Busboy

Something that really sends me around the bend, as Mrs. B will attest, is when food starts coming out before the wine is served.

Sharp and detailed exchanges of opinion -- like that above -- make this an interesting board. Anyone who's seen my posts will know that I like a good dust-up, and that I'm inclined to moderate with a light hand. I hope, however, that people will err on the side of caution when writing anything that might be construed as a personal attack, and that they will err on the side of forgiveness when reading anything that might be construed as a personal attack. That way I won't have to give way to my inner Sith, and take my light-saber to people's posts in a savage and unforgiving fashion.

No help on the tile, but welcome!

I'm guessing the families have a rather basic cooking background, ehh?? Anyways, if you want to show off on a budget, why don't you try the "I just threw this together. It was no problem at all"-type of dinner. Start with a "simple salad." Not iceberg, but one of the "European" or continental type of salads with frisee, mache, radicchio, romaine, spinach, etc. Maybe a raspberry vinaigrette, homemade, of course. How about a "simple pasta dish?" If you don't have time to make your own pasta, that's all right. You can cook the packaged pasta ahead of time. Do make your own pasta sauce which you can make in a crock pot or have it cooking on the back burner all day. Buy some fresh Parmesan cheese, not the green container stuff ... Add some cheese rolls or cheese twists made with puff pastry. They can be baked and frozen for later use. See how "simple" it is. Maybe I should try this one day. I hope this helps. The idea is that you can cook ahead of time and when dinner rolls around, everything can be warmed up. ← Below is the menu my moronic friend prepared for 30 for his rehearsal dinner. He and I and my wife, that is -- for his first wedding I was a groomsman; for his second, I was best man; for his third, I was best man and sous-chef. Apparantly he needed something to stress over since walking down the aisle was a bit old-hat. His wife-to-be didn't seem to mind, but he and I almost broke up when I told him to stop making life difficult for himself and those around them and cook something reasonable. At least I got him to drop the fish course. I submit this because, in the end, it was a relatively doable menu. Ridiculous, but largely executable in advance, and mostly inexpensive stuff -- you may find something useful here. I also added in some gravlax and two bottles of home-made aquavit. After the aquavit, everything tasted good. Hors d’oeuvres Duck Pate White Bean Crostini with Rosemary Red Bell Pepper Dip Red Caviar Dip Assorted crackers and veggies Appetizer Shrimp and Asparagus Marinade Soup Soupe de Bonne Femme (Good Wife’s Soup) Hearty breads –black, brown, dense white Dill Caraway Oil Basil Oil Garlic-Oregano Vinaigrette Vegetable Roasted Beets with Capers Starch Dill Mashed Potatoes with Crème Fraiche Entrée Herb- And Garlic-Crusted Beef Tenderloin Salad & Cheese Watercress, Radicchio and Endive with Mustard-Honey Vinaigrette Assorted Cheeses French Baguette Dessert Frozen Peach and Amaretti Soufflés

The good thing is that you can more or less wander into Marcel's bar at will, and order off the bar menu or the regular menu, without a tie. The bad news is that One Step Down is closed so can't mix and match a smokey, timeless jazz scene with an upscale nosh. I've been through the boudin blanc at Le Paradou, Palena and Marcel's this year. All brilliant, but Marcel's wins.

If I wanted to eat brunch outside in Dupont I'd pick up the Sunday paper at Kramerbooks and carry it up to Sette, avoiding Afterwards altogether. Or you can wander over to Kozy Korner and save your pennies for dinner. My recent experience at Tabard was apparently less satisfying than Jenny's -- kind of a mediocre meal at a non-mediocre price. I still love the place, though; consider it for lunch or brunch, and get there early. By far, the best place within easy walking distance of your hotel -- with all due respect to Obelisk -- is Marcel's. Make the boy wear a necktie and (or eat in the bar, with the jazz) and have a meal/service combination that makes you truly say "holy shit, was that good." I'm a little bitter about being fired from Nora, lo these many years ago, but I've always had a soft spot for the food and, clearly, service is a priority for them.

Thanks, Tana and JPW for the complements upthread. I hope it will get even better as I figure out what the hell I'm doing. Inspired? I think the word is "intimidated." I've actually tried to sell some version of this story to the local papers a couple of times. Also, recently I've been trying to think of good threads that would bring eyeballs to the DC board. So, after the most recent rejection note I figured why not eG-iz it. That being said, how could Tana's blog (click here) not be an inspiration? It's such powerful and beautiful work that it makes you want to enlist on the spot in the battle for family farms. (Also to go back for another vacation in Santa Cruz.) There's a lot of work to be done to change the way most people think about their dinner; Tana's doing it and it benefits all of us. One thing I was pleased to here from a farmer I talked to this weekend is that, in her third year, demand for her stuff is up significantly, and more markets continue to open. This means that farmers have a better shot at getting the practical rewards that draw people into the business and keep them there, and the quality and variety available to us will continue to rise. I was at Buck's Fishing and Camping the other night, and they were offering "Toigo Tomato and Asparagus Salad." I'd say that if someone as persnickety as Carol Greenwoods is serving the tomatoes, you can do so, too, without fear of being unfashionably unseasonable.

