Tapas for Two - Twice

I knew that Topher would be working late most nights this week, thanks to the end of federal fiscal year; so I scheduled a few dates with girlfriends (since cooking for one isn't much fun). Not intentionally, both meals ended up being at tapas restaurants in Norfolk - one at a place I'd never been before, and the other at an old favorite.

My friend Beth and I had planned to go to the Boot after work on Monday. But about halfway through the day, I remembered that the Boot is closed on Mondays, so we decided to meet at Pasha Mezze instead. Well, we both drove up about the same time and found out that, yep, it's closed on Mondays too.

So we went around the corner to Bardo Edibles + Elixirs, an Asian fusion tapas bar with a fun (and extensive) menu. We both ordered a few dishes to share, and while everything was good, my favorites were the cocktail and the dessert.

What We Ate:

• To drink: The Alchemist – spiced rum, Chambord, Citronge liquor, Honest Tea, and a splash of sour - very good but could be dangerous: the tea completely masks the liquor
• Eastern Shore edamame (sautéed in butter, Old Bay, green onions, garlic & lemon)
• Boursin fondue, served with crackers & bread
• Steamed lobster & potato dumplings, with Old Bay cream
• Three-Bean Tagine: green beans, black beans, & edamame cooked with tomatoes, chipotle, lemon & garlic, served over sticky rice - more spicy than you would expect! (not a bad thing)
• Potato-wrapped Salmon: maple B&B glazed salmon served over Bardo succotash
• Garlic and soy Brussels sprouts - more soy sauce than you would expect (not a good thing)
• “Dip Sum” donuts with milk chocolate & white chocolate chopsticks, served with three dipping sauces (chocolate, caramel, & raspberry) - as our waitress explained, you stick the chocolate chopsticks into the warm donuts and they "gooify" - yum!

The Scoop:

Bardo Edibles + Elixirs is located at 430 West 21st Street in the Ghent section of Norfolk, VA 23517. They're open Sun-Fri 11am-2am and Sat 5pm-2am. You can find them on Facebook. They're the sister restaurant of Still in Portsmouth, VA.

*****

On Tuesday after work, I met up with my friend Stacy at Crackers on Granby Street. I've been there twice before - once to celebrate Christmas with all of my cousins, and then again on September 30, 2009 to celebrate the end of FY09 with some coworkers. This time we celebrated Stacy's upcoming wedding and move to Charlottesville (I'll miss you, Stacy!).

Crackers doesn't look like much for the outside, and it's not exactly in the trendiest part of Norfolk, but it's a fun place with a cool atmosphere and good specials. Their cocktail menu is a two-page spread, and they offer both hot and cold tapas.

What We Ate:

• Prosciutto wrapped asparagus - not overcooked (a good thing)
• Butternut squash gnocchi with hazelnuts & sage brown butter
• Sesame noodles with bok choy & wild mushrooms - served room temp or slightly chilled, not hot
• Pork & ginger pot stickers with sweet chili sauce & ponzu - fried crispy but not greasy (also a good thing)
• Blackberry swirl cheesecake
• To drink: Magnolia - really wish I could remember exactly what was in this, but it was fantastic; it might become my regular drink there

The Scoop:

Crackers is located at 4226 Granby Street, Norfolk, VA 23504. They're open Sun-Sat 5pm-2am.

*****

P.S. As you might have noticed, I really tried to get in as many green veggies as possible while dining out this week: edamame, Brussels sprouts, green beans, asparagus, and bok choy!

Still Trying to Eat More Veggies

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published a report on trends in fruit and veggie consumption among US adults over the past decade.

"In 2009, an estimated 32.5% of U.S. adults consumed fruit two or more times per day ... The percentage of adults who consumed vegetables three or more times per day was 26.3% ... Thus, no state met either of the Healthy People 2010 targets related to fruit and vegetable consumption among adults."

Several media outlets followed up on the report with articles of their own, including USA Today ("Americans' diets still short on fruits and vegetables"), the Washington Post ("Can the government get us to eat our veggies?"), and NPR ("Americans Are Flunking Easy Goals for Healthier Eating").

