A classmate yesterday passed along a video of my SAIS professor, Michael Mandelbaum, appearing on The Daily Show to discuss his book, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the Twenty-First Century. The interview is a few years old, and America's influence has arguably decreased since its publication, in large measure due to this country's economic headaches (as Prof. Mandelbaum predicted in the interview, noting that "the great challenge to the American role as the world's government comes not from China, but from Medicare"). Still, Prof. Mandelbaum's argument remains relevant, though controversial*: Despite all the anti-Americanism across the globe, "America is the benign Goliath," a "global good guy" that the world secretly appreciates.
*John Stewart, for one, sounded somewhat skeptical. "You're suggesting," he asked Prof. Mandelbaum, "that the burning of a flag in many countries -- a compliment?"
Spotted this Butcher's Bill on the refrigerator last night at a party. Comforting that the electrified traps have logged so many kills? Or scary that even after Ernie and Mickey had fallen, Pork Chop and Confucius refused to retreat?
I swiped a quote from a classmate's Facebook page ("If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe") and e-mailed it to the biggest Carl Sagan fan I knew. He replied with a link to this YouTube video, in an exchange I considered fantastically modern, albeit amazingly commonplace.
It is opening in Detroit next year, so I guess that's pretty interesting. Otherwise, Vapiano (1800 M Street NW) is just a mediocre, gimmicky German chain. It clearly believes it's an interesting idea, "defining the future of fast casual," an "innovative European" and "revolutionary concept" born in Hamburg in 2002 and since exported to 16 countries, where diners get to experience an "urban-European atmosphere." Sounds exciting, right? All I saw tonight at the Dupont Circle location were a couple of basil plants on the tables and made-to-order fresh pasta and pizza that you have to order cafeteria-style from a line of short-order cooks. Sure, the pesto pasta was tasty. But for $10, I would not have complained if Vapiano had hired a waiter or two to bring over a glass of water.
My wife's cousin, Kate Levitt, the drummer for the Balitmore band Teeth Mountain, puts in a brilliant performance on Judge Judy, where she alleges that a house guest killed her cat by hurling a TV set across her living room. The story, according to the Balitmore City Paper, is made up, an attempt to "parody art-hipster culture via a case about a dead cat for a daytime television audience that could probably give a shit less about art-hipster culture." (The paper's evidence that cousin Kate's cat, if it ever existed, is still meowing around? "come the fuck on, just watch it.")
I am beginning to take this personally. First, my Greek South African-born friend Tanya (in photo below, at left) invited me over for a "peasant stew," telling me that the lamb and orzo medley, however delicious it may taste, is a strictly plebeian platter. Then last night, just as I arrived back at Tanya's, I was instructed not to remove my coat but rather to proceed directly to the balcony to help Tanya's brother, George, keep an eye on the Boerewors, South African sausage served on rolls and favored by drunk clubgoers after last call.
As if that was not enough of an indignity, Tanya also served chakalaka, a vegetarian chili that, she explained, is a staple for impoverished Johannesburg gold miners.
Tanya is just lucky that all this low-class cuisine is so highly tasty, otherwise I'd have to start boycotting these dinners, lest I end up complimenting an entree only to have Tanya explain, "This is what we feed our cattle."
Sides included Iwisa-brand, mielie-meal pap (the word actually means "gruel," and I'm not making this up); a South African beef jerky known as biltong; potato salad; dried mango; and for dessert, milk tart.
I could tell you more about cooking up Boerewors (hint: for Tanya, the process starts by getting The South African Food Shop to FedEx enormous coils of raw meat), but according to this hilarious instructional video that George passed along, it seems like you have to earn entrance into the Boerewors fraternity in a process that resembles a cross between Freemasonry initiation and an episode of Top Chef.
Since it appears Pipón is in a random-non-food-related-videos kind of mood, here are two that might interest you: (above) Toto's Africa by Perpetuum Jazzile, courtesy of Kari Jaksa; (below) a 2009 TED talk, courtesy of George Konidaris, about the prospects of developing a "sixth sense" to give "easy access to meta information" by using a wearable "Web cam."
I had hoped to find a clip of the closing credits of State of Play, a powerful elegy to newspapers soundtracked by Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Long As I Can See The Light." Sadly, all I could find was a random scene. Happily, it features Jason Bateman from Arrested Development and it's pretty genius.
This came my nerdy way from a SAIS classmate. NPR's Planet Money featured this video, an hilarious and super instructive rap exploring the conflicting theories of economists John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek,on its Planet Money blog. The video is from EconStories.tv at George Mason University.
Lyrics:
We’ve been going back and forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No… it’s the animal spirits
[Keynes Sings:]
John Maynard Keynes, wrote the book on modern macro
The man you need when the economy’s off track, [whoa]
Depression, recession now your question’s in session
Have a seat and I’ll school you in one simple lesson
If you have been wondering why President Obama thinks you should participate in the 2010 U.S. Census (hint: it's not just because, technically, it's legally required), wonder no longer.