I made a pretty swell strawberry sorbet Saturday night, pureeing the hell out of the berries, straing them through a fine chinoise and then spiking the juice with a little 12-year-old balsamic and sweeting with a mix of simple syrup and honey. Served it with a sweet mango-lime puree.

I think you may have nailed this. Meal time is family time which means first, that parents pay attention to the children, which minimizes fussing; second, that people are more relaxed about younger family members at the table, which minimizes stress (on both sides). The kids both get attention and get taught to mind their manners, so they're less likely to crank out in the first place. The adults demand good behavior but pay attention to the kids, and they recognize that children are children and not perfect, so they neither freak out nor ignore it if the kid gets a little fussy. Because it's family time, there is both a high standard of behavior and a certain tolerance (kind of like dinner at grandma's, in the Busboy clan), which keeps the stress level down, which keeps the kids from acting out which keeps the grown-ups from either spoiling or whacking the kids which means -- voila -- a delightful meal all around.

Went to the front room of Friday with mixed results. An extraordinary "Bacon and Eggs": a small tower of smoked pork belly served with egg pasta stuffed with scrambled eggs and pecorino, with a little crayfish on the side and a bright foam on top (Mrs. B refused to share generously, so I didn't have a chance to dissect completely). Also had a wonderful seafood salad, with my favorite little Medfish, rouget. Both off the dining room menu. Had a bisque off the cafe menu that missed the mark, though: too much paprika and too little cream, a credible effort but significantly out of balance. Sadly, had to dash before we were able to look for donuts. Nice cookies in a go-cup, though. Think I'll have one now....

I've only been to brunch at Old Ebbit twice -- my son's first communion and my daughter's first communion -- but they turn in a good, solid performance on the eggs benedict/bacon cheeseburger/fresh oysters end of the spectrum and don't snicker if you order a Bloody Mary at 11 AM. And they pull off the saloon thing with panache. As a restaurant, I've found that Deluxe makes a great bar.

Toigo Orchards click me Takoma Park, MD Farmers Market Clarendon, VA Farmers Market Falls Church, VA Farmers Market Annandale, VA Farmers Market Arlington, VA Farmers Market Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. Farmers Market Some people are born farmers, some people achieve farming, and some have farming thrust upon them. Though he grew up on property he currently farms in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, Mark Toigo of Toigo Orchards is of the third type: his farming career began in earnest only when the mid-eighties recession reduced the marketability of his aerospace engineering degree to roughly the same level as that of last week’s raspberries. A victorious Mark Toigo, with long-time co-conspirator Lynn Bretz (of horseradish mustard fame) in the foreground. Aside from the early hours – Mark is rumored to be more of a late-night type than your average orchard owner – he appears to have few regrets, though, regarding the unexpected career move. And, if you’ve seen him behind the stand at the Dupont Circle or the Arlington Market, it’s difficult to picture Mark – who was once upbraided by the Dupont authorities for playing a Reservoir Dogs-type soundtrack for shoppers in search of organic freestones -- with a pocket protector and necktie, anyway. Mark began motoring down from Shippensburg with fresh fruit in the mid-80s, long before the farmers market movement caught fire, delivering directly to high-end restaurants. “I’ve known Ris [Lacoste] since she was a line cook for Bob Kinkead,” he says. Unfortunately, “there was no real demand for what we were selling,” from the general public. “We were getting by, but we weren’t really making a living.” Market volunteer Donné, friendliest person in Dupont Circle on Sunday mornings. Perfect top, too. But then, in the early 90s, things began to change. “People started saying, ‘let me try that tomato with the bumps on it,’” and Mark found himself cutting short Friday night post-harvest recreating to drive to the Old Town Alexandria Farmer’s Market, which opens at 5:30 AM. “I’d have a couple of burgers and drive down, I’d get there about 2:30 AM and just sleep in the truck until it was time to set up.” The business has changed since then, with a growing number of farmers markets creating welcome outlets for quality produce, but demanding changes in the way farmers planed and harvested. No longer could a large crop be taken in over a couple of weeks and sold in bulk to wholesalers. Now, farmers had to generate a steady supply of good food at retail volumes, to even out ugly fluctuations in cash flow. It used to be that farmers specialized – and in between crops they had nothing to sell. “We used to have three seasons: berries, pitted fruits and apples.” So Toigo, like other operations, diversified. “It used to be, you had two or three varieties of peaches and peach season lasted a month. Now, we have seventeen varieties of peaches and the season lasts from June until September…people are planting eight different varieties of peas.” In addition, Toigo offers hothouse tomatoes and cucumbers off-season, and prepared foods -- including apple butter, a fiery salsa and the legendary “Lynn’s Horseradish Mustard.” Toigo’s specialty is fruit, with not only those peaches predicted this year, but significant accumulations of plums, apples, nectarines expected before the summer is out, as well as heirloom tomatoes and the occasional cucumber. This weekend’s forecast calls for a good chance of berries. Giving free advice on tomato-growing. And the long-range forecast is for pigs. Not content with heirloom tomatoes, Toigo is in the process of putting heirloom pork chops into production. If all goes well, young Gloucester pigs will be loosed in the orchards this fall, to fatten up on windfall apples before being brought to market just in time for holiday feasting -- bringing the distinct taste of apples and traditional techniques to a pork butt near you. In the mean time, ask Mark what to cook for dinner. “The biggest problem at the market is that newbies don’t ask enough questions. It’s not just a zucchini, it’s a specific variety. If you’ve never been a grower and you’ve never looked at a seed catalogue, you don’t know the differences – this one’s starchier, that one’s sweeter – so ask someone. We like to talk about what we do.”

