I like Michelle Rhee. There I said it. Maybe don't tell any public school teachers, though, okay? So I was interested to hear that she's in the know about some of the best soul food in DC, which happens to be located in a church basement. I must check this out.
Michelle Rhee’s Favorite D.C. Restaurants Run the Gamut
Hummble Sandwich
Summer...the most glorious season for produce...is gone. Well, at least the local peaches are gobbled up, and I go back to work/school on Tuesday. And shamefully, I didn't enjoy the glorious produce much this summer. Traveling kept me from making the farmers' market a weekly endeavor (Lord knows I tried!) as well as doing much of any grocery shopping.
Excuses, excuses, right?
Because my grocery store endeavors and cooking have been almost non-existent, tonight I made myself a Hummble Sandwich. Hummus, grated carrot, marinated artichoke hearts on a super thin whole wheat bun, open-faced. Get it, Humm-ble? Humm-us. Ok, I probably didn't need to spell that out for you. It is humble, but also good for me (you, too), amazingly filling, and quite attractive with zillions of bright orange shreds dangling off the edges. Mmm...almost makes me want another one. Oh, and did I mention...it's so cheap. Like, equivalent of a 25 cent pack of ramen noodles, perhaps. This might become my go-to-lunch this school year. I'm also starting to brainstorm variations and additions, thinly sliced cucumber, olives (if I could stand them), greens, tomato, chopped red onion, pickles, hard-boiled egg, ful made with fava beans (something new to me, but why not?!) ...do you have any ideas?
I've made hummus a few times, but have generally preferred the taste of some store-bought. My current favorite is Whole Foods store brand. I've tried many from Trader Joe's but can never remember if I prefer the one with tahini or without. (You should see me at the grocery store, ogling ingredient lists; it's ridiculous.) In researching accompaniments to hummus, I came across this article from the San Francisco Chronicle. My three take-aways are:
1) I must try making ful, slow-cooked fava beans with lemon and garlic, to eat with hummus.
2) Hummus should be made from dried chickpeas* than have been soaked overnight, not canned.
3) Hummus should be made with less and higher quality oil and processed longer. This sounds like a reasonable explanation of the key to thick and smooth (not grainy) hummus.
I know I said three, but...
4) Hummus needs cumin. My sister told me this a few weeks ago and I'm not sure why it seemed like a revelation.
Maybe the autumn squashes and the crisp breezes--don't think they're getting to DC anytime soon--will renew my resolve to get back in the kitchen, but for now I think I'll eat a few more Hummble Sandwiches.
Can I make one more excuse for not cooking? or not blogging? or maybe both? My camera broke a few weeks ago and I can't commit to another model. I want my camera back. I know how to work all the buttons! Why cook if I can't take a picture of it? Why blog if I can't post a picture? I know that's what you really want to see.
Excuses...
* i.e. chickpeas: A good friend once told me that she thought her dad made up the name "garbanzo beans" to be funny until she heard people call chickpeas garbanzos in college!
Excuses, excuses, right?
Because my grocery store endeavors and cooking have been almost non-existent, tonight I made myself a Hummble Sandwich. Hummus, grated carrot, marinated artichoke hearts on a super thin whole wheat bun, open-faced. Get it, Humm-ble? Humm-us. Ok, I probably didn't need to spell that out for you. It is humble, but also good for me (you, too), amazingly filling, and quite attractive with zillions of bright orange shreds dangling off the edges. Mmm...almost makes me want another one. Oh, and did I mention...it's so cheap. Like, equivalent of a 25 cent pack of ramen noodles, perhaps. This might become my go-to-lunch this school year. I'm also starting to brainstorm variations and additions, thinly sliced cucumber, olives (if I could stand them), greens, tomato, chopped red onion, pickles, hard-boiled egg, ful made with fava beans (something new to me, but why not?!) ...do you have any ideas?
I've made hummus a few times, but have generally preferred the taste of some store-bought. My current favorite is Whole Foods store brand. I've tried many from Trader Joe's but can never remember if I prefer the one with tahini or without. (You should see me at the grocery store, ogling ingredient lists; it's ridiculous.) In researching accompaniments to hummus, I came across this article from the San Francisco Chronicle. My three take-aways are:
1) I must try making ful, slow-cooked fava beans with lemon and garlic, to eat with hummus.
2) Hummus should be made from dried chickpeas* than have been soaked overnight, not canned.
3) Hummus should be made with less and higher quality oil and processed longer. This sounds like a reasonable explanation of the key to thick and smooth (not grainy) hummus.
I know I said three, but...
4) Hummus needs cumin. My sister told me this a few weeks ago and I'm not sure why it seemed like a revelation.
