Roadfood

The final day of our trip restored some of my faith in Jane and Michael Sterns' guide to roadside eating. All three meals were at Roadfood sites and none of them involved hamburgers, barbecue or fried chicken.

We had breakfast in Ann Arbor at Zingerman's, a quaint little deli downtown that has become a major mail-order house for gourmet food. Granted you don't need the Sterns to tell you that Zingerman's is worth a visit, it was nonetheless among their listings for Ann Arbor. I had bacon and eggs and toast -- a decisive rebuke to the over-fussy efforts at B&Bs and proof that simple, high-quality ingredients with little adornment make for the best meals.

For lunch, we made a short detour to the New Sandusky Fish Co. in Sandusky, Ohio. It also gave us the chance to check off a fourth Great Lake, Lake Erie, for our roadtrip. I had targeted this Stern recommendation for lunch on our trip out, but the timing was off. The timing this time was not great since it came after our ample breakfast at Zingerman's, but the yellow perch sandwich we shared was really worth the detour. The amazingly fresh lake water fish had a lovely sweetness. Fried in a light batter on a roll with tartar sauce, it made a simple and satisfying lunch.

Although Hancock, Maryland is getting very close to home, we opted for an early dinner at the Park-n-Dine diner recommended in Roadfood. As promised, the restaurant offered a variety of tempting home-cooked Sunday dinners. I opted for the pot roast, which, though not as good as the one my mother used to make, was quite tasty and satisfying. The pie, however, was a huge disappointment. As Andrea said, if the Sterns don't specifically recommend it in their description -- which they didn't -- it's probably not worth ordering.

I still think the Roadfood focus is too narrow, but it is certainly reliable within those parameters.

Vinology

This trendy restaurant in Ann Arbor has really good wine but the food was too fussy and complicated in a way too typical of wannabe gourmet temples.

The avowed philosophy at Vinology is to carry the best representative of each varietal -- surely an ambitious goal and open to discussion. But in fact they had some novel wines and everything we tasted was very good to excellent.

In particular, Andrea's flight of "The Whites Less Traveled" had some very crisp, flavorful wines, including one from Turkey -- who knew? My flight of reds, "When Dirt Tastes Good," was, well, a little muddier, but I got what I was looking for.

The white flight was 3 oz. each of Arneis, Riofava (Italy); Emir, Kavakledere 'Cankaya' (Turkey); and Gruner Veltliner, Turk (Austria, in spite of its name). The red flight was Pinot Noir, Arnoux (Burgundy); Cabernet Franc, Couly Dutheil ‘les Gravierres’ (Chinon); and Tinta de Toro, Familia Solana (Spain).

The food was not at all bad, just tricked out too much. The homemade burrata, for instance, was wrapped in some leathery casing and had too many herbs. A truly fresh, homemade burrata can stand on its own. I ordered the Radishes 3 Ways as a starter for the simple novelty of it, but the raw radishes were tough, not crunchy and juicy the way they should be, while the pickled radish was pretty good.

My main course, a Lombatello (hanger steak) alla caprese, was a tender enough piece of meat, but smothered in a balsamic demi-glace and some sort of pesto and surrounded by the tomato and mozzarella, while the crispy carbonnara pasta, baked into a crust, was heavy and probably superfluous. Too much stuff! Andrea's Alaska Sockeye Salmon was tasty but not exceedingly fresh. We were disappointed when our waiter said there was no ice wine for dessert, even though the online menu lists one and one of the Tripadvisor comments singled it out.

The restaurant had a warm cave (in the sense of wine cellar) like atmosphere, which was fine on a hot summer day and must be great in the winter. Service was prompt and efficient. It was full on a Saturday night and extremely noisy. All in all, especially for the novel wines, a good find.

Our first choice was Logan's, a New American just around the corner from Vinology, but when we called ahead the recorded message informed us they were on vacation just that week.

Fish boil

A terrifically simple yet oddly satisfying culinary experience, this practice of Wisconsin lumberjacks turned into tourist attraction is really a must-do for a foodie in Door County.

We went to the Old Post Office in Ephraim, one of a handful of places that do a real fish boil more or less daily. We sat on benches in a circle out back where a wood fire kept a big black kettle boiling. Earl, the "boilmaster," came out and tossed in the potatoes and onions. After a while he came back out with a big pan full of Lake Michigan whitefish, trimmed and cut into serving portions. After explaining that the fish are added about 20 minutes into the boil and that they must cook 8 to 11 minutes, he set the pan, which had holes like a steamer, into the kettle and amused us with corny puns while the fish cooked.