I like talking to farmers. Despite the fact that I am, at best, bleary-eyed and undercaffinated most weekend mornings, and that it's been damn near thirty years since my brief turn in the Ag trade, I inevitably find myself in conversation with the people on the other side of the folding table at the markets. And, while the conversations tend to begin with food, they tend to go off in any which direction after a while -- the rising cost of bribery caused by the dollar's decline; the relative benefits of the "Chinese bus" vs. the "Jewish bus" between Washington and NYC; market gossip; why there aren't any peas today (pickers hate picking them).... Not surprisingly, these folks are charming, fun, and know their stuff when it comes to dinner. I'm hoping to translate some of that into this thread: some combination of humor and wisdom, plus any encouragement I can generate for folks to get out and support our local farmers. And, I'm hoping that some of you will pitch in, too. There's a lot of markets in the DC area, a lot of people that you know better than I. Get a camera. Find out why they chose a life that involves getting up so damn early every morning. Tell us about their products, and how to cook them. Talk about philosophy and history. Or whatever. People who choose to spend their lives bringing food grown with passion and extraordiary care into our back yards usually have something interesting to say. Let's make sure they get heard.

Happens. I've seen people pick fights with other posters who haven't posted in months. What's Ramparts?

Note that this thread was started almost three years ago, so posters are not responding to any recent requests.

Stole my idea.

Their gyro and tabbouli are my favorite in the DC area. Are the owners still the same nice family? ← I'm not familiar enough with the place to know if it's changed hands, but there was an older gentleman sitting in the corner the other day with a look that said he'd been keeping an eye on things there for many years. I have a feeling that if it changes hands, we'll know because the new owners will gut it and yuppie it up overnight.

Had to add this one after a drop-by the other day: Zorba's, on Connecticut Avenue and Q. OK, not a great restaurant. But on a wonderful spring day when the young and the monied are lined up half-way around the block, waiting for $9 appetizers and $10 glasses of wine on Satte's patio, you can pull up to an outdoor table, get a heaping half-liter of drinkable Greek white wine for $7.65 and a credible gyro platter for about the same, and have a very happy hour watching the world go by. There's even a glowing review from Tom Sietsema on the wall, so you won't feel you haven't been to a swell place (of course, it's from 1986).

Check out this thread.

I've improved my opinion of the show, I know longer feel unclean watching it, just guilty. I'm trying to tell myself that it's different from "America's Next Supermodel", which my 12-year-old daughter wants to watch tonight, but in my heart I don't believe it.

Forgive me for asking what may be a dumb question, but when poor people in most of Europe ran off to New York -- creating that city's distinctive culinary mix -- didn't all the poor French just move up to Paris, doing the same thing to Parisian cooking? And, since regional and language differences were less, wouldn't intermarriage intermarriage greater in Paris than in New York, meaning home cooking variety, and not just the variety of markets and restaurants would be greater as say a Bretonne housewife learns a few new dishes from her Auvergnaise in-laws and her Provencal neighbor? I, too am curious what, besides "haute cuisine", Parisian cooking is. Normandy-Burgundy fusion?

Not me. Nope, never. But I do have a mental list of certain perfectly boring everyday stuff that can be made a little more showy -- on a special occasion -- by, say, lighting it on fire just before serving. Or presenting it in a chinese soup spoon. Or referring to it only by its French name even though I know perfectly well that it's called "red mullet," in English. But othe than that, nothing.

Boy, as a city kid I find it hard to imagine why, with all the challenges people who grow things for a living face, that you'd have the time to start drawing lines between yourselves. And I wonder about a classification system that excludes a small vineyard owner who works full time to make ends meet, and embraces an millionaire agribusiness owner with six-figure federal subsidies and a business plan that relies on "Frankenfoods." No good can come of this.

One thig to remember is that tomatoes contribute acid and "spark" to a dish, particularly a rich, braised effort. Dashing it up with a little vinegar or lemon would probably replace the "technical" function of the tomato. Plum strikes me as an off choice for this particular dish (plum and rosemary?) -- my first thought would have been eggplant, perhaps browned and added towards theend of the braising so it holds its texture better.

The only Kobe available the night I was there was the dog, but the surf 'n' turf is listed on the permanent menu, so I assume that it will be available beginning tonight. Feeling flush? Maybe we can split one. We'll have a couple of martinis at the bar and talk ourselves into it.