Snacking State-by-State: District of Columbia II - Wot's the Buzz? Tell me what's Axum-in'

Beyond US Senate Bean Soup, it's difficult to identify DC's cuisine. Is it Chesapeake cuisine? The Potomac does branch off the Chesapeake after all. Is it Southern? Is it Northern? Or is it not even American?

Snacking State-by-State: District of Columbia

Official Name: District of Columbia
Is it a State? Nope - it's a Federal District
District Nicknames: DC, the District
Formation: September 9, 1781 (as the Territory of Columbia). Officially became the District of Columbia on February 27, 1801, carved out of the original Washington County, Maryland; Georgetown, Maryland; and Alexandria County & City, Virginia - the last of which have since retroceded back to Virginia)
Important City: Only one, really: Washington
Region: Mid-Atlantic, South, Northeast; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Chestnut, Crabcake
Bordered by: Maryland (northeast, southeast, northwest), Virginia & the Potomac River (southwest)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: none - not even "American food" or "apple pie"
Some Famous & Typical Foods: also none really - except US Senate Bean Soup; is very easy to find just about any food in DC, from every region of the country and most countries around the world.

On a recent episode of the Kojo Nnamdi Show on Washington's NPR station WAMU, a few guests tried to define the cultural flavor - and along with that, the culinary flavor - of the District. Here Kojo discusses the DC ethnic eats scene with guest Tim Carman, food critic for the Washington Post:

[NNAMDI] And this we got from Lisa in Takoma Park. "One thing that I'm not sure makes D.C. better or worse, just different from other older cities on the East Coast, a lot of our ethnic neighborhoods are most vibrant in the suburbs. It's no secret among foodies, for sure. If you wanna eat great Chinese food, you go to the suburbs in Montgomery County. If you wanna eat Salvadorian food, you can come to my neighborhood, in Takoma Park. In other cities, you can find these ethnic pockets in the inner core of the city." That is an important distinction and, in a way, refutes what our early e-mailer has been saying because people do go in pursuit of those foods all over the region, do they not, Tim Carman?

[CARMAN] We have a really strong ethnic food culture, and that -- I think that's almost points out like this classist approach to what people think of as good eating. You know, when people judge a city's restaurant scene, they typically, I think, look at the more sophisticated places. You know, is it a white table cloth service? Do they have a four-star chef? Whereas if you take the larger picture, I think D.C., from really different cultural perspectives, has some really fine cuisine, whether it's Chinese or Salvadoran or Ethiopian, Vietnamese, of course. I mean all of this. [Kojo Nnamdi Show, January 3, 2011]

That's one thing I love about the DC region, as does Tyler Cowen and his Ethnic Dining blog (By the way: are you wondering what's the difference between the suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, ethnic food wise? Wonder no more). Washington and the DC suburbs have many ethnic cuisines, and they are just as important a part of the local flavor as any all-American dish. It's what makes the tandoori chickens, pad thais and doro wots of the region "American" - just like the burritos, stromboli and egg rolls that preceded them.

To represent the international diversity of DC's dining scene, I chose a few recipes: a main course and a few sides. The sides come from Korea and El Salvador, two well-represented communities in the area. But first and foremost I swerved towards Ethiopian. Whenever I visit Adams Morgan in DC, it is very difficult for me not to visit one of the several Ethiopian restaurants. And there are many to choose from: DC has the largest Ethiopian community in the world, outside of Africa. To truly represent DC, I found a recipe for the best known (to Americans) Ethiopian dish of all: doro wot. Reprinted in the Washington Post, this recipe comes from Senedu Zewdie, former owner of the now-closed Sodere Restaurant. This is her mother's recipe, and I can only hope I do it justice.

Recipes: Doro Wot (with GamJa Salad and Curtido)

Recipe: Doro Wot (Ethiopian Chicken Stew)

I cut Zewdie's recipe in half, to make it more manageable and less expensive. I am not going to feed an army of twelve here. I also admit that, since this post lands during the Lenten season, it would be more appropriate to make a vegetarian recipe - a lentil dish, for example. But I wanted doro wot, and I actually made the chicken several weeks before this was published. By now I'm probably getting Georgia or Hawaii into the pipeline.

