Legumes and grains

I've always liked legumes and grains but usually haven't been organized enough to plan ahead for putting them into soak the night before or whatever else it takes. This year, perhaps because of all the rainy weather, has been different, and I've been able to indulge in a number of scrumptious dishes with beans and other legumes. They are nourishing and warming on a dreary day, and make great leftovers.

Farro is a type of hulled wheat grain similar to spelt and wheatberries that Domenica Marchetti, in her Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy, says has made a comeback in Italy in the past decade. I fixed her lamb and green bean stew with farro and it was delicious. You sear the lamb cubes, add onions and garlic till soft, put in some wine and evaporate it, then put in chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, green beans and farro and let it simmer for a couple of hours to make a rich soupy stew that has plenty of body from the meat, beans and grain.

Simple navy beans were all I used in a Turkish bean stew with pastirma from Real Stew by Clifford Wright. Pastirma, often called bastirma, is a Middle Eastern deli meat that is a cured filet of beef rubbed with spices (our word pastrami comes from the same root, though pastrami is different than bastirma). After calling around, I found bastirma at Asadur's, an ethnic grocery off Rockville Pike just past White Flint, and made the trek out there to get 5 ounces for the stew. It's an essential ingredient because the spicy meat gives up its flavor to the beans. You soak and cook the beans and then put them in a pot where you've softened onions and garlic then tomatoes and green peppers in butter. You cook for half an hour, then add the bastirma and cook another 20 minutes. It is a rich, satisfying stew that truly did improve with reheating as the flavors blended and the sauce thickened.

Less successful was the Tepary bean and summer vegetable stew from Steve Sando's Heirloom Beans cookbook. The tepary beans remained too crunchy and the zucchini just became limp and watery in the stew. A bean chowder with smoked chicken, sweet potatoes and sage was better, but not so yummy I'd repeat it in a hurry. I used black calypso beans and smoked a chicken in the Big Green Egg earlier in the week when I was firing up the grill for another meal. So the jury is still out on his recipes. I suspect he does not test them as rigorously as some other cookbook authors. The best recipe I've seen from him is actually one he took from another book -- a really nice chickpea stew from Turquoise by Greg and Lucy Malouf.

Yesterday I fixed a petit salé with lentils from Anne Willan's Country Cooking of France. This involved brining a 2-lb boneless pork shoulder in a brine of salt, sugar, juniper berries, thyme sprigs, peppercorns, bay leaf, whole cloves, and sliced garlic overnight, then poaching the tied pork just in water, adding a bouquet garni, an onion with two cloves and the French lentils near the end of the poaching. It was very much as I remember it from ordering it often in French bistros -- a great winter comfort food.

So I'm likely to continue on this kick for a while. Risottos are next.

BGE Update

Having great results with the Big Green Egg as the experimentation continues. Had a smoked filet of salmon that was really nice. A whole filet of Coho salmon from The Fishery about 16 in. long and 3/4 in. thick, slashed with diagonals to help even cooking, rubbed with salt and pepper and brushed lightly with olive oil. Midway through its 45 to 55 min. smoking, mopped with a dill butter (12 Tbl butter, 1/4 c. minced dill, clarify the butter). It was supposed to get another coat of dill butter at end, but I skipped that part. Served as an hors d'oeuvres on wonderful small corncakes with a dollop of creme fraiche and a sprinkling of chives.

For a special occasion, splurged on a lovely standing rib roast ordered through Broad Branch that got a heavy duty salt and pepper rub the night before. Smoked at about 240 degrees for 4 hours, using apple and oak chips, to an internal temperature of 125 degrees, mopping every half hour with a mixture of A1 Steak Sauce and Worcestershire Sauce with 2 Tbl of butter melted into it, kept warm for mopping. These were real Flintstone ribs when carved and were tender and delicious. Yabbadabbado. I would probably go up to 130 internal temperature next time to get closer to medium rare. Also, though this was delicious, would probably try grill roasting -- 450 degrees for an hour and a half without the smoke or mopping -- next time to get more of that restaurant prime rib taste. I was trying this time for wonderful flavor of the beef rib roast I had at Jack Stack in Kansas City summer before last. This was somewhat different but equally delicious.

I also tried the chicken on a throne, including injection, but found it a lot of trouble for what in the end tasted a lot like roast chicken. Think I'll just try a simple roast next time.

The real test will be ribs, and that will come later this fall. The recipes, btw, are from my bible/primer for all things barbecue -- The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking and Entertaining by Bill and Cheryl Jamison, which has been 100 percent reliable as well as remarkably clear and comprehensive. I took a class from them when I was in Santa Fe summer before last, which was not great, but they really know their outdoor cooking.

Beanpot

It's hard to strike the right balance between furnishing your kitchen with special equipment and avoiding clutter. It's been easy to resist a pannini grill, but I bought a cazuela from La Tienda and regret to say I've gotten little use out of it.

But a recent Epicurious recipe for Tuscan beans included a whole discussion about the merits of a terracotta beanpot. Though the beans tasted great cooked our Le Creuset dutch oven, I took the plunge and got a 5-quart Piral beanpot from La Cuisine in Alexandria. We've been getting these nice heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo and we really like bean dishes. Plus, the plain terracotta version I got is decorative enough to sit out of the way on the top shelf of the hutch.

Seasoning consisted of simply immersing it in water for three hours. So the maiden dish for the new beanpot was Red beans Basque style from Janet Mendel's My Kitchen in Spain. I used the Santa Maria Piquito beans from Rancho Gordon -- little pink beans that are supposed to hold their shape well.

