In the Fall we like to use as many fresh vegetables as possible. We do this in other seasons, too, but there’s just something about hearty fall veggies that my wife and I really love. So tonight, as I waited for Leopard to install, I used one such veggie–several fresh local sweet potatoes–to make a tasty soup.

Fall Veggie Soup

• 2 large sweet potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 large onion, rough cut into one inch pieces
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 32 ounces of chicken stock
• 3 par boiled chicken breasts (smallish ones)
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 teaspoon canola oil
• A palmful of each of the following: cumin, paprika
• Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Prep

Heat butter and canola oil in a dutch oven or deep stock pot. Add garlic and sauté for a minute or so. Add onion and sauté a little longer, until onion is mostly translucent. Add sweet potatoes to mixture, stirring often. Add cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper and continue to stir just until pan begins to dry out slightly. Add chicken stock and scrape pan bottom. Cover and simmer while shredding chicken, for about 20 minutes or until sweet potatoes are tender. Add chicken and cook an additional five minutes to give flavor to chicken. Serve in large bowls, optionally topping with any nutty cheese.The best part of this recipe is the broth, which has this complex flavor of onion and garlic with the sweetness from the paprika. Great stuff on a rainy fall night.

Apropos Of Nothing

I was playing basketball with my brother the other day when I remembered the story about getting lost in church one day and eating my weight in egg rolls.
When I was about six or seven I was in the childrens choir. We were practicing in the gigantic gothic sanctuary, and when practice ended I stayed behind to talk to the organ player. He was a nice older man and I think he was amused by all the songs I could request. (Having been raised in a musical household by liberal intellectuals I had an obnoxious vocabulary and musical taste to match it.) After an hour of name that tune with the organ player I looked up to see that my group was gone and I was alone in this massive room. The organ player asked me if I knew how to get to the choir room by myself, and I lied ‘yes’ because I didn’t want to worry him.
It helps to know that around this time a contingent of Koreans had been welcomed into the “church family”, and had been set up with one of the smaller chapels to use for services and the use of all the common areas. It also helps to know that on this particular day the dining hall was being used by said Koreans for a fellowship dinner.
So, cut to six year old me in overalls and Keds, bopping through this huge church–I mean that literally; it occupies about four city blocks–looking for the choir room. Well, after an hour of looking I don’t find a choir room but I do find the smell of Asian cooking. I wander into the dining hall and am immediately greeted by friendly Koreans milling about with dishes of food and happy faces. I explain that I’m lost, but with a grasp of English not much better than my own we sort of settle on ‘wait here for your parents’. I mean, of course they’re looking for me right?
Finally my mom does find me in the middle of my sixth egg roll. There’s still some choir left but instead we hop into the brown Toyota and go home, where I collapse with a belly full of wonton wrappers and cabbage and sleep for about two days. And that, apropos of nothing, is the beginning of my long love affair with Asian food.

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Dining in DC

Part of any good traveling experience is culinary; sampling the local cuisine even if it’s only different versions of things you have at home is always advised. This is especially true in a place like Washington where just about any nationality you can think of is represented in some way. With a little effort you can find whatever suits you here, and some things that are woefully gross and you’d do better to avoid.

On this trip it just so happened that my first experience dining out was at an old favorite–Full Kee in Chinatown. Now, I am going to complain about Full Kee. And many of you are going to cock your heads to one side and say, ‘Dear boy, you bought Chinese food in Chinatown. What did you expect?’ But to those of you I say that there have been many times when I was the only gringo in the place (whatever the Chinese version of gringo is) and I was able to order very good family style Cantonese food here. A few months ago it was here that I enjoyed the best bowl of noodles with brisket that I’ve ever had. This time I was disappointed with the Pan Fried Noodles w/ Shrimp ($8) I ordered, which were largely tasteless and cool. I’d definitely go again, but I think the trick here is to ask for what the kitchen staff or servers might eat, as I did with the noodles last time. I had better luck and an adventure of sorts.

After the theater the original plan was to have dinner at a smallish Italian place near the KC whose name escapes me. Due to a dinner crunch we ended up calling ahead to the Circle Bistro, which serves a large French menu to guests of the Washington Circle Hotel and anyone else looking for a very pleasant meal in a refined atmosphere. Several members of my party ordered the Yukon Gold Potato Gnocchi ($19) which arrived in a shallow dish with Fall vegetables. A small sample revealed firm Gnocchi in a mild cream sauce, with hints of sage. I chose the Classic Tartare of Hereford Beef ($12), served with a paper cone of pomme frittes. It was really very good, with the taste of fresh ultra-rare beef undercut slightly by quality capers.

Coffee junkies that we are, we spent quite a bit of time in coffee houses or places that cater to coffee house types. Tryst is an old favorite, serving dozens of coffee drinks and teas in a sort of yard sale chic atmosphere. I had a good but very strong Egg Nog with Rum here. The food is pretty good as well, perfect for studying or reading with. Sandwiches, for instance, run $6-7 and are made on site by actual humans with quality ingredients. Two relative newcomers, looking to capitolize on the popularity of Tryst, are Open City and Busboys + Poets. I thought Open City had a delicious Soy Latte, then noticed why: all their coffee is roasted by and purchased from Tryst. Busboys + Poets has the same intricate tea services as Tryst, with a large stage in back for the inevitable poetry slam. All these places make it clear that it’s really difficult to get a lousy cup of Joe in DC except for in the Dirksen cafeteria.

Utopia is in a row house in the U District, and has really made an effort to leave some lasting mark on the neighborhood with a sort of Afro-Cuban decor and live jazz when we visited. I pounce on good Mussels when they’re in season (months ending in “R”, kids…) so I had to try them in Lemon Caper Cream sauce. I really didn’t expect the sauce to be as good as it was; complex, a bit sweet, and completely worth the untold hours on the treadmill it will take to make it (and the two pieces of bread that soaked it up) go away. I think I’ll be mentally filing Utopia away as a place to return to later.

So there’s lots of good food to be had in DC. Much of it doesn’t even make me write in this bizarre foreign tone. Like Julia’s Empanadas. There are three in various spots in the city but my favorite is on 18th NW across from Madam’s Organ. It’s really hard to be elitist about the favorite cuisine of labor union organizers and socialist revolutionaries that’s best eaten with two hands and a Guava juice. These are an absolute must when I’m in Washington, and for comfort food they’ve got my vote.