21?!

Gahh, how is my BABY SISTER 21 years old?! She is six! Yet somehow… she is 21!

My sister is home for the summer and it is SO NICE.There’s something wonderful about both being (sort of… not at all but at least looking like it on the outside) grownups. Less bickering. More enjoyable times spent together.

Like this nice meal I demanded we eat by candlelight (to enjoy the last few minutes of natural light; avoid harsh flourescence; and set a totally romantic mood hah).

 

Sister is good sport.

Dinner was guh-reat. Caprese salad (okay, not MEGA classily sliced mozz, but it tasted good), roasted chickpeas (olive oil, garlic salt, cumin, paprika; GREAT); some leftover potatoes from a previous evening; and a tuna and pasta salad my sister made.

 

I love dinners that are comprised of a lot of tastes of a variety of things. Which is why if I could I’d get many more meals at tapas establishments and the Whole Foods salad bar. But that is a separate (financial, largely) discussion.

 

On my sister’s request, courtesy of some amaaaaazing local shiitakes I got while camping as well as some very tasty cabbage, I made our fave tofu recipe. It’s Japanese comfort food: cooked cabbage, mushrooms, and crumbled tofu, simply seasoned with soy sauce and mirin. A little peculiar for the gajillion degree weather we’ve been having, but good.

  

And so we arrive to Malindi’s birthday itself, the day I arrived home from work to find my front lawn looking like so:

 

So many questions so little time. Inflated kiddie pool? Watering can? Duct tape? Only the beer bottles were an obvious choice.

There was a lottttt of agonizing about where Malindi wanted to go for her birthday. Various ideas were discussed (All you can eat Korean buffet? Plate with a gazillion beers?) and it was discussed whether it was worth going into DC, whether the dinner should be combined with going-out-ing, but finally after Malindi seemed unenthusiastic about any of the things she was suggesting, I went “Ooh! I know exactly where to go!” And then we went to the place with this lovely chill-yet casual, enjoyable Mediterranean vibe:

Cava! Cava is the BEST. They have GREAT food, GREAT drinks and a GREAT vibe. My friend, via her sister who lives in DC, taught me about it. It is a great place to go with a group, whether to celebrate a special occasion or just catch up with an old friend :)

The birthday girl got a spiced pear martini. She loved it. Courtney (seated next to her) approved.

  

Gosh my sister is so beautiful right?!

Great food, poor pictures.

Grilled halloumi (uh-mazing. Grilled cheese! It’s grilled! And cheese!)

Zucchini fritters that had the most amazing molten-licious dill-y filling and the most wonderful crispy outside, with decadently rich tzaziki (whole milk yogurt for sure!)

Amazing spicy/cheesy mussels

Courtney got their version of the half smoke (DC’s famous chili dog) which involved tomatoes and feta and other awesomeness and looked amazing.

Being newly 21, Malindi went for another round: our waiter’s recommendation of this amaaaaaaaazingly refreshing gin, lemon ‘n cucumber concoction. So perfection for summer!

Then when Malindi went to the bathroom, our waiter, who’d already hinted at a birthday surprise, asked me, “Have you ever had the French toast?”

He brought out this beautiful creation and the thoroughly inebriated table to our right thoroughly enjoyed singing Happy Birthday to my sister.

 

So what was it?

Okay, have any of you been to a Greek festival? Inevitably they had loukomades, amaaazing fried donuts soaked in a wonderful lemony honey-rich syrup. This was a GIANT LOUKOMADE. With the added benefit of a mountain of whipped cream. Which, I suspect from its enjoyable licoricey note, had some ouzo thrown in for fun.

AGH AMAZING!

the sweet escape

How to entirely remove oneself from a week of crazy finals, crazy work, crazy everything…

Step 1: Climb Aboard.

Actually, climb below deck, to a magical nook with built-in bookshelf, skylight, and cute boy.

Ahhhhh.

Admire the “bar”. Admire everything, really, all these absurdly tiny and fun little nooks where you find little tiny things. It’s like a dollhouse. Of cleverness.

So my fantastic aunt and uncle have a fantastic sailboat. My aunt’s name is Jeanie. My uncle’s name is Tim. The boat’s name is Terrier II.

