The Beet Goes On

Make dinner a little more elegant with a beet salad. Image: Amy Loeffler

Snowpocalypse has recently generated a lot of watching of José Andrés’ tapas-touting Made in Spain on WETA in our house, and consequently I was inspired to make my own crazy-simple salad out of beets and bleu cheese.

Recipe

Four beets (boiled in water for about an hour until tender)

1/3 lb. of bleu cheese

splash of Olive oil

Thinly slice beets crosswise so as to make them stackable. Sprinkle beets with bleu cheese, and a couple of dashes of olive oil.

–Amy

Sexy Yeast: Eight Wines to Git ‘Er Done This Valentine’s Day

Lads, whether you’re looking to woo Ms. Right or Ms. Right Now, The Burping Sherpa has compiled a list of wines to get ‘er did on Valentine’s Day.

SPARKLERS

NV Bitch Bubbly

Don’t let the novelty factor of this wine fool you. Though not at all complex, this is a perfectly quaffable sparkler from South Australia made from a blend of Chardonnay, Shiraz and Grenache with overwhelming strawberries, candy and citrus on the palate.  Because sometimes you want the thrill of the impish gimmick (at least that’s one explanation for the last three, two-week relationships some of you have had).Pair it with: fruit tarts and one-night stands, $9

Gruet Brut Rose, another inexpensive but effective sparkler.

NV Gruet Brut Rosé

Another sparkler, this bubbly comes from closer to home in New Mexico. It’s not a surprise that the wine’s deep garnet color releases strawberry, raspberry and cherry on the nose and palate.

Pair it with: a morning omelet or other egg dish and a hopeful first date, $16

Rosés

One wine blogger declared this wine a "date-saver."

2008 Elio Perrone Bigaro

Wine blogger James Laurenti declared this wine the “panty remover” for its sublime flavors and hint of bubbles.  Present this delicately rosey wine with elegantly plated orange, garnet quince paste and a creamy cheese to make this as erotic for the eyes as it is for your taste buds. Slightly off sweet and just a tad frizzante with apricot and rosehip on the nose.

Pair it with: creamy cheeses, quince paste, sorbets and handfeeding your best sweety any combination of the aforementioned, $22

National Gallery Serves Up Paintings from Impressionism to Modernism

Snomageddon is (hopfefully) behind us and Super Bowl junk food handgovers are fading, so let’s turn our attention to more important matters: namely what you and your sweetie are doing for Valentine’s Day.

Nobody’s going to dispute that the French do l’amour better than anyone, and this Día de San Valentin there is a heavy concentration of Gaullic happening at the National Gallery of Art’s new exhibit From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection.

The current offering is a follow up to the National Gallery of Art’s exhibit, “The Art of Power”, a collection of finely huned knight-wear and their painterly renditions was hard to top. Not only was the exhibit chock full of stunning examples of metal-made regalia, but the Garden Café space in the Gallery was transformed into an outpost of haute Spanish cuisine with the help of D.C.’s adopted son from Asturias, José Andrés.

Though the Gallery has been partnering with local chefs since 2006, it was not until “The Art of Power” tapped the area’s most famous Spaniard that the synergy of the in-kind promotion concept blew up last year during record attendance of Andrés’ Garden Cafe España.

Surely José Andrés was a tough act to follow, but somehow they managed to best some of the dishes like the flaky crust of the chicken pastry and creamy flan from his buffet. How you say? A little friendly chef rivalry helped.

“[The café] really became suscceessful when José Andrés was here last summer,” says Executive Chef David Rogers of the National Gallery. “Now that we’ve reached that level of guest chef it was much easier to approach Michel [Richard]. I think there was alittle competition there,” he quipped in a recent interview.

Image: National Gallery of Art Chef Michel Richard poses with one of his favorite paintings.

While there may be a little friendly chef tet a tet going on, Michel is himself a frustrated painter, so involvement with the National Gallery of Art was pretty much a no-brainer.

“I remember when I was nine years old someone gave me a book, like a paint-by-numbers book, of Toulouse Lautrec and I fell in love with Impressionism.” Fortunately for us painting didn’t work out so well for Richard and he turned his interests to more culinary pursuits.

Image: The National Gallery of Art, Girl with a Watering Can, Auguste Renoir, 1893/94

While the menu has changed to reflect classic French cuisine, don’t expect new paintings at the exhibit, however. If you’re a D.C.ist you will no doubt experience fieldtrip flashbacks upon perusing works such as Renoir’s Girl with a Watering Can and Cassat’s The Boating Party. What’s fresh is the way in which the works are displayed; one of the more startling being the ethereal The Saltimbanques by Picasso and Manet’s The Old Musician facing off in one room of the exhibition. The two paintings are similar in their massive size, and theme but couldn’t be more different in form.