I'm proud to say ("proud" might be overstating it) that I've now lunched at Dupont Circle's two worst-kept secrets: The Well Dressed Burrito (1220 19th St. NW) and the Brookings Institution cafeteria (1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW). Both are vaguely hidden, a la the nightclubs featured in Swingers. The Well Dressed Burrito serves up its large, marinated beef burritos ($6.50), using actual pulled meat instead of cheap ground beef, in an alleyway; the Brookings Institution cafeteria is, you guessed it, inside the Brookings Institution.
Neither, however, is truly obscure. The Brookings lunch experience, for example, has been deconstructed on Yelp, where one reviewer judged its food to be "just like its politics," that is, "middle of the road." As for The Well Dressed Burrito, here's a Pipón tip: the staff must be used to regulars since they neglected to remind me that the burrito "platter" is just $1 extra and includes homemade enchilada sauce, beans, Southwestern rice and some greens; when I visited, I was so busy dissuading my friend Lauren Miller from ordering a salad that I missed the listing on the menu.
If you want to eat somewhere truly "off the beaten path," try my sister-in-law Marni'sgarden-level apartment, where I tried the turkey meatballs and Israeli couscous and roasted broccoli the other day.
Be forewarned, the restaurant "Mix" in Frederick, Md. (207 West Patrick Street), is not some hipster bistro that specializes in a creative fusion cuisine (say, Spanish-Ghanaian), or a locavore salad bar that in wintertime sells only hydroponic tomatoes and root vegetables. It's actually spelled "Mick's," and as they'd say in Rhode Island, it's where Jennifer's used to be.
Turns out, however, that even though it may sound like an Irish pub, Mick's has a fairly ambitious chef. Last Saturday night, the specials included arancini (fried rice balls coated with breadcrumbs) that Mick's had stuffed with risotto and bison meat; and a Piedmontese strip steak served atop a white bean puree and alongside Hen of the Woods mushrooms in a Tunisian brik.
Mick, meanwhile, is not the only one cooking these days. I recently found a pile of graffiti eggplants at Harris Teeter and tossed them (peeled and diced, of course) into the wok on Sunday night with scallions and string beans. Last night, I attempted a pasta recipe involving freshly roasted beets and goat cheese. It was as delicious as the stir fry, but I'll say this: No point buying tri-colored pasta when everything ends up bright purple at the end.
Two bonuses (pardon the Wall Street lingo, but I saw Hank Paulson speak today): Listen here to an interesting Marketplace segment on the food scene in Cleveland that may make you less skeptical about the good eats in downtown Frederick; click here for a slide show on DCist of (non-food related but no less entertaining) photos from Washington's Valentine's Day "Cupid's Undie Run."
I missed the Mardi Gras Tweet, so I had no idea I was in for 2-for-1 Hurricanesand special Cajun apps, including discounted gumbo accompanied by a crayfish fritter and fried oyster and a look-what-we-can-puree soup previously known as a side of sweet potato & andouille sausage hash. There were also complimentary beads at the U St. Corridor's year-old Eatonville (2121 14th St. NW) served alongside the $2 fresh corn bread, and the waitresses who were singing the praises of the marinated pan fried pork chop ($18, over wilted spinach, fingerling potatoes and green tomato chutney) and crispy chicken breast ($14, over garlic mashed potatoes, braised collard greens and mushroom gravy) were all masquerade masked and Bourbon Street bedecked.
"Food beyond compare, food beyond belief, mix in the mincer and pretend it's beef. Kidney of horse, liver of a cat, filing up the sausages with this and that." - Les Misérables
I'm hardly a Super Bowl traditionalist. (I only learned who was playing on Friday on line at the Safeway on Columbia Road when I asked the woman in front of me whether she considered a jar of cocktail onions a key part of her pre-storm food supplies.) Still, I was surprised to hear that my friend Rob Margetta, of Congressional Quarterly fame, was planning to make tacos for his Super Bowl party, provided he could hire a "dog sled team" to transport him from Alexandria. From a native of Fall River, Mass., I would've expected fried chicken, cold cuts and sour cream and onion dip.
The menu sounded similarly atypical at Julia Schiff's Super Bowl gathering in Adam's Morgan, highlighted by homemade pork and beansprout Thai egg rolls, made by Art Jirut, whose love for Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, means she just-says-no to beef.
In a nod to more standard Super Bowl fare, however, Art also whipped up (in addition to a pistachio cake) a pot of turkey chili with scallions, kidney beans and Fritos. The hostess, meanwhile, balled some peanut butter and dipped it delicately in chocolate, and also sprinkled Americana throughout her sitting room, including a hard cover copy of David McCullough's 1776, published volumes of her father's photographs of Cincinnati and even a DVD of the 1985 movie Clue, an American classic even if Wadsworth does have a British accent.
UPDATE: My old roommate, Brian Chelcun, reminded me that the peanut butter treats are called "buckeyes," an Ohio specialty apparently designed to resemble the nut of an Ohio Buckeye tree.
