Santa Fe

Rather than fight the medical conference crowds for reservations at Cafe Pasquale or other leading lights on this trip we sampled some of the more informal places favored by our friends in Santa Fe.

Harry's Roadhouse had the pride of place, where on three trips we had the blue corn turkey enchiladas, tacos with barbacoa, and the buffalo burger with Monterey jack and green chiles. But Santa Fe Baking Co. was right up there, too, for several breakfasts. Great pastries, and excellent huevos rancheros and blue corn pancakes (which really stole the show).

Two other down-home favorites were Counter Culture, which had excellent sandwiches, and Tune Up, where I enjoyed chicken breast with mole Colorado and grilled bananas, a great sweet, savory and spicy dish. We also met friends at Santacafe for a little Southwestern elegance in the their lovely courtyard and some great steak.

We will probably be more venturesome once again on our next trip, but we wanted to take it easy this time around. Among Santa Fe's many charms is that taking it easy could not be easier. There is not a single place in Washington that can match any of these in the combination of chic and quality, without any pretensions or falsity.

Gateway BBQ Tour

I was helping a friend drive a U-Haul from Washington, DC to Santa Fe, so  we decided to have some fun and turn it into a "Gateway BBQ Tour." Since we were driving through Va, Tn, Ar, Ok and Tx, it seemed like a winner -- and it was. However, we discovered that the most important criterion for finding good BBQ is not how many stars or favorable reviews it gets on Yelp or Urbanspoon or whatever, but that it be open!

Our first target was Smoky's Hickory BBQ in Mason, Va., which got great reviews and seemed like a great BBQ shack. We held out for a late lunch, got off the Interstate and found the shack. Smokey's, it was obvious, had gone out of business some time ago. First lesson, call ahead.

So we had an early dinner at Archer's in Knoxville, Tn -- sampling both the Memphis-style baby backs and the pulled pork sandwiches (we were hungry, what can I say). They were excellent. We stopped there because a potential target in Nashville, Hog Heaven, told us when we called that they would close by 9 and we didn't think we could make it by then.

The next day was Sunday, and it turns out the most BBQ joints, at least in Tn, are closed on Sunday. Our first choice, Mac's BBQ in Jackson, Tn, was closed, and B.E. Scott in Lexington, which Andrea and I had visited in our previous trip along I-40 was also closed. We ended up at Brooksie's Barn in Jackson, which had a good pulled pork sandwich but a bizarre ambiance and a location right next to the megachurch Love & Truth. Jackson, in fact, was a depressing array of chain stores and restaurants.

We hustled to Fayetteville to make it to Sassy's Red House before they closed at 9. The rack of spareribs was good enough, but not great, though the ambiance of the festive outdoor deck made it a pleasant stop.

In Amarillo, we headed for Doug Henk's BBQ, after reading that he had won a vote as the best BBQ in the city. When we got there, we found it had become Crazy Larry's. Larry, who did seem a bit crazy, greeted us warmly and just informed us they had changed their name. The brisket was good, though I'm sure Austin has much better to offer.

When we finally got to Santa Fe, Harry's Roadhouse did have some juicy St. Louis style ribs on the menu, but I decided the BBQ tour was over and opted instead for a New Mexico blue corn turkey enchilada, which was scrumptious. The margaritas helped.

It was clear in Mason that the fast food franchises which dotted the road from the Interstate had most likely driven Smokey's out of business. In general, it seems that the shacks, at least those accessible to cross-country drivers are fast disappearing. In Oklahoma City, for instance, the front desk personnel at our Hampton Inn steered us away from Earl's Rib Palace, a Bricktown eatery that got fairly good review in Yelp, and recommended the Cajun place across the street. One of them said there were really good BBQ places in OKC, but got very vague when we asked where they were, making me think he was worried that it would not be advisable for us to go those neighborhoods. In any case, we were not going to tool around OKC in a U-Haul truck.

Memphis, itself, btw, was fully booked between the May in Memphis festival and the NBA playoffs, so we didn't even attempt a stop there. My conclusions: BBQ is alive and well enough but shrinking; Yelp can help but is not totally reliable; in the end, serendipity is your best friend.

Atlanta eating

We only had time to go to four restaurants in Atlanta, but they were all great.

The big splurge was The Spence with Top Chef winner Richard Blais. He really can cook and every dish we had at the table was top quality and very tasty. Though this is small plates, the plates aren't too small as a rule (though the desserts were bizarrely small). The baby kale Caesar was very ample, and we split it. I ordered one of the dishes set apart as a full entree -- rolled pork belly with baked chickpeas. We got a couple of orders of the signature fried Brussels sprouts for the table, and the fried three times French fries -- both excellent. The moderately priced Coteaux de Languedoc was a great pairing for most of the meal.

