Swarmesan

It just didn't seem possible that Pasta Mia (1790 Columbia Rd. NW) could live up to its lines-on-the-sidewalk hype, and after all that queuing with nary a greeting from a hostess (not to mention the cash-only policy, the home-style presentation and the owner snaking through the crowded dining area hawking an iPhone puzzle app), I was in no condition to be won over by an $18 plate of spaghetti. After all, the first time I saw that line by the Christian Science Reading Room, I wondered aloud (digitally), if there was "crack in the marinara." Amazingly, Pasta Mia is worth the wait. Absurdly large plates of homemade pasta swimming in perfectly seasoned sauces topped by a pile of Parmesan. I had the fusilli with sausage in a spicy (drug-free) marinara for dinner. And thanks to the universal doggy bag request atmosphere, I can't remember the last time I was this excited for a leftovers breakfast and lunch.

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.

Lefty's leftovers

I was inspired by a friend in Tenleytown, who whooped me in my 1st colonial attempt at Settlers of Catan but made up for it by serving up 3 exceptional pizzas, including one topped by potatoes so thinly sliced you could have piled them on top of my resource cards and still seen that all I had were a pile of bricks. So I adapted a couple of Epicurious recipes, including a sliced and roasted cauliflower appetizer that I doused with the recommended olive oil-lemon-garlic dressing but substituted Parmesan for the Kalamata topping; and a corn and tomato scramble that involved sauteed fresh corn kernels and scallions cooled and tossed with tomatoes marinated in olive oil and cider vinegar (and accompanied by chopped endive, in my version).  


Today's breakfast, a leftover Lefty's Barbecue burger from last night's building BBQ sacrilegiously mingling with MorningStar veggie sausage patties and the Mexican tortilla scramble known as migas.

Food Inc.

I finally got around to watching Food Inc. No big surprises, having heard many an interview with Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto). Still, it's always good to be reminded of the "highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA." Seriously. It's easy to mock the "locavore" movement and pretend that "agroindustry" operations resemble traditional farms with pasture that just goes on and on. It's actually more like a cleaner, more efficient but no less terrifying reprise of the nightmarish, mass-production food factories in Sinclair's The Jungle.

Fortunately, my sister-in-law, Marni, cooked only veggies for us while we watched the documentary. Her gingered and curried lentils include lots of baby spinach, canned tomatoes and chopped celery.

How the sausage patties crumble

In the rush before yesterday's snowpocolypse, Harris Teeter ran out of a key staple of our Saturday morning breakfast: Morningstar veggie sausage patties. So we settled for veggie sausage "crumbles," introducing an unwelcome guest, cursed caraway seeds, into our scrambled eggs. As for the decision to go with Aunt Jemima (instead of Eggo) for our blueberry waffles, that was just Keryn's lunacy. I did manage to pull together a pot of roasted tomato soup (not pictured), that was well received by our downstairs neighbors. One misstep worth Pipónerating: I neglected to decapitate the unpeeled garlic gloves, and they ended up black as night and hard as rock, if you'll pardon the cliches (and the amateur cooking error). Thankfully, the roasted tomatoes, broth and heavy cream held their own.

Red cabbage recommended

I suggest, now and again, raw, chopped cabbage for your tacos. Red recommended.

Tiny hot dog buns

I have had neither the time nor disposable income to explore the D.C. restaurant scene, not even the Latin restaurants that line 14th Street by my apartment. (A few exceptions: I've grown to accept Baja Fresh as a serviceable substitute for Chipotle; I was unmoved by La Frontera Cantina, a small Mexican restaurant with pleasant outdoor seating and homemade tortilla chips on 17th Street, by Dupont Circle; I was pleased to find the biodegradable entrees and packaging at Sweet Green, on Connecticut, only slightly overpriced, the mix-your-own greens salad selling for $6; and I enjoyed the curry peanut sauce at Bua, a Thai restaurant on P Street, between 16th and 17th.)

Lately, however, I have managed some good eating, mostly thanks to visits from my wife and in-laws. Outings included a scallops feast during a Bethesda Restaurant Week trip to Grapeseed; an Ethiopian lunch on U Street, around 10th; and a banquet at Founding Fathers, on Pennsylvania Avenue by the IMF, where we ordered, as appetizers, the cornmeal battered fried green tomatoes with herb goat cheese and homemade "green goddess dressing," the homemade potato and cheddar cheese crisps with onion dip and a pimento spread, and the grilled oysters with homemade BBQ sauce (afterward, I meekly attempted to conquer the "Farmhouse Mixed Grill," made up of pork ribs, "Barackwurst" sausage and fried chicken, served alongside watermelon and coleslaw).


All delicious, but I was ready for some home, vegetarian cooking. So the next day, we stopped by Whole Foods and then Keryn whipped up a refreshing salad, with fresh mozzarella, local heirloom tomatoes and arugula.


She also boiled up some, er, I think it's called "Casarecce" (a pasta shaped like "tiny hot dog buns"), with a medley of sauteed mushrooms and Parmesan.

Pregnant cousin, oven roasted tomatoes

I've never really considered making sun-dried tomatoes, and I'm still not sure I will, given how time-consuming the process appears. But it's apparently not a particularly complicated operation. The caterer at a baby shower for my wife's cousin let me in on the recipe for her "oven-roasted" tomatoes. It seems she just halves tomatoes, adds some olive oil and seasoning and roasts them at super low heat for a few hours, flipping them once. Even without any marinating, they were delicious, topped with crumbled feta. (For the record, I wasn't invited to the actual shower, but I sneaked some leftovers the next day.)




Summer Hill Catering, in Madison, CT, also served up lox with dill sauce as a passed hors d'oeuvre. For dessert: intricately constructed, absurdly sugary, double frosted cup cakes from a local pastry chef.