RG's beans in general do not have to have an overnight soak. Putting them in to soak the same morning and leaving them for four or five hours will generally cut the cooking time to an hour or so. As with the Tuscan bean recipe, though, this one just suggested putting the beans on a slow simmer for two or three hours.

For this recipe, you put 1 lb or rinsed beans into the pot with 6 c. of water, add an optional ham bone (which I didn't have), 1 large carrot cut into chunks, 2 bay leaves, a small green pepper chopped, and a half onion chopped. You bring the water to a boil and add a Tbl of olive oil, reduce the heat to a simmer, cover the pot and cook for an hour.

You then add a cup of cold water to "shock" the beans and cook for another half an hour. Then add another cup of cold water and 1 leek white and tender parts chopped, 1 lb potatoes peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes, 1 Tbl salt and 4 oz of chorizo or any pork link sausage (I used hot Italian sausage from Broad Branch). You cook for another hour or so until the beans are tender. Three optional condiments to serve with it are cooked cabbage, sauteed red onion slices, or mild pickled green chiles (I opted for the red onion).

The stew was delicious. The spicy sausage added just the right amount of heat, but I would probably add a bit more sweet sausage, especially in the abscence of the ham bone. I'd love to try it another time with the ham bone, though, if anyone can tell me where to get one. I got several meals from it over the week and never tired of it. We sauteed more sausage one time and more red onion. Another time for lunch I just sprinkled cubes of feta cheese on top and that worked.

Did I have to have a beanpot to cook this recipe. Probably not, but it certainly came out nicely and was fun this way.

Mini-bite bargains

Grazing is not the right word for our efforts to escape the high cost of going out by sampling places in a less expensive way than a full meal. Restaurateurs have recognized this need, and the vast array of small plates, medium-sized plates and gourmet hamburgers is designed to give customers the choice of small bites or large.

This past weekend we ducked into Palena for one of our favorite "bargain" meals -- Frank Ruta's gourmet hamburger, which has to be pure ground sirloin and which is so perfectly seasoned and grilled it remains as my favorite burger in Washington. It comes on homemade buns with a slice of melted cheese.

At the newly increased price of $12, it may not seem like a bargain for a burger, especially since you have to order any sides separately. We split an order of the Palena fries -- French fries, onion rings, "dauphine" potatoes, and some lovely deep-fried marinated lemon slices.

The burger and other less expensive dishes are available in the front of the restaurant, with the back dining room reserved for the prix fixe menus.

Another day, we stopped in at Bistrot Lepic's Wine Bar, upstairs from the restaurant that offers some of the most authentic French cuisine in the city. The decor upstairs is an odd but strangely tasteful mix of Tiki and French provincial, with a humorous series of wall paintings playing on a Bistrot Le Pig pun. I had the Bistrot Le Pig cocktail, a variation on a Planter's punch, and we split a small appetizer of fried goat cheese on a bed of greens. It was a pleasant, relatively inexpensive interlude on the way to a family meal.

Other bargain favorites are Lia's generous happy hour -- which features a great $5 burger and $8 pizzas and is all evening on Mondays and Wednesdays -- and just sitting at the bar at Dino, which has great drinks, free snacks and Dino's assortment of small and large plates if you want to eat.

Dino

When I filled out the Washingtonian questionnaire the other day, I listed Dino as my top favorite restaurant, followed by Brasserie Beck and Komi. Went there last night with a friend from out of town and had a really great meal.

Dean Gold, the owner and executive chef at Dino, sends out a weekly email that really makes your mouth water. A former wine and food buyer at Whole Foods, he pays a lot of attention to sourcing and he lovingly describes where he gets his food and what he does with it.

His recent emails have mentioned the fried baby Anzio artichokes he has flown in from the Santa Monica Farmer's Market, and cardoons from Next Step Produce, a farm in Charles County, Md. So these were the two antipasti we ordered last night. My friend, btw, is vegetarian and one of the nice things about Dino is you have a wide variety of dishes you can order without feeling that you're ordering the vegetarian special.

The carciofi fritti were tender and crispy with a fresh artichoke flavor, fried and served with a slice of lemon. I dipped them into the olive oil on my bread plate and they were delicious. The cardoons had a nice rooty, vegetable flavor. They were cut into strips and sauteed with garlic, lemon and tomato, quite tasty.

We followed with swordfish and winter squash risotto. A recent email explained the Pacific swordfish are caught in sustainable manner and supplied by a local vendor who used to work for the National Marine Fisheries Service on fish sustainability issues. Dean said the saffron that was supposed to be in the sauce didn't make it in time. Nonetheless it was quite tasty and set off nicely with sauteed mizuna, also from Next Step.

At Dean's suggestion (and you need his help navigating the fabulous list of Italian wines), we ordered a Ribolla varietal wine that actually comes from Slovenia, a Movia {Ribolla} 2007. It somehow combined the creaminess of a Chardonnay with the crispness of a Sauvignon Blanc.

Dessert of pistachio torte and bread pudding put on the finishing touches to what is for me a rare three-course extravaganza. Often we mix and match small plates and entrees, get wine by the glass and skip dessert for a less expensive outing.

Dino has always been good, but since Dean made himself the chef -- though he has no formal training as a cook -- it has gone from strength to strength. Slow Food is having a dinner there Nov. 18 which I'm already looking forward to.

660 Curries

I finally cooked a recipe from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer and it was delicious. I've decided to cook my way through the book over the next year -- 365 days, 660 curries. Just kidding, but I've been wanting to write that since seeing Julie and Julia.