The overall ambiance of the place was good, though it was very loud as people tried to talk over the background music. Service was mostly good, though our waiter was a bit erratic in his attention. There was an open kitchen and though I've never cared one or the other about this I have to admit that watching a pimply-faced kid with a ponytail and arms covered with tattoos flipping a saute pan doesn't do much to enhance my enjoyment of the meal. Blais himself, dressed in a white T-shirt with an apron (but thankfully no tattoos), made the rounds of the tables, including ours, and that made many people very happy. As to my dish -- the pork belly came out lukewarm so I sent it back and it tasted much better when it was hot. The baked chickpeas were actually just a chickpea version of Boston baked beans -- not the happiest taste innovation of the night. But honestly, overall, I enjoyed the restaurant.

My pleasure was more unalloyed with our brunch at Gladys Knight's Signature Chicken and Waffles -- four jumbo chicken wings served hot and juicy with a waffle and all the trimmings (butter and maple syrup). That will hold you for the better part of the day. That evening we went to Fritti's, an upscale pizzeria in Inman Park and it was very pleasant. We would have tried the nearby Barcelona tapas bar but it was fully booked due to Mother's Day. For lunch after the graduation ceremony, we went to the Highland Bakery, where I passed on the signature peanut butter French toast but had a truly delicious chicken fried steak Benedict, which was pretty much as the name would indicate -- sinful and satisfying.

Pasta with asparagus, ricotta and lemon

This recipe from Elizabeth Minchilli calls for wild asparagus but I didn't even look for that. To my surprise, however, I was able to get the unusual pasta, sagne e pezzi from Rustichella d'Abruzzo, that she uses in the recipe. It must be something they are promoting, because Minchilli acknowledged it was a freebee from the producer (mine, btw, was NOT free) and it was prominently displayed in Cornucopia.

The recipe is fine with thin regular asparagus though I think it might be better shifting the proportions to get the taste balance right with the milder farmed vegetable -- either more asparagus or less pasta. The asparagus tips get cut up into 1-inch segments while the woody ends are boiled for 40 min in a big pot of salted water that will be used for cooking the pasta. Prep the ricotta by peeling the zest off a lemon, chopping it up as mixing it with the cheese to sit while you do the rest. Saute 1 chopped onion in olive oil for 15 min. then add the asparagus tips and a scoop of the pasta water and cook about 10 min until tender (not mushy). Drain the asparagus water, reserving the broth and throwing away the stems. Return the broth to a boil, add the pasta and cook according to instructions. When the pasta is almost finished, take a scoop of the water and add it to the ricotta mixture, stirring to make it smooth and creamy. Drain the pasta (reserving water again) and put it into pan with the asparagus tips. Toss with 2 Tbl butter, then add ricotta mixture and juice of 1 lemon and toss again, adding some pasta water if it is too dry.

The dish has a great lemony flavor. Minchilli says she doesn't serve parmesan with it because it might overpower the asparagus. I would be tempted to sprinkle some cheese over it, though, especially with the farm asparagus. The sagne e pezzi is a heavy, nutritious pasta and makes the dish a satisfying main course.

Wildwood Kitchen

We like Robert Wiedmaier's Brasserie Beck and Marcel's so wanted to try this new restaurant where he abandons the butter and cream and starch of his Franco-Belgian cuisine in favor of the oil and vegetables of Mediterranean cooking.

It is a relatively small place located improbably in the Wildwood strip mall on Old Georgetown Rd. The decor is pleasant and cozy and you could forget where you were if you weren't, as we were, sitting right at the window with a view of the parking lot.

The food, however, was quite good -- high quality, perfectly prepared and very tasty. We started off with drinks to celebrate Andrea's new car. I had the gin-based Corpse Reviver #2 and Andrea had the Wildwood's New Fashioned. Both were refreshing, generous drinks that commanded correspondingly generous prices ($15).

Bread was an oven-toasted, olive oil-flavored Italian style white served with a tuna rillettes that was a great way to whet your appetite. We split the asparagus salad, which both white and green asparagus with frisee and radish, all very fresh and refreshing. I had the pan-seared sea bream with ratatouille and Andrea had the salmon with quinoa and fennel and we were both very happy. The dishes were indeed light and Mediterranean.

Decor, like the food, was a sort of Italian-Spanish fusion, very pleasant, which made you yearn, however, for an outdoor patio, real trees and balmy sea air instead of Montgomery County 'burbs.

Bucatini all'amatriciana

One of the dialogues in my Italian textbook was about someone ordering spaghetti all'amatriciana in a restaurant, and this prompted our teacher, Carlo, to launch into a passionate description of how wonderful this Roman dish consisting of guanciale, pancetto, onion, tomato and hot pepper is. So I went to Domenica Marchetti's The Glorious Pasta of Italy for a recipe and found a good home version.

