us the Vatican from a beautiful vista, and took us to a beautiful Sicilian bakery. I regret I wasn't more aggressively photographical, but a girl has to take a break. Thankfully, Aurelio caught me mid-bite of a delicious cannoli di ricotta siciliani (Sicilian style cannoli). It was heaven: ricotta cheese filling, studded with dried fruits.

We saw different angles of Rome, caught a beautiful view from above, learned about Guiseppi Garibaldi, and then happily ate again. We went to a beautiful neighborhood, Trastevere, the oldest neighborhood in Rome. It was charming and we dined with Aurelio and his charming girlfriend, Genny.

We got more fried zucchini flowers and four dishes of pasta. We rotated our al dente pasta, cheese-covered plates. It was overwhelming. We delivered our kisses to the couple, went to the train station, and headed up north.

The next day, Justin went to work and I went to Bologna. I detailed my culinary/amorous adventures the day after, but there was much more than extra-marital La Traviata-listening to Bologna. There were the smells and the markets and the artisinal pastas and the fountains and the window arrangements.

This was my first meal in Bologna, enjoyed sitting on a sidewalk on the main piazza looking at this building:


Then, I fell in love before Emanuele fell in love with me. I was captivated by the modest desserts:

I was enraptured by the complicated artisinal pastas (ravioli and tortellini):

And the pasta was so hot, it steamed up its own windows:


To shake my affection for these new culinary loves--that couldn't join me on my trans-Atlantic flight and subsequent foray through Customs--I climbed a tower. The one on the right:


And photographed myself, of course.


And I just found a picture of Emanuele. I don't feel so bad anymore.

After I had "the meal," and was walking around drunkish with "the rose," this seemed awesome:

And buying pumpkin tortellini from this store seemed imperative:

And photographing Italian versions of fem-bots was entirely enjoyable:

And restaurants with entire storefronts dedicated to fungus seemed remarkable (although sort of Miss Haversham-ish):

Then Cinderella hopped in her TrenItalia regional coach, rose and ravioli in-hand, and made her way back to her hamlet in Vicenza to boil up some dinner.

The next day (yes, we're on day three, I'll speed it up), Justin got promoted to 1LT in Vicenza. That night we went out for dinner with his buddy, and had pizza which looked like this (aka awesome).


We all ordered sorbettos, or delicious shot glasses full of icy, lemony, creamy something that presumably had alcohol.

The next day, I sought to go to Ravenna, one of the most artistically significant cities for Byzantine art and the only place I really wanted to see. I woke up late, got on the train, that train ran late, got on another train, didn't press the button hard enough to open the door at my stop so watched the stop go by while still in the accursed train and ended up in Faenza. For the next two hours I was in this forsaken town because the bus to Ravenna didn't arrive until two hours later. So, I had some obscenely sweet gelato and went here:

And saw this:

And this:

And tried to pose angry in front of South Asian pottery. I don't look it, but I was pretty upset. Really.

The bus came and I went to Ravenna. I don't think I thought about food once. It was all love manifest through the lens of my camera: love for mosaic. Just imagine:





It was beautiful, really breathtaking. I rushed back to the train station to try to catch an earlier train so I might get back before 11 pm, realized I was stuck with my thrice-transfer itinerary, and settled down with a McDonald's parmiagiano-reggiano burger (it took me a least two times to get the cashier to understand I wanted a burger). This burger rivaled even the mosaics of Ravenna in beauty.

I hope I don't get stood up on a date again because these therapeutic food-memory-dredging posts seem a bit laborious for us all. The next day, I stayed in Vicenza and after meandering (happily to a museum full of Russian icons in a private collection), I had lunch. I went to a place within view of Justin's appartment, a delightful local place where I conducted my entire meal-ordering in Italian. And it was one of the best meals all week.

The bread was delicious, and I sat in the loft area, closer to the slanted copper-paneled ceiling.

Then I had a delightful appetizer of warmed artichoke shreds with parmesan cheese on top.


Then I had house-man gnocchi with asparagus.

And this is a little cake with fresh fruit and creme inside that was somehow called foccacia.

My final night, Justin and I attended a USO-sponsored Toby Keith concert and it was the most suprising, welcome end to a European meander. The football field where he set up his stage was teeming with cowboys, families and soldiers and surprisingly, a few guitar twangs made me ready to go home.

But only after a most satiating meal:

And after posing with a most beloved brother. Ciao amore!