last of '11, first of '12

Let me preface this post by saying that my computer had a little meltdown so I am borrowing my mother's Mac and as we all know Macs are lovely and flashy but are a huge pain to use if you are blogging. So I'm using Blogger's photo editing window... which we all know is terrible.

In happier news, Happy New Year!

Based on my delightful and delicious last day of 2011 and my equally delightful and delicious first day of 2012, it will be a good one.

Maya, a blog friend who turned into a real friend, pointed out correctly that it had been far too long since we hung out. We remedied that by meeting up at The Pure Pasty, a Yelp discovery that turned out to be lovely.

Even more lovely, however, was the weather! So we hop skipped and jump half a block to the W and OD trail for an al fresco lunch. By an adorable artful tree!

It was appropriate that we dined at a pasty establishment since Maya was imminently departing to the land of pasties- merry old England! The Pure Pasty struck my fancy because they bragged of ethical meats, and a seasonal menu focused on local ingredients. And they were right affordable! Love!

Neither Maya nor I was all that hungry (Christmas cookies much?) so we split a coupla things.

When I asked the lady behind the counter what the butternut squash soup was like (curry-y? cream-y? broth-y? smooth? chunky?), she said "I'll just give you a sample and then you'll know.

One spoonful was enough where we were both like "Yeah, that!" It didn't taste all that anything-y, except butternut-y. It thoroughly celebrated the wonderful and seasonal veggie :D

As Maya is a vegetarian (and this option sounded delicious), we split the veggie-stuffed pasty. WOW it was good. My sister (who, hilariously, had been to this place and swore up and down she had repeatedly recommended it to me, which I apparently totally forgot), said they are plenty buttery, and they are!

But the filling was a meltingly tender mixture of seasonal veggies, perfectly season. And the crust tasted like SOURDOUGH. How did they make a simultaneously sourdough and flaky crust? Wonders never cease :D

Maya and I then proceeded to walk and talk on the trail... for oh, 2 and a half hours. More than 5 and a half miles. Yknow.

Clearly, we were overdue :D It was GREAT. Quality girl talk is fun (and sometimes I feel like an old washed-up lady being in a happy relationship and all. So it's fun to hear gossip from another!)

Oh, inexplicably there was a Great Harvest right by the pasty place. So that was an obvious choice. By which I mean... we walked in and got our free bread (mmmm obviously we both got pumpkin!)

And then, as ever, appalled by the prices, I went "Err... can I just get a coffee?"

Steve and I had ambitious plans to go out for New Years, and I had a totally fierce new purse from my cousin that I am not sure I am ferocious enough to pull off (it is made out of an old RAF cap on a metal chain, if that gives you at all an awesome image. Because it is. Thoroughly, thoroughly awesome).

But we just get so looooonesome without each other and he'd been gone for a whole week and we really just wanted to hang out with each other :D Plus he made me a gorgeous, gorgeous dinner including this absolutely stunning salad.

In addition to baked sweet potatoes, kale, and brussels sprouts I have also converted the boy to salad.

And I think the student has become the teacher, cause GORGEOUS!

But the star attraction was all Steve.

Seafood pasta in CREAM SAUCE! Yeah baby, that's a PINT of heavy cream!

But ohhhhh my word that was the least of it (though quite delicious).

Start with toothsome, perfectly al dente whole wheat pasta.

Seafood, ethically sourced (he went to Whole Foods to make me happy! Well and himself too, of course). Shrimp and THE BEST SCALLOPS I HAVE EVER TASTED. I know these photos are not the best and context is off but some of them approached the size of a clementine. And SO FAT. And SO TENDER. And SO FLAVORFUL, imbuing all the sauce with their taste of the sea. And so so so so so perfectly cooked my man is good, guys.

Throw in some thoroughly zingy seasoning (red pepper flakes and Cajun spice oomph), sprinkle on MORE than a little cheese... an absolute delight. He is good.

And of course, everything tastes better when washed down wiiiiiith...

Unlike last year's thoroughly amusing martini concoctions, Steve consulted the expertise of this book that a friend gave him:

And this was serious business. Steve made the sangria in a mega-vat and then used those impressively toned arms to give it a thorough shake.

And to further class it up, there were orange juice ice cubes! Melting did not equal watering down, melting equaled FLAVOR!

The table was laid and was thoroughly beautiful.

The pasta (in Steve's classy new pan that doesn't look dangerous to operate! Steve also got new non-paring knives for Christmas! God bless you, Steve's relatives, for making cooking at my boyfriend's place much more pleasant). It released a heavenly aroma.

My plate, impressively plant centric thanks to the green salad AND a delightful Caprese salad AND perfectly roasted, crisp-tender asparagus.

And then it was 2012! And I was hungry. And thirsty.

I read about Busboys and Poets holding a pajama brunch and that was my cup of tea!

And then I got a cup of tea.

Super cool. And YUMMY.

Busboys was PACKED, as other people (who looked more hungover than we!) decided brunch was a great idea.

But I was disappointed how few wore pajamas (though admittedly, I did not, and would have felt sort of awkward).