Maybe the autumn squashes and the crisp breezes--don't think they're getting to DC anytime soon--will renew my resolve to get back in the kitchen, but for now I think I'll eat a few more Hummble Sandwiches.
Can I make one more excuse for not cooking? or not blogging? or maybe both? My camera broke a few weeks ago and I can't commit to another model. I want my camera back. I know how to work all the buttons! Why cook if I can't take a picture of it? Why blog if I can't post a picture? I know that's what you really want to see.
Excuses...
* i.e. chickpeas: A good friend once told me that she thought her dad made up the name "garbanzo beans" to be funny until she heard people call chickpeas garbanzos in college!
Vegetarian Manifesto? A book review
"At the end of the day, factory farming isn't about feeding people; it's about money."
I recently read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, released about 9 months ago. I've read Foer's novel Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud, but the foodie themes were what drew me to his latest memoir/non-fiction book. Foer's purpose for writing the book was to unravel the vegetarian/omnivore flip-flop that he had been engaged in much of his adult life in light of impending fatherhood.
When I was younger I would ask my vegetarian friends about their choice, but I've honestly stopped caring about why others make the decision. Perhaps I lost interest because the veggies usually didn't have a reason and even seemed dispassionate about it. I've never seriously considered vegetarianism myself, but I was hooked on Foer's book almost instantly.
Eating Animals offers a convincing argument for discontinuing support of factory farming, though not necessarily for vegetarianism itself. Foer does, however, make it hard to see another way out. In one such argument Foer writes,
People know about factory farming. We've all been told about the horrors of the slaughterhouse, the tiny cages, the animals that can't naturally reproduce or stand-up, the high rate of injury among meat processors, and on and on, but it's easier to forget, to push all of this (along with those other global problems) out of our minds than it is to sacrifice our idea of comfort, craving, and nourishment.
I'm not sure where I stand now, but I have been acutely more aware of my consumption since completing this book. I'd love to stock my freezer with healthy, antibiotic-free meat raised and processed locally on family farms, but what about eating at restaurants? Would my personal at home effort be just a drop in the bucket? An insignificant choice made by a single, urban woman? This book has made me think about my personal responsibility more than anything else has recently, and I encourage you to pick it up too. I promise you will not feel bullied into becoming a vegetarian, but it will make you peel your fingers away from your eyes, if just a little bit, to acknowledge the way our food choices affect the ecology of the planet and the sustainability of our food system.
I recently read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, released about 9 months ago. I've read Foer's novel Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud, but the foodie themes were what drew me to his latest memoir/non-fiction book. Foer's purpose for writing the book was to unravel the vegetarian/omnivore flip-flop that he had been engaged in much of his adult life in light of impending fatherhood.
When I was younger I would ask my vegetarian friends about their choice, but I've honestly stopped caring about why others make the decision. Perhaps I lost interest because the veggies usually didn't have a reason and even seemed dispassionate about it. I've never seriously considered vegetarianism myself, but I was hooked on Foer's book almost instantly.
Eating Animals offers a convincing argument for discontinuing support of factory farming, though not necessarily for vegetarianism itself. Foer does, however, make it hard to see another way out. In one such argument Foer writes,
"A good number of people seem to be tempted to continue supporting factory farms while also buying meat outside the system when it is available. That's nice...How effective would the Montgomery bus boycott have been if the protesters had used the bus when it became inconvenient not to?...If anyone finds in this book encouragement to buy some meat from alternative sources while buying factory farm meat as well, they have found something that isn't here."Much of the book seeks to offer an insight into the lives of the animals that we eat, which, while considerably graphic and disturbing, is not offered as the only reason for swearing off factory farm meat. Foer makes clear that many of the world's problems are significantly contributed to by factory farms, from public health issues (foodborne illnesses, antibiotic resistance) to poverty and obesity (depending on region of the world), and global warming and pollution (caused by the large number of animals gathered on such farms).
"Rationally, factory farming is so obviously wrong, in so many ways. In all of my reading and conversations, I've yet to find a credible defense of it. But food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, and identify..."Throughout the book the author discusses food as memory/culture/family, and as hokey as it may sound, this is one approach that made the author's message meaningful for me. Foer recognizes that people do not make rational choices when it comes to food. The choices about what we eat are complicated, and he doesn't pretend that it's easy to make better ones, but he does put the responsibility for changing this broken system squarely on the reader/consumer.
People know about factory farming. We've all been told about the horrors of the slaughterhouse, the tiny cages, the animals that can't naturally reproduce or stand-up, the high rate of injury among meat processors, and on and on, but it's easier to forget, to push all of this (along with those other global problems) out of our minds than it is to sacrifice our idea of comfort, craving, and nourishment.