Like the art exhibit, you will see similar if not slightly French-tweaked items on the Garden Cafe Franςais menu. Richard and Executive David Rogers probably couldn’t deny the sheer tasty convenience of a charcuterie station (also present in Andrés’ rendition of the cafe menu), as well as dessert servings of chocolate mousse, which recall Andrés’ flan during the Art of Power.

Image National Gallery of Art Chicken Faux Gras and Jambon de Bayonne from the buffet.

Coq au vin graces the buffet board along with other classic salades such as endive and ratatouille. I personally enjoy my coq au vin with a bit more zing (read, wine) but the meat was tender and satisfying enough to lessen the stinging sensation from the outdoors on my wind-whipped body parts.

And Valentine’s Day is nothing if not a a day to celebrate the senses. Satisfy several of them this Sunday with your one-and-only over a feast for the eyes and the stomach.

–Amy

Fortified Wines Don’t Care If You Want to Be Their Friend

Jason Whiteside from the Country Vintner began his fortified wine class last night at Brabo with a curious disclaimer.

“I’m not gonna promise you’ll like all the wines tonight,” said Whiteside, echoing Wine Manager, Leah Dedmon’s, prediction last week that “people are going to hate the Sherry.”

Fortified wines are not on a radio frequency that most American palates are tuned into; they’re not high-octane fruit bombs that want so much to be loved, they don’t care whether or not they have to share your attention with food. Just LOVE them they plead with outstretched arms.

And by themselves, some of the wines last night were indeed extremely harsh (notably the first wine, a Manzanilla Sherry), challenging you to take them or leave them, as if to say,”Whatevah, I gots people.”

Not that this was an exercise in culinary sadomasochism. Getting back to the first wine of the evening that Manzanilla Sherry, it WAS indeed extremely caustic on the order of something you might find left over in a beaker in a science class. Why would anyone drink this by itself? The answer is that while imbibing this cousin to Madeira and Port, the magic of wine pairing was about to happen, and the point really was NOT to drink this wine by itself; the point was to experience what Whiteside characterized as the singular experience of pairing wine with food that somehow makes “1+1=3.”

See Sherry, you're not so tough when Sardine is around.

Waiters nonchalantly brought out sardines stuffed with spinach and tomatoes and a quail egg on toast to accompany the Manzanilla without much hoo-ha. The saltiness of the sardine, however, made a dramatic impression, transforming the aloof wine into a refreshing cocktail. Whiteside also went on to explain that Spaniards are also known to cut Fino Sherry with Sprite, making a drink called a “Rebujito” that Iberians enjoy during the April fiestas. (According to Whiteside Spaniards consumer 40% of the entire globe’s production of Fino Sherry during the month of April. And probably a lot of Sprite, too.)

I was beginning to feel like one of the cool kids. Like fortified wines were going to let me make friends and walk home with them from school.

My fave pairing of the evening was a Banyuls paired with dark chocolate. Banyuls is a Vin Doux Naturel, basically a Grenache that has had the fermentation process stopped, leaving a wine that is sweet and grapey (incidentally, Whiteside says this is the ONLY instance in which he’ll allow the descriptor “grapey” to be used with wine). Again, 1+1 equaled 3 with the tannins of the chocolate standing in for the muted tannins of this sweeter, libation Whiteside described as a “baby red wine.” Take note, because Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and I am betting any amorous entanglements can only be elevated after consuming this combination of silk and velvet.

That said, Banyuls, I’m looking forward to hanging out. With your friend chocolate of course.

–Amy

Fortify Yourself! Brabo Hosts Fortified Wine Class

Most people notice the random Port, Sherry or Maderia punctuating the dessert list at their preferred haute cuisine haunts, but I would bet that most who are not acquainted with fortified wines envision the same dusty bottle of Graham’s 1948 Vintage Port making its way around all the restaurants in the world, much like the proverbial fruitcake that gets past around for decades and somehow never gets eaten.

But renewed interest in cocktail culture and anything beyond the simple red and white fermented grape juice has made fortified wines part of the vino vernacular again.

“[Fortified wines] are a category with growing interest,” says Leah Dedmon, wine manager at Brabo Restaurant in Old Town Alexandria.

Dedmon says tomorrow’s fortified wine class was the product of Brabo customers requesting more information about fortified wines intersecting with the winter season. “They’re great for the winter; it’s cold out, it just kinda makes sense,” she says.