The dramatic moment of the fish boil is when they throw kerosene on the fire at the end, making it flame up, enveloping the kettle, and causing the contents to boil over, removing all the scum and detritus that may have floated to the top. They take the kettle contents -- boiled fish, potatoes and onions -- and serve it remarkably efficiently, with drawn butter, cole slaw and bread.

I thought the fish was great -- very fresh, with a delicate flavor more robust than from poaching. They come along and remove the center bone and the most obvious pin bones, so I encountered only one or two smaller bones. (Andrea took the fried chicken option because she doesn't like bones in fish.) The only drawback was that Ephraim turned out to be dry so there was no wine or beer unless you brought your own.

L'Etoile

L'Etoile is unquestionably a wonderful restaurant with great food, a lovely ambiance and excellent service. We had a great dinner there that was a real event for the eight family members who could attend. I would definitely go back. A special shoutout to the maitre-d, Nick, for taking my reservation well in advance of the normal time limit and thoughtfully seating us in a long booth partially shielded from other diners.

All that said, the restaurant is a bit caught up in itself. The food and service both are borderline pretentious. While my pork belly starter, a special, and the duck breast were both excellent, the menu choice was severely limited. For entrees, there was a whole branzino, a turbot fillet, the duck breast, a vegetable dish, and two steaks. Since none of us are vegetarians and my brother was grilling steak the next day, that left us with three choices for entrees. There was no pork entree, no lamb entree, no chicken entree. Why on earth not?

On top of that, the two fish entrees in this city less than a hundred miles from Lake Michigan were flown in from the Mediterranean and Chile respectively. Really?

None of this of course detracts from the actual dining experience, which was on a level equal to any place here in Washington. It's not for nothing that L'Etoile was named one of the country's top 50 restaurants by Food & Wine.

We tried all three of the entree choices available to us. I enjoyed the duck breast with creamy polenta, and my brother welcomed the chance to once again have a starter of the fresh sea scallops not available in Kansas. The turbot and branzino got a big thumbs up from those who ordered the fish. The chocolate cake and the creme brulee ordered at the table were both excellent, as well as the cheese platter, and some of us enjoyed a cognac.

The wine list, while not enormously imaginative, had a varied selection in all price ranges. Because it was Bastille Day and that was one of the reasons for us choosing a French restaurant, we stuck with the French wines and found a Muscadet and a Burgundy pinot noir moderately priced enough that we could enjoy several bottles over a leisurely dinner.

Grain-fed vs. grass-fed

During the power outage, we went with some family refugees for a nice dinner out at Ray's the Classics, where the waiter made a big point of telling us that some of the steaks on special were dry-aged and grass-fed, as opposed to the regular menu steaks, which were wet-aged and grain-fed.

So three of us ordered the "specials" -- two Delmonicos and one Porterhouse, all bone-in -- and one ordered the ordinary, a "cowboy" bone-in ribeye. It would be interesting, we decided, to compare.

So we sampled each other's steaks (I had a Delmonico). First of all, they were all delicious! The other three people all thought the ordinary wet-aged, grain-fed steak tasted better. I thought all of them tasted good, equally good, but were different. Philosophically, I think grass-fed is better. I suspect that the others -- all great steak eaters -- preferred the grain-fed because that's what we are more used to. Does it have more flavor, less flavor? Who knows? De gustibus non disputandum!

Dry-aging is generally considered superior because it concentrates flavor and creates a natural crust. Also, it usually involves superior cuts of meat. I think it may be an acquired taste in the sense you have to be willing to let go of your previous experiences.

This Silver Spring offshoot of the Virginia Ray's has never quite matched the original. The steaks are good, though in the meantime there are other places which have very good steaks at the same moderate prices. It was not a great atmosphere and the waiter, while not exactly surly, was terse and cold. The cap came when we ordered coffee and he came back to inform us they had no coffee, so sorry, their shipment didn't come in. There was the power outage and things in general were disrupted, but there were supermarkets within walking distance and there's no excuse for such a lame explanation. The desserts were also lackluster.

Grilled pork tenderloin with figs

Usually I just use Epicurious as a last resort, but I had a hankering for pork tenderloin and it was the easiest way to find a recipe. I experimented by searching on the iPad app and found that Epicurious has a really good interface on devices. The recipes are clear and the shopping list feature is great. Unfortunately, Epicurious has adopted an ill-advised policy of charging $1.99 to sync. So I had to download the recipe to my iPad and then separately to iPhone. Obviously, the phone is a lot handier in the store.

The pork tenderloin recipe was great! Very simple. Just brush the tenderloin with olive oil, salt and pepper and pop on the grill, turning for about 10 minutes, to an internal temperature of 140 degrees. Meanwhile, put the ripe figs on a pre-soaked wooden skewer and grill them until pulpy and caramelized. Slice the pork and drizzle honey over it, and sprinkle chopped rosemary and crumbled goat cheese on it. Serve with the grilled figs.

