Surprise Signature

I'm a big fan of black beans and rice, a classic combination. But if I'm a fan of them, sometimes I forget that that makes Julia a superfan. So much so that when I whipped up a variation on the classic the other day, she was so thrilled she adorned it the best dish I've ever made. I think she was just hungry for dinner, as my other dishes scoff at the thought of this classic superseding their more complex natures. But hey, she could be right. Sometimes simple can be sweetest.

For the rice, I combined one cup of long grain rice with two cups of low sodium vegetable stock. To the stock I added a tiny bit of sea salt, a few generous shakes of black pepper, a few big drops of hot sauce, about a tablespoon of canola oil and a couple tablespoons of thick, dark balsamic vinegar. I let this come to a light boil and then turned the heat to low and covered the rice until the liquid was gone. This was about 22 minutes, but varies by the rice.

In the meantime, I made the beans. I opened up a can of low sodium black beans and drained off most of the liquid in the sink. I put the beans into a small saucepan over low to medium heat. I added a little salt, a lot of black pepper, a few shakes of cumin, a glug of canola oil and a few teaspoons of red wine vinegar. Lastly I added about a half-cup of some nice fire-roasted tomato salsa that I had in the fridge. I wanted the beans and sauce to be a dark, rich, tomato base and the salsa helped to accomplish this with its deep flavors mixing with the excess liquid from the beans. I let this mixture warm over about ten minutes, stirring often, until it was thick and bubbly and smelling tremendous.

As the rice and beans were finishing separately, I chopped four small Campari tomatoes, a quarter of a large, red onion and a small handful of fresh cilantro. When the rice was done, I mixed in this fresh element to add some crispness and tang to the overall flavor. Then I slowly mixed in the beans and sauce to the well-flavored rice – ever so slightly spicy from the hot sauce but rich from the balsamic. The beans really deepened the flavor further as I mixed the two together until it actually looked like the real thing. The fresh element really made the look of the dish pop, and I loved that.

I served the beans and rice with a little nonfat Greek yogurt atop, though sour cream would have worked if I were feeling more indulgent. I also made up a handful of fresh, baked corn chips per person, by baking some quartered corn tortillas (with a drizzle of olive oil) at 425 degrees in the oven for 8-10 minutes. You’ve got to watch them though, as they will burn quickly if left in too long.

The dish was quite simply tasty – like comfort food loaded with a lot of interesting flavor and not unhealthy much at all. The play of the various spicy elements with the tangy elements really made the flavor exciting and just sizzle with each bite. I was proud of the dish and it was really quite easy, but Julia's reaction was still a little surprising. I guess me caring about each element that I added to the dish, made the flavors really work, and it must have come through, even to someone who eats my food the most often. If it's really that good, this could be the most unassuming signature dish I've ever discovered. Leave it to my superfan to know me better than I do.

You-Me Pizza

Finding a good pizza can be tricky. Sometimes it happens though when you least expect it. Like when you just stumble in starving. This is what happened late one evening with Luigi's on 19th near M, south of Dupont Circle in DC. Exiting Science Club bar next door, all we wanted was pizza and there it was, still open. Ah, reminded me of the college days (last year) when food and drink were always in easy proximity.

We got a nice little table and a friendly waiter, who quickly confirmed that pizza here was a good choice. No small, medium or large here – you just tell them how many you want to eat for. We said two, and lo and behold, we got the perfect amount of pizza in our pie – maybe halfway between a small and medium and quartered.

Of course toppings were of utmost importance and they have many. Most were fresh, Italian ingredients including many meats and cheeses. Going for a tasty vegetarian one, we asked for garlic, green olives and Mediterranean olives. Good choices for a you-me pizza.

The pizza was sort of that perfect thin but not too thin, with a little chewiness that I love. The sauce and cheese had great taste, so I could tell they were of good quality. And genius! The garlic we ordered was diced tiny and actually incorporated into the cheese, so that beautiful flavor ran throughout, rather than forcing us to eat chunks of garlic or being too garish of a flavor in any one place. We both thought that was a delicious and clever aspect that really made the pizza divine. Of course the olives were great too – not too many, but just enough for that texture and tang that I absolutely need in a pizza. I love mushrooms and love onions, but never order them for me on a pizza without any additional tang or it will be the blandest pizza ever.