Anyway, this recipe gave me a good opportunity to use up some of the Ethiopian ingredients and supplies that I still had left over from last year's bacon cook-off. If you don't know, this was where I tried (successfully, I think) to cook bacon in an Ethiopian style wot. That may not sound strange to Americans, but bacon is not something you will find easily in Ethiopia: neither Muslims nor Jews nor Ethiopian Orthodox Christians are allowed to eat pork at all.


For this much more traditional doro wot I used the following ingredients

* 5 - 6 onions (about $1.49/lb - about 2 lbs)
* 1/2 small can of tomato paste (about 70 cents)
* 1 cup of nitter kibbeh (Ethiopian spiced butter - I still had some from my recipe in June, and yes, this spiced ghee lasts for a very long time on your shelf. But I needed to make more. Two sticks of butter and the requisite spices, plus some cheesecloth were all I needed to get to a cup. Check out my bacon wot recipe for what I did to make nitter kibbeh in the microwave)
* 3/4 cup berbere (had more than enough left over, but you'll need to make your own or visit one of DC's many Ethiopian markets to buy a tub for about $5-$6)
* 1 clove garlic
* 1 teaspoon ginger (I had none ground, only fresh, and yes this changes the recipe a little bit).
* 3 pieces each chicken thighs and chicken legs, bone-in but skin removed (about $6 to $8 total)
* ground cardamom and black pepper (had it)
* sweet white wine (had it)
* six hard boiled eggs (there go the rest of my eggs - yes, I had enough in the fridge)

Doro wot takes a while to prepare. You need at least 4 1/2 hours to do it, and you have to check in on it constantly. My advice: find things you were planning to do around the house while you make this, unless you find some way to adapt it to the slow cooker.


First, saute over low heat the sliced onions, in nothing but 1/4 cup of water. Yes, just water. You'll need to check in on it frequently because you will be doing this for about 90 minutes (it took me 75).


Next, add the tomato paste for a few minutes, and then the nitter kibbeh, berbere, ginger and garlic for yet another 60 minutes.

Nitter kibbeh, (mostly) freshly made

While that's cooking, you need to poach the chicken. Cook it in boiling water for about 15 minutes.

Like so

When the onions have been cooking for an hour, add the chicken - I also added just a little bit of water, not from the pot the chicken was just in. Cook this for yet another hour. I covered it to avoid splatter.


In the last 30 minutes of cooking, add 3 1/4 cups of water and simmer for 15 minutes, then add everything else - cardamon, pepper and eggs - for 15 final minutes.


Serve the whole thing on injera bread.

This doro wot is very much the opposite of the US Senate Bean Soup. It's thick not soupy, it's richly colored not pale, and it's exciting not bland. It's also somewhat spicy, so be prepared for that. Except for some bits of cardamom that I did not grind up well enough, this was a wonderful thing for me to eat, my first actual Ethiopian stew that could actually be eaten by someone from Ethiopia.


The sides I made are very much not Ethiopian, and probably never before have been served on injera bread. But they further reflect the cultural diversity of the DC region. And they work well in cutting the heat of the doro wot.

Recipe: Korean GamJa (Potato) Salad

I first tried a somewhat similar mashed potato dish at Joong Kak with my friends the last time or two we had Korean BBQ. It was one of the many panchan side dishes served before and during the meat. I thought this potato salad version would be a good idea to make my own. However, I made the mistake of doing the entire recipe, leaving me with more potato salad than I will ever want or be able to eat.

I don't even need to explain this recipe. Just watch this video by YouTube user tamar1973, née Tammy Quackenbush. I followed what she did.

As for my ingredients, I bought a 3 lb bag of potatoes ($3 on sale), thinking I would have some left over. These were only medium potatoes, but after about 8 or 9 of them I found the bag almost empty. Also going in were the aforementioned Gala apple (70 cents), a Korean pear ($3 at H Mart), two stalks of celery (expensive these days at $2.75), salt and white pepper.