Her recipe calls for pancetta and Canadian/back bacon, but I thought I would be smarter and go to Vace, which I know carries guanciale. Sadly, they were out the day I was there, so I used 8 oz of pancetta, which gets sauteed 10 min until it renders its fat. Then you add 1/4 c olive oil, 1 c chopped red onion and 3 partially crushed garlic cloves for 5 min, then 2 c diced tomatoes with juice, sprinkled with salt and "a generous pinch" of red pepper flakes. Simmer for 10 more min. Meanwhile cook the bucatini to al dente, drain, reserving 1 c of pasta water, put the noodles in the skillet with the sauce and toss to combine over low heat. Transfer to heated bowl and sprinkle 1/2 c shredded pecorino romano over it and serve.

Bucatini are large-diameter spaghetti with a hole down the middle, which makes the cook more evenly and also helps pick up the sauce. This was a tasty, easy pasta dish. Next time I will try it with guanciale and either a bigger pinch of red pepper flakes, or, as Carlo described it, including a red pepper in the saute.

Roast leg of lamb with rosemary and prosciutto

Roast leg of lamb was a standby for me in Paris when I lived across the street from a wholesale butcher. Nothing could be simpler -- insert slivers of garlic around the leg, pop it in the oven and a little more than an hour later, feast like a king. The lamb is self-basting with the layer of fat, tender and pink and delicious.

Diana Henry has several recipes for leg of lamb, including this one, which involves wrapping a strip of prosciutto around the garlic sliver with a twig of rosemary and inserting them around the leg. She recommends roasting at 425 degrees for 15 min, then lowering it to 350 for 50 min more. In this recipe, she also has you pour 1/4 c balsamic vinegar and 2/3 c white wine over the lamb and baste during cooking. It helps to form a tasty crust. We served it with flageolet beans from Rancho Gordo. Superb.

Fiola

To celebrate a special event with some friends we splurged on this "modern trattoria" of Fabio Trabocchi's in Penn Quarter and it was sensational. Everything -- decor, drinks, appetizer, pasta, main course, wine, dessert, service, ambiance -- was terrific. It even had the Washington power elite it's famous for, with a Supreme Court justice coming into the restaurant right behind us.

The friend who suggested this outing had done some research and steered us to truly outstanding signature dishes. To start with, as an hors d'oeuvres for the table, we had the veal meatballs, with an egg sunny-side up. These were tender, flavorful concoctions smothered in a delicious garlicky tomato sauce that I mopped up with the slightly toasted delicious bread. We had these with cocktails that I discuss more at length in my wine and spirits blog.

My first course, one of the signature dishes, was the agnolotti of Venetian cod "Baccala" with mussels, cockles and Spanish octopus, and it was stupendously good. The creamy salty cod in the perfectly cooked pasta took you to the sea and the various other ingredients enhanced the fishy ambiance. The octopus, in particular, a baby octopus that had been blanched, was tender and mild in flavor but with enough of that exotic Atlantic taste to give the dish some kick. The broth and flavoring, too, all worked to create a wonderfully balanced and, even the half-portion, very generous serving of seafood. Andrea had the vitello tonnato, made with tuna tartar and a creamy mayonnaise, that also was fabulous from the taste of it I had.

Let me say in passing it was such a relief to go to a restaurant that was not serving small plates. This was a meal, a real meal, that had nothing "precious" or sampling about it. This was great food, served with flourish, but not fussed over. So in that sense, it was truly like a trattoria. No white tablecloths, only some smart finished wood, and a cheerful, bustling air that was not too hectic or noisy.

My main course was Wagyu beef tenderloin with rosemary zabaglione that was beautifully tender and, even at medium rare, a healthy red with a robust beef flavor. Andrea went for the porchetta that was the genuine article, a real stuffed pork loin with the fennel and anise flavors, and extra savory from the homemade sausage used in the stuffing. For dessert, we actually passed up the dark chocolate ganache in favor of the bomboloni -- Sardinian ricotta doughnuts -- that were simply exquisite -- warm, puffy, creamy in the middle and set off perfectly by the burnt honey gelato that accompanied.

We had a moderately priced Super Tuscan that I don't find on the online menu, but which was quite nice. The service was genial, efficient and never intrusive, though the courses did come out somewhat quickly. The manager stopped by twice to check on us and was very personable.

Fiola is definitely in the top rank of DC restaurants, right up there with Komi, Marcel's, Corduroy and the others. Too pricey to go often but definitely one to visit again.

Chicken baked with red onions, potatoes and rosemary

This the second recipe I tried from a new cookbook, Pure Simple Cooking by Diana Henry, and it truly was simple and very good. Henry is a food columnist and TV host in Britain so her recipes are somewhat derivative. This one, for instance, she credits to Antonio Carluccio. The book is another one of these lavishly illustrated Ten Speed Press productions, which I seem to be a sucker for.