Well this pizza was not cursed by blandness. All aspects were well made, good quality, and that is enough to make a great pizza for me. We don't even eat too much pizza because it can be so hard to find one that's worth the, well, you know, kilocals. But when we do, we are very happy campers. You-me love our yummy.

Last Supper

Last night, on my favorite food show, Top Chef, they asked the five remaining chefs in this year's competition to complete a unique and intriguing challenge: to cook the proverbial “last supper” for one of five super chefs. Each contestant drew a chef at random and was then told what that chef had requested. Later, they had several hours to shop and prepare the meal before service to all 5 plus the standard judges Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio and Toby Young. For the meals, our DC girl and favorite, Carla selected Jacques Pèpin who asked for squab and peas; my other favorite, Stefan selected Marcus Samuelsson who asked for salmon with potatoes and dill; fan favorite and ultimate challenge winner Fabio selected Lidia Bastianich who asked for roasted chicken with roasted potatoes and a leafy salad; Hosea selected Susan Ungaro who asked for shrimp scampi and tomatoes Provencal; and the loser of the challenge, who was sent packing by the panel, was annoying Leah, who selected Wylie Dufresne and the simple task of eggs Benedict. Too bad for her.

Needless to say, it was definitely one of Top Chef's most interesting concepts for a challenge and even got me thinking about the concept. Despite its morbidity (Pèpin even exclaimed that he could definitely die after eating Carla's peas), I think all the chefs had a lot of fun harkening whatever culinary longing they would ask for foremost – or maybe last-most. All the choices seemed so simple and rustic – classic dishes that might be the oldest dish they can remember, their comfort food.

How would you think about your last supper decision?

Comforting, like macaroni and cheese with fried chicken and mashed potatoes?

Upscale, like butter poached lobster tail with black truffle bruschetta?

Sinful, like a dozen glazed donuts, a bucket of KFC original, a few McDonalds cheeseburgers and some turtle cheesecake?

Contrived, like two poached eggs with a falafel sandwich, twelve French fries, six strawberries, a porterhouse steak cooked medium rare, half a cupcake, bananas foster, pastrami and cheese on rye, fifteen fried shrimp and toast?

Simple, like Mom's baked chicken with noodles? Yum.

Of course there are many other ways too. And that's why you won't be hearing mine quite yet. I still have a lot more exploring and thinking to do before I decide. Maybe years worth. But I wanted to get YOU started on thinking about it, since I now have. One day we'll have that conversation, and perhaps we'll be important enough that a great chef will cook them for us. Until then I'll be living vivaciously and intriguingly through the Top Chefs and their elite audience.

Brrrrrrrr

Well this winter has been ugly. Bad. Cold. So I hear. After years of enduring hideous Michigan winters I thought I would finally escape to its more attractive cousin, the mild winter. Unfortunately, I hear Michigan is having one of its nastiest winters in quite a while, as is much of the country. That makes the weather down here in the almost-South, well, more like the cold I'm used to in Michigan. While my winter has not been worse than usual (due to my move), many of you are experiencing colder and/or messier winters than usual. So if you're feeling cold and blue, here are some of the best foods to warm and cheer up on (in no particular order).

• Scrambled eggs with toast and Earl Grey tea
  

• Spaghetti and meat balls with grated parmesan and a glass of red wine
  
  

• Hot chocolate with whipped cream and a warm, fresh-baked cookie
  
  

• Buffalo wings with bleu cheese and a cold draught beer
  
  

• Bowl of steel cut oatmeal with milk and brown sugar
  
  

• Any chicken-broth based soup: chicken noodle, chicken and rice, noodle soup, matzo ball soup, etc.
  
  

• Cheeseburger and fries with a soda or beer
  
  

• Hot, roasted turkey sandwich with all the fixings
  
  

• Fresh air-popped popcorn
  
  

• Grilled cheese and tomato soup
  
  

• Warm, fresh bagel and cream cheese with a cup of coffee
  

• Chinese pork dumplings with a cup of egg drop soup
  
  

So no matter where you are and how bad your weather is, grab a blanket, draw a bath or put on that extra layer and snuggle in with whatever comfort food will make you feel good. Because if Mother Nature and Punxsutawney Phil have their ways, we'll be hunkering down for quite some MORE time, so we might as well do it warmly and happily.

