Slow Food

Volunteered to "person" a table for Slow Food at the New Morning Form market at the Sheridan School this morning.

Slow Food was founded in Europe 20 years ago by an Italian, Carlo Petrini, to combat the growing trend to fast food. It supports sustainable and local farming and encourages people to take the time to eat real food.

More than three dozen people signed up for the email list this morning. Many of them had heard of Slow Food or knew somebody in it. Farmer's markets are of course a great place to find people who share the Slow Food values.

I've only just rejoined the DC chapter after letting my membership lapse from a couple of years ago. I'd like to be active and figured volunteering to do this is a good way to get started.

The group is international and claims more than 100,000 members in 132 countries. The Salon de gusto in Turin, a big food fair put on by Slow Food, is supposed to be great fun.

General Store

Gillian Clark is a very good cook, but her restaurants are a bit quirky. Colorado Kitchen was fun and cozy but you never knew when it was going to be open. They took off Monday and Tuesday and then Wednesday, and closed on a weekend when they had something better to do, it seemed.

The new place in Silver Spring is cute and accessible, but out of the way and was mostly empty when we were there yesterday -- on a Friday night. The menu is very restricted.

We both had fried chicken, which is still amazingly good -- juicy, tender, with a flaky crust. I had really good collard greens with mine, and tasted the mac and cheese, also a winner. Cornbread just so-so, and the pecan pie was a such a disappointment I wondered if it was actually baked there. On our first trip a few months ago, we had the fish tacos and they were great, with tender deep-fried fish.

It's self-service at the General Store, which seems to be something of a trend (Surfside, Tacklebox) -- fine by me because it definitely keeps the costs down. Beer and wine are available, though for some reason they feel the need to be more draconian about IDs than even Montgomery County would warrant (we were both carded).

Their emails have been talking about a tavern, but that is really just a place underneath the stairs that wasn't good for anything else and super un-appealing as a place to sit and drink a beer.

I'm eager to go back and try the beef stew once the weather is colder, and they have a special Sunday dinner that changes every week (sign up the for the weekly email to find out what it is).

Gillian Clark is a good chef and deserves a bigger audience. Not sure who is making the quirky choices on these restaurants. There is supposed to be a second venue in the offing, so maybe they will get it right. I don't find the formula at General Store one that guarantees a long life.

Seared duck breast

Broad Branch Market had boneless duck breasts for $7.99 a pound, which I thought was a pretty good deal, so I bought a couple (1 lb.) for dinner.

I got lucky and found the perfect recipe in just the second cookbook I opened, Bobby Flay Cooks American. His "Seared Muscovy Duck Breast with Black Pepper-Sweet Mustard Glaze" was simple and quick and only required ingredients I had on hand.

You score the skin with a cross-hatch pattern, salt and pepper the breasts all over, and sear them skin side down in a skillet. I used some rendered duck fat for this, though it might have been superfluous. You drain the fat, turn over the breasts and put the skillet into a preheated 400-degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes for medium (though I went a little longer and still had a nice touch of pink in the finished slices), and then take them out of the oven and apply the glaze.

I halved Flay's recipe, which was for 4 people and 2 lbs of duck breasts. The glaze using my half-portions consisted of 2 Tbl Dijon mustard, 1 Tbl whole grain Dijon mustard, 1 Tbl honey, 1 tsp coarsely cracked black pepper and 1/2 tsp dried thyme (since I didn't have 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme), and salt to taste.

You let the duck breasts rest for 10 minutes after applying the glaze, then slice and serve. The honey cuts the mustard down to size (though don't use this recipe if you don't like the taste of mustard), leaving a nice tangy flavor enhanced by the pepper.

I sauteed some leftover white rice in the drained fat as an accompaniment. A quick, easy meal for a weeknight! Duck doesn't have to be a big deal.

I like it when a cookbook has very simple recipes. It is one of Marcella Hazan's strengths, I think, to include even the simplest recipes as long as they are tasty -- like her tomato sauce made just by simmering butter, tomatoes, and an onion with two cloves stuck in it.

We have for some reason accumulated a number of Bobby Flay cookbooks that we don't get much use out of. I may start looking into them more often.

Rancho Gordo heirloom beans

Steve Sando has cultivated a number of native bean varieties and sells them online at his Web site.

He has an astounding variety that run about $5 for a 1-lb. package. We order about half a dozen varieties each shipment.