But the article that stuck with me the most was one from the NYTimes: "Told to Eat Its Vegetables, America Orders Fries." A few quotes ...

"People know that vegetables can improve health. But they’re a lot of work. In refrigerators all over the country, produce often dies a slow, limp death because life becomes too busy. ... 'Before we want health, we want taste, we want convenience and we want low cost,' Mr. Balzer said."

"Melissa MacBride, a busy Manhattan resident who works for a pharmaceuticals company, would eat more vegetables if they weren’t, in her words, 'a pain.' 'An apple you can just grab,' she said. 'But what am I going to do, put a piece of kale in my purse?' "

As much as I hate to admit it, I can relate to Ms. MacBride's complaint. It's easy to grab an apple, banana, muffin, or granola bar from the pantry and go; but I can't stick leafy greens or root vegetables in my purse. It's much harder to incorporate veggies into a breakfast or lunch on the go without prior planning (i.e. cooking on the weekend for the upcoming work week).

It's equally challenging when eating out at a restaurant. Veggies often are relegated to the status of "side dish" or even "garnish," while the (usually animal) protein takes center stage on the plate - and consequently in our diets overall.

So how can I eat more veggies? At restaurants, I try to find a side order of sauteed spinach or mixed greens or Brussels sprouts on the menu. I try to think ahead, buy the ingredients, and get up early enough to make a green smoothie or a veggie omelet for breakfast. I try to plan lunches that include tomatoes, avocado, spinach or arugula salad, or a quinoa salad with veggies (double benefit: protein from plants, not animals, and green veggies).

But sometimes I simply run out of good ideas. If you've got one, please share! I'm trying to eat the recommended four and a half cups of fruits & veggies a day, but I'm still probably in the 74% of Americans that aren't making it.

End of Summer, Beginning of Fall

Last Friday night Topher & I celebrated the end of summer and the beginning of fall with our friends Randy & Kim. We dined on an entree of fish tacos (a quintessentially summer dish) with a dessert of pumpkin pie (very autumnal).

What We Ate:

• fish tacos: grilled halibut (marinated in olive oil & lime juice), chipotle crema (sour cream + chipotle peppers in adobo sauce), shredded green cabbage, & cilantro - I love Topher's fish tacos (he used to fry the fish, which was great, but I think it's even better grilled), and they work with any white/light fish: halibut, grouper, tilapia, catfish, flounder, mahi mahi, etc.
• jicama salad: julienne jicama, carrots, red onion, & green bell pepper (a variant of this recipe) - since I'd never seen or eaten one before, it took me quite a while to find a jicama at the grocery store!
• refried black beans with a dollop of sour cream, and black rice
• to drink: a paloma
• for dessert: a slice of pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream

Afterwards we watched another film by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman: "Through a Glass Darkly" (1961), the first in his trilogy on faith and God. The film centers on four characters - Karin (who suffers from schizophrenia), her husband Martin, her father David, and her brother Minus - as they try to relate to one another during vacation on a remote island. It won the 1962 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

It's definitely a film of conversations, not events. I must admit that I'm still processing it, but I can say that I liked the music: Bach's Sarabande from Suite No. 2 in D minor. And one of Karin's schizophrenic episodes reminded me strongly of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," a disturbing but good read from 10th grade.

Reading List for September 20-24

1. "Reform on the Range: Cubans Heed the Call to Farm" from NPR

"There's an old joke in Cuba that if education, health care and athletics are the Cuban revolution's greatest achievements, then its three biggest failings are breakfast, lunch and dinner. Government supermarkets — where many Cubans can't even afford to shop — stock imported mango juice from Mexico, chicken from Brazil and butter from Denmark. All could be easily produced locally."