That Place

Every so often I discover a place that just makes me feel good when I eat there. It's a strange phenomenon, since the aspect of people that cause them to enjoy food is probably pretty similar, but the aspect that makes us truly fancy something is very personalized. It digs deep into our personal preferences, our personality and even our current situation and surroundings.

If a place makes a good hamburger, the majority of people who eat hamburgers will enjoy that hamburger. But it takes a lot more for a person to truly have a tiny, little warm place in their heart for that burger joint. Most would write it off as a good burger and remember that if they ever considered returning. But for a select few, this place becomes the place they associate with a great burger, the place that reminds them of the best burger they've ever tried, the place they secretly would love to eat at daily, or even the place that somehow redefines their image of a burger in a novel and exciting light. That is their comfort place. For no explicable reason. That feel good place.

We all have a few. We never know where they came from, or why, or even which old one they replaced. They just form. It's that place that no one else “gets” as much as you do. It can be comfort food, but it doesn't have to be. It usually just has some unique aspect that only you appreciate, but it's everything to you.

Having just moved to a new area, I was fully expecting to develop one or more new places. In Ann Arbor, I couldn't tolerate B3W, but was over the moon for these Buffalo wings at a smaller joint because I always went there as consolation for a big exam. When I was living in Manhattan, there was a tiny sushi restaurant on MacDougal Street near my Soho apartment. It was usually nearly empty, but I thought the sushi rice tasted better than any other sushi, the rolls were more creative, and above all, their brown rice sushi (and the fact that they even had it). I went there as often as I could, and brought people, but few others thought it was much more than a pretty good sushi joint.

Now in the DC-NoVA area, I think I have found my first new place. It is a deli sandwich place called Phillip's. There are supposedly four Phillip’s in DC; this store is located on G Street between 17^th and 18th. After I started my job, several coworkers brought me and another new co-worker, Rebecca, to Phillip's for lunch. I wasn’t expecting much, but when I got in, I noticed something quite novel. Behind the glass, next to the bread and the toppings was a bona fide carving station!

There was a guy with several large carving knives handling the meat, and if someone ordered a turkey sandwich, he would carve off a big pile of meat off the fresh, roasted whole turkey and pass it to the sandwich compiler who had prepared the bread selection with any cheese, condiments, lettuce, or tomato in the meantime. And then the sandwich was sent to the third member who offered a myriad of other sandwich toppings – all for $6.95. If the next person ordered roast beef, the carver turned to his roast and carved off a gorgeous offering of rare and succulent roast beef. And they had a whole chicken for chicken sandwiches, and a whole ham. You get the point. All of these were freshly cooked, and they looked and tasted tremendous.

Don’t ask me what was so special about this place. The bread and cheese and toppings were all fairly typical, maybe even mundane. I’m not even a huge meat eater, and I don’t eat deli cold cuts very much at all. Maybe that was the thing. This was a deli sandwich with REAL, warm meat, not processed, salty cold meat. I was hooked immediately, and my face now lights up any time anyone mentions going there. I have tried all of their main offerings and approved of them all. But the roast beef takes the cake by far. Killer!

Rebecca on the other hand, true to her New York roots, thought Phillip’s was “okay – nothing to write home about.” She would take a standard Jewish deli any day of the week over this more nouveau take on a sandwich. And I don’t blame her. This is not HER place. This is MY place.

I even thought I was going there for lunch today, and this became a great morning in anticipation. And then my lunch buddies did a total 180 and decided to go to Baja Fresh. Threw Phillip’s out on the street! And why shouldn’t they? They like Phillip’s, but Phillip’s is not THEIR place. There’s just no way they would ever give that place – MY place – its just desserts. It’s just another lunch place in their rotation. They just don’t understand. No one ever will ever quite understand ANYONE’S place. But everyone needs their place nevertheless.

Popeye's Psychodrama

Recently I was trapped on a bus going to New York City with 70 strangers (and Julia) for five hours. It was actually a fine experience until the rest stop. A typical, modern facility you see on big travel highways, with the token Burger King, Cinnabon and, the all-too-innocent-looking Popeye's Chicken. Being good little yuppies, who don't typically eat food like that and who had reservations at nine at one of the nicest restaurants in New York (future post), it did not take very much to get us to abstain from the rest stop pre-dinner.