Started with a very simple chicken curry with tomato and coconut milk. It was quick and easy and perfect for a week night. You just sautee some red onion, garlic and ginger, then sear the 1-inch cubes of chicken breast with curry mix, add the coconut milk and simmer till cubes are done (only a few minutes), remove the chicken and thicken the sauce, add tomato and cilantro, pour sauce over the chicken and serve.

I was going to grind the Madras curry powder myself from the component spices (coriander seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, cloves, fenugreek seeds, black peppercorns, thai chiles, and turmeric) but Wholefoods didn't have either whole fenugreek seeds or thai chiles so I just used some of the packaged curry powders on my shelf. Obviously, though, the real secret to this cuisine is to grind the spices fresh and I will just have to improve my sourcing for ingredients.

I bought this book some time ago after reading about Iyer being International Association of Culinary Professionals Teacher of the Year. I have other Indian cookbooks, including a couple of the classics by Madhur Jaffrey, and I like Indian cuisine, but I've found the undertaking daunting. This book seems to me to make Indian cooking accessible in the way Julia Child did for French cooking.

Curry of course refers not primarily to the powder or the sauce in a dish -- though that is the way most Americans would define it -- but to the dish itself. The frontispiece of the book defines it this way: "Any dish that consists of either meat, fish, poultry, legumes, vegetables, or fruits, simmered in or covered with a sauce, gravy or other liquid that is redolent with any number of freshly ground and very fragrant spices and/or herbs."

It was a revelation to me the first time I went to Indique how the spices could burst with flavor when freshly ground. In the meantime, my favorite area Indian restaurant is Passages to India in Bethesda, where again that freshness is paramount.

Big Green Egg

So I've inaugurated my Big Green Egg! We had the Caveman Chops from the Jamison cookbook -- super-thick bone-in pork loin chops with a smoked salt and pepper rub, mopped with Worcestershire sauce -- on Sunday and last night had an exquisite grilled halibut on chile and coriander slaw that I found serendipitously on MyRecipes, courtesy of Sunset magazine.

I've had my eye on the BGE for some time, and received one as a kind and generous gift for my birthday. The immediate occasion for getting one now was when a friend served us filet mignons grilled on a BGE that were super-moist and tender. (Let me hasten to add, per new FTC suggestions, I have received no consideration from the makers of BGE for anything I say about them.)

The biggest difference to the Weber is the absolute temperature control via the upper and lower vents and the closed ceramic oven structure. I grilled the chops at close to 500 degrees for nearly half an hour, though the internal temperature of 150 degrees recommended by Jamison resulted in chops that were a little dry to our taste. We accompanied with mashed sweet potatoes that included sauteed chopped onion with thyme.

The halibut recipe featured a dressing/marinade of 2/3 c. cider vinegar, 1/3 c. EVOO, 1/3 c. chopped cilantro, 1 clove garlic pressed, 1 tsp. cumin seed, 3/4 tsp. salt, and 5 to 6 tsp. minced fresh jalapeno chiles. You use 1/3 c. of the mix to marinade the 6-8 oz. filet pieces for 15 min. and 1/2 c. as dressing for the slaw -- 1 lb. of red cabbage cored and thinly sliced and 1/2 c. thinly slivered red onion. I grilled the fish at about 350 degrees for a little more than 10 minutes. They were done through and still very moist, with pretty grill marks. You place the fish on a mound of the slaw and drizzle some of the remaining dressing over it, and serve with corn tortillas. Delicious, with the cumin setting off the cilantro-chile combination.

Now both of these dishes would be fine on the Weber and what I really want the BGE for is slow roasting and smoking. We'll get there.

German cuisine

Boiled pig's knuckle with sauerkraut is probably not everyone's idea of a great meal. I happen to like it, though I would never call it a great meal. It's a traditional German dish and I had a plate of it in Berlin during my recent trip.

I thought I would be posting often about wonderful culinary experiences. Alas, there were none. At one point, the group of American journalists I was with got a tour of Kreuzberg by a German-Turkish candidate for parliament that ended in a very nice Turkish restaurant, Hacir, where we got huge plates of mezzes followed by huge plates of kebabs. I joked with our host that we would go back to the U.S. after 10 days in Germany and tell everyone our best meal was at a Turkish restaurant.

More or less true. We had a nice meal in the executive dining room of Deutsche Bank (pumpkin soup with a kind of balsamic vinegar emulsion, saddle of venison with nice root vegetable sides, and a mocha and chocolate dessert). We had another nice meal in the "press club" that Axel Springer created for his employees (no menu, but it seemed to be a carrot-ginger soup, a variation of geschnetzeltes -- a kind of veal stroganoff -- and a dessert I've forgotten).

Otherwise, we had a succession of mediocre to bad meals -- a bland venison dish at a traditional Gastaette in the Ore Mountains, a so-so pork neck at the dreadful Kartoffelhaus in Freiberg, and so on. A very classy wine tasting at Eltville am Rhein was followed by dinner at the mayor's house -- and it was very kind of him and his wife to host us -- that featured a version of chicken nuggets that may have come from the German equivalent of Costco.

I should not have been surprised. Germans have never placed great value on the quality of food, and the price-quantity relation is the most important in choosing a restaurant. I know there are good restaurants in Germany but the revolution we have had in the U.S. thanks to Alice Waters and crew seems to be not nearly as widespread in Germany as it is here. I enjoyed my plate of matjes herring and boiled potatoes at a little terrace table in Berlin's Nikolai Quarter, but it's a dish that has been unchanged for literally centuries.

Germany is a conservative society that doesn't much care for revolutions and the cuisine is no exception to that rule.

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.