The recipe calls for a chicken cut into 8 pieces or 8 thighs, rubbed with sea salt to crisp the skin (it really works!). I opted for the thighs, though since WF in its wisdom does not sell thighs with the skin on, I had to get the whole leg/thigh and cut them apart, but the price was great ($1.99/lb) and the chicken was delicious. The dark meat wonderfully absorbs the flavors from the aromatics, which consist of 2 red onions, each cut into 10 wedges; 2 bulbs garlic, separated into cloves but not peeled; and 5 sprigs of rosemary, a couple whole and the others stripped of their leaves. You put these ingredients with 1-1/4 lb of new potatoes into a roasting pan, salt and pepper, pour in 1/2 c olive oil and 2 Tbl balsamic vinegar, toss, and nestle chicken pieces into the vegetables and put into a 400-degree oven for 45 min.

Obviously it fills the house with a great smell. The onions caramelize and you can squeeze the roasted garlic out of its peel. I couldn't find new potatoes and the closest I could come (WF had nothing, of course) were some purple finger potatoes at Rodman's. They were just OK and I would like to do it again with new potatoes.

I had tried another recipe last week, roast cod with smoked bacon, that I wasn't crazy about. It seemed maybe a little too simple, given that this seems to be common pairing of ingredients. Pan-searing then baking the cod did not result in a very appetizing dish and it tasted like a collection of ingredients rather than a balanced dish. So we'll see how the other recipes go.

A Stachowski's weekend

With Andrea away for the weekend, I treated myself to a pastrami sandwich at Stachowski's, the artisanal butcher/charcutiere in Georgetown, and brought home some other goodies for the weekend. I got the hot Italian sausage to grill and it crisped up nicely and tasted good. These modern sausages tend to be a little too politically correct, however, and this had too little salt and too little fat. Instead of dripping juices, it was a little dry after grilling.

The duck confit was terrific. I wanted to reproduce the way confit was served on the goose farm I stayed at in Perigord one vacation -- the confit crisped on top of potatoes which had absorbed the fat while roasting. I peeled and diced some baby red potatoes I had into 1/4-in cubes, and browned them in the skillet in some olive oil. Then I put the duck leg/thigh on top and popped it into a 425-degree oven for 15 min. or so. To get the right golden color on the duck, I put it under the broiler for a few minutes to finish. The duck was tender, remained moist and was good-sized.

I also got some delicious hand-crafted mortadella, one of my favorite salumi. This had much more flavor than the mass-produced. It was sliced very thin the way it needs to be and was a great antipasto all weekend. It's a good thing, really, that Stachowski's isn't any closer!

Dino's "Big Pig" event

In a culinary tour de force, Dean Gold offered a tasting menu of several dishes featuring the Mangalitsa pigs that originally hail from Hungary and which a local farmer is raising.

The pigs are odd-looking because they have curly hair that looks like sheep's wool. Dean explained that Bryan Kerney, who was at the dinner, has been raising them at Truck Patch Farms.

Every one of the 11 dishes was excellent, though I liked some more than others. The portions, of course, were quite small, but as long as you keep in mind that a tasting menu is more like a culinary seminar than a meal, it works fine.

Serving some 50 people with such an elaborate menu clearly challenged the capacity of Dino's kitchen. The evening stretched to three hours, which was simply too long, especially if you don't want to drink with abandon on a school night. Fortunately, we had some good table companions -- a father and son who each in his own way was a certified foodie -- and the time passed pleasantly enough.

A charcuterie trio featured a pig liver terrine in pancetta, a mushroom and pig terrine, and duck fat hock rillettes. All three were terrific, though my favorite was the one with pancetta -- it had an earthy, pate flavor and robust texture that I like. The rillettes was very good. Dean explained he used duck fat (from D'Artagnan) to lighten the otherwise porky menu.

A second set of starters was the chicharrones -- crispy pig skin (cracklins, pork rind) -- and burnt ends with Tuscan barbecue sauce. Both good but Arthur Bryant has nothing to worry about.

One of the stars of the evening was the grilled radicchio leaves wrapped in a Tuscan bacon made with pork belly that was braised, sliced then cooked to crispy. Here's where you want to exit a tasting menu and just get a large order because the single serving per person was frustratingly small.

The cheesy Calabrian meatballs, Dean explain, had a lot of bread filling because traditionally it was a dish for poor people. These were very tasty, but had a tendency to fall apart. What stole the show was the San Marzano tomato sauce.

Duck fat matzoh balls in spiced pig stock would probably be my top candidate for the ax if you wanted to lighten the menu and shorten the evening. The matzoh balls were a bit heavy, and the dark, spicy broth was not at all bad, and probably fine on a winter evening as a starter. I get it that this was a way to introduce some starch into a menu that otherwise was almost pure meat and fat.