At the store, I liked the look of the escarole so searched Epicurious for an appropriate recipe. The fourth or fifth selection was a variation on the classic spinach salad, putting bacon, chopped eggs, and a warm vinaigrette on the escarole. Crisp a couple of slice of bacon and crumble. Saute chopped shallot in the bacon grease until soft and whisk in a vinaigrette of 1/4 c. olive oil and 3 Tbl. white balsamic vinegar (I didn't have white so used the fig and meyer lemon balsamic that we had). Season the vinaigrette and drizzle over the escarole, then sprinkle the bacon, chopped hard-boiled egg, and goat cheese over it.

The sweet and sour of the vinaigrette and the salty of the bacon counterbalanced the bitterness of the escarole and the salad perfectly matched the pork and figs. The wonderful Niman Ranch pork was so tender and complemented well by the honey and figs. I had never grilled figs before, and they gave up a great aroma on the grill.

All in all, a very successful experiment. Look for more Epicurious app recipes!

Parthenon

We have probably been unfair to the Parthenon in avoiding it for so long. It may be they have actually improved since the last time we went there some years ago, but I thought it was just fine for a neighborhood restaurant when we went last week. The Yelp reviews, for what that's worth, tend to be better in the more recent postings, while the older ones are closer to the somewhat negative opinion we have had.

In any case, I sometimes get a hankering for a kebab and the lamb kebab I got at Parthenon filled the bill. It was tender and flavorful from the marinade, with the seared grilled taste of the lamb and onion that are so essential, and served with rice and those great limp Greek green beans. Andrea got a baked lamb with orzo that I tasted and it was also delicious. The taramosalata I had as a starter was also quite nice, though I've had similar fish roe dishes in Greek restaurants in Europe that were somewhat stronger. I had an ouzo and the house cabernet, a Greek wine, that was good, inexpensive and generously portioned.

Many of the complaints in Yelp and other reviews were about price, but when Jake's American Grille is charging $14 and $18 for a hamburger, it might be time to adjust our notions of what is overpriced in a classic Greek restaurant -- $17 for the lamb kebab was not really overpriced on that scale. Yes, the menu at a classic Greek restaurant like the Parthenon is boring, and yes, the decor is tacky. But we like the tackiness of some of the oldline Italian-American restaurants in Bethesda and this has the same flavor.

In short, we won't go there once a week but we will definitely go back within months rather than years. It will be after the weather cools down since their air conditioning clearly was not up to last week's 100+ degree temperatures.

Grilled rum-soaked shrimp

I have a number of books with grill recipes that I don't use enough so I will be making a concerted effort to find more things in them. So this recipe is from The Thrill of the Grill by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby. I had a hankering for shrimp and this seemed fairly easy.

To start with, though, I found the directions for prepping the shrimp hard to understand. In the recipe, it says peel the 2 lbs of shrimp and make an incision along the back to pull out that "vein." But the side note says, "I leave the skins on to protect the meat." I think two people wrote this book and the side note writer didn't read the recipe.

So I opted to keep the shell on and pull out as much of the vein as I could from the top. It might be possible to devein and leave the shell on but I would have to do some research on that. I used the 16 count, which the author describes as "medium" and the Fishery describes as "jumbo." But especially if you are peeling them on your plate, bigger is better.

The full recipe (I halved it) is for 2 lbs of shrimp that you clean and immerse in a marinade of 1-1/2 c. pineapple juice, 8 Tbl lime juice, 1/2 c. dark rum, 2 Tbl chopped cilantro, 1 tsp chopped garlic and salt and pepper and refrigerate for 2 to 4 hours -- not any longer because the citrus "cooks" the shrimp.

You then thread the shrimp onto a skewer, pushing it through the tail then curling the top part down to pierce a second time, making a very attractive presentation. Grill 3 to 4 min. on a side until opaque. The recipe calls for a mango-lime relish of mango, bell pepper, red onion, more pineapple and lime juices and chopped garlic and cilantro as well as red wine vinegar and curry powder, which didn't feel like fooling with. Some sort of salsa or relish would enhance the shrimp, however. We just squeezed more limes over it and it was plenty good. Not sure how it would work to serve unpeeled shrimp on the relish, as specified by the recipe.

I also fixed, as recommended, the authors' grilled sweet potatoes, which are peeled, cut into slices and parboiled, then glazed with molasses mixed with orange juice, butter and allspice. This was fine, but I'm not sure you need the glaze.

Thai-style baby back ribs

I usually think of the NY Times food section, which they call "Dining," as somewhat lame and this week's articles on summer cocktails proved the point. They did have an interesting article, however, about how cuisines in hot-weather countries differ from our Western, French-style cuisines by not building a pyramid of flavors over time but cooking quickly and producing a wave of flavors.