Et Voila

Belgian is in -- Belgian beer, Belgian cuisine, Belgian chocolate. Brussels has always been home to fine restaurants and some of the finest cellars in Europe, dating back to its affiliation with the Duchy of Burgundy.

DC now has several Belgian eateries, and last night we revisited Et Voila, the restaurant on MacArthur Boulevard now in its second year. This visit was a much more positive experience than our first one, which was soon, too soon, after it opened. Then it was hot and loud, with spotty service and mixed fare.

Yesterday was much better. The air-conditioning was working and the narrow space was much more serene, with its pastel colors and skylights. Service was flawless and the food was very good.

The quintessential Belgian dish is of course "moules-frites," mussels and fries. I passed on the mussels yesterday in favor of a salad of Belgian endive with blue and Chimay cheeses, roasted pecans and Gala apples. It was all nicely chopped in an oval bowl and quite tasty.

For the main course, I had the flatiron steak with green peppercorn sauce, served with fries and mixed greens. The steak was tender, cooked to a perfect medium rare, and set off nicely by the sauce. The fries were great, a deep golden color, still hot and not greasy.

Though German pilsner beers remain my favorite type, I've grown to like the Belgian beers for their fresh, citrusy taste. I had a Grimbergen to wet my whistle -- a "golden blonde ale with fruity undertones and a sharp finish" as the description goes. With the meal, we had a very nice wine from the Rhone, a 2004 Vacqueyras Vieux Clocher, that had a curranty, peppery taste that went very well with my steak.

Happily, Et Voila is not participating in restaurant week, so we were free to order a la carte and skip dessert.

Et Voila specifies that it is Belgian French -- so not bound by traditional Belgian dishes. The menu seems to be an updated cuisine bourgeois, nice bistro fare, and the prices are, as they say in French, "imbattable" (unbeatable).

I didn't taste any other dishes but my dinner companions, judging by the empty plates, were very happy with their entrees -- pan-seared trout with olive and parsley crushed potatoes, mussel and gray shrimp sauce; organic chicken breast, shiitake mushrooms, fava beans, artichokes and thyme jus; and Muscovy duck breast served with braised salsify and cherry sauce.

Et Voila is a collaboration between Chef Claudio Pirollo, the best young chef in
Belgium in 1994 according to the Web site, and Mickael Cornu, a pastry chef. Pirollo spent six years as chef to the Irish ambassador in Washington before opening Et Voila in the Palisades in May 2008.

Brasserie Beck remains my favorite Belgian, but Et Voila is a good deal more affordable. It would be hard to beat Dr. Granville Moore's moules-frites, but I'll give Et Voila a chance my next trip back.

Julia Child

Julie & Julia is a movie about food, about love and about loving food. It is also a film about writing and publishing and the joy of success. I think it works really well, and it's hard to understand some of the reviewers' initial criticisms after seeing the movie.

Meryl Streep is of course great as Julia Child, the American in Paris who truly did change the world with her cookbook. But the other part of the movie, Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia's book and blogging about it, creates about as successful a blend of stories as you can imagine.

For the first time ever, the New York Times reports this morning, Mastering the Art of French Cooking will top the bestseller list next Sunday as a whole new generation of home cooks discovers Julia's masterpiece. This would not have been possible, really, without the role model played by Amy Adams, making this 40-year-old cookbook relevant for today's twenty-somethings. It proves that Julie Powell's effort always was a respectful homage, despite Julia's own criticism, to Julia's original accomplishment.

And Amy Adams, proving herself once again to be the versatile actress she is, holds up her own end, and makes Julie's story, as a personal story, as uplifting as Julia's. Of course, Julie Powell's kitchen in Queens is not likely to find its way to the Smithsonian, and her impact is not of the historic nature as Julia's, but for the purposes of this movie, it turns what could have been a hagiographic biopic into an inspiring human comedy. (Credit is also due to the third genius at work in this film, screenwriter and director Nora Ephron.)

Julie Powell had an extremely clever idea to cook 524 recipes in 365 days and blog about it, and her blog, from what appears of it in the film, was charmingly written with a distinctive voice. Yes, she's riding on Julia's back to success, but Julia herself owes a lot to Larousse Gastronomique and generations of French chefs. The book based on her blog is now out in a new paperback edition with the title, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously.

The Julia part of the movie is based on My Life in France, a totally charming memoir of the Childs' sojourn in France and Julia's discovery of food and cooking. Dan Burton recommended it to me more than a year ago and it was a true revelation. Aside from the lovely depiction of postwar Paris, the book relates the back story to so many of the recipes in Mastering, adding so much to the appreciation of these descriptions.

Like so many others of my generation, I came to cooking through Mastering. I took up cooking as a hobby when I was living in Hamburg as a way to do something with my hands that was a break from reading and writing all day as a freelancer. Julia's famously foolproof recipes introduced me to so many basic techniques.

Later, in Paris, I was able to go to Cordon Bleu myself -- not for the full program as Julia did, but just a single eight-week class. I took another course later at Anne Willan's Ecole de la Varenne, but always relied on Julia's original book as my touchstone for cooking.

The very revolution that Julia inspired has given us thousands of cookbooks that take all of us into wonderful new ventures in nouvelle cuisine, new American, fusions and all the other exciting stuff that's happening in cooking. Julia's recipes now can seem dowdy and unhealthy. The Times article quotes so many recent purchasers of Mastering as being astonished about the amount of butter and other fat used in the recipes.

That's what's so exciting about Julie Powell's contribution to the movie. She ignored all that and singlemindedly and singlehandedly made Julia relevant again. Now my neighbor is suggesting that we get together with a third couple and cook up a menu from Mastering -- a suggestion I'm sure is being repeated a thousandfold around the country.

