Animal Boy

Between "Super Size Me," "Food Inc." and "King Corn," and Matt the Electrician's ode to the homegrown ("My ancestors grew something/Real food is all I know/We’re gonna grow a little boy/Just like 100 years ago"), I feel a little guilty (like the gnawing, "McStomach" feeling "Super Size Me" groans about) whenever I Piponerate only about eating out.







So here are few pizzas, including a pie with brie and orange bell peppers, and other treats we've been whipping up lately, like roasted kale chips and curried fingerlings with melted havarti, and Dark 'n' Stormy cocktails and fried mashed potatoes (Somerville, Mass.-Sound Bites style), with great help from our Radix Farm farmshare; from another of Tanya's beloved South African BBQs; and from my friend Art Jirut, whose Iron Chef competition last Sunday inspired an eggplant loaf (served alongside vanilla bean ice cream and crushed walnuts); eggplant tempura; sauteed eggplant polenta with sausages; eggplant and yellow squash tacos (sprinkled with turmeric and slathered in fresh mint raita); pureed eggplant bruschetta; and stuffed chicken breasts with diced eggplant, couscous, sundried tomatoes and capers.

Nexus of the universe

I realized that the Times's potato leek gratin and The Argula Files's tortilla española had virtually the same ingredients, and that revelation gave me a taste of the serendipitous thrill Kramer experiences when he ventures to Lower Manhattan. "Hey, I'm on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe!"

Above, roasted eggplant and red pepper with melted Gruyere and locally pickled vegetables from Delicias Market (3702 14th St. NW, by Spring Rd.) on a toasted baguette. Below, Kramer.

Sweet Tomatos®

Improvising from a recent Food Wanderings original (improvising = cutting out "expensive" ingredients like arugula and avocados), I roasted some late-season cherry tomatoes, eggplant and garlic, and served it in an open-faced sandwich with kalamatas, fresh mozzarella and Olde Cape Cod honey mustard. Delicious, though next time, I might just save up for the avocado, or at least a goat cheese log.

Planting cilantro at Monticello

Thomas Jefferson may have favored the French, adding a dome, 13 skylights and a wine dumbwaiter to his  Monticello mansion. But on my visit to Charlottesville, Va., last weekend, I came away most impressed by the Ukrainians, after running into a couple of Ukrainian scientists at a lakeside BBQ and inspecting the ridiculous bounty of mushrooms they had gathered in the nearby woods. And I'll say this, if Jefferson had ever visited the Taste of China (where the kitchen, until recently, was manned by the "mysteriously peripatetic" Peter Chang, profiled in March by Calvin Trillin, who chronicled Chang's career serving up inspiring Chinese eats in uninspiring strip malls in Virginia, Tennessee and Atlanta), he might well have trained his personal chef to cook Szechuan crispy eggplant and cilantro rolls instead of French delicacies. (From the The New Yorker piece, it sounds like Chang's restaurant draws crowds as large as those that used to gather in Jefferson's lobby, decorated with keepsakes from the Lewis and Clark expedition and, unexpectedly, looking a bit like a room in Neruda's house in Valparaíso.)

Other Charlottesville tips: An obligatory stop at Foods of All Nations (check out the Eastern European dips), and an optional visit to the Blue Moon Diner, known for its artisanal bacon.

Waterworld

My fried, Naureen, ordered us the garlic naan ($3.50), raita ($3), the baingan bharta ($10) (grilled fresh eggplant sautéed with ginger, garlic, onion and tomatoes), and the kurkuri bhindi ($11) (fresh, crisp okra sautéed with onions, tomato, green pepper, dry mango powder and fresh herbs), all served with basmatic saffron rice. "I'll have the same," I joked. 30 minutes later, our waiter arrived and began serving two platters of everything we'd ordered.

So that was my bad. But you can't blame me that the eggplant tasted like apple sauce, the result of some kind of wild cardamon explosion in the kitchen. So I guess, Indian Ocean (4221 Connecticut Ave. NW, in Van Ness), we're even.

Iceland, Greenland

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."

Just a squirrel, trying to get a (pistachio) nut

I keep eying the pistachios at Harris Teeter, lured by some strange, deep-seated desire to attempt a pistachio pesto or freaky, green tapenade. Alas, I ended up chopping plain old pine nuts last night with the basil, garlic and Parmesan.




I was not much more creative the other night with my eggplant, red bell pepper penne, but at least I roasted the vegetables instead of sauteing them, a minor, but tasty twist. The minor and not-so-tasty twist for my caesar salad? I squeezed every last drop of juice from half a lemon, and no amount of olive oil, crushed black pepper or mayo could rescue me.




Now these actually were a bit creative, and not because of some tragic, lemon accident. The latkes my mother-in-law fried up in our kitchen mixed potatoes with yams.

Chayote empanadas

Mostly as an excuse to go to C-Town, the famous Latin grocery in Pawtucket, R.I., we decided to cook up some empanadas, turnovers with a savory filling that resemble the Indian samosa. Though Providence, R.I. has become super Latino in recent years, none of the local supermarkets carry empanada shells. (Surprisingly, even at C-Town, the only shells available were frozen.) For the fillings, we chose canned corn-shredded cheese-sauteed onions and roasted chayotes-roasted eggplant.


For an appetizer, we had Mexican tostada casera from Charras ("El Real Sabor Mexicano") and queso blanco from Wisconsin. Our friend Paco from Buenos Aires brought over a bottle of 2006 Trapiche Broquel Malbec.

C-Town's motto: "El Gigante de Pawtucket!"