After cooking the cubed potatoes for 10 minutes, cool them off in the fridge and add the chopped fruits & vegetables to it, and then add the dressing.


You should use Kewpie mayonnaise (500 grams sells at H Mart for $5!!!), as well as sugar (I went with Tammy's brown sugar), more salt and white pepper, and sesame seeds.


Mix it all up and there you go! A most unusual side dish for your doro wot.


To finish off the presentation I went with a unique and favorite cole slaw, again not a usual one for Americans, since this Salvadoran cole slaw has no mayo in it at all.

Recipe: Curtido (Salvadoran Cole Slaw)

This recipe I halved. I used this one from Epicurious.com to make my curtido.


You will need 1/2 a small head of cabbage (about a dollar tops), 1/2 a large carrot (had one already), 1/8 cup minced onion (I used 1/2 a small onion) and 1/4 cup cider vinegar (had it). Just thinly shred the cabbage and carrot, slice and chop the onion, and mix everything together. Let it sit for at least two hours. Ready to eat with any pupusa or arepa.


The very diverse sides really did complement the doro wot in different ways. The potato salad was sweeter than your average one, and the curtido was not sweet at all. Each added a beautiful variety of flavors to the plate that I will look forward to over the next week as I work through all my leftovers. I just need more injera bread (if you run out of that, make some couscous).


Now I finally head down 95 - or US-1. They both lead to the same place: the Gulf, the Keys and everything in between. From boiled peanuts and Gulf shrimp to pan cubano and Key Lime pie: it's the Sunshine State, Florida.

Sources:

Cowen, Tyler. "How do Maryland and Virginia differ?" Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide, February 7, 2011.

Hensperger, Beth, and Julie Kaufmann. Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. Harvard Common Press: Boston, 2005.

Kojo Nnamdi Show, The. "The D.C. Area's Unique (?) Cultural Identity". WAMU 88.5 American University Radio, originally aired January 3, 2011.

Martínez, Rubén. "Salvadoran Coleslaw". Gourmet (reprinted through Epicurious.com's "Gourmet on Epi"), September 2007.

Nelson, Ben. "Senate Bean Soup: A Nebraska Favorite". Official website for Ben Nelson, US Senator for Nebraska, January 3, 2006.

Quackenbush, Tammy (Tamar1973). "Korean potato salad". Posted on YouTube, May 3, 2009.

Zewdie, Senedu, with Stephanie Sedgwick. "Doro Wat". Washington Post, May 18, 2005.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "District of Columbia" page and other pages. Regrettably, the Food Timeline State Foods webpage has little to say about the District. Sigh. Still no representation.

A few random bites: February Edition

Just a few things I've missed saying...

1) In doing research for my next "Back to the Beltway" post (coming up at some point in the next few weeks, just with the gas prices and expense and all), I was surprised, shocked and dismayed at all the eateries in Linthicum that have seemingly shut down. One hot dog place, Duncan's Famous, hasn't been there for a while. Granted, they once gave me the creamiest hot dog that I have had in ages, not since the Soda Pop Shop near Baltimore Highlands, late 80's.

2) Lunch on Friday was at the House of India in Columbia. I had to get in and out, which I did with ease. It was quite good: some of the least bony chunks of goat I have eaten in a while. plus tasty and toothsome ras malai and various chicken, chickpea and rice dishes. One dish I was not so hot on was the dhabha chicken, which tasted and had a texture like warmed over day-old Chinese takeout, and I don't mean from a good place. And yet there it is smack dab in the middle, piled up as if to say "Taaaaaake meeeeeee. You KNOW you waaaaaant meeeeee." Next time I go back I'll just get everything else. Though at $12 for the weekday buffet, it is a wee pricier than some other buffets that are just as good. I guess you're paying for the "Columbia" experience.