The waiters did, which I captured sort of blurrily.

I think Steve's order should be a regular menu item at Busboys and Poets. He came up for a great title for it!

The Hypocrite: a veggie burger. With bacon and egg on top.

I had a bite (and more than a few of those sweet potato fries!) It was pretty boss.

But I was very content to eat my (well okay like 1 3/4 out of three of my) buckwheat pancakes. I started the new year with fruit and whole grains. This feels like an accomplishment.

two bloggers are better than one

Ahhh, an early fall day in DC.

Paddle boarders on the Potomac…

Fetching young lasses eating froyo under statues…

Absurdly long lines for mediocre baked goods at Georgetown Cupcake…

After a longish workweek, I refused to let myself give in to tiredness and waste the weekend because, as seen above, it was stinkin’ beautiful out!

Fortuitously, I got a text from Maya suggesting a romp in the city. We met up at Dupont and (priorities) immediately went to tangysweet, one of the finer, in my opinion, frozen yogurt establishments.

 

Complete with hipster babies outside…

And a toppings bar inside, staffed by someone who apparently didn’t seem too keen on being photographed. Oops!

Maya is perusing her options in the photo, of which there were many of the usual suspects (fruit, granola, mochi, yadda yadda). However, being a Yelp addict like myself, she knew there was a secret backroom topping: cupcake crumbs (!)

I went purist, yogurt without toppings, because my favorite thing about TangySweet is their actual yogurt- their flavor of the day was tart pineapple and heavens it was delicious and fruity and entirely real tasting.

   

So after strolling, shopping, etc., a beautiful thing happened. Called Maya and I are really stoked with our lives right now (she starting college, me in Americorps), but said happy events are also slightly contributing to unhappiness called
1. Maya has no kitchen and
2. I’m wicked broke.

Solution?

BLOGGERS COOKING TOGETHER!

Why are meetups of FOOD BLOGGERS who COOK always catered by OTHER PEOPLE?!

Dude, it’s all SO OBVIOUS!

Planning this out involved hilarious conversations: really, it is totally bizarre meeting people online. Like, yes, you have this shared interest in food blogging, but ultimately even in this cozy little blog community we are strangers. As I pointed out on the Metro going home, I could totally be a serial killer. But fortunately am not. And so Maya got cozy in my kitchen:

Dinner involved okra, more photogenic than it’s previously been on my blog due to the fact that it was captured with Maya’s SLR (I let Maya eat most of it, not cause I don’t love okra but I already had eaten literally about a pound over the course of the week so I took one for the team and was like “Aw shucks, finish it.” Her dining hall doesn’t serve okra!)

I was tackling my own craving: cornbread cornbread cornbread! I wasn’t bothering with that fancy yeasted one I made earlier this summer, but I did like its addition of fresh corn and use of the cobs to make a corny broth, so I repeated both steps:

Aaaaaand baked it in a skillet because the best things in life come from skillets.

Recipe to come- I’m tweaking it because I want it baked in a hotter skillet so it gets seared and also a tad sweeter.

Still, there was corny crumbly goodness!

 

Then Maya looked wistfully at the acorn squash on my counter, since her dining hall doesn’t do squash (! Even MY dining hall did squash. Oh man, there was this butternut soup… it was at least half heavy cream. God that soup was good).

So we made some acorn squash.

There was a touch of fail on the squash seed roasting… due to me and Maya talking too much… oops!

But the squash was scrumpsh!

You can see that there is actual visible salt and pepper on the squash. I am such a wimp about seasoning. This is why it’s good to have someone else in the kitchen.

The real triumph of the evening was its proteinaceous component, a collaboration between Maya and I.

I said “I have yummy Trader Joe’s white beans! I have fresh deck-grown rosemary! I have farmer’s market yellow tomatoes! Let’s do something fun with those and garlic!”

Which we did, but then Maya did the reduced balsamic vinegar thing and seriously my taste buds got blown.

Mind boggling.

Fellow food bloggers- when are we all cooking together?!

punjab delight

Job perk: I meet lovely, lovely, people.

It may be the charming Ethiopian man who told me the history of coffee (seriously!). It may be the adorable lady who had me consult which cake slices were “most famous” to put together for a dessert tray.

However, the lovely person I refer to today is… Mr. J. (His name starts with a J… and rather than spell it atrociously, I’m approximating). He is a frequent visitor to my bakery as well as the owner of one of my favorite local eat in/take out places, Punjab Dhaba.

It is a laid back sort of place with Indian prints on the walls; locals, Indian and non, hangin’ out; Bollywood playing in the background; and intensely great Indian food.

J. mentioned owning Punjab Dhaba at the bakery picking up some treats, and I went “I loooooove that place!” (It’s about two blocks from where I went to high school and was a lifesaver on nights when no one in my family felt like cooking- particularly great for veggies during Lent!)

He went “Come!” and promised all of their best stuff.

So I went! And brought a friend, the lovely Maya, who has definitely graduated from Blog Friend to just Friend.

We arrived and J. asked what we liked. We informed him we’d like to dine vegetarian and he disappeared to the back of the kitchen and then hooked us up!