I'm not sure where I stand now, but I have been acutely more aware of my consumption since completing this book. I'd love to stock my freezer with healthy, antibiotic-free meat raised and processed locally on family farms, but what about eating at restaurants? Would my personal at home effort be just a drop in the bucket? An insignificant choice made by a single, urban woman? This book has made me think about my personal responsibility more than anything else has recently, and I encourage you to pick it up too. I promise you will not feel bullied into becoming a vegetarian, but it will make you peel your fingers away from your eyes, if just a little bit, to acknowledge the way our food choices affect the ecology of the planet and the sustainability of our food system.
Cheese bubbles in the dockyards: My first Michelin star restaurant
While visiting Copenhagen with my foodie sister and chef brother-in-law, I visited my very first Michelin star restaurant. Since we knew there would be no possibility of dining at Noma on this trip, Sis did some research to find another excellent and accessible Michelin star restaurant. (Copenhagen has 12 Michelin starred restaurant; Noma is the only one with two stars.) Something about being named the best restaurant in the world makes it hard for plebeians, especially American ones, like us, to get a reservation. Go fig?! However, my sister had no problem making (and then pushing back) our lunch reservation at Paustian v. Bo Bech.
With my sister at the helm of the mission, we (three adults, one spunky, garlic-loving 6 year-old) hopped on a regional train, walked into the dock yards, through some fresh tar, and proceeded to get lost and debate (affectionately, of course) about the right way to get there. We had my sister's hand-drawn map from her earlier internet research and the occasional crude sign in the most inexplicable European language I've ever seen (and I studied Danish for 4 months!). We made it there--there being a very white, very Danish looking building, a high-end furniture store with a restaurant--sweaty, dusty, and hungry.
The servers wore hammer pants and bolero jackets and ours reminded me of Régine Chassagne of the Arcade Fire.
First off were some "cheese bubbles," which tasted exactly as their name would have you imagine.
Then, shrimp with chive blossoms:
And frozen grapefruit:
A beautiful slice of "ox heart" tomato with a vanilla-infused oil.
Throughout the meal we were offered three different kinds of bread: sourdough, licorice-glazed bun, and Swedish knäckebröd (crispbread), which tastes like an oyster cracker, communion wafer, and also nothing.
Between the four of us we ate every course offered at lunch that day. There was the smoked eel with spinach:
White asparagus slathered in...some kind of cream sauce, and served on a slate. Probably the most appetizing way to serve something incredibly unappetizing and dull.
And a braised leek atop lamp:
For dessert, vanilla ice cream with bitter wispy chocolate wafer and caramels:
Obviously my palette is not as sophisticated as the Michelin guide writers, but I enjoyed the first half of the meal far more than the last. The amuse-bouche were unique and tasty, the tomato was the stuff my (non-chocolate) dreams are made of, and the smoked eel might have made me an eel convert.
I think the restaurant closed the week after we visited, but will be reopening in a more central location, which seems like a wise idea. Thank you to my sister and brother for this culinary first! "Tak for Mad!"
With my sister at the helm of the mission, we (three adults, one spunky, garlic-loving 6 year-old) hopped on a regional train, walked into the dock yards, through some fresh tar, and proceeded to get lost and debate (affectionately, of course) about the right way to get there. We had my sister's hand-drawn map from her earlier internet research and the occasional crude sign in the most inexplicable European language I've ever seen (and I studied Danish for 4 months!). We made it there--there being a very white, very Danish looking building, a high-end furniture store with a restaurant--sweaty, dusty, and hungry.
The servers wore hammer pants and bolero jackets and ours reminded me of Régine Chassagne of the Arcade Fire.
First off were some "cheese bubbles," which tasted exactly as their name would have you imagine.
Then, shrimp with chive blossoms:
And frozen grapefruit:
A beautiful slice of "ox heart" tomato with a vanilla-infused oil.
Throughout the meal we were offered three different kinds of bread: sourdough, licorice-glazed bun, and Swedish knäckebröd (crispbread), which tastes like an oyster cracker, communion wafer, and also nothing.
Between the four of us we ate every course offered at lunch that day. There was the smoked eel with spinach:
White asparagus slathered in...some kind of cream sauce, and served on a slate. Probably the most appetizing way to serve something incredibly unappetizing and dull.
And a braised leek atop lamp:
For dessert, vanilla ice cream with bitter wispy chocolate wafer and caramels:
Obviously my palette is not as sophisticated as the Michelin guide writers, but I enjoyed the first half of the meal far more than the last. The amuse-bouche were unique and tasty, the tomato was the stuff my (non-chocolate) dreams are made of, and the smoked eel might have made me an eel convert.
I think the restaurant closed the week after we visited, but will be reopening in a more central location, which seems like a wise idea. Thank you to my sister and brother for this culinary first! "Tak for Mad!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)