I had an Anatomy final. I had a Nutrition final. I had a chemistry final. I had an absuuuuurdly bizarre ostensibly not-an-interview interview, and then an official interview that turned out to not be a real interview (do you get it? Good, explain it to me). This all happened in two days.

I felt, like I’ve felt for most of the past few months, unfortunately, a time at which I’ll hopefully look back at as a very unhealthy period of my life (no horrific substance abuse or anything, just deplorably poor time, stress, and nutrition management), just… lousy. Freaked out. Tense. High strung.

Friday night, finally done with all of it, I stayed up til two am just wired in my living room, unable to turn my brain off, watching a marathon of My Drunk Kitchen (which, for the record, was awesome. I’m not complaining that much).

And we headed up to Maryland and met up with the fam and drove up to a sweet little marina near Annapolis and we LEFT CIVILIZATION!

Steve celebrated with this homemade Chipwich second breakfast:

(I ate like five of those damn ooey gooey amazing chocolate chip cookies).

Once we were due for proper nourishment, I brought out some homemade white bean and Swiss chard soup. Vair nice. Lamb stock is a convenient thing to keep in one’s freezer. It elevates anything.

 

Jeanie got out Triscuits to serve with it. Excellent!

 

For the next few hours… seriously, I have no idea what I did.

Talked? Sure. Looked at scenery? Sure. Not really sure what else. An issue of Vanity Fair was involved. Lots of Diet Coke (it’s vacation, damn it).

Steve, newly a sailor boy, swabbed the entire deck. Seriously.

The point is, I kind of did nothing. It is great.

And then it was appetizer and cocktail hour!

More triscuits, soprasetta, and GLORIOUS GLORIOUS CHEESE. God this cheese was amazing.

This. Buy this:

 

And I enjoyed my first DARK AND STORMY! Holy cow.

A Dark and Stormy contains dark rum, ginger beer (not ginger ale or it won’t be delicious), and lime.

Seriously, Steve and I may make these for every gathering we ever host again. It is the most perfect cocktail. Plus, as I pointed out, the lime is good for sailors since it prevents scurvy. And ginger prevents seasickness! And rum makes me laugh.

Jeanie made a yummmmmy chicken dish with capers and red peppers.

 

And then pasta (which turns out to be kind of a pain to cook in a galley that has, yknow, teeny baby burners and very little counter space and a wee dear little sink for the colander and so on. My aunt is great).

The pasta contained frizzled proscuitto (yum!) and lots of wonderful fresh asparagus (yum!)

Stirred (carefully, on a gently rocking boat)

And dinner was a fun and crowded and chatty affair.

And then you light the dear little lamps.

  

And retire to the dear little cabin which has dear, dear reading lights.

And then I proceeded to have my best night of sleep in yearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs. Years! Rocked by the waves into dreamland.

Steve not so much but he did get to pee off the side of a boat, which is basically every man’s dream.

I woke up warm and cozy, drenched in good sleep, sun coming in the skylight. Coastal weather report blasting on the radio (I mean Tim is ship’s captain, so that is his prerogative).

And then Jeanie brought me coffee in bed! Dude, my dad’s mother was the QUEEN of bringing hot cups of tea/hot chocolate/coffee (depending on the individual and their age) in bed. It is the BEST tradition. I am bringing it back for my future houseguests. And Jeanie does it for her (boat)guests because she is the BEST.

And we sort of meandered back to port and got off the boat and went back and…

I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GO BACK TO THE REAL WORLD WAHHHHH.

So Steve and I took off on one of our epic walks (cause yknow, after a day consisting of sitting down and eating, one does actually crave activity). Ten miles or so.

A nice midpoint was Del Ray.

First visit to The Dairy Godmother.

Steve just did the damn thing with a sundae. I got a strawberry rhubarb sorbet which should have been awesome except the rhubarb got lost :(

And then more walking.

And then an impulsive Groupon Now because in fact, in fact, the day I woke up in a cabin was also the day I woke up having been the girlfriend of my cute Steve boy for a year and a half OFFISH. Isn’t that nice?

A mini celebration. At a CUTE little Lebanese place that I wouldn’t’ve known about without Groupon. Layalina

Pretty, if slightly ridiculously ornamental, inside.

Warm, if not homemade bread.

 

Dizzying choices of mezze. Was very very very very pleased with what we selected.