On the left are two paneer dishes; on the bottom is wonderfully seasoned spinach, atop is I guess what’s known as butter paneer (the vegetarian version of butter chicken?) It’s like creamy tomato soup Indian-ified… rich, flavorful, and unfrigginbelievably luscious.

Rounded out with, obvi, basmati rice

I will never make basmati rice taste as good as an Indian restaurant does.

And naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan oh my sweet naan.

Theirs has crispness and chewiness; denseness and flakiness; all in the same bread.

That was a TON of food (we finished… half? Between the two of us? Maybe?)

Yet my pal Mr. J. was not finished yet, and urged us to try these potato thingies:

Like the love child of a samosa and a hash brown pattie. Insane. Insane times infinity when doused in raita (ohhhhh yesssss)

Poppadum!

I didn’t bother with closeups on either of the curries. Perhaps the unattractive orange and green mush in the background of the shot give you an idea why :D

As usual, Maya and I had a fantastic chat about every manner of topic, food blogger related and non. Three hours or so seems to be about standard for blogger meetups.

And then I was out the door with the perfect ending to an Indian meal, fennel seeds!

blonde

Due to an incident at lunch yesterday related to my usual inability to correctly pronounce words, the blogger bond is now the “blonde”.

I spent yesterday blonding with these two lovely brunettes:

On your left is Sophia, with whom I instantly blonded (okay, done with that word, it’s officially annoying!) and Maya, who I’ve met before, but I was excited to chat with more in depth, especially given that her blog has been RIDICULOUSLY GREAT lately and TOTALLY SPEAKIN’ MY LANGUAGE.

Hilariously, Maya and Sophia came up with our lunch plans completely independent of me and still chose one of my favorite restaurants! Oh the blonde blogger bond. Honestly, this meetup was more of a focus on chattin’ up a storm than me taking proper pictures, so I’ll refer you to the last time I went to Lighthouse Tofu. Yes, Korean food of bliss!

A parade of delicious beginning with iced barley tea:

 

So great. Do Korean food expert people know, can you make this at home with regular barley? Is it reasonably low maintenance?

Continuing with panchan, yummy pickled Korean appetizers, the most famous of which of course is kimchi (in the foreground), although I have to say that one behind the kimchi may be my fave (Sophia, fortuitously enough, just returned from a trip to Korea and is a PRO at explaining everything. I may have to kidnap her and drag her to HMart and have her explain all the things I’ve been marveling/confused at) and I was told that it was some kind of root vegetable, likely burdock. Yum!

Also bean sprouts and cucumbers, yum yum yum!

Palates invigorated with some water kimchi (it had all the best things about gazpacho- cool, crunchy, tangy!)

Aaaaand check out Sophia’s awesome veggie pancake! I would’ve cropped it but I kind of love the lens in the picture.

Veggie Pancake Confronted by Paparazzo. Poor guy.

Then we cut him up and ate him.

This is fantastic. I’ve had a recipe for Korean veggie pancakes (along with a gazillion other recipes) bookmarked for awhile, but I’m glad to have tasted the real thing to have a standard for comparison.

Thanks for sharing, Sophia!

I, meanwhile, ventured into new territory. Lighthouse Tofu gives the uninitiated a scale for spice-itude.

Y’all know I like my spice. Let’s look at the trajectory of my brain development here: half my genes are from my father, the man who puts Dave’s Insanity on everything, including Campbell’s chicken soup.

My mother, whilst incubating me in her belly, took to snacking on jalapenos straight out of the jar.

So I like it.

So…. I went for the SPICY SPICY! And dayummm I definitely needed the accompanying rice to sop it up! But my oh my it was marvelous.

Hilariously, I was too busy talking and didn’t get a picture of my own dish (go figure) but I did get the massiveness of our table, plus an action shot of Maya (in her adorable top!) gettin’ her ‘fu on.

So so so fun. We had a very long photoshoot together and my charming camera ate the pic of me and Sophia but I love this one with Maya.

I’ve been to meetups before, but I have to say that this was a super great lunch (as evidenced by the fact that it went for three hours and I had to BOOK IT to work and hug everyone goodbye there :D).

Quality, QUALITY conversation. I know a lot of food bloggers have commented on the instant bond you feel with someone else who enjoys reading and writing about food in a public forum and totally understands why you like to do it too, but I feel like with these two fab ladies in particular, we just had a lot in common. All people who genuinely love food, but also people who’ve struggled in the past (to varying degrees, in various ways) with their relationship with it. It was nice to very happily get our eat on!

Our next destination was Shilla Bakery.

There is serious debate amongst Annandale-ites (Annandalians? Some have been know to ironically call it A-Town) which Korean bakery reigns supreme- there’s Morning in Paris, which I visited the other week, and there’s Shilla.

I’m going to have to go with Shilla just because I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MANY AWESOME SAMPLES. I mean come on:

Yes. Shilla, I am yours forever.

I headed home with this beauty:

A bun (bagel-like in flavor and consistency) filled with white bean paste, with a chestnut on top and a sprinkling of sesame. SO yummy! I love Asian desserts.