3) The latest beer tasting I did at the Wine Source was of R.J. Rockers out of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Most of their beers were lovely though I was particularly captivated by their winter seasonal, The First Snow Ale. Billed as a "malt beverage brewed with honey and spices", the beer's nicest quality is its gingery punch. I rarely leave with a whole six pack ($9) but I did this time.

4) A gas station in Glen Burnie sells Pepsi from Mexico, made with actual cane sugar. Not as sweet as the HFCS stuff.

5) Along those lines, I have been quite good at drinking less soda. I've been averaging 1.5 cans a day - down from about 3. Let's see how much more I can cut back.

6) Try and figure out why I spent the past week making doro wot (Ethiopian chicken stew), GamJa salad (Korean potato salad) and curtido (Salvadoran cole slaw) - and ate it all at once. Go on.

Bacon Cook-Off: Bacon & Pancetta Wot

Well, the Great Grapes Bacon Cook-Off is history, and it was a lot of fun! Kit Pollard, Kathy Patterson and I all flexed our bacon muscles for a crowd of dozens of hungry wine lovers, as well as three celebrity judges: WJZ's Bernadette Woods and Jessica Kartalija, and Hugh Sisson of Heavy Seas Beer and WYPR's Cellar Notes. I also got to serve my cook-off entry to my fellow competitors, Dara Bunjon, emcee Greg Nivens and a whole bunch of spectators.

My entry came in second place, which is fine. I went to enjoy myself (which I did)! And the judges said that there was really just a point or two of difference separating all three dishes: Kit's three BLT's and a bacon-infused Bloody Mary (ahem, Kit, I never got to try the Bloody Mary); Kathy's bacon banh mi, and my own Ethiopian-inspired bacon and pancetta wot with tomato and bacon salad. What inspired me to do something Ethiopian-style? Well, with substantial Muslim, Jewish and Ethiopian Orthodox Christian populations, Ethiopia does not feature a whole lot of bacon - or really any pork - in its cuisine. Nevertheless, I was curious to see how well bacon meshed with Ethiopian food. I was pleased with the result, as everyone seemed to be!

You can find the other recipes on Kit & Kathy's websites. Mine is below. Again, thanks to Dara and Greg, and to the audience, judges and of course, Kit & Kathy.

Bacon and Pancetta Wot with Tomato-Bacon Salad

Ingredients: Bacon and Pancetta Wot - Note: Niter Kibbeh (Ethiopian spiced butter), Berbere (traditional Ethiopian spice mix which heavily features hot pepper) and Injera Bread (a large, spongy and sour-tangy pancake made from teff flour that you use instead of utensils to pick up your food) can all be found in Ethiopian markets, the closest of which are in the DC area. I made my own Niter Kibbeh but bought my Berbere and Injera Bread from Woder Ethiopian Carry-Out and Market in Silver Spring. There are markets throughout the DC area, many of which are in Silver Spring, Alexandria, Falls Church and various parts of DC. That said, many sources suggest making your own Berbere (which I did not do) and Niter Kibbeh (which I did. Recipe follows the Wot and Salad recipes). It is far more difficult to make your own Injera Bread, so it is best to find a market to buy it from. There are recipes online, but the bread won't exactly be the same.

1/8 cup Niter Kibbeh (Ethiopian spiced butter) or ghee
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
4 slices ginger, cut into pieces and skin removed
3 tablespoons Berbere Spice Mix
3 tomatoes (preferably Romas), diced
6 slices bacon (I used uncured and thick-cut, but feel free to experiment with others, such as applewood smoked bacon or even maple flavored), cut into 1" pieces
4-5 slices pancetta, cut into 1" pieces
1/4 lb ground pork
salt and pepper to taste
Injera Bread

Put Niter Kibbeh in heated pan over medium heat and add the onion, garlic and ginger. Stir fry for about 2 minutes, and then add the Berbere and tomatoes. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the bacon, pancetta and ground pork (I chopped the bacon and pancetta after I put in the tomatoes, but you won't be working with a time limit so pre-prep to your heart's content) and continue to cook for about 15 minutes. Serve with Tomato-Bacon Salad on Injera Bread. Serves 4 to 6.