I've cooked many of the recipes from Mastering, including the de-boned duck that Julie saved to the end. I've done the carbonnades (beef braised in beer) more often than the boeuf bourguignon featured in the movie, and have repeatedly used her recipes for cassoulet and ratatouille. I may have attempted the aspic early on, but not recently. Living in Europe, I never had the chance to watch French Chef on TV, but the descriptions and drawings in Mastering were generally clear enough to attempt the most ambitious dishes.

Cowgirl Creamery

When I worked downtown, I got to Cowgirl Creamery (on F, between 9th and 10th) much more often. It is such a treat and impossible to walk out of without a few cheeses.

I had the good fortune to actually discover Neal's Yard in London, the store that helped launch England's artisanal cheese renaissance, some 25+ years ago. Cowgirl Creamery comes as close as I've seen in this country to replicating the Neal's Yard experience. (It does in fact work closely with Neal's Yard and has some of its top cheeses, a cut above the Neal's Yard cheeses you get at Whole Foods). We are lucky to have it here, and Saturday's venture downtown reminded me it's worth the trip.

They have a wonderful selection of artisanal cheeses, including many from U.S. cheesemakers. The salespeople are knowledgeable and passionate about cheese and will patiently give you samples of any cheese you want to try. It pays off because the cheeses are invariably so good, you buy much of what you taste. It's not cheap. Prices run between $20 and $30 a pound, so a relatively small piece of 1/4 to 1/3 pound will cost $7-$10. There are numerous other gourmet selections as well, including great crackers to serve with cheese.

We picked up a few cheeses on Saturday. We started with the Ashed Log from the Pipe Dreams farm in Greencastle, Pa. The helpful Library of Cheese on the Cowgirl Creamery site tells me the farm has a herd of 60 mixed-breed goats and the cheesemaker trained in France in 1983 and has been making cheese ever since. We liked this one because it has a fresh, pleasantly "goaty" taste.

We also got the Tomette d'Helette, a semi-soft sheep's cheese from the French Basque region. An artisanal version of the "Petite Basque", the rind is washed with Espelette pepper during the four months of aging.

The Pondhopper comes from a farm in the Cascade mountains near Bend, Oregon. It is a semi-firm goat's cheese with a wax rind that gets additional flavor from being washed with a local microbrew.

We also got a wonderful cheddar from Seattle called Beecher's Flagship Reserve, a semi-hard cheese with a slight crumble.

Cheese, especially soft cheeses, don't always travel that well. When I tasted a perfectly ripened Pont-Leveque cheese in the town of Pont-Leveque, I realized it was different than even in Paris.

Cowgirl Creamery has mostly hard and semi-hard cheeses that preserve a wonderful flavor. Their own triple-cream soft cheeses -- Mt. Tam, Red Hawk, Pierce Pt, and others -- are terrific, especially if you can get them out of the fridge a good two hours before serving.

Broad Branch Market

The reopened Broad Branch Market has become a real asset to the neighborhood. They have worked hard to cater to their audience and have become a combination of a convenience store and gourmet market.

The best feature, in my opinion, is the butcher counter, stocked with high-quality meat from local suppliers. The meat is pricey, with beef mostly at competitive prices and pork and chicken running high.

The big draw, though, is the prepared foods, which are generally quite good and reasonably priced. Our favorites are the fried chicken (not the best in the city -- Founding Farmers or General Store would contend for that -- but quite serviceable) and the prime rib or any other roast.

The roast chicken is uneven -- lately they have been underdone -- and they have stuck too much with stews through the summer.

That said, we had a great meal last night with their Malaysian beef stew, which we combined with North Carolina long-grain rice that we cooked at home and sauteed baby eggplants that we had bought at the New Morning Farm market on Saturday. These were small and tender and cooked very quickly in olive oil and garlic. Simple, quick and delicious.

Broad Branch also has great bulk foods, spices and teas. They have made an effort to stock good oils and other specialties along with some plain old convenience staples.

What they haven't mastered is produce. They don't give over much space to it and stocking is pretty spotty. It's not being able to count on finding the produce you want that keeps it from being a reliable one-stop shopping. If I have produce on my shopping list, I just go straight to Wholefoods and don't waste my time stopping at Broad Branch. It may just be a limitation imposed by the size of the store, but the co-op on Grubb Street manages to keep a produce section stocked.

Burger heaven

Adam Rubinson and I exchanged messages recently about the best burger places in DC. His favorite at the moment is Central, and I recommended Palena.

But home sweet home can also be a great place for burgers. The June issue of Food and Wine had some grilling tips and last night we finally got around to trying a burger recipe with a couple of interesting twists.

Laurent Tourondel, chef at BLT Burger in Las Vegas, suggested immersing the patties in a bowl of ice water for 30 seconds just before slapping them on the grill. He also recommends basting them with butter while they cook.

Apparently the ice water dip helps the keep the meat moist and the butter caramelizes to add flavor to the crust. In any case, the burgers were outstanding.

He calls for a mix of ground sirloin and ground chuck to make 4-inch patties about 1-1/4 inches thick (about 8 oz.). You mix the meat with salt and pepper, form the patties and, just before grilling, plunge them in the ice water. He calls for a hot fire (I use the hardwood charcoal from Wholefoods -- not briquets -- that burns very hot and fast) and cooking about 9 minutes for medium rare, turning a couple of times, basting with butter, and putting on a slice of cheddar cheese during the last minute on the grill.