Case in point was this recipe. Instead of marinating the ribs overnight and slow-cooking them in a smoker you grill the meat quickly and toss it with the flavoring -- all in the space of 30 to 40 minutes. Worth a try!

Just salt and pepper 2 racks of baby backs (3 to 3-1/2 lbs) and slap them onto a medium-low grill and cook 10 to 12 min. on each side. I used the BGE and it did a terrific job. Then you cut the racks into individual ribs and toss in a bowl with the ingredients for the sauce: 1/4 c. soy sauce, 1/4 c. Thai fish sauce, 1/4 c. lime juice (from 2 limes), 1 Tbl. sugar, 2 Tbl. chopped jalapenos, 2 Tbl. minced ginger, 1 Tbl. minced garlic, 3 Tbl. minced lemon grass. And the writer means toss -- flip in a huge bowl like a chef with a skillet -- to get everything mixed together.

The grilled ribs were delicious in flavor, but clearly not as tender as we are used to from our slow methods. The sauce had a nice Asian flavor, and I picked up some hot Thai vegetables and Asian broccoli slaw from the prepared food tables at WF to accompany. A great change of pace!

More trout

I went fishing just a few times as a child and the only time I remember catching a fish was during our vacation in Colorado, when we were at the cabin of my great-aunt Georgette outside Louisville. All of us caught some trout and pan-fried them that evening in the cabin. I thought it was delicious and very cool that you could just catch food in the lake.

So I've always had a soft spot for trout and loved it in Europe, especially in Germany, that trout was on the menu so often. In Germany, it is usually offered "blau" for poached or "Mullerin Art" for pan-fried.

I enjoyed the trout at Addie's last week so much, I decided to have it again on one of my solo nights at home. I went on to YouTube to see a demonstration of pan-frying, which at least showed me there's not big secret to it. The recipe being demonstrated was for trout with bacon and garlic, so that's what I made.

You flour the trout and fry it 5 min. on each side in a combination of butter and oil. Remove the trout and keep it warm. Put 2 "rashers" of bacon cut into strips into skillet, and after a couple of minutes add some chopped shallot and garlic. When soft, add 2 Tbl of red wine vinegar and some chopped parsley, and pour this sauce over the warm trout.

I drained off the original cooking oil from the trout because it had burned a bit, so I probably should have enriched the sauce with a little extra butter. This sauce is a bit like the "Finkenwerder Art" that is often served with flounder in Germany. In general, all this is a little overpowering for the trout, so I think I'll try poaching it next time.

Chicken with eggplant

Summer and stew may not seem like an obvious combination, but this tasty little recipe from Domenica Marchetti, redolent of ratatouille and Mediterranean breezes, is quite enjoyable.

Cut up a chicken into 10 pieces, brown them in oil, and reserve while you saute a chopped onion and 2 crushed garlic cloves. Add 2 small eggplants, cut into 1/2-in. slices and then quartered and soften (she also salts them to draw out the bitterness, but I'm not sure my baby eggplants needed that). Add 12 oz. cherry tomatoes cut in half lengthwise and 1/2 c. chicken broth, return the chicken and simmer 30 to 40 min. Stir in 1 Tbl. balsamic vinegar and 3/4 c. Kalamata olives (omitted) and sprinkle 1 tsp. chopped basil and 2 tsp. chopped parsley on top.

Marchetti recommends serving a simple potato salad of boiled russet potatoes, sliced and dressed with salt, chives and olive oil. That worked perfectly to soak up the sauce.

Addie's again

What made our latest trip to Addie's particularly pleasant was that most everything -- from the very small things to the big things -- was pretty near perfect. The wine was chilled, the butter was soft, the bread was fresh, the weather was ideal, and the food was terrific.

And it was all spontaneous. We happened to be coming home on Rockville Pike a little on the early side for dinner and thought to stop at Addie's just for a drink and appetizer. They were booked inside but the patio was first come, first served because, as they warned us, if it rained, they had no room for us inside. It had sprinkled on and off during the day, but there seemed little danger really of getting drenched.

I'm always game for an early dinner after growing up eating the evening meal at 5, so we decided to just stay and order a full meal. I had the soup of the day, which was a cold zucchini soup that seemed to have some cucumber, dill and cream in it, along with some radish shavings floating on top. It was fresh, nicely chilled, and tasting of vegetables rather than cream and seasonings. For the main course, I had sauteed trout fillet with "ivory lentils," spring pea purree, and sorrel chimichurri. The trout was creamy white and moist and set off perfectly by the sides. My Loire Valley sauvignon blanc went so well with it, I ordered a second glass. Andrea was very happy with her Caesar salad (I ate the fresh anchovies), beautifully fried softshell crabs and Cotes du Rhone rose.