This was like a quesadilla of delight: pita grilled filled with the most wonderful beef filling. Almost sweet; could it’ve been pomegranate molasses?! And pickled turnip, mm.

 

And the veggie sampler. AGH SO GOOD!

Starting at your 2:00, that’s pickled cabbage, some falafel (let Steve dominate that one), hummus, baba ghanoush (howwwwww do the Arabs do it so amazingly?! I have yet to make good baba ghanoush myself), fattoush salad, and last but certainly not least the most amaaaaaaazing green broad beans stewed with tomato.

I know it seems like we just ate all weekend (and, uh, basically did), but this was a nice, vaguely light and healthful sort of thing.

And it concluded with Greek/Turkish/Lebanese coffee (which are all the same thing; and the name of which depends on the ethnicity of the person who is describing it).

Well, the coffee is the same but this place added CARDAMOM! Yes yes YES! Served in that delightful long-handled serving vessel (we Greeks call it a briki).

 

And in the wee dear espresso cup. I made Steve drink it and Mr. Coffee hater loved it (even I as a very small child would have sips of my mom’s Greek coffee. It’s also quite sweet, traditionally :D)

And though they didn’t have decaf, I grinned and drank the real stuff, and still got into sleep feeling a squajillion times better for my little escape from the world.

mezze

Once a year our church-- a congregation consisting of many Palestinians and Lebanese, people who know their deliciousness-- has a festival.

At that festival, there is live music and hookah and general merrimaking.

There is also super super awesome food. And you feel compelled to buy lots of it cause duh you are supporting a church.

Thus, we enjoyed several different incarnations of takeout, which I formed into a sampler platter. To me, mezze (and its relatives, tapas and the like) are the greatest thing ever. You get a lot of tastes of a lot of things. You get to look at a plate that is colorful and varied in shape and size and texture.

This made a thoroughly fabulous apres-church brunh.

 

From your top left hand corner, we begin with spinach pie. That spinach pie is BALLER, with a rich and puffy crust that is actually, I realized after my Chicago experience, reminiscent of DEEP DISH! Next, we have green beans; the thick broad bean kind. Stewed with oh-so-flavorful tomatoes and spices. Continuing round, lamb shank. Holy slow cooking this was tender. And obviously, I’m a Greek girl. I love my lamb. It was rounded out nicely by the final item, a spiffy tzaziki.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

Eaten over the course of the next few days was more spinach pies. Also some fresh stuffed grape leaves (I am a grape leaf snob; especially after having them in Greece. I can’t do the canned ones. I think they’re gross. Fresh, though, and I’m one happy camper). And finally meat pies, with the same flavorful crust a savory lamb-beef blend of ground meat in the center, and an adorable pine nut garnish.

   

Lucky for me, I do not have to wait for the annual church festival to indulge in splendor from Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East. For that, I have Lebanese Butcher, my halal/organic meat and general exotica source.

On our most recent trip, we made some new purchases. First, after I commented on how I was always intrigued by the dizzying variety of dairy products in the cheese/yogurt/kefir case, my mom selected this specimen:

 

The soft meltiness of mozzarella with a tang reminiscent of feta. EXCELLENT in wraps.

Some spices, the always wonderful harissa and a new impulse-buy mix called panch puram.

A well-timed article in the food section informed me that panch puram is actually Bengali. The guy at Lebanese Butcher said it was spicy and you grind it and it’s good for meats. Has anyone cooked with it before? Any recommendations?

SO delighted to find out that Lebanese Butcher is also a great TEA SOURCE! I am in the height of tea season these days, as any of my coworkers or loved ones who have to tolerate my near-constant bathroom breaks can attest.

Extra points for EXTREME affordability. The anise tea (which is DELICIOUS and licoricey and so tummy-soothing) was a mere 89 cents, and mate, which is one of my favorite beverages but costs an arm and a leg everywhere else, was $3.99 for a megaportion. Love it!

Our main purpose for going to a butcher was, as you might have guessed, meat. They were out of whole chickens for the time being, but gave us a good deal on chicken legs. Seriously, it is the best price you are going to get for organic anywhere that I’ve seen.