To complete his BLT burger, you fry up a couple of slices of bacon for each burger (I used the loose bacon from the butcher counter at Broad Branch Market -- delicious) until crispy and break them into pieces. On each bun, you put some homemade Thousand Island dressing (recipe below), lettuce, a slice of tomato, a slice of red onion, the burger with cheese, then the bacon bits, and then the top of the bun.

I toasted the buns on the grill -- tricky, but very tasty. For the dressing, just whisk together 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1/3 cup ketchup, 1 Tbl red wine vinegar, 1 Tbl grated onion, 1 Tbl chopped parsley, 1 Tbl chopped tarragon, and 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce, and refrigerate a while before using. The tarragon lends a really nice flavor to the burger. The BLT burger is a keeper, I think.

Blue Ridge

We have been fans of Bart Seaver since he was chef at Cafe Saint-Ex on 14th Street. His gimmick there was food cooked on a wood-fired grill.

He then moved up to the much more ambitious Hook in Georgetown, which, coincidentally, is owned and managed by our neighbors across the street here in Barnaby Woods.

The gimmick at Hook was sustainable fish, and the restaurant made a big splash and became very trendy. The food was quite good, though in my personal opinion Pesce still did a better job on fish. But Bart Seaver was everywhere -- in the Post, the Washingtonian, on the radio. A skinny young chef with tousled hair, he had a lot of personal appeal.

Seaver had a falling out with the managers at Hook and went on to take over the old Busara space on Wisconsin in Glover Park. He reopened it as Blue Ridge and it seems to combine some of the best aspects of his stays at Cafe Saint-Ex and Hook both.

There are the smoky, porky, wood-fired selections and some sustainable fish. The restaurant has received mixed reviews and it was not packed when we went there Saturday night. One problem seems to be cutting corners to save costs -- there was no bread to be seen anywhere and you got a tiny box of popcorn on the table when you sat down to go with your drink. Service was spotty, as reviewers in Zagat and Yelp have reported, but, in our case at least, good-natured.

But it might be time for everybody to lighten up a bit about restaurants. Yes, Blue Ridge, still within weeks of its opening, is a little rough and ready, but I had a good meal and will happily go back again. It is not a gourmet temple, but it's quite good, it's creative, and it was very pleasant where we were sitting on the patio.

I started with the 16-month Kentucky ham -- "texture like serrano" the waitress said -- with a couple of slices of melon. I love ham, and while this was not serrano, it was smoky and hammy and the melon was flawless. Pickled vegetables, instead of cornichons, proved to be an inspired garnish. An heirloom tomato salad ordered by a dining partner was the perfect seasonal choice.

For the main course, I ordered the ribeye steak special. It was served sliced, was cooked just right to medium rare, and was very tender. Yogurt mashed potatoes accompanied it. The portions were not big (steak was 7 oz.), but just right. A neighbor's grilled sockeye salmon had a wild, fresh taste though perhaps a bit dry, but was served with charred green beans that were salty and flavorful and almost stole the show. Another member of our party ordered grilled trout, but pronounced the accompanying ratatouille bland and tasting oddly of cinammon.

I was prepared to order fish after Seaver's tenure at Hook. But none of the fish dishes appealed to me -- there weren't too many because the menu is quite restricted. The trout was off-putting because after my years in Europe I prefer whole trout rather than filets; also the accompaniment of ratatouille together with eggplant puree seemed suspect to me. The other choices were the sockeye salmon and bluefish. There may be a day when I feel like eating bluefish, but Saturday wasn't the day. The fish of the day was Spanish mackerel, another oily, fishy choice that you really have to be in the mood for. I saw one woman at a neighboring table send it back in exchange for a hamburger -- it's just not to everyone's taste.

It would a mistake, I think, to let sustainable fish become synonymous with oily, bottom-feeding fish that are still around because they don't taste very good.

We had a great Oregon pinot gris, Remy Three Wives, a crisp, dry, pear-flavored white that was perfectly chilled, all for $30. (I had a glass of cabernet with my steak.) By the way, the drinks were good. I had a Sazerac where the rye was well balanced with the pernod and sugar, and another dining partner had a pepper-infused vodka drink that was very, well, peppery, if you like that kind of thing.

Bart Seaver may be a great chef, someday. He's not there yet and I suspect he needs more discipline to go along with his passion. But Blue Ridge was a perfectly enjoyable summer dining experience and I look forward to going back.

Rosé wines

Addy Bassin's MacArthur Beverages (on MacArthur Boulevard) is my favorite wine store in DC, at least for European wines. They have a simply outstanding selection of French, German and Italian wines with great Austrian and Spanish. The staff is expert, not just knowledgeable, and get out to visit the vineyards. Their recommendations are very reliable.

They have wine tastings most every Saturday and we get down there every six to eight weeks. Yesterday they had five rosé wines out -- a couple from Provence, a Virginia wine, a Cote du Rhone and a Bordeaux.

We liked both the Provencale wines, found the Virginia wine very drinkable but did not much care for either the Rhone or Bordeaux by comparison.

The one we ended up buying was a 2008 Domaine de Triennes, the second of the two Provencale wines we tasted. It is fruity and dry at the same time, in the wonderful flinty way that many French wines have. It is made from the Cinsault grape, according to the Triennes Web site, and the 2008 cépage won a gold medal.

The vineyard is at Nan-les-pins and was purchased at the end of 1989 by Aubert de Villaine and Jacques Seysses, two Burgundy vintners who were looking for a property in the Var. The former Logis de Nans is located east of Aix-en-Provence on a southern facing slope comprising 46 hectares of limestone terroir. It was renamed Triennes in the honor of the Triennia, bacchanalian feasts that happened every three years during Roman times. The photo above shows the vineyard.