The class tomorrow is lead by Jason Whiteside from the Country Vintner. Participants will learn how fortified wines are made and the importance of wine and food pairing.

One of the first pairings tomorrow is a Sherry paired with sardines stuffed with tomatoes and spinach accompanied by a quail egg. Dedmon is devilishly delighted as she explains the magic of food and wine pairing, “People are going to taste the Sherry and hate it; and then they’ll taste it with the sardine and love it.”

–Amy

Wines

Hidalgo “La Gitana” Manzanilla Sherry

Blandy’s 5 Year Old Verdelho Madeira

Cazes Muscat de Rivesaltes 2005

Domaine du Mas Blanc Banyuls 2006

Smith Woodhouse Late Bottled Vintage Port 1995

Cheap Wine Challenge

This is why I love social media. This cheap wine challenge started with Wine Ophelia this past week on a whim (I think).  Our task? Twitter about your favorite nationally available wine with a pricepoint of $1o and under.

A bottle of Broadbent, the Outerbanks and some Spanish Mackerel (not pictured).

So, here goes my pick (drum roll, please): Broadbent’s Vinho Verde is probably, no definitely, the best white I have had for ten clams in a while. Seriously it’s like crack and sooo easy to drink at 9% alcohol. If you’re looking for a wine this summer to quaff on the deck, at the beach, with seafood, this is your ticket to paradise. It’s slightly effervescent too, which makes it even more fun to drink.

–Amy

Where Have All the Good $10 Malbecs Gone?

As a trained Latinamericanist (yes, that is a word), philosophically speaking I am way South of the Border when it comes to matters of fermented grape juice. Translation: you can just call me Little Miss Malbec. Unfortunately Malbec is going through a bit of a galaxy-ending, super-nova explosion right now and anyone and everyone is planting and vinifying Argentina’s sweetheart grape.

Cholila Ranch. $9.99 at Whole Foods Image: Amy Loeffler

Malbec has always been a great value for the money and as Lewis Black attested in the Wine Spectator, you can procure a Malbec for 15 smackers that is not only drinkable, but downright enjoyable. 20 smackers and you might as well keep that bottle to yourself. In a closet. Far away from friends and family.

No doubt the grape’s recent surge in popularity carries with it a sinister set of unintended consequences. I started seeing evidence of this when I poured for the now defunct Billington Wines and their major money maker a lower-end Malbec from Nicolas Catena was sold to E and J Gallo.  The inevitable conclusion of what was sure to be a tremendous boost in production  meant that quality would suffer. Needless to say, it’s been a loooong time since I have had the pleasure of enjoying an honest-to-goodness $10 Malbec.

Last night I picked up a bottle of Cholila Ranch Malbec from Whole Foods for $9.99 in the hopes of discovering a rare item: a drinkable and mass-produced, inexpensive wine.  The wine definitely exhibited characteristics of Malbec with hints of violet on the nose and dark fruit and vanilla on the palate. The wine tasted however like it had been put through a teleportation device that reassembled its wine atoms incorrectly. The nuances of the flavors settled on my palate imprecisely like a collage made without the use of scissors.

Needless to say I was very disappointed. I know a 10-dollar wine is not going to knock my socks of like a hunat-dolla Pinot Noir, but frankly I think I would rather spend 10 more dollars and drink something I really want to drink than wish away my dinner lamenting the 10 bucks I wasted on a bottle of wine.

What about anyone else out there? Have you had a Malbec worth writing home about recently?

-Amy

A New York Fever for Crack Pie and Craftbar

Even though my checking account is running on fumes, the Sherpa thought it would be a great idea to zip up to New York. Probably because I was delirious with food fever. I mean, seriously I may have to eat my own dog poo-covered shoes braised in red wine as an entree and save the laces for dessert next week, but if I get hit by a bus today, at least I’ll die with the sugar-soaked memories of David Chang’s Milk Bar and Tom Colicchio’s farm-inspired, fine-for-me, casual-for-him, dining at Craftbar.

First off, whatever anyone thinks about Herr Changers, you have to give him props for not only culinary creativity, but being self-aware enough to embrace the impish, childish impulses to name his baked goods after not only illegal, but low class, drugs. I am referring to none other than the Crack Pie. (For the record I also ordered two pork buns, which for nutritional purposes were probably turned straight into glucose upon inhaling; just like the pie. In my defense I had walked pretty much the length of Broadway from the UWS to the LES, so I figured I was safe from auto-inducing a diabetic coma.)

Anyways, back to the pie. Eating this pie was the same high I experienced in sixth grade while consuming Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting fresh from the plastic white can.  So smooth, so creamy. Can I get a Homer Simpson salivating sound effect, please?