" 'Having a farm means coping with everything — ants, thunderstorms, scratches, hurricanes, waking up at dawn,' Ramos says. 'It's sacrifice and hard work, but somebody has to do it. We can't all be intellectuals, because then there'd be nothing to eat.' "

2. Coverage of the Salmonella - Egg Recall Hearing before a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee
"Wright County Egg's Found Apologizes for Salmonella; Egg Producer Says His Business Grew Too Quickly" from NYTimes
"An Iowa Egg Farmer and a History of Salmonella" from NYTimes

3. "Blackwater's Black Ops" from The Nation
"Another important piece from The Nation: Monsanto hired Blackwater subsidiary (and former CIA man) to spy on critics." - @michaelpollan

4. A few ongoing topics ...
“Critics Call Child Nutrition Bill Counterproductive” from NPR

"Ending childhood hunger by 2015 has been a priority for President Obama, and ending childhood obesity has been a priority for the first lady. The child nutrition bill is supposed to help do both. But some hunger groups say that the way things stand now, the legislation would do neither."

"Some Obama Allies Fear School Lunch Bill Could Rob Food Stamp Program" from NYTimes
"Child Nutrition Food Fight Bumps Up Against Political Reality" from NPR

FDA rules won't require labels on genetically-modified salmon (article and editorial from The Washington Post)

5. "Waiter, There's Soup in My Bug" from NYTimes

"He simmered heirloom tomatoes in duck fat and matched that sauce with plump, raised, umami-bomb gusanos de maguey — expensive caterpillars that have to be painstakingly rooted out of agave leaves. Each course was paired with a Mexican cocktail. (For one, raw cucumbers were hollowed out like cups, filled with mezcal and rimmed with “worm salt” — a pungent powder of salt, chilies and ground-up agave worms.) He told the assembled throng that he wanted to transport them back in time — to a hacienda outside Mexico City in 1600, say, when indigenous and Iberian cultures were colliding."

And for dessert: "vanilla ice cream with a flourish of cayenne-spiced and agave-syrup-sweetened mealworms." Yum?

Bring on the Pumpkin Beverages

Yesterday on my drive to work, the thermometer in my car read 55°F. I could hardly believe it! I like fall, but it's not my favorite season, simply because it means that winter is coming, and I do NOT like winter. But yesterday I decided to celebrate the crispness of the morning with my first Starbucks pumpkin spice latte of the season. I've officially embraced autumn.

That also means that I can start enjoying some of the best brews of the year. There are a few good summer beers (especially Dogfish Head Festina Peche), but fall beers are better by far. And the Washington Post's All We Can Eat blog today reminded me of all the fun pumpkin ales out there.

Some of my personal favorites:

• Southern Tier's Pumking Imperial Ale
• Dogfish Head Punkin Ale
• Sam Adams Octoberfest
• Blue Moon Harvest Moon

This weekend I'll be digging out my jackets and sweaters - and possibly doing some beer tasting. As Topher would say, Prost!

The One That Got Away

There's one meal from this summer that I keep thinking about. We had our friends Jen & Rob (and their two delightful kids) over for dinner, and Topher cooked. I really wish I had snapped a photo of my plate that evening: it was just so colorful, balanced, and delicious!

What We Ate:

• Arugula salad with homemade vinaigrette
• Pork tenderloin with bourbon ancho sauce - not too sweet, not too spicy
• Baked three-cheese macaroni topped with breadcrumbs & nutmeg
• Cabbage cilantro slaw - he tweaked this recipe with lime juice & honey
• Bananas foster with vanilla ice cream - thanks, Jen!
• Orin Swift’s The Prisoner - one of the best wines I've ever tasted (and the same wine we finished off in Grand Cayman)

But I was so excited to taste everything that I missed my photo op. Oh well - I guess that means we'll have to recreate the experience again sometime - preferably soon!

Monday Reading from Vanity Fair

These next two weeks are going to be quite busy for me at work (thanks to the end of the federal fiscal year), so I won't be able to post quite as often. But I'm going to try to give you some fun stuff to read while I'm away.

Here's an article from the October 2010 issue of Vanity Fair about the world's (reputedly) greatest chef: "It Was Delicious While It Lasted."

Enjoy!