But for the roar of traffic on the Pike and the view in the other direction of a parking lot, Addie's sheltered patio could have been an Italian piazza, and we pretended it was during a perfectly delightful meal.

Sauteed snapper fillets with apples

When I had a little weekend house in Normandy I grew to appreciate the joys of sauteed apples in the local cuisine. There you usually had the apples to accompany a good pan-fried beef liver or boudin noir, the characteristic blood sausage, or black pudding, of the region. It was fun to go to the market in Verneuil-sur-Avre on a Saturday morning in the fall to shop for the local apples and charcuterie.

So I was attracted to Mark Bittman's recipe when I came home with some fillet of red snapper. He says it is from Brittany and he lists it under rockfish, with snapper as one of the substitutes. It's a simple recipe for 2 (I halved it for just myself, but here is the full recipe): Peel and core 4 not-too-sweet apples (I had a couple of Fuji apples in the bowl and they were surprisingly tart when cooked), slice into rings or wedges and saute in 3 Tbl butter, tossing and stirring until browned. Take 1 to 1-1/2 lbs fillet, skin on or off (I removed the tough snapper skin), dredge in seasoned flour, dip in egg, coat in unseasoned bread crumbs and saute in another 3 Tbl butter for 6 to 8 min. on both sides. Drizzle the juice of 1/2 lemon and an optional 1 Tbl Calvados or brandy over the apples and serve together.

I'll eat anything breaded and the breading combined with the mildness of the snapper meant there weren't too many fish smells in the kitchen, but you still had the great subtle flavor of the fluffy white fish, still quite moist. I think I would season the fillet directly rather than lose all that salt and pepper in the flour, and I would probably sprinkle some sugar over the apples as they cooked to add a little sweetness and help the caramelization. I didn't have Calvados so used Cognac, but would just skip it next time if I didn't have the Calvados to enhance the apple flavor. I suppose another alternative is to flambee the apples at the end.

Pork tacos al pastor

I think I tried this recipe from Cheryl and Bill Jamison before, back in the prehistoric days before I started this blog. It is keeping with my new passion for spit-roasting, and we always like Mexican-type food and adore pork.

The day before, make a rub/paste by starting with a loosely packed 1/4 c. garlic cloves, roasted in a dry skillet over medium heat until just browned, crush and peel. Pan roast 2 plum tomatoes over high heat until blistered and soft. Put these in a blender with 2 Tbl achiote paste, 2 Tbl ground Ancho or New Mexico chile, 2 tsp salt, 1 Tbl olive oil, and puree. In a resealable plastic bag, spread this paste over a 4 lb. tied boneless pork roast.

They looked at me like I was a Martian at WF when I asked for achiote paste. It seems to me that we found it at a Latino market last time, where it is also known as annatto. This time I searched the Web for substitutes and found one that combined paprika, ground cumin and olive oil to make a paste. The pork roasts at WF ran about 2-1/2 lbs so I special ordered and got one for 3-1/3 lbs that was kind of long and thin -- but it was wonderfully tender and flavorful.

The next day, take the pork out of the fridge 30 min. before cooking. Put it on the spit with a peeled white onion and a peeled half pineapple on each end (this was supposed to be oiled with olive oil but I missed that step and doubt that it really mattered). Put on the spit and cook to an internal temperature of 150 to 155 degrees. I usually ignore the times on these recipes (on this one 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 hrs) because the WF charcoal runs very hot and in this case the roast was fairly thin. I checked after 35 min. and it was ready after 45 min.

Let the roast sit at least 10 min. Chop the onion and pineapple and mix together as a relish. Slice the pork (they say thin, though I actually made it pretty chunky) and then cut into strips. Serve with warmed tortillas, tomatillo salsa, and the relish. I cooked some Rancho Gordo Santa Maria pinquito beans as a side (great as always!) and we drank margaritas with the meal.

The pork was nice and moist and I carved it in the juices rendered as it sat. The rub caramelizes into big black patches and the pineapple-onion relish sets the porky taste off really well. A keeper -- we'll do this one a third time!

Mustard-crusted roast potatoes

Yes, it's just a side, but such a good side I thought it was worth a posting. This Molly Stevens recipe has a lot of mustard, but most of it goes to forming a nice crust on the potatoes, so it does not taste too mustard-y.

Take 2 lbs of red potatoes or any low-starch specialty potato like fingerlings and cut into 3/4 to 1-in. pieces. Whisk together 1/3 c. Dijon mustard, 3 Tbl olive oil, 1 Tbl lemon juice, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 Tbl chopped rosemary, 1/2 tsp Aleppo or Marash pepper (or 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes), salt and pepper to taste, and then toss the potato pieces in the mixture to coat. Spread them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and put them in a preheated 400-degree oven for 50 to 55 min.