My old roommate, Brian Chelcun (below on The Washington Post Web site), in an interview with NPR News, muses on the sudden, pre-"Snowmageddon" run on toilet paper at Washington markets.
A friend, Lauren Miller, organized a "Bollywood party" tonight, undeterred by the snowfall. "They are forecasting over a foot of snow this Saturday night," she wrote on Thursday. "We are forecasting a great night full of Bollywood music, Indian appetizers and hot dancing!"
Given the 25.5 inches of snow in Washington, President Obama's warnings of "Snowmageddon," Amtrak's "widespread cancellations," the shutdown of all runways at BWI, Dulles and Reagan National, the promise from The Washington Post that its "list of what's open" would include "mostly grocery and CVS stores," and the Post's Going Out Guide's warning that "cancellations are piling up like snow," I was pleasantly surprised to see how many restaurants on 18th St. in Adam's Morgan and along U Street were open today.
As you can tell, after failing to secure a table at L'Enfant (2000 18th St NW), we ended up at DC Noodles (1410 U St. NW), where the $12 noodles in soy soup (I ordered mine with beef and wide noodles) helped defrost all but my damp and frigid toes.
It's rumored that Neil K. Shenai haunts Dupont's Le Pain Quotidien ("PQ" to its "friends"), at 2001 P St. NW, and Bistrot du Coin ("BDC" to Shenai), at 1738 Connecticut Ave. NW, simply to show off how well he pronounces their names. Guest-blogging at Pipón here, he makes the case that the food is the bigger factor.
Bistrot du Coin's signature dish, the "steak maison" ($16.50), is the perfect entree for a D.C. diner looking for a reasonably priced and succulent steak. BDC's butterfly-cut filets (above) are accompanied by a creamy béarnaise sauce. The béarnaise's interaction with the crusted peppercorn and rosemary make the steak maison juicy, flavorful and complex in taste and texture. The steak is served with French fries or a side of mesclun salad for the health conscious.
"There's a potato dish I haven't heard of?" So asked my Irish diplomat friend, Iseult, when she heard Keryn was whipping up twice-baked potatoes. For my part, I had at least heard of them, I had just never tasted them before last night. (Refried beans, on the other hand, are an old friend. As they say, "My compliments to the chef. Again.) Keryn baked, twice, two varieties, one with roasted broccoli, the other roasted red pepper. Tonight's dinner: Keryn's salad nicoise, with green beans and kalamata olives.
In other Pipóneratable news, here's three juicy culinary tidbits from a wedding invitation that just came in the mail from my friend, Harvard Magazine writer Elizabeth Gudrais, who is getting married in Minnesota and the Azores in June:
The "campfire" steak gets a cognac demiglace (a rich brown sauce that begins with a basic espagnole sauce and is combined with beef stock and madeira or sherry and slowly cooked until reduced to a thick glaze)
The almond-encrusted walleye gets a cream veloute (one of the five "mother sauces," velouté is a stock-based white sauce)
The post-wedding "picnic lunch" in the Azores involves burying food in the soil of a volcanic geyser, canoeing and then, when you return a few hours later, "it's cooked!"
Benjamin Gedan, a former Fulbright research scholar in Uruguay, holds a Master's degree from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. He has reported for The Boston Globe and The Providence Journal newspapers, writing about state politics, economic development and technology. He has also reported internationally, writing from Ghana, Mexico, Uruguay, Paraguay, Panama and Belize for publications including The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Miami Herald. He studied International Relations and Latin American politics at Tufts University. He has blogged from Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica.
Be forewarned, the restaurant "Mix" in Frederick, Md. (207 West Patrick Street), is not some hipster bistro that specializes in a creative fusion cuisine (say, Spanish-Ghanaian), or a locavore salad bar that in wintertime sells only hydroponic tomatoes and root vegetables. It's actually spelled "Mick's," and as they'd say in Rhode Island, it's where Jennifer's used to be.
I missed the Mardi Gras Tweet, so I had no idea I was in for 2-for-1 Hurricanes and special Cajun apps, including discounted gumbo accompanied by a crayfish fritter and fried oyster and a look-what-we-can-puree soup previously known as a side of sweet potato & andouille sausage hash. There were also complimentary beads at the U St. Corridor's year-old Eatonville (2121 14th St. NW) served alongside the $2 fresh corn bread, and the waitresses who were singing the praises of the marinated pan fried pork chop ($18, over wilted spinach, fingerling potatoes and green tomato chutney) and crispy chicken breast ($14, over garlic mashed potatoes, braised collard greens and mushroom gravy) were all masquerade masked and Bourbon Street bedecked.
It's rumored that Neil K. Shenai haunts Dupont's Le Pain Quotidien ("PQ" to its "friends"), at 2001 P St. NW, and Bistrot du Coin ("BDC" to Shenai), at 1738 Connecticut Ave. NW, simply to show off how well he pronounces their names. Guest-blogging at Pipón here, he makes the case that the food is the bigger factor.
