Malawry

Burgers and salad for dinner here. The freezer is almost completely emptied of meats. (We moved out of our old house last week, and are staying with friends--we got rid of most stuff before coming to the friends' place, and have been chowing through the remainder since we arrived.)

Last night, we went to the house of our friend's parents for 4 July dinner. They grilled pork spareribs and made a pasta salad with lots of dill, pimentos and olives. We brought grilled summer squash from the farmer's market. Dessert was raspberry sorbet, ginger ice cream, fresh crisp cherries, and cappuccinos from their new espresso machine.

Slow-cooked dry-rubbed pork spareribs Slaw Blueberries with whipped cream

I just returned from the mall--exhausted but enthused about the foods I learned about today. This is a rare opportunity to see some amazing chefs, and I hope those of you who haven't made it down to the National Mall will get there between now and Monday. I only sat through two demonstrations. I am always entertained by Suvir Saran, so I made a point of grabbing a seat at his 1pm demo today. He made something simple--bhel puri, including homemade tamarind and mint chutneys. Joan Nathan was emceeing. Due to food service sanitation laws, they couldn't pass out samples, but Joan smelled and tasted the bhel puri for us--and enjoyed it so much she snitched a couple of additional tastes. The other demonstration I attended was packed to the gills--Paul Prudhomme, who is one of the most entertaining people I've ever see do a cooking demonstration. He talked about his childhood in rural Louisiana, when he'd select live chickens from the yard for dinner and when he'd visit relatives on the bay to go oystering or shrimping. He made a shrimp creole, "bronzed" (as opposed to blackened) filet mignon, and a chicken dish with okra. Very entertaining and informative. The food offerings at the cafes on the mall are above-average. I had some Peruvian chicken from the Nuevo Latino cafe--unfortunately, I missed the smoked fish with fry bread and slaw at the Forest Cafe until after I'd already eaten. A lot of people were snarfing berry shortcake from the American Foods Cafe. The Oman Cafe had some nice-looking skewered meats and salads. There are lots of other culinary demos--both the Oman and Forests sections had their own cooking areas (learn about cooking outside in the rough like real forest rangers do!). Most of these are centered in the Food Culture USA section--including a beautiful "edible schoolyard" garden wafting fragrant basil aromas right in front of the capital.

While I understand the instinct to hire a professional to sharpen your knives, I highly recommend learning how to take care of them yourself. I learned a lot by taking the recreational knife skills class at L'academie de Cuisine's Bethesda, MD campus, long before I enrolled in the professional culinary career training program. I think it's still under $50 and worth every penny.

Salad of grilled zucchini, roasted lamb, red onion, red bell pepper, basil, lemon juice and EVOO Boylan's diet root beet Ahhhh, summahtime.

Salads topped with fried chicken are a Southern classic that have been co-opted by a lot of national chain restaurants (places like Applebee's). I was especially enamored of the Lance captain's wafers alongside Varmint's salad. I ADORED those crackers as a kid and would eat them until my parents made me stop so I'd have room for some salad and maybe some form of protein. They were on tables everywhere in Greensboro, NC, where I grew up (90 minutes or so from Varm's place). I haven't seen them in many years. Now I'm craving some. Keebler Club crackers aren't the same, but they're probably the closest analogue available in mainstream grocery stores across America. Needless to say, Varmint, I'm really enjoying this blog. Love to you and the li'l Varmints and of course Dr. Mrs. Varmint.

I'm planning to go the second weekend, probably on Saturday, July 2. I look forward to hearing and seeing what Paul Prudhomme and Patrick O'Connell have to say. I wish I had time to go to everything, plus some of the special dinners, but I don't think I'll be able to spare more than an afternoon for this year's folklife fest. I think this is a rare public opportunity to talk and learn about American culinary arts, and I'm glad Smithsonian created this track this year.

I've read about this before. I'd actually be willing to give it a try (with photos, of course), but I have no idea where to source a pig bladder...