Apparently we were in the minority. As we re-entered the bus for the final leg of the trip, I was inundated with the knock-you-over pungency of the smell of fried chicken, a dish I save for only the rarest of occasions. As I looked around, nearly all of our traveling counterparts were presently digging their faces into little cartons of fried chicken, and well, fries. Conveniently, this was mixed in with just the right amount of Cinnabon smell from those who needed dessert as well, to truly make it a knockout punch. My hungry self was suddenly salivating over this menagerie of gross, and I found myself deeply hankering fried chicken. Popeye's, for lack of a better option.

At this point, it was too late to even think about getting some (as if Julia would have allowed that), so I tortured myself over the smells for the last hour and a half and eventually got myself over it. We got into the city and had a terrific dinner (remember: future post). Let's just say that I ultimately consumed far more spinach than fried chicken that night, so my Popeye the Sailor instincts thankfully “out-muscled” my Popeye's Chicken ones.

Or so I thought. Fast forward two weekends.

After completely forgetting about my little bus craving, I made a Saturday night reservation for a restaurant back in DC with Julia and some friends. The restaurant was between Foggy Bottom and Dupont Circle, Hudson Restaurant and Lounge, at the corner of 21st and M. I was inexplicably attracted by its tag of contemporary-chic comfort food. Now it probably seems obvious why, but at the time, I was none the wiser.

When we got there, I was instantly impressed by the ambiance and decor. It is one of those dark, loungy places that I love, and it had a very crisp, and yes, chic feel to it. I'm not usually a big decor guy, but this is one of those places that makes me want to stay and talk (and eat, and drink) all night. It's loud enough to know that the place is happening and not lame, but not so loud that it hinders conversations.

We ordered a pitcher of their white fusion sangria, which was big, reasonably priced and very flavorful, if not a tad too citrusy for sangria. They served a nice, crusty bread with butter and weren’t shy about refilling it. We found the price to be very reasonable: dinner for four including 1 large pitcher of sangria, 2 entrée pizzas and 2 regular entrees was less than 100 bucks.

THE MENU

The menu was relatively close to what was advertised: new takes on comforts and old faves. The “starters” section included Matzoh Ball Soup (with pulled chicken), Tuna Tartare (with wonton triangles), deviled eggs, cheese steak sliders and mussels. They had a variety of brick oven pizzas with interesting topping combinations, at least four of which were vegetarian. The entrees were a little more main stream and less within the restaurant’s theme (like risotto and whole grilled fish) but were highlighted by duck confit (with truffle fries), truffle macaroni and cheese, and – wait for it – buttermilk fried chicken. Oh the horror!

THE ORDER

Mashed potatoes. Buttermilk Biscuit. Pan Gravy. Clover Honey. My silly brain, upon seeing this description, reverted back to bus torture mode and was immediately begging my better judgment to order this dish immediately. “I mean, how bad could the dish be,” it asked. “This is a nice place – not Popeye’s!”

Well for some reason that brain of mine has unbelievable control over me, and I went for it and finally ordered the chicken that I so didn’t need. And it was good. For fried chicken, I’d say it was very good, maybe even darn good. But it failed to send me over the moon like my craving and my nose and my stomach and my brain all told me it would. Again, I reiterate that I have no complaints about the dish. The breading was crisp and peppery; the chicken was moist and flavorful; the mashed potatoes were creamy; the biscuit was dry but the honey was a delightful remedy for that. And the gravy was, well, indulgent. So it was a fine meal and I don’t fault the restaurant for anything. It just didn’t add anything too new or too memorable to my fried chicken repertoire. And thus, my craving is now gone, and I feel it will be a long while before it returns. Strange, those cravings. And that brain.

The others in my party were not so affected by their deep psychological underpinnings as I was, and ordered sensible and interesting dishes like Shrooms. Had you going there? That was the name of one of their pizzas, and it was topped with mushrooms, garlic confit, brie and black truffle oil. Another ordered pizza was Hawaiian House, with ham, pineapple, fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce. The pizzas were both thin but not crispy, pretty big and very tasty. I would say that the toppings seemed a little scarce, especially on the Shrooms one, but I suppose with all those rich flavors it didn’t take away too much. The last dish ordered was a wild mushroom and smoked Gouda risotto, which I did not try, but it got a very nice review from the eater.

All in all, I think we would return to this place, if for no other reason than to further explore some of the interesting other options. Not necessarily to reorder anything we happened to order this time. Or to necessarily quench deeply recessed cravings. That is, unless we go back to New York and the bus stops at Popeye’s Confit or something.