The head and neck stewed in chickpeas would be second on the list for the ax. I like chickpeas and the little bits of meat were tasty enough, but the presentation was unappetizing and this was the only dish that was not fully eaten.

The Tuscan tomato sauce with trotters and spices on shell pasta (canestri), on the other hand, was a big hit. The pasta was terrific and perfectly cooked, and dressed nicely with the by now familiar taste of these Mangalitsa pigs

The pork shoulder pot roast with vinegar and herbs -- called the jailhouse stew in Italian -- was the crown of the meal and appropriately delicious, though I would fault the planning for not making this a bigger portion. At least one dish should be more than a tidbit to give the illusion at least of a meal, and this was the obvious candidate.

The pork from the Mangalitsa has a rich, deep flavor. You would never call this the "other white meat." Dino's is offering the choicer cuts on the menu this week, though I'm not sure I'll go back right away. Truck Patch Farm sells its products at the Mt. Pleasant market starting in May, so that is probably where I'll get my next Mangalitsa.

For this tasting menu, Dean offered an optional Sicilian wine flight. I'm sure the wines were quite good, but at $30 for three 3-oz. pours, seemed a little pricey to me. We opted instead for the 8-oz carafe of the open reds, taking a Corte alla Flora "Giugiolo," a 2010 Prugnolo Montepulciano described as "explosive" and which opened up very nicely, and the 2009 Per Alessandra Barbera d'Alba described as "delightful," which was quite smooth. At one of the neighboring tables, a group of six men had the genial idea of each ordering a bottle for the table to sample. That is probably the way to go if you don't have to work too hard the next day.

Pork Pot Roast with Apricots, Cardamom and Ginger

This Molly Stevens recipe was a big hit, a different flavor direction for our beloved pork. The recipe's 4-1/2 to 5 lb boneless pork shoulder roast (Boston butt) became a 4 lb bone-in roast at Wholefoods' take it or leave it butcher counter, but I kept the other proportions.

Brown the roast on all sides in 2 Tbl olive oil, for 15 to 20 min. total. Remove to plate and pour off all but 1 Tbl of fat, add 1 leek, 2 carrots and 1 medium onion, all coarsely chopped. Stir in 6 cardamom pods, shell removed and insides crushed, 1/2 tsp turmeric and 1/4 tsp cayenne, and cook for 5 min until vegetables start to soften. Add 1 Tbl shredded ginger, 2 cloves garlic peeled and "bruised," 3 strips of orange zest and bay leaf and cook for 2 more min. Pour in 2 Tbl cognac or apricot brandy (I used equal portions of cognac and apricot liqueur) to deglaze, about 1 min, then add 1/2 c white wine and boil 4 min. Pour in 2 c chicken stock (I used my homemade stock), bring to a boil and add 6 oz dried apricots and cook them for 2 min. Place roast back in pot (pour in juices from plate), cover with parchment paper hanging 1 in over the edge, place lid on top and pop into 325-degree oven for 2 hrs, checking and turning every 30 min. When done, remove roast and let it rest for 10 min. Degrease sauce and boil down if necessary. Slice pork and nap with sauce and apricots. Serve couscous on the side. We also followed Stevens' recommendation to accompany with an off-dry Riesling, with a Dr. Loosen Mosel wine filling the bill.

The pork was tender, moist and redolent of the flavor from the aromatics. The sauce turned a rich brown (from the apricots?) with a gentle interplay of sweet and savory. I dressed the lettuce salad with a blood orange-infused olive oil and a Pinot Grigio vinegar to round out the meal. A real keeper we'll duplicate some day for guests.

Cooking tomes

(Cross-posted in my book blog)

There seems to be a trend toward cookbooks that go way beyond recipes and into lengthy disquisitions on food and its cultural context. These are the books that are getting the awards and notice and I have acquired a few of them recently.

For instance, after a particularly wonderful Thai meal at a friend's house and hearing for some time that Thai cuisine is influencing chefs all over the world, I wanted to get a good introduction to Thai cooking. So I bought Thai Food by David Thompson. One of the Amazon reviewers noted that the book, written by an Australian chef who fell in love with Thailand, gets nearly to p. 200 before you have the first recipe -- so I went in with my eyes open. Opening sections deal with the country and its culture, the Thai kitchen and ingredients before tackling recipes.

This not essentially different from Julia Child, but much, much longer. Elizabeth David and M.F.K. Fisher were as much food writers as cookbook writers and many of their books take the form of the longer essays with recipes sprinkled through, so perhaps this new wave is simply a return to this more holistic view of cooking.