These were delicious with one of those steaks from BBM and Stevens recommends them to accompany roast chicken, pork or beef.

BBM

I wouldn't want anyone to get the idea that I'm starving in between postings. Most meals are not noteworthy but many of the meals I don't write about are very good, and that's often due to Broad Branch Market.

In just a few years, John and Tracy have made this an indispensable combination of deli, gourmet emporium and convenience store. We often rely on their prepared foods -- whether fried chicken or prime rib or veal stew -- but also are big customers of the meat counter, where especially the beef is excellent (steak!) and very competitively priced. Most things are good and some are very good -- such as the baguette (best we've found in DC), the mac and cheese (beats anything else you find), the homemade sausage, etc.

Saw on Yelp that some people complain about the prices. There's no way a small store like this can match supermarket prices. It's probably not the best place to shop if you're feeding a large family (though I suspect some in the neighborhood do just that), but the convenience of the location, the small size, and the selection are worth paying a premium for. If John stocks it -- whether it's coffee, or olive oil, or wine, or whatever -- it's like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

I was impressed the other day when I was there for their fish delivery and saw that they actually break down the whole fish themselves. I've been wondering how much turnover they have on the fish and whether it could be as fresh as The Fishery, but now I'm willing to try it.

Produce is a bit of a problem, I suppose because it's so perishable, but they are good about looking for something in their own kitchen if it's not in the produce case. The bulk food at times seems a bit half-hearted -- stocks are not quickly replaced and you wonder if there's enough turnover in those products.

But the shop has been a work in progress from the beginning and it keeps getting better and better.

Mechoui

Parents of a friend of mine in France had a chateau (modest) in Roussillon outside of Perpignan very near the Pyrenees and the Spanish border. Once when I visited there, the locals were having a mechoui, where they spit roast a whole lamb in the field and people bring sides and wines for a big communal meal. It was delicious and very convivial.

So I wanted to try Molly Stevens' Mechoui-style roast lamb in her All About Roasting, and in keeping with the outdoor cooking, wanted to do it in the Big Green Egg. I had a lamb shoulder roast from Blue Rooster Farm in the freezer and this is one of the options Stevens described, although her 5-6 lb. shoulder was bigger than my 3-1/2 lb one. (Her other option is a whole bone-in leg of lamb weighing 7-8 lbs., feeding 8 to 10, as opposed to her shoulder feeding 6 to 8.) We invited a couple over and I was a little worried about the amount with the smaller shoulder, but it was enough (though sadly no leftovers).

Prepare the lamb 1 or 2 days ahead of time by making a paste to rub on it. Toast 1-1/2 Tbl coriander seeds and 1 Tbl cumin seeds for 2 or 3 min., cool slightly, and grind to a coarse powder. Stir in 2 tsp sweet paprika and 1/2 tsp sugar. Make a garlic paste in a mortar with 8 peeled garlic cloves and 2 tsp salt. Add this to the spices and work in 8 Tbl softened butter with a wooden spoon. Make a dozen or more incisions in the meat and rub the paste all over, working it into the incisions. Let sit uncovered or loosely covered in the fridge for 1 to 2 days. I prepared it Thursday evening for roasting on Saturday afternoon.

Take the lamb out 1 or 2 hours before cooking. I followed Stevens' directions for roasting in the oven, only used the Egg instead. Start with a 450-degree oven to sear the meat for 25 min., and then lower to 325 degrees to roast 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 hours longer. Shoulder goes more quickly, she says, and since my shoulder was smaller than hers, I figured, correctly, it would take a maximum of 2 hrs longer. Internal temperature should be 170 to 180 degrees and meat should come easily off the bone. The butter in the rub is supposed to keep the lamb moist.

When done, let the lamb sit on a cutting board for 20 to 35 min. and then use a meat fork and tongs, pull the meat off in chunks for serving. When roasting in the oven, you can deglaze the pan with water and pour this over the lamb chunks. I thought of just heating up some broth to moisten the meat, but didn't do it, though in retrospect a little moisture wouldn't have hurt. But the lamb had a delicious, mildly exotic flavor with a little smokiness from the Egg. We served the cumin salt make of 2 Tbl cumin seeds, toasted and lightly cracked, mixed with 4 Tbl salt for dipping the lamb pieces in.