These are dried beans, but very fresh, so it's usually enough to soak them the same day for four to six hours before cooking. Sando suggests cooking them together with a mirepoix to start the flavoring process.

Beans are a healthy vegetable protein that hot or cold can absorb many wonderful flavors. Sando also has a Heirloom Beans cookbook and as part of our Labor Day Colombian barbecue (see separate post) we made his three-bean salad. It was delicious, bursting with flavor, and well-suited to the flank steak and chile sauces.

Any bean that stays firm when cooked can be used (he suggests a number of them). We used a half-pound each of yellow Indian woman, cranberry and flageolet beans.

We cooked the beans separately with mirepoix. In a 400-degree oven, you roast plum tomatoes from a 14-oz. can, drained and drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, until they start to brown and caramelize, about 20 min.

Meanwhile, you saute 1/4-lb. diced pancetta until golden, about 8 to 10 min., then drain on paper towels.

You chop the roasted tomatoes and put them in a large salad bowl. You add 3 celery stalks, cut in half lengthwise and then on the diagonal into 1/4-inch thick slices; one small sweet onion cut into quarters and then thinly sliced; 1/4 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley; and the cooked beans, still a bit warm.

For the dressing you whisk together 2 finely chopped garlic cloves, 1/4 tsp. dried oregano, 1/4 tsp. dried thyme, 1 tsp. Dijon mustard, 3 Tbl. red wine vinegar, and then drizzle 1/2 c. EVOO in while whisking to form the emulsion, add salt and pepper. Toss the salad with the dressing, check salt and pepper and serve.

Colombian barbecue

We get three food magazines -- Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, and Gourmet -- and often use their recipes even though we have literally hundreds of cookbooks. Why? They're new and up to date, they're right in front of you and seasonal, and they often have really great photos.

So to celebrate the end of summer on Labor Day we used a recipe for Colombian barbecue from a Globe-Trotter's Guide to BBQ in the July Bon Appetit. For six people, it called for two flank steaks (about 3 lbs. altogether), scored in a cross-hatch pattern and rubbed with ground cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and olive oil. Then you put the steaks in a marinade of dark beer (12 oz.), Worcestershire sauce (1/4 c.) and thinly sliced green onion (6 or about 1-1/4 c.) for at least three hours, turning occasionally.

You grill the steaks medium rare, rest, slice and serve with two sauces. One is an "aji sauce" of 4 deseeded and coarsely chopped jalapeno peppers (1/2 c.), 2 coarsely chopped green onions (1/2 c.), 1/3 c. chopped Vidalia onion, 1/4 c. chopped cilantro all blended to a paste in the food processor. Then you add 2 Tbl. red wine vinegar (or lime juice) to smooth it out while keeping some texture, and stir in salt and pepper to taste.

The other sauce is a Colombian guacamole, made of one large avocado peeled, pitted and coarsely chopped; 3 Tbl. chopped cilantro; 3 Tbl. chopped green onion or sweet onion; 2 Tbl. chopped serrano chiles (with seeds) pureed in food processor until smooth. Then you add 1/4 c. or more water and 2-1/2 Tbl. lime juice and blend until you get a thick sauce. This is creamier and more saucelike than your typical guacamole and a little hotter.

The steak was great with a hint of the rub in the crust and very tender. We served it with rice, a three-bean salad (see separate post on Rancho Gordo), and corn grilled in the husk after immersing them in water (so the corn is steamed while the husk is charred) served with melted basil butter. The sauces worked well with the steak and the rice was great for mopping up everthing on the plate.

Wine was a deep red Layer Cake Zinfandel that handled the steak and sauces fine.

To splurge for the end of summer we had homemade ice cream sandwiches with chocolate chocolate chip cookies and brown sugar ice cream.

The Fishery

We don't eat as much fish as we would like, partly because we don't like the cooking odor from fish in the house. Also, we are both a bit picky about which fish we will eat.

I'm probably a bit more venturesome in that regard, so last night when I was on my own for dinner, I went to The Fishery, aka Chevy Chase Seafood Market, at Connecticut and Livingston and got some trout to grill.

When we do eat fish, we usually go to The Fishery. The fish there have invariably been fresh. They break down their own large fish and it's fun if you happen to be there when they are carving out fillets and steaks. The salespeople are very friendly and will always offer tips on cooking.