Pork chops, dry-rubbed and cured for 8 hours, seared and then braised with wine, topped with a sauce made mostly with the wine reduction (finished with butter 'n cream, mmmmm).Not sure I will braise pork chops again--I think they are too lean for good braising, but then my spouse said he thought they were the best pork chops I'd ever made. Hmm. Farm market salad, local organic greens and greenhouse cucumbers Decaf coffee with cream

The buttered popcorn is da bomb. I adore it. Ate them all the time in college especially. Half the pleasure is that nobody's gonna bug you for them--sorta the same reason my spouse reveres Good and Plenty (*gag*). I've never been real into the recipe thing, but I loved reading the recipes as a kid. I wonder how they tested the booger Bertie Bott's bean. Did the taste testers alternate beans and boogers to make sure they had the flavor spot-on?

Several sausages: chicken-feta-spinach, sundried tomato, bratwurst, hot Italian Green beans Gallo of Sonoma merlot (cleanin' out the wine rack...) Rainer cherries picked off the tree this morning

I've only been in this store at odd times when nobody is busy (not even Wegman's). Was it totally dead there or something? I thought it was a nicer store than the one in Bethesda near Old Georgetown & Democracy. I always thought it was in an odd sort of location, not fully visible from the road in both directions.

I see Dr. Mrs. Varmint has worn Varm down over the years. I'd offer to make biscuits, but I already know mine are only ok--and they don't hold a candle to Varmint's, so it seems silly to try. I'd rather watch somebody else whose biscuits are superior and try to larn me sumpin'.

My husband, like Dr. Mrs. Varmint, does not eat beef. Hence the proliferation of turkey burgers at home. And at the sorority, lots of girls don't eat beef or prefer to eat less fatty meat than beef--so I make turkey along with beef burgers and turkey along with meat loaves when they're on the menu there too. I am a big believer in 80/20 beef for burgers and loaves. This makes for a pretty fatty patty--which is yummy, but not for everybody. Toliver, yes, I normally add milk-soaked stale bread or breadcrumbs to my meat loaves to lighten the load. For mechanically separated turkey, though, there needs to be a lot of dried breadcrumbs added no matter what. Not my favorite thing to do.

I hope people will try out burgers and loaves made with meats besides beef and beef blends. I make a lot of turkey burgers, both at home and back at the sorority house. Sysco carries only "mechanically separated" turkey, which is a lot looser and wetter than the extruded product I buy at the supermarket for burgers at home. I thought it was a little gross to work with, but my husband is a big believer that mechanically separated turkey makes for a much better burger. I didn't like that I had to add breadcrumbs to soak up all that extra liquid. I learned how to pat some of the liquid off, and how to lift the turkey out of the package leaving more excess liquid behind. I think the mechanically separated turkey makes a superior turkey meatloaf--very popular with weight-conscious sorority sisters. Sutter Home's Build a Better Burger contest has a lot of creative past winners. You can view some recipes here. I also recommend the Fear of Grilling chapter in Amy Sutherland's Cookoff book for a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at this particular contest.

It certainly is true that biscuits go with fried chicken. I'm assuming here that the fried chicken standoff will be a sort of staff meal. Right? (Though, Dave, I'd be happy to help with shrimp n grits again...) I'm planning to bring my own jug of oil for the puppies so the oil will be clean--I'd rather not reuse the chicken oil.

I'm hoping hjshorter will reprise her wonderful collards. (Besides which, I'll need some pork fat for the hush puppies!) I'd love to see real biscuits too, but it may be hard to coordinate those with all the other things going in and out of the oven and whatnot--and while biscuits are classic Southern, they aren't necessarily classic pig-picking.