Stevens recommended sides of couscous and carrot salad, so I used Ghillie Basan's Plain, buttery couscous recipe from Tagines and Couscous (soak 2 c. of couscous in 1-2/3 c. warm water for 10 min., massage in 2 Tbl olive oil, dot with 2 Tbl butter, cover with foil and pop in 350-degree oven for 15 min.) and Sara Jenkins' carrot salad from Olives and Oranges (grate or julienne 4 large carrots, mix in 5-1/2 Tbl of lemon juice and 1-1/2 tsp of salt in bowl for 5 min., then mix with 1/4 c. olive oil and 1/4 c. chopped parsley and let sit for up to 6 hrs at room temperature). The suggestions were perfect -- simple, very flavorful, and colorful on the plate. Likewise, her recommendation for a Spanish Garnacha to accompany was just right.

As a first course, I fixed a recipe from our herb wall calendar for a Potato soup with mixed herbs. The 6 to 8 oz of peeled and diced potatoes were really just a thickener. The potato gets cooked with 1 c. of diced onion in 1/4 c. olive oil for 10 min. (covered over low heat). Then add 2 c. vegetable broth, 1-1/2 c. milk and 1/4 c. heavy cream and bring to a boil over medium heat. Add 8 oz. of chopped herbs -- marjoram, thyme, chervil, sorrel, borsage, basil, tarragon were among those listed. Now 8 oz. of herbs is a lot of herbs and unfortunately our garden is not yet planted for the summer and neither WF or the Silver Spring farmer's market had any big supplies this early in the season. So I chopped the little packages of marjoram, thyme, and tarragon, chopped up one of those big basil plants, and used a bag of sorrel from the farmer's market and still probably had only half the amount required. Cook the herbs in the broth for 2 to 3 min., then purree.
This soup had a great, fresh flavor from the herbs (heavily skewed to sorrel). I didn't strip the thyme so there were little bits of twig in there (I would just avoid thyme in the future). You could make this soup any number of times and it would always be different, depending on what herbs were available.

For hors d'oeuvres, Andrea got very creative and whipped up a wonderful tomato jam of green heirloom tomatoes from the market, garlic and honey, that she put on top of burrata for one type of crostini, and cooked up some baby yellow beets from the market with onion to put on top of ricotta for the other type of crostini. Sitting on the patio with a cremant de Bourgogne, it was the perfect start for our Mediterranean meal. For dessert, we had a very seasonal (and more American) strawberry and rhubarb bread pudding. Again the products from the farmer's market ensured this had a wonderful, fresh taste, that the sugar, bread and creme anglaise only enhanced. It was a great little menu and a very nice spring meal!

Italian-style roast pork shoulder

I stumbled upon this recipe when I was looking for an image of spit-roasted chicken and found a blog with a spit-roasted porchetta, citing the recipe in Real Cajun by Donald Link. The book looked good anyway, so I bought it and, to my surprise, found that Link does not spit-roast the pork shoulder -- he just sears and roasts in the oven.

What a revelation! I can take any roast that fits on a spit and cook it in my grill! I finally was able to try it as we marked the victory of I'll Have Another (love the name) in the Kentucky Derby. (I was rooting for Bodemeister, but a good race is worth celebrating.)

The recipe calls for a 7 lb boneless pork shoulder (Boston butt). My butcher friend at WF explained they cut the shoulders in half, so that generally they weighed 3-1/2 to 4 lbs. Plus there's a small bone in it. He offered to remove the bone, so I had him do the butterfly part, too, since I didn't find Link's directions for doing it very clear. I was leery of cutting the seasoning completely in half, and as a result the roast was a bit salty and garlicky (which we didn't mind). I'll give the portions for the full 7-lb roast and you can safely cut in half to get the taste Link wants.

Mix together 2 Tbl minced garlic, 3 Tbl salt, 1 tsp ground black pepper, 1 Tbl ground fennel, 1 Tbl chopped thyme or rosemary and spread the seasoning over the inside of the butterflied shoulder. Link also makes several incisions of an inch or so to get the seasoning into the meat. Roll it up and tie it and put 2 Tbl salt and 1 tsp pepper on the outside.

Link sears the meat and roasts it in a 325-degree oven for 1-1/2 to 2 hours to an internal temperature of 145 to 155 degrees. I put it on the spit and roasted it for about 50 min. Link has you put the roast on a bed of sliced onion and vegetable oil in the roasting pan, so I just onion and oil in the drip pan underneath the spit. We had steamed artichokes as a starter (and we couldn't figure out why we don't do that more often!), and accompanies with braised endives.

The first time I had real Italian porchetta was in a little hole-in-the-wall hostaria in Assisi and of course I fell totally in love with. This great recipe is as close as I'm going to get to it here, I think. We thought it tasted a bit of pancetta, so maybe fennel is one of the ingredients that gives pancetta its taste.