Ingredients: Tomato-Bacon Salad - Note: I made less of this for the competition than I liked, so here's a version that will serve 4 to 6 people.

1 tablespoon Berbere
1 tablespoon Niter Kibbeh or ghee
2 -3 slices bacon
4 tomatoes (preferably Romas), diced
1/4 medium yellow onion, or 2 green onions (green and white parts included), chopped
3-4 slices ginger, chopped and skins removed
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
3-4 chilies (preferably Thai, Serrano or jalapeño), chopped and (unless you're like me and you like the heat) seeded and de-veined
1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Fry bacon sprinkled with Berbere in Niter Kibbeh until crispy enough to crumble, and set aside to drain. Mix all other ingredients together and let sit for a few minutes. Crumble the bacon into the salad. Serve on Injera Bread.

Again, it is probably easier to make your own Niter Kibbeh and Berbere. When I did a test run of the recipe, I made a Berbere spice mix of my own based off of one I found online. I did not use that one during the cook-off, but I think I liked the one I made better. As for the Niter Kibbeh, I made my own based on ingredients from various recipes I found online. Using Julie Sahni's tried and true microwave ghee recipe, I made my own microwave Niter Kibbeh

Ingredients: Microwave Niter Kibbeh - Note: you will also need cheesecloth or a fine strainer for this recipe.

1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter
4 slices ginger
1/2 tablespoon cloves
1 teaspoon of each of the following:
turmeric, ground
basil, dried
cardamom seeds
cinnamon, ground
methi seeds (aka fenugreek, easily found in any Indian or Pakistani market)

Melt butter in large uncovered microwave safe dish for 1 minute, and add the other ingredients. Cover the dish and microwave for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the wattage of your microwave. Watch it carefully to make sure it doesn't overflow, or you will be cleaning melted butter out of the bottom of your microwave. Strain into a dish, making sure all solids are removed. May be stored at room temperature.

Day at the Smithsonian / Meskerem (or, "Hey, where did all the Ethiopian restaurants go?")

My friend Gil came into town from California for a few days to visit his sister in Northern Virginia. Actually, most of his family came into town to do that. Since I was so close, we decided to meet up in DC for the day on Monday. Surprise, surprise! Gil's parents and brother came along. It was fine; they're a nice family. But it was comical to ask on the way home why they were almost an hour late meeting me at the West Falls Church Metro. Typical family stuff, the same ones that would inevitably make my family take forever to get there, too.

We first visited the Natural History Museum, and Gil's family wanted to see the gems and minerals first and foremost. This area has never really interested me as much as the more biological and anthropological exhibits. But with so much attention being paid to all the jewelry and minerals, particularly the Hope Diamond, I found them much more interesting than I ever did. I did, however, run down to take photos of the blue whale, which is finally back on display in the brand new ocean life hall, after being down for years. The giant squid is there, too.

Afterwards, we took a detour to the American History Museum, newly opened after years of being closed for remodeling. As with the first museum, we entered on the Constitution Avenue side - a must, since the lines are infinitely longer and slower through the Mall-side entrance. After the very inspiring Star-Spangled Banner, followed by Gil's family leaving (his father was tired), the two of us who remained spent some quality time in Julia Child's kitchen. The Bon Appétit! exhibit was one of the unchanged exhibits in the museum (First Ladies? Probably changed, but the line was even longer than the one for the Star-Spangled Banner, so we didn't bother with it). Among the highlights:

• the many simple tools needed to make classic French bread (quarry tiles? razor blade?)
• a looping cooking video showing Julia cooking with other chefs, including one chef who made a raw salad of olive-oil-drizzled thinly-sliced fennel, mushrooms and Parmesan (mmmm) , and a New England chef who just whipped out two unsuspecting lobsters and cut them in half before our very eyes - without flinching! (Well, the people in the TV didn't flinch anyway.)
  