Rosé is made by letting the skins soak in the first press to give it the color. It has historically been ignored by wine snobs as a cheap table wine and it will probably never rise to the refinements of the great varietals and labels. But they are taken more seriously now.

There was a huge fight in the European Union this spring over a proposed edict from Brussels that would allow vintners to mix red and white together and label it rosé instead of going through the longer, and more expensive process of making a true rosé. Many people probably think that's the way rosé is made anyway, but the French led the fight against this new rule. It would be like mixing Coke and Sprite together and selling it as root beer -- just not the same.

Fortunately, the campaign was successful and the rule was abandoned, so that rosé from Europe at least will continue to be made in the traditional way.

We drank a lot of rosé during our recent trip to France, which was in Languedoc just at the border with Provence. There were numerous Cote du Rhone vineyards there and we bought the wine at local organic vintner, Natura. It was a pale rosé (rosé gris), very light and delicate, and perfect for the climate and the food.

The Triennes is somewhat more robust and fruitier. It was our first choice, though the other Provencale wine, Whispering Angel, was a close second. They were similar, but the Triennes seemed more elegant. The Boxwood from Virginia was also quite good, much like the Virginia rosé we had last week at the farm dinner.

The tasting price for the Triennes was $13.99 a bottle, compared to the normal $15.99. That's more than we usually pay for a rosé, but that's why they have tastings.

Slow Food farm dinner

This annual event is held at Clyde's Willow Creek Farm in the Broadlands near Ashburn. The encroaching exurbia in Loudon County robs the setting of any rural character, no matter what you call the restaurant. However, the tables were set up in a courtyard that sheltered the diners from any views of intruding sprawl, and made for a charming venue.

The six-course menu opened with passed hors d'oeuvres -- a tiny slice of pork belly served on a spoon with a sliver of peach (stole the show); small, fluffy onion tarts; and a yellow tomato consomme served in a paper cup with frozen a cherry tomato that was very light and summery. The wine was a sparkling SP Blanc de blancs from Kluge Estate in Charlottesville that was like a good prosecco. A second aperitif was a very refreshing white sangria made with a mix of pinot grigio and viognier, a dash of soda, and peach slices and plump blackberries for the fruit.

The first seated course was roasted poussin (baby chickens) served with roasted peaches, greens sauteed in bacon fat, pickled onions and herbs. The white meat was very delicate in flavor, while the leg had a more robust taste, like a good confit. The wine was a rose from Barboursville Vineyards, dry and crisp and very French.

Next came jumbo lump crab cakes with the super-fresh crab meat supplied by Russell Hall Seafoods in Fishing Creek, Maryland. The single cake rested on kernels of local corn and a tomato coulis rounded out the dish beautifully. A Chardonnay Reserve from Jefferson Vineyards was light with only a hint of oak and accompanied it well.

The main course was a wood-roasted Virginia prime rib of beef served with a tomato smokey blue cheese gratin (the tomatoes were bursting with flavor and set off perfectly by the creamy blue cheese) and mini-fingerling potatoes. The beef was drier than your typical prime rib because of the wood roasting, but very tender and flavorful. The red Garnett from Hillsborough Vineyards in Purcelville tried to keep up but demonstrated once again how difficult it is to produce a good red in Virginia.

Artisanal cheeses were not local, the chef explained, because it was not a good season for local cheeses, but the selection from New York, Vermont and Wisconsin was very nice.

Dessert was a warm corn cake with sweet corn ice cream and blackberry compote. The cake suffered from not being able to come straight out of the oven, but the ice cream, with the barest hint of corn flavor, was tasty and fresh and the blackberry compote was terrific. A very accomplished dessert wine, Moonstone from Hillsborough, made a perfect finish.

Ample as the menu was, we missed having a salad, which would seem like a natural at a farm dinner. But it was a terrific package and for $65, wine and service included, a great bargain.

Slow Food is an international organization set up to counter fast food. In the U.S., it supports local foods and sustainable production. The DC chapter organizes an event about once a month.

Part of the program was an explanation from the Clyde's chefs about the chain's commitment to local produce, dating back 25 years. The restaurant actually grows some vegetables at the Willow Creek Farm. Of course Clyde's does not offer this kind of menu at its restaurants, for whatever reasons, so it may not represent the real solution to America's food quandary. But it's a step in the right direction.

Other speakers -- who spoke only briefly between the courses -- described the great success of the farmer's market in Olney after overcoming many obstacles and related something incomprehensible about biodynamic growing. Ann Yonkers, one of the cofounders of the Fresh Farms farmers' markets, demonstrated with an apple how little of the earth's service is given over to agriculture, but it might have been more interesting to hear her talk about farmers markets.

Falafels

The best falafel I've found in Washington is at the Ali Baba's Falafel stand in Bethesda, on the corner of the Women's Cooperative Market. The owner is Egyptian and makes his falafels with fava beans instead of chickpeas. The main thing is that they are fresh, with flavorful spices, fried fresh and accompanied with enough salad and goop to really make a meal (stick with the small size, the big one is too big).

On a second trip, I tried the beef gyro and that was terrific. The beef was marinated, grilled and matching anything from Moby Dick or any of the other gyro purveyors in town.

I'm told there is a great falafel at the place on P Street, at about 22nd, but I haven't gotten down there to try it yet. I'm always searching for a falafel to match my memory of the Sunday falafels on Rue des Rosieres when I lived in Paris. There was one stand in particular that took the little croquettes fresh out of the fryer, still sizzling with grease, and put it in the pita bread with red cabbage and a couple of great sauces. Divine.