English writers seem to be leading the way. I recently bought two books by Nigel Slater, Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch and Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard. Like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's The River Cottage Meat Book before it, these lavish, long books are highly personal accounts of the writer's experiences with cultivating and cooking the meat, vegetables or fruit. I've never used many of the recipes from Meat, nor, truth be told, taken the time to read much of the author's musings on the subject. Nonetheless, there is something captivating about this approach and it might be rewarding to take more time with them.

I have a number of cookbooks on Italian cuisine, but still I fell for two new books in this cooking tome genre. One is truly a massive tome -- Culinaria Italy: Cuisine, Country, Culture. It is part of a series edited by Claudia Piras and published by H.F. Ullman, a German publisher. I had to order it from England. It takes a regional approach, describing the culture and foods of Italy's various regions. Like the others in this genre, this book has plenty of big colorful photos printed on thick-stock paper. No doubt part of the motivation for this trend is to provide a different type of experience from printing a recipe at Epicurious.

I also bought SPQR: Modern Italian Food and Wine by Shelley Lindgren and Matthew Accarino, who run a restaurant by that name in San Francisco. This is billed more as a guidebook, however, with on-the-spot descriptions of food and wine in Italy's central and northern regions. From what I've seen of the recipes, however, it falls into the usual trap of chef-written cookbooks of recipes that are complicated and use many hard-to-find ingredients. If it's only good to learn more about Umbria before we go there, it will be worth it.

Besides needing to compete with digital media, these books probably respond to the growing demand, verging on fetishness, for people to get more deeply engaged with food and wine. For many people, as for me, cooking and eating and drinking have become real hobbies in our era of plenty. How else account for the popularity of books like Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History or Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World -- neither of which, I hasten to add, do I own -- and the book I'm currently reviewing for Washington Independent Review of Books, Pepper: A History of the World's Most Influential Spice by Marjorie Shaffer.

In short, a hobby cook is invited to become a veritable scholar of food. Perhaps it all began with Waverly Root, the Paris-based American journalist whose 1958 tome Food of France really set the standard for this type of food writing. Root was writing for the International Herald Tribune still when I went there in 1980 and I saw him in the newsroom a few times. It was at that time, too, that Patricia Wells arrived with her husband, Walter, and embarked on her highly successful career as a food and cookbook author.

How much all of this will translate itself into great meals on our own table remains to be seen. I generally report my (successful) cooking experiences on my food blog, so I will track the results of all these lavish tomes there.

The Pig

I love pork so when someone suggested meeting at this new Logan Circle snout-to-tail restaurant, it had a lot of appeal. We did have a great time, with the table next to the window as separate and as quiet as it could be in a noisy restaurant. Prices for both food and drink were reasonable and the food was fine.

However, thinking back on it I realized it seemed to be to be a bit of a toy restaurant. For one thing, it was mostly small plate, so the portions were not satisfying. Second, it is a restaurant based on a gimmick and virtually everything came across as a bit gimmicky. There is a 4 oz. beer, which indeed caters to a certain niche of non-beer drinkers, but looks like it belongs in a doll house. The menu, the decor, the pig theme in general is late American cutesy. It doesn't hark back at all to the genuine tradition of charcutiere. I went to the original snout-to-tail restaurant, Fergus Henderson's St. John, on one of my trips to London. It is a very sophisticated place, with real portions (and of course much higher prices). The Pig is like a toy version of that restaurant.

I opted for the small plate called porchetta even though a discussion with the waitress established that it was stuffed pork belly, so nothing like the real Italian porchetta, and I was suitably disappointed. It was a roasted or fried slice of pork belly, stuffed with a tasty potpourri of pork parts, but had nothing of the fragrance and tender meatiness of the real thing. The braised cheek that I tasted was quite good, but of course the portion was very small. The "small pig" plate of dried meat we all shared as a starter was very tasty, but there were only three meats and two of them were ham. The sides we shared were quite good, especially the roasted Brussels sprouts. We shared a couple of desserts, a toffee and a panna cotta, that were fine. The beer I had, Devil's Backbone from Virginia, was fresh and tasty and at 5.25 a good deal.

In this case, it really was the company that made the meal and The Pig provided a comfortable venue with a lot of buzz for that and reasonably good food. So I'm not complaining, I'm just saying I won't rush back.

Corduroy

We had a splendid meal at Chef Tom Powers' restaurant, splurging for a special occasion at what has become recognized as one of the best restaurants in town. I've been a fan of the chef since he sat at the bar at Vidalia one night when I was bartending and left me a very generous tip. We went to his place once before, when it was still located in a hotel. Now it is in a stylish row house, which, unfortunately for the ambiance, is across the street from the convention center.