Chicken and dumplings

One of my fondest food memories is a Methodist church dinner which had the best chicken and dumplings I've ever eaten. I was young and I don't remember where it was -- probably Pittsburg. I try new recipes now and again in the hopes of finding something as good, but haven't had any luck so far. But that's OK -- it's fun trying.

This recipe from Andrea Reusing's Cooking in the Moment has a lot of steps but is basically pretty simple. The result is quite tasty, though not as great as that Methodist church dinner in my memory. One is tempted to think you could get as good a result with fewer steps. She recommends a real laying hen, but I have no idea where you'd find one of those. I used one of the kosher chickens from WF.

Put the chicken (including neck, gizzard and heart, if available) in a 6-qt pot and cover with 3 qts water. Bring to a boil. Start skimming off scum as it gets to a simmer and continue skimming and simmering for 5 min. Then add a carrot, a celery stalk, an onion cut in half and an unpeeled head of garlic cut in half crosswise, as well as 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp black peppercorns. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 10 to 15 min.

You're supposed to pull out the chicken and cut out the breast meat at this point, which is supposed to be done and just pink at the bone. My chicken breasts were still partly raw so I put it back in for another 10 min. Reusing says to put the chicken back in the pot and cook for a further 20 min. (I shortened because of extended time for the breast meat), then add the dark green top from a large leek and 20 (count 'em!) parsley stems (chop the leaves for garnish) and cook for another 10 min. Remove the chicken, cut off the legs and let cool. Strain the broth and discard the vegetables and chicken carcass. Reusing says you should have 2 qts of broth. I didn't measure, but the end product came out soupier than I like, so maybe I had more than 2 qts or 2 qts is too much. I would reduce or simply siphon off some of the broth. (Though her photo of the dish, shown here, looks about as soupy as mine.)

Make the dumpling batter by whisking together 2 c. flour with 1 Tbl. baking powder and 1 tsp. salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together 2 eggs, 1/2 c. buttermilk and 1 stick (8 Tbl) melted butter. Combine the liquid ingredients with the dry ingredients and stir with wooden spoon to make (very thick) batter. Add 2 Tbl each of chopped parsley and "thinly sliced" chives (why not say chopped?).

Remove the skin from the chicken, tear the meat from the legs and tear both breast and leg meat into bite size portions. Rinse pot and pour broth back into it. Bring to a boil and put 2 diced carrots, 2 diced celery stalks, and the diced white and green parts of that large leek into the broth with 3/4 c. white wine. Cook for 4 min., then add the chicken meat with 1 c. heavy cream. Check seasoning and bring to a simmer.

Form the dumplings with 2 teaspoons and drop them into the simmering stew. Stir around to keep separate. When all the dumplings are in, cover and cook for 5 min. Serve with garnish of chopped parsley and chive batons and plenty of ground pepper.

The chicken takes on a lot of great flavor from the aromatics. The broth is a little thin. Maybe it was just too much but it might help to boost the flavor with a bouillon cube. We made the full recipe so I'm eager to see how it tastes reheated as leftovers.

Bandolero

An outing this week reinforced my already confirmed opposition to small-plate restaurants and Top Chef and added something new for me to dislike: Pop-ups. I think they should be more honest about this new trend to preview restaurants in another locale and just call them rip-offs.

So visiting the Bandolero pop-up, previewing a new DC venture by Mike Isabella of Top Chef fame, turned out to be a perfect storm of things I don't like. Worst of all, the food wasn't that great. Mediocre is the word that most often comes to mind. (Fortunately, good company and Negra Modelo draft beer made it a great evening anyway.)

One of my companions at dinner, Peter Gilbert, offered a blow-by-blow account of the meal in his No Limits blog that I'm pretty much in agreement with, though I question how any other Latin cocktail could surpass a caipirinha.

Certainly the $65 prix fixe, not including drinks, ridiculously overpriced the food we got in terms of quantity and quality (hence, rip-off), even if you consider that since tax and tip was included it corresponded to $50 on a normal menu. While it's long been clear that the primary purpose of a small-plate menu is to increase the restaurant's profit margin, a prix fixe pop-up seems designed to amplify that effect, even though it should essentially be a marketing expense.

The reason I don't watch Top Chef -- I only know Isabella was on it because Andrea is an avid watcher and for  that reason was eager to try this restaurant -- is that it turns cooking into a sport, making food something like a football that gets skillfully passed around until it lands on the diner's plate. I have no illusions that Top Chef is closer to what happens in a restaurant than anything that goes on in my kitchen, but I don't have to watch it (you know the old saying about sausage...).

Bandolero was not very Mexican, confirming once again my belief that it's pretty much impossible to get good Mexican food this side of the Mississippi. I liked the Umbels' previous restaurant, Hook, and wish them well in this endeavor, but as Peter optimistically says, it is a work in progress.