Someone who visited Rue des Rosieres recently said it had lost much of its character, which is inevitable, I suppose. And the falafels probably were never as good as they remain in my memory. But I will continue my search.

Flashback: Echine du porc

I mentioned echine du porc (pork loin chops) in a post earlier this week. This cut is one of my fondest memories of Paris.

When I was renovating a loft in Paris -- a project that took years -- I was able to go to the wholesale butcher across the way from me. The loft was in what the French call a "passage" and what we call an alley. The butcher did not actually butcher but broke down sides for restaurants.

We had a lot of black market labor working on the loft, including some Americans. One of them, whose avocation was metal sculpture, made us a grill by cutting open an oil drum and fashioning an ironwork stand to support a half-drum.

So all of us working on the loft would break for lunch, buy a ton of echine from the butcher and grill it in the courtyard formed by the U-shaped industrial building our loft was located in. We would grill the chops and accompany them with chunks of onion, baguette and quantities of cheap red wine. Heaven.

Taco test

Surfside wins. We had a really great carnitas taco -- juicy, slow-cooked shredded pork bursting with flavor -- when we just beat the crowd there Saturday night. Grilled fish taco was also very good, though not a match for the fried fish taco at General Store.

Taqueria Nacional, on the other hand, was a bit of a disappointment given that a lot of people rate it highly. Grabbed a couple of tacos there after a quick appearance on FBN -- again pork and fish. But they were somewhat bland and dry. I was actually disappointed that there was no juice leaking through the bag.

La vie en rose

We had the great good fortune earlier this month to spend a few days visiting some American friends at their fabulous house in southern France, near Uzes, a market town in Languedoc.

We timed our arrival for a Friday so that we could go to the Uzes market on Saturday, and it was worth the effort. Uzes is a well-preserved medieval city and the market fills the winding streets of the historic center.

I lived in France for 11 years and always loved the markets. I lived near Nation in Paris and generally went to the Saturday morning market in the Cours de Vincennes or the quirkier Marche d'Aligre (which was written up in the recent Gourmet issue on Paris as part of their discovery of the eastern part of the city).

Probably the most spectacular market I visited was the one in Perigeux, in the heart of truffle and foie gras country.

The Uzes market was also terrific, though. There were at least a dozen cheese vendors and we bought several nice goat cheeses. We guessed wrong on a baker who sold us some croissants that were not great. The most exotic stands were those with huge porcelain bowls of olives and tapenade and spices.

My goal at the market was to get a real gigot d'agneau to fix for our hosts. We found a butcher stand where he cut the gigot from the back half of a lamb, trimmed and wrapped it up for us.

I also wanted to find cocos blancs, which I had read about in a cookbook. These are fresh white beans in season in early summer, so they were available in great abundance. So we had our meal with the roast gigot -- you only have to insert slivers of garlic into it and pop it in the oven -- and the beans, which I shelled and cooked only about 10 minutes. We dressed them with oil and gremolata and served them at room temperature with the medium-rare lamb. Delicious.

We continued to live off the fat of the land, so to speak. On Monday, we found a store open to buy echine de porc, the chops cut from the loin rather than the rib, which have much more marbling and are great for grilling. A neighbor in the little village brought by some eggplant and squash from the community garden, so we grilled everything for dinner, getting a nice char on the vegetables and drizzling with balsamic vinegar.

It was part of a wonderful time that started with a welcome dinner from our hosts of grilled salmon paired with a fragrant ratatouille that was great the first night and even better when we had it again with the lamb. We consumed gallons of rose wine from the local vineyard, an organic producer who sold wine in bottles and in boxes. So we had a great time.

Mt. Pleasant Market

After reading about it in Dean Gold's weekly email for Dino, we went to the Mt. Pleasant farmer's market last Saturday to check it out.

It had a good spread of vegetables, a couple of meat stands, and one cheese vendor. Like most farmer's markets in the city, it was way overpriced. A pound of green beans was $5, and a little carton of fingerling potatoes (potatoes!) was also $5.

The meat was, of course, frozen and packed in translucent cellophane to make it as unattractive as humanly possible. I bought a ham hock with a label so crumpled and smeared it could have been months old.

I also bought the green beans and cooked them together with the ham hock on Monday. The proportions were out of whack. I had twice as much ham hock and half as many green beans as the simple recipe I found on Epicurious called for, but it resulted in a substantial main dish that we built a meal around, complementing it with a salad and toasted slices of six-grain bread from the co-op.

But we didn't see any reason to traipse across town to return to this market, even though it is really just a pleasant ride through the park. We like our New Morning Farm market at the Sheridan School just fine, even though it is only vegetables. Prices are not quite as outrageous as the Dupont Circle market and generally compare to Wholefoods. Can't beat the freshness.

Love to support farmer's markets and local producers but will not hesitate to go backe to the supermarket if I start to feel like I'm getting gouged on prices.

New purpose

Starting today, I'm repurposing my blog to write about food. I'm a professional writer, so I don't find myself blogging about serious things. I thought if I devoted my blog to something fun, like food, I might post more often.

Last night, I attended a mediabistro course on food writing, with Jane Black of the Washington Post as instructor. She said a blog can be a great showcase for your food writing when you try to get it published elsewhere.

Not that I intend to publish anything from this blog, but at least it will get me used to writing about food.

I lived in Paris for 11 years, took courses there at Cordon Bleu and La Varenne, and have always enjoyed cooking and eating out. Food is a kind of hobby for me -- and drink. I'm interested in wine and took a bartending course a few years ago because I like bars.