In fact, the interior, though cozy and not too noisy, had a bland expense-account look to it, and most of our fellow diners appeared to be out-of-town men in business suits. Nonetheless, we were installed in an intimate sheltered 2-top and were perfectly happy. We opted for a la carte rather than the "surprise" tasting menu. I had a lobster carpaccio for starters, which was quite delicate -- perhaps a bit too delicate -- but exquisite. Andrea had a much heartier wild mushroom blintz, a special. The blintz was fried and more like a spring roll, but the mushrooms were perfectly cooked and seasoned. For the main course, I had the antelope, which was supremely tender and tasted like venison, not at all gamey (I presume these are farmed, not wild, antelope). Andrea had the guinea hen, which was strongly flavored with fennel. The breast was roasted, moist with crispy skin and the thigh was confit, with a rich dark-meat flavor. For dessert, Andrea got the baked chocolate sabayon, which was very chocolate-y but a little too baked for my taste. I got the bourbon and chocolate ice cream, which was fine, but nothing special.

We took advantage of the corkage fee, as is becoming our custom in expensive restaurants, by bringing our own bottle of Barolo. More about the wine at my wine blog. One of the reasons I rejoined Wines Til Sold Out was precisely to get these expensive wines at a discount, so this was a $90 wine at $40. So with the corkage fee of $25, we still saved a bundle on wine -- the Barolo and Corduroy's menu was $160. We had a cocktail beforehand and I had a Barolo grappa with coffee (I said we were splurging). The service was good, the waiter entertaining. Chef even sent out a little sample of his delicious cauliflower soup after I told the waiter about my Vidalia encounter. All in all, a delightful evening. There is a apparently a $30 menu available at the upstairs bar, so we may go back some weekday soon for that.

Ad hoc recipes

I enjoy browsing through my cookbooks and planning menus for the week ahead, but good recipes come from many sources. Over the weekend, I used the recipe -- more just a technique -- for flank steak that appeared in the NY Times Dining section last Wednesday. You rub the steak with salt, cracked pepper, rosemary leaves and garlic slivers and let it sit for an hour. Preheat the oven to 450 and put a cast iron skillet in to warm up a half hour before cooking. Then sear the steak in the pan (in the oven) for 5 min. on the first side and 3 to 4 min. after you turn it over. It works quite well, leaving the steak seared and tender. Ours had quite a bit of fat on it, so it was nice and juicy. To serve, slice on the diagonal and drizzle with olive oil. The recipe for what Italians call tagliata goes on to add parmesan shavings and arugula but we did fine without that. Instead, I paired it with a broccoli crustless tart from Elizabeth Minchilli that I pinned on my Recipes to Try board on Pinterest. Essentially a quiche -- you bake the cooked broccoli with a mix of eggs, cream and cheese -- it worked really well with the steak.

For a solo dinner yesterday, I stopped by The Fishery and decided once again to try shad roe. After reading some 30 Nero Wolfe mysteries with each one mentioning shad roe at some point, it's hard not to keep trying. This time I went to Google (Epicurious, oddly enough, had never heard of shad roe) and found some nice treatments. I ended up gently sauteeing the pair of roe sacs in butter in a cast iron skillet, and then serving with some caramelized shallots and a lemon caper butter sauce. I cooked a rice pilaf to accompany, though it turns out basmati rice is not ideal for this. Still not totally sold on shad roe. It's an acquired taste and hard to acquire if you have it only once a year.

Eating in the burbs

Various meetings took me to the suburbs for dinner this week. I met an old friend who has moved to Alexandria at Geranio, an old-style Italian restaurant on King Street. It was refreshingly relaxing and un-pretentious and we both had the signature lobster risotto, which was truly outstanding. The rice was perfect and they were restrained in the use of butter -- no cheese -- so that the lobster flavor came through. Presumably they used some sort of broth and/or butter made with lobster, because the flavor permeated the rice. The lobster itself was fresh and tender. I had a grilled portabella and arugula salad which was also perfectly prepared and my friend ordered a light dolcetta d'Alba to accompany the meal.

For the final class in my introductory Italian course, the instructor took us to Pizzeria Da Marco in Bethesda, run by a fellow Genovese he knows. The restaurant offers genuine thin-crust Neapolitan pizza and I got the DOP version with buffalo mozzarella and an extra topping of prosciutto. The pizza was (nearly) as good as 2Amys but the ambiance of the large space in a new brick building left much to be desired. As a result, however, it was not nearly so crowded and noisy as trendier places and is a good fall-back if you just want to have a good pizza.

Our trip over to Silver Spring to Charm Thai was just a way to get some quick and easy dinner. I say it every time that I'm surprised how close Silver Spring is. The restaurant gets good reviews in Yelp but I made the mistake of asking for my seafood drowned noodles to be "extra spicy." The kitchen evidently took that as a dare. I was able to choke it down but next time I will just order what's on the menu. Andrea liked her very spicy crunchy chicken but the duck roll appetizer we split was pretty blah. The restaurant is totally devoid of charm -- this may be why I forget how close Silver Spring is -- with the tables lined up a long counter that serves take-out customers. In my new project to get better acquainted with Thai cuisine, I will certainly go back there, but will be more judicious in my menu choices.