The trout, I realized only when I got home, were not only cleaned and gutted, but also deboned. So although it looked like a whole fish, it was essentially fillets with the head, tail and skin still on. I would have preferred to have the whole fish intact, except for cleaning, and will ask for that the next time.

I dressed the fish with lemon juice and salt, grilled over charcoal, drizzled with melted butter and accompanied with grilled eggplant (drizzled with fig and meyer lemon balsamic vinegar), sliced tomato and mixed greens.

Wine with the meal was a 2008 Chateau St. Jean Sonoma Fume Blanc that was excellent and paired perfectly with the fish. Thursdays are the night for my weekly cocktail, dating back to when it was the deadline for my contributions to UCG. Last night I had Tanqueray Malacca Gin with tonic.

I've always been a gin fan, but I'll admit that Tanqueray's recent creative series of commercials highlighting the exotic botanicals that infuse gin with flavor have enhance my appreciation. The Malacca gin has been sitting in my cupboard for some years. The label says it is more aromatic and flavorful than London Dry gin, and it certainly tasted good last night.

I've liked trout ever since I ate fish I caught in a Colorado mountain stream at age six or so -- my first and virtually my last fishing expedition. In Europe, particularly in Germany, you often find trout, the whole fish, on the menu. It will be poached (Blau because it turns blue as it is cooked) or dusted with flour and fried (Muellerin because that's what a miller's wife would do with a fish).

Once you get the hang of it, it's quite easy to fillet and eat a whole fish on your plate. As with meat, I think the flavor of fish cooked bone-in is generally better.

Poste Moderne Brasserie

We went last night to a special Poste Roast in the wonderful courtyard of Chef Robert Weland's restaurant. We had a spit-roasted suckling pig for a group of 12 organized by a Facebook group, DCFoodies. It's a great concept and was well executed.

Dinner is at a chef's table on one side of the courtyard, next to the fabulous vegetables growing in rows of pots there. (Chef's table is only a name, because the chef was nowhere to be seen.)

The pig was roasted over hickory wood in the center of the courtyard (prior to our arrival). The little thing (smaller than you might think) was presented to us before carving and served family style with plentiful helpings of homemade sauerkraut, macaroni and cheese, and grilled stone fruit.

The price for the roast -- just the main course of suckling pig and sides -- was $35, including tax and tip. Drinks, starters, and desserts were additional.

The bar has several very nice special cocktails. I had a Nor'easter with Flor de cana 7-year rum, Laird’s applejack, and Fentiman’s ginger beer, which was big and refreshing and satisfied my craving for a rum drink. I also tasted the Awakening, made with Tanqueray 10 gin, key lime, cardamon, pineapple juice, and mint, which I found pleasingly tart and great on a cool summer evening.

Following the bar's recommendation, we ordered a glass of 2007 Big Fire Pinot Gris from Oregon to go with the suckling pig, and it was an excellent pairing.

For a starter, we split the tomato salad of heirloom tomatoes like those growing in the pots next to us, burrata cheese and a very nice tomato basil sorbet. It was an excellent dish, but a bit pricey at $16.

The delays first in presenting our suckling pig, and then in carving it, were unconscionably long, one suspects to encourage us to keep ordering drinks and starters. By the time the main course arrived, it was quite dark in the courtyard and surrounding lanterns were not lit to provide us with much-needed illumination.

The suckling pig was quite good, still moist, with that delicate flavor of young pig. Suckling pig is popular in Europe, particularly in Germany, and I've had it often. It's a specialty in Duesseldorf's Altstadt, where numerous sidewalk kiosks sell you a tasty portion for much less than we paid to enjoy this pig in downtown DC.

The sauerkraut was very nice (again a food I'm familiar with after 11 years in Germany), mild but with that tangy sourness you want in the dish. The mac and cheese arrived hot from the oven and spread a lovely aroma around the table.

A special treat was the serving of the pig's head on a separate platter, so that the more venturesome in our party could taste the brain, cheeks and other parts you normally would not get in a restaurant. Unfortunately, because it was so dark you could not make, well, heads or tails out of that platter and you didn't want to explore with your fingers when sharing with 11 other people.

All in all, it was a very nice meal and our waiter, Javier, with the assistance of other staff as needed, provided great service.

I don't know whether this all holds true for the a la carte experience. The comments on Zagat indicate an uneven performance at best. All in, it was not cheap, but it is downtown DC and the setting is glorious. We would go back again in warm weather just for that courtyard, to see if our very positive food experience could be repeated.