• and my hitting my head on the Plexiglas in front of Julia's kitchen door.

Afterwards, we hit Adams Morgan, passing by some promising gay clubs in search of Ethiopian food. Gil was looking for a long-remembered favorite restaurant, but as we finally got into Adams Morgan, we couldn't find the restaurant. In fact, most of the Ethiopian restaurants we had remembered weren't there. There seem to be two on 18th Street near Florida Ave now: Awash, which looked like it had a primarily Ethiopian clientele, and Meskerem, a favorite of mine that has a very diverse clientele, though mainly non-Ethiopian from what I could see. We figured on going to Awash at some point in the future, but to Meskerem that night.

We got seated pretty fast at one of their many mesob basket tables. We settled on Harar Beer (about $5 each), which was light and thirst-quenching after a long day of walking all over downtown DC.

Oops! Forgot to turn off the flash.

With that we got an order of ground beef sambussas (about $4), which we knew were very much like Ethiopian samosas. These things were packed with ground beef, no skimping.

Flash back off. Yeah, this is the type of photo I get.

The main course was a two-person sampler platter of lamb, beef and chicken wots with various lentil and vegetable dishes. Words cannot describe how good everything was. We needed extra injera bread because there was so much food to eat.

Wot a Combo!

Among the highlights on a near-perfect platter:

• red lentils that tasted strongly of cinnamon
• pieces of chicken legs with meat on the bone, that we just had to give up and pick up and eat. But since it is custom to pick up everything with your injera, I held my chicken leg in a small piece of injera. This chicken wasn't dry or greasy at all, the way much chicken tastes I'm afraid.
• The lamb chunks were as good as the stew they were cooked in.
• There were big chunks of carrot that were soft as sweet potatoes, mixed in with some very flavorful pieces of potato.

All together, the price for the platter and the two beers came to about $43. I figured they must have charged us for the extra injera and perhaps the bottle of water that the waitress poured without prompting. After tax the price came to about $48. It didn't hit me at first, but Gil got out $45 and handed it over to pay the tab. "Well at least get the tip!" he said. (BTW: Thanks, Gil!) I whipped out a ten and we left, very full.

After dinner we had a nice long walk back to the Dupont Circle Metro stop, to work off all that Ethiopian food. It was a nice end to an exhausting yet enjoyable trip to Washington.

Other photos -

Souvenir Inaugural Metro Day Pass. I wonder who the guy in the photo is? Is he famous or something?

Ever wondered what a crystal of salt looks like really, really big? This is magnified 1.5 billion times

The line for the Star Spangled Banner exhibit (every Bawlamoron should know what that is). The line for the First Ladies' exhibit wasn't as long, but moved much more slowly.

Julia's kitchen wasn't the only one on display. This was a 1940's kitchen from a house transplanted to the American History Museum from Ipswich, Massachusetts.

This wasn't a joke. The inauguration is big business in DC these days. Taken on 14th Street, near Logan Circle.

More Farmers' Market Stuff

Over the last week and a half I visited three different farmers' markets: Towson's on Thursday morning and afternoon, Waverly's on Saturday morning (I just got back from there in fact), and the I-83 one on Sunday mornings. Each one has its own unique personality, with a little overlap - there are always the "farmers' market junkies" who go hopping around from farmers' market to... er, um. Damn, I guess I'm one of those "farmers' market junkies".

Apart from that, Towson's seems to be the farmers' market for the leisurely crowd, the Roland Park- and Mount Washington- types, who may have the money to buy a few nice extra vegetables, chutneys and nuts. The Waverly market is a more plebeian one, with a hodgepodge of different working, middle, upper-middle and "granola" class folks all co-mingling together on a super small and compact scale. The I-83 market is just a big mishmash of everyone and everything, a nice cross-section of the city at a massive farmers' market for the 19th largest city in the US.