Surprisingly, some of those sorts of food can be hard to find (or at least hard to find if you have high standards) in Washington. While we are technically south of the Mason-Dixon Line, this isn't like going to Atlanta and looking for soul breakfasts or visiting Austin for tex-mex. There are a few BBQ joints in town. Rocklands is probably the best-known of these, but it's in Glover Park (just north of Georgetown) and not accessible via Metrorail (you can take a bus there though). None of the BBQ in town will set off fireworks, but I believe Rocklands has a respectable product. We do shine with our Ethiopian cuisine, however--which certainly counts as African food. There are a number of choices around U Street (not too far from the U Street-Cardozo metro stop), including Dukem. Meskerem on 18th Street in Adams-Morgan has a really cool decor, but scuttlebutt is their food isn't nearly as good as closer to the U and 10th Street area. Everybody's just going to tell you to go to Ray's the Steaks in Arlington, VA for steak--there's a lengthy thread in this forum telling you why. I suspect you may be too late to get in there for a steak next weekend, but you can always call and ask. They're not too far from the Courthouse metro stop on the orange line. The "Michael's Rib-Eye Diablo" at Firefly in Dupont Circle is ostensibly quite similar--this isn't a steakhouse, but it is a damn good steak. Washington has plenty of yupscale steak chains like Morton's, Ruth's Chris, Palm, and Smith & Wollensky. A better bet is Charlie Palmer Steak on Capitol Hill--you may as well get a guarantee of quality sides along with a nice piece of beef. Crab and Oysters are an easier matter--pretty much everybody has both on the menu, and in most fine-dining restaurants it's hard to go wrong. The new Hank's in Dupont Circle off 17th Street has earned rave reviews for its crab cake already. Kinkead's near Foggy Bottom has a serviceable version of almost any seafood dish you'd expect, although the price tag can be steep. (I like to eat lunch at the bar there.) Soft-shell crabs are appearing everywhere these days--I tasted a wonderful stuffed crisp-fried soft-shell at Citronelle last week. this thread has some good advice. For your grits/ham/gravy breakfast and tex-mex--I hope others have ideas, 'cause I'm fresh out. I guess you could try Fla Ave Grill for the former--I've not had breakfast there, and a lunch of fried chicken and collards was only so-so.

I finally had occasion to dine at Citronelle with my spouse last Thursday. Special thanks to MarkSommelier for a wonderful experience--we virtually floated through the meal. You've read about most of the dishes we enjoyed--the cuttlefish "pasta," the squab three ways, the coco-puffs on steroids with minty milk, the kit-kat bar. I wanted to give special recognition to the "begula caviar"--no misspelling on my part. This is one of the most whimsical things I've ever put in my mouth, not to mention scrumptious. It's a little can that looks like a caviar can, labeled something like "Michel Richard's Begula Caviar." Apparently, when the dish was conceived somebody signed off on the printer's proof for the can labels, not realizing the correct spelling is Beluga. So they ended up with these incorrectly spelled labels. They eventually stuck this item on the menu with the same spelling as was on the labels as a sort of tongue-in-cheek move. The can contains, from the top down: squid ink Israeli couscous (which really does look like caviar), hollandaise, softly poached egg, toasted brioche, and butter-poached lobster. Dig down and get a spoonful of everything. It's unbelievably rich and delicious. By the way, this can arrives set in a bowl of what appears to be ice--but is actually those little glass marbles you see people using for support in the bottom of a vase. Very clever. I wish I had the means to dine here more often. It was a terrific experience.

I add a little chocolate to my chili sometimes. But this is not a use for a big block of chocolate. (Nor is mole, for that matter.)

I'm guessing that reduced fish stock would be overly...fishy. Like overcooked fish. Has anybody tried it though? Stock update: I reduced the 3 gallons into about 2 cups of something between demi-glace and glace de viande. I've decided to use the unreduced turkey stock in the freezer for the gumbo (possibly augmented with a couple tablespoons of the duck demi). I think I can fit a single deli cup of duck yum into my friend's freezer while I'm homeless. It took a ridiculous amount of time on my weak home stove to get the stock down that far--at least 10 hours--but it's done now. Thanks for the tips.

Thanks for updating us, Vandyhoo. Bummer, though. Fortunately, there's still Matchbox for miniburger fixes (along with plenty of other places...)

I volunteer to be a fried chicken judge. Espeically if bribery is involved.

Thanks for the responses. I guess demi it is. CaliPoutine, I've left the sorority chef job. My spouse, who is finishing a doctoral degree in music, found a tenure-track job, so we're moving to be closer to it. We'll be 90 minutes away from the sorority with no traffic, so I'm looking for something in the new area--I'm not willing to commute that far. Besides, last summer they made me give over my keys and swipe cards--none of the chefs have access to their kitchens over the summertime. JPW, you know where to find me--I'd be glad to make a donation! I'm surprised some of you don't think demi needs to be chilled. How long are you keeping it at room temperature? Or do you only mean that glace de viande doesn't need to be chilled? I've had veal demi grow nasties after about 6 weeks in the fridge before.