Aromatic braised pork shoulder

The emphasis is definitely on "aromatic" in this recipe from Susan Hermann Loomis's Cooking at Home On Rue Tatin. The various aromatics virtually disappear as individual notes in a blend of flavor that infuses the tender meat.

The pork butt cut from Blue Rooster farm is a thick, flat piece of meat with a bone in it and it worked well in this recipe. Brown the meat on both sides in olive oil, remove and put in 2 sliced carrots, 2 sliced onions, 1 sliced fennel bulb and soften for 5 min. Put meat back in, add 3 c. water and put 3 bay leaves, 4 garlic cloves, a handful of lemon thyme and 2 unpeeled coins fresh ginger into the water. Sprinkle 1 Tbl coarse sea salt over it, cover, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 min. Uncover and put in 400-degree oven for 1 hour, turning the meat every 20 min. Let the meat sit for 15 min before slicing (Loomis doesn't say anything about removing it from braise but it's the only thing that makes sense in the context).

Interestingly, Loomis calls for spring or filtered water to avoid a possible chlorine taste from tap water. This never occurred to me before, but I used the filtered water I have for coffee -- why not? Couldn't find lemon thyme so just used thyme. Andrea actually missed tasting the fennel and thyme. I supposed I could have cut the fennel a little thicker, and vertically instead of horizontally to have bigger slices that held together better and retained more flavor. Loomis recommends a white wine with this dish and we had a white Bordeaux.

I haven't used too many recipes from this book, but this was terrific and encourages me to look here more often.

Range

The food at Bryan Voltaggio's innovative restaurant is delicious, but the overall dining experience is an unsatisfying combination of precious and pedestrian. The spread-out space in Chevy Chase Pavilion made Andrea think of an upscale cafeteria while it reminded me of a restaurant at a European train station. Range even made up for the lack of train passengers by providing hordes of waitstaff bustling around and an amazing number of suits running around with little earphones to keep the 300-seat restaurant humming.

To our surprise, however, there were a lot of empty seats and no waiting on a Saturday night. Besides the tables (many which remained empty for much of the time we were there, though we were told none was available for an hour and a half) and the crowded bar, there were the marble lunch counters running along the various cooking stations and we sat at the first empty seats we saw, at the bread station, which of course was the least interesting to watch.

But we were there for the food, so it was fine. Everything we ate was excellent. However, it reinforced my animosity to small plates. It worked for us to get a "pizza" to split for a starter, order two meat dishes and a side of Brussels sprouts while sitting at a lunch counter and leave, barely, full. But I don't think it would be totally satisfying sitting at a table, especially if with friends, and counting it as a great meal.

The "pizza" was really just a flatbread with a sprinkling of bacon and onions and some dibs and dabs of fresh cheese. The ingredients were good but this was nothing faintly resembling a pizza. I ordered the veal sweetbreads, and they were exquisite -- creamy white with a thin crispiness on the outside. Andrea ordered the pork cheeks, and they, too, were tender and very fine, though the dish was not hot enough. Needless to say, the portions, while somewhat bigger than a Jaleo small plate, were smaller than a normal entree. The roast Brussels sprouts were also great, though they came tossed in a fish sauce, which the menu neglected to mention.

The menu, in fact, may have swung too far away from those flowery descriptions that used to distinguish menus and was a little terse. Perhaps we should have asked for details. The wine menu online is different and I didn't make an note, but Andrea had a Chablis, which was nice, and I had an Italian red.

The restaurant is new, and I suspect that after a year they will have backed off from some of the odder innovations. I will go back at some point, but I'm not in a hurry.

Cabbage soup diet

Crash diets are of course suspect, but the measure of success in any diet is not how much weight you take off or how quickly but how well you keep it off. We were encouraged to try a second round of the cabbage soup diet because we successfully kept off the 10 lbs. we lost in the round last summer.

So this time, from March 1 to 7, I once again lost about 10 lbs -- in fact, the total for the two rounds is 21 lbs -- and that feels great.

I got the feeling sometimes during the past week that the only reason cabbage is used is to keep you from eating too much of anything, because you can only force so much of that down. We did our best with alternate versions of the soup -- adding fennel and basil to make it more "Italian," using stock instead of water -- but in the end you're stuck with a bland soup that is just bubble and squeak without the potatoes.

It is the baked potato day and the two steak days that save it. I think we will try another form of dieting the next time around, but you have to give the devil its due -- this diet is effective.