Towson:

I went last week on a whim - and some asshole snapped a photo of my license plate, I am certain of it. I circled round again and he was about to do it again, but I slowed down and glared at him. He seemed a little taken aback wen he saw it was the same car. I wanted to ask him why he did that - did he have some nefarious plan or something? So I parked in the Towsontown garage next to Trader Joe's (you can do that, y'know) and went over to ask, but he was safely nestled in a conversation. It looked like he was a press photographer anyway, since I saw him snapping photos of the merchants later. I let it go, but not before I bought a freshly grilled hamburger from the folks at Kabob Hut, who regularly set up a grill in front of their place on Market Day. A hamburger - which you will probably get medium rare - is $4. It's patted by hand and is juicier and more flavorful than most hamburgers I have eaten anywhere at all. Hot dogs are $2. I didn't see any produce that I needed, but almost bought some strawberries for $5 a pint. I'm usually a little disappointed with the selection at Towson's market, though I love that it's located so close to many great businesses, including Towsontown Center and many restaurants right along the same street. I've eaten at the Kathmandu Kitchen several times, and it's often due to the Towson Farmers' Market.

I-83:

The next one I went to was last week's I-83 Farmers' Market. I got there pretty late, as much of the good stuff was taken (no spinach). Mostly I went shopping for my sister, who has her own little handful at home in Lansdowne. She wanted spinach for salad, and fixins for a salsa. She gave me $20 and a loooooong list of veggies to get. I found about half of what she asked for, and paid more than I wanted to for the rest. She wanted avocados and three different bell peppers and some jalapeños, of which I found none. Also no spinach, though I did find a mesclun and baby spinach mix for $6 for a pound. Also found ten shallots for $4, garlic at 50¢ a head, and cilantro (bunched) and basil (live) for $1 each. I bought myself some garlic scapes - 3 for $1 - and a $1 bunch of oregano. And I was amazed to find something I hadn't enjoyed since I went to the Market Nights a few years ago on Thursday nights in Redlands, CA: cinnamon-y mini-donuts with powdered sugar (one minibag for $4). I put on my own cinnamon and powdered sugar but I love them just the same.

Waverly:

Hoo-wee! I hit the jackpot here. There were some nice little prepared foods here, though I think I-83's is better for the sheer size of the selection. I just got back with a bag of green tomatoes - from the Eastern Shore - for $3.75, a big-ass bunch of basil for $2 (which makes the piddly live plant I got for Cathy look like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree), a nice large bunch of cilantro for $1, and two, no, three ears of bicolor corn for $1.

It's fun to see what turns up at Waverly's market. There was a group of people selling furniture out of a U-Haul van today, and it wasn't crap either but nice, older, sturdy wooden furniture. It was all lined up along the entry walkway so I walked around it. I don't need any furniture. As with every farmers' market, there is also more than produce at Waverly's, too. And I know that these same merchants pop up at most of them, but they're just so much more accessible here for some reason. I can't explain it. The purveyors of flowers, meat, cheese, bread, potted herbs, desserts are all out there for you - it's cozier.

The prepared food is nice, as I have stated before. Today's selections included a gluten-free vegan spelt brownie with dates and (yuck) nuts ($2). The nuts were only on top. Usually I can't stand or tolerate nuts on my brownies but this one really made an exception. This brownie just tasted richer and more chocolaty than most brownies. It was also a little oilier. I also got a small container of yemisir wot (spicy lentil stew) from the Ethiopian Delites kiosk ($3). They also make a take-out meal for $5, including a little of everything they sell (also all-vegetarian). I finally inquired about where to find injera bread in Baltimore. The solution: call Dukem ahead of time and buy it from them. Easy enough!

I cuaght the location of the South Asian market nearby as I was leaving so I parked again and went into Punjab Halal Meat & Groceries (the City Paper's Best Ethnic Grocer of 2006, and Best Indian Grocer of 2007) for some asafoetida powder for $2.75 and a samosa for 85¢. Love their selection, especially all the frozen fishes.

So from this past week's farmers' market hopping I have learned the following things:

• The I-83 market is like the Arundel Mills of farmers' markets
• The