Of course Chang’s Crack Pie does not taste like cream cheese (or crack; not that I would know what crack rock tastes like). It’s actually comprised mostly of the building blocks that those of us with a sweet tooth crave obsessively: a super simple concoction of butter, brown sugar and heavy cream, and tastes, not surprisingly, akin to a burnt brown sugar pie. A crispy crust holds this sinful mess together, and I could have eaten another piece, but I had gotten large slice of chocolate chip cake as a chaser. Did I mention the pork buns already? I admit, it’s kind of gimmicky, but I am all for food as entertainment if it’s done with enough snark.

After the sugar high had subsided I moseyed back to my hotel on the bleak UWS. I did manage to stop for a slice of spinach pizza.

Going for a slice.

The  next day I was on to more serious endeavors at Tom Colicchio’s Craftbar. Unfortunately my visit there was really just a mad dash, but I figured a mad dash is better than no dash at all. Started with a winter time classic: a beet salad of bitter greens, beautifully dark-rouge beets, and bright, meyer lemon-colored squash under the gaze of a study of Warhol-esque chickens in alcove of the  main dining room. The salad was much like a great hair cut. Good hair cuts are good even after they grow out, and even when I was finished with my salad, the red stains on the white bowl that had housed the greens looked like a piece of modern art, or a child’s finger painting project.

I have to admit, I love D.C., but New York has given me a fevah for crack. Pie that is.

D.C. Central Kitchen Continues to Serve Up Hope, Innovation in Down Economy

While most nonprofits have struggled, or even shuttered operations during the current economic free fall, D.C. Central Kitchen has managed to thrive.

“We’re the anti-soup kitchen,” says Curtin of the organization housed in a honeycomb of social service organizations on 2^nd Street in Northwest, D.C. Practically speaking The Kitchen  (as it’s known in shorthand) prepares meals for area shelters and provides culinary training to individuals primarily coming from the penal system. They don’t so much serve up meals as put individual empowerment on their menu.

Even in a down economy, however, The Kitchen has championed innovative measures that many for-profit restaurants have difficulty achieving on a regular basis.

Sustainablity Equals Profitability

Darnell Herndon is a 10-year veteran of D.C. Central Kitchen. Image: Amy Loeffler

One of the major innovations instituted by The Kitchen was initiating partnerships with local farmers in the Shenandoah Valley and Mennonite farming communities in Pennsylvania (a photo of a van emblazoned with the D.C. Central Kitchen logo parked next to a Mennonite buggy hangs in Curtin’s office). “Going sustainable was an enlightened self-interest to do better food cheaper,” says Curtin who is a former local restaurateur. He says the fare served now at The Kitchen’s catering business, Fresh Start Catering and distributed to its network of homeless shelters “is clearly of a higher caliber.” And according to Curtin over 75 percent of the food used by The Kitchen during this summer was local. Using locally sourced vegetables is not only trendier, but makes for a more nutrient dense product, no small matter when most of the clients eating one of the 4,000 meals produced at The Kitchen on a daily basis are nutritionally compromised. In fact on the day that I visit the staff and volunteers are making huge cauldrons of venison chili from locally sourced meat.

Using locally sourced produce and meat is not just a mechanism to go green, but a money making venture.  Partnering with farmers who can’t sell “seconds”  (produce that can’t be sold because it does not cosmetically or aesthetically meet standards) was a way to get better quality food at better prices than boutique re-sellers according to Curtin and turn sustainability into a “revenue generating social enterprise.”  Once they started making regular food runs famers would also occasionally hand over surplus produce sitting in their barns. The Kitchen also generates revenue by making food runs for area restaurants like Zola’s and charging restaurateurs for the service. Using sustainable produce has been so successful that food supplier giants like SYSCO have actually taken note .

The Opportunity to Give Back

Despite the current economic free fall, The Kitchen’s Culinary Job Training program has also undergone improvements to make graduates of the program more employable. Aspects of the program such as exposing students to a wider range of cooking styles by bringing local chefs to the classroom have helped more students find and excel in full-time work.

Nick Alexander of Anacostia Senior High is one of the 11,000 volunteers who pass through D.C. Central Kitchen annually. Image: Amy Loeffler

Assistant Kitchen Director Gary Bullock has been working in the culinary industry in Washington, D.C. since he was 17. He is the only culinary staff member who did not come to D.C. Central Kitchen through the Culinary Job Training program. “I’ve always wanted to do something different. And this was real different,” says Bullock.

He teaches students in The Culinary Job Training program, often imparting more than the fundamentals of knife skills and learning how to flambé. “A lot of the guys and girls in this program just want someone to hear them out.” Bullock says. Over 70 percent of students are ex-offenders and 80 percent are in recovery and are recruited four times a year from the D.C. jail and a penitentiary in South Carolina.

Bullock makes a point to tells his students that he’s never been locked up, or in recovery, to demonstrate that he’s like them (he grew up in Petworth); that they have options; that cooking can be a path out of drug addiction and recidivism in the penal system. Students are taught job skills, conflict resolution skills, resume writing and they are drug tested on a regular basis.

While Gary Bullock may not enjoy the fame of a celebrity chef, he knows he is in a unique position. “I’m just a regular person,” said Bullock.  “Just to be able to say I helped that person can go a long way. As frustrating as it gets sometimes, I have the opportunity to give so much back.”

A flyer announces locally sourced produce in every meal, including today's venison chili. Image: Amy Loeffler

What makes The Kitchen run on a daily basis are the 11,000 volunteers that pass through their doors and staff members like Darnell Herndon.  Like a lot of staff who come through the Culinary Job Training Program he was a drug user living on the streets when he came here. When he ended up in front of a judge, the judge gave him a choice between going to an institution and D.C. Central Kitchen.  He chose The Kitchen. “This is like a recovery zone,” said Herndon of the atmosphere at The Kitchen. Herndon has worked as the bakery manager for The Kitchen’s Fresh Start Catering and now works as a production manager during meal production. In his 10 years on various catering jobs he has met a cavalcade of political figures and celebrities including Bill and Hillary Clinton. “Very seldom do people leave here,” says Herndon, “It’s a family.”

Back in Mike Curtin’s office, I ask if he ever misses the rush of being “on the line” in a restaurant.  He chuckles and says he probably romanticizes the good memories a bit too much and tends to forget the headaches. As a restaurateur he was always more interested in being cornerstone of his community than winning culinary awards.  “It’s one thing to know [food] has the power to change lives. It’s one thing to see it. That’s why we’re so lucky at The Kitchen.”

–Amy

Anthony Bourdain Proclaims: Print Is Dead

Anthony Bourdain pre-"No Reservations Fame" and still a believer in print. Image: ew.com

Recently Anthony Bourdain declared that print media is gasping for its last breath. New York Magazine’s “Grub Street reported that in an interview with the Vernon Hills Review Bourdain said:

I’m not trying to be alarmist, but anyone who thinks (food-related) print media is going to survive is kidding themselves … Why am I going to read a five-page New York Times article on Singaporean food when there’s some unpaid nerd blogging about it, especially when that guy made eating his life’s work?

Not trying to be alarmist? *Snort* Let’s clarify, Tony, are you not trying to be alarmist in the same way that you are not trying to be inflammatory when you say things about other celebutante chefs like,”Alice Waters annoys the living sh*t out of me.”?

To be clear, I love Bourdain’s globetrotting to not-oft-traveled places on “No Reservations”, and think his his ribbing of the Food Network is pretty justified. (I mean seriously, does anyone who cooks with any degree of skill really believe the Kraft 30-second recipe tips are useful? Sorry but I am not going to be whipping up a Cheesewhiz casserole anytime soon.)

His statement is still irksome however. It not only annoys me as a journalist, but scares the bejeezus out of me because I feel like the more people say,”print is dead” the more this will come to pass like a Betelgeuse curse. Indeed, Bourdain himself is readying to release a sequel to his very much print work Kitchen Confidential called Medium Raw in 2010, and I’m pretty sure he’s not releasing it exclusively for the Kindle crowd. I’ll even go out on a limb and predict he will probably look forward to some hefty royalty checks from the paper copies of books he sells, you know the kind with words actually printed on paper in black and white.

Is print dead? Far from it. And I would be surprised if print ever really goes away entirely in our lifetimes. Case in point, I interviewed a wine writer, Alice Feiring, who fully accepts the print medium is declining, but she still considers it to be a medium that commands the most respect, and in Bourdain’s case hefty paychecks.

Obviously I don’t totally disagree with Bourdain. At a food writer’s conference this past summer I met plenty of award-winning journalists who were out of work because of the crumbled print revenue structure that has governed media profitability for decades.

What we’ve been learning in class over the last semester to survive in this climate is to diversify as journalists, and this is something Bourdain has done well. His portfolio is spread around t.v., the Web and print. Ma sil vous plait, Mr. Bourdain, please stop saying print is dead until the rest of us can secure a major network television gig, or at least a few Webisodes on youtube.

–Amy