We had leeks in the fridge and I fondly remembered a recipe for chicken with leeks in The Philosopher’s Kitchen, one of my favorite cookbooks which you can learn more about on the Recipe Inspiration tab up top of my blog.

The original used boneless skinless chicken breasts, which turned out to probably be the best way to make it, but I shrugged and decided to adapt it to bone-in, skin-on thighs, because I throw caution to the wind that way.

I began by browning the chicken. I highly reommend cast-iron skillets for tasks like these.

Then, draining most all of the fat but leaving the flavorful bits at the bottom of the pan, I sauteed the leeks to tenderness.

 

At which point it was deglazing time. Added broth, white wine, summer savory (an herb which kind of sits dustily on my shelf and I should really learn more about).

It smelled wonnnnnnnnnnnderful.

 

Then you were meant to return the chicken to the pan and stew it in there til the pan juices thickened and the chicken was cooked through but… yeurgh it was such a pain. I knew it would take longer than the time for the boneless skinless chicken breasts and man oh man did it. It just kept going and going and going in this endless, joyless thing, with the chicken yielding all this fat that I tried to kind of siphon off the edges of the pan with the sauce cause it just looked greasy and nasty.

I finally just chucked the chicken in the microwave, where it ended up needing at least an additional ten minutes.

Meanwhile I tried to reduce the sauce cause it was so… wet.

It worked, but probably zapped all the flavor out of the (nonetheless quite attractive) leeks.

 

I’m not going to call the dish a failure, because it tasted fine… but definitely not worth the labor/heartache.

   

Fortunately, the accompaniment was delicious and inspired by a great friend, so this is a better story.

We had purchased some surprisingly gorgeous zucchini at the farmer’s market (doesn’t it seem AWFULLY late in the season?!)

 

Just a few nights before this cooking endeavor, I enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Cava Mezze, a ridiculously popular local restaurant that’s now opened a variety of outposts. I was lucky enough to get to see my wonderful friend (and loyal blog reader) Eireni. It was the first time I’d seen her since her ridiculously awesome wedding, and it was wonderful to catch up (although SOOOOO briefly, alas).

Anyway, I’d been meaning to try Cava for awhile because everyone at my church loves it and as you saw above, they are food authorities. Eireni’s sister Kristen, who’s going to school at George Washington and was playing hostess for the weekend, recommended it as one of her favorites. And the food was EXCELLENT.

I particularly inhaled the chickpea three ways and one other dish: zucchini (and eggplant) in the most cunningly simple yet totally fantastic preparation.

Are you seeing where this is going? Restaurant re-creation!

(Guys, don’t we miss Gourmet? I never subscribed, but would kind of grab it whenever I saw it, which with all the food lovers in my life was pretty frequently. Anyway, I loved-loved-loved their column where people would write in about a particularly delicious dish they enjoyed in a restaurant and have Gourmet track down the recipe. RIP, man.)

As Eireni put it, the secret to all those wonderful Greek vegetable dishes is to “take a lot of olive oil and cook down some kind of tomato- paste or sauce or fresh tomatoes- in it for a long long time.”

Which is true.

And exactly what I did.

Lots of olive oil, some sweet onion for kicks…

… and then a jar of Trader Joe’s marinara sauce that’d been hanging around in my fridge. Definitely doesn’t have to be classy.

 

And let it cook down slooooooooowly til thiiiiiiiiiiiiiick for a loooooooooooong tiiiiiiiiiiiime.

(Actually did some kickboxing to Exercise TV on my computer while it cooked. Multitasking!)

The finished consistency will be thickened, thoroughly infused with the flavoring and enriching olive oil.

 

Then I added scads of oregano (obviously) and cooked the zucchini in it.

One of the best things about the zucchini dish at Cava was that it wasn’t MUSHY! It was still thoroughly toothsome. I love it! I did the same in this dish.

  

See how thick and rich and concentrated-looking the tomato sauce got? So killer!

 

The verdict is that it was totally, totally awesome.

Rounding out the meal, for the carbs we so enjoy (and cause the chicken took for-EVER to finish cooking and I needed something to nosh on to keep me going), toasted pita bread with the last of some homemade hummus.

  

Unbelievably delicious: toasted pita chip. Hummus. Olive-oily basil tomato chunk atop.

Like incredibly delicious miniature pizza.

  

Lots and lots of little tastes!