Saturday was a back-and-forth kind of stay. Started lame, ended up awesome. Started FREEZING, ended up delightfully warm.
We had a community service project for 9/11. Which is obviously important. However, rather than something about religious tolerance or solidarity with our fellow man (two things that seem to be in short supply these days)… we had a canned food drive. Standing outside Whole Foods like Girl Scouts. Obviously, people are in need of canned food, but I wish we’d been able to do something a little more topical.
Plus man I was cold.
We were finished and I said we should all go to VEG FEST ‘cause I’d read in the paper that there’d be this extravaganza of vegetarian cooking and speakers and samples on the GW campus and that sounds fun, right?
The usual suspects were there… fake meat…
Raw foodists, who had a sample of kale chips (I made them a grand total of once and found them disgusting but this thing was waaaaaaay better so maybe I’ll come around)
Pretty cool: crazy realistic and yummy tofu-ized rice pudding!
In general, though, it was unimpressive.
They also had a HILARIOUSLY awful speaker. I was stoked for the speakers. Love learning how eating no meat (or even less, as I’ve been doing) can lesson one’s carbon impact. Would’ve loved to pick up some tips on vegetarian nutrition: for example, getting enough iron as I’m always flirting with anemia.
However, hearing a seriously droney 22 year old bro whining about his low self esteem in gym class (how does this relate to meat eating?) was kind of not what I had in mind.
So Steve and I (I invited the whole Americorps team but everyone else blew me off! Erin was getting her bike repaired, Kyle had- pssh- football to watch, etc.) headed off for bigger and better things. However, while still on the GW campus, Steve saw a “contemplation circle”.
Apparently every college has one [really?] and when you come upon one you have to sit down and contemplate your future for awhile [really? My college had one circle with our logo on campus but the story with that was if you stepped on it you wouldn’t graduate in 4 years. I didn’t care. I stepped on it. Well actually I graduated in 3 1/2 so I guess that did come true]
Anyway, Steve did his finest contemplating.
And then we went to Tackle Box! The place with my favorite restaurant concept ever.
Back story: there’s this shnazzy sustainable seafood place in Georgetown, Hook. It is… dressy and frankly pretty expensive. However, serving the same sustainable delicious seafood RIGHT NEXT DOOR is Tackle Box, a self proclaimed “shack” where you order off a chalkboard…
… then wait and watch the guys behind the counter either grill or fry it up for you…
..Plop down at a communal table with self-serve condiments and plastic water cups…
And dig in!
Steve and I both opted for the Tackle Box Meal, which is 1 fish, 1 side, and 1 sauce for $9. Respectable, eh?
I opted for the grilled calamari with fried green tomatoes and lemon aioli.
The calamari was bangin’ (though there was a TON of it. However, I was there with a boy! If there is leftover food, that is NO PROBLEM!).
However, let’s TALK about the fried green tomatoes. I’ve had them maybe once in my life, like… five years ago, so I do not have a lot of expertise or basis for comparison. But damn.
Obviously fried food- done well, as this one was, with no grease- is good. I am particularly fond of the cornmeal batter, of which this consisted. But the taste of TOMATOES, summer’s wondrous bounty, as an added bonus?! You really get all the wonderful sweet-acidity of a tomato- the only difference for the green one, or at least this green one, was that it was firm enough to fry.
My pal Steve also hooked me up with one (or, er, two) of his hush puppies. Dear fried food: you make me so happy.
And the rest of the weekend was pretty low key. On Sunday we romped around Old Town Alexandria for a bit. I had a delicious dinner waiting for me at home so I forced, FORCED myself not to get ice cream, but got this really fantastic picture of Erin and Steve:
3 comments:
I love grilled calamari, just had some last night! :)
You went to VegFest! So did I, with a fellow food blogger friend. So many food bloggers went! It's a shame we didn't meet up. Luckily it was quite easy to head into DC, so we'll have to do that soon.
Apparently, there were better speakers, but I didn't hear anyone speak. My friend and I bounced after waiting in one too many food sample lines and fighting through hoards of people just to get fruit from a raw food table. Afterward we went to Founding Farmers for brunch, you'd LOVE it. Twas delicious
I pretty much live for restaurants with menus on chalkboards.
When I finally make it back to the East Coast for a visit, we are clearly going to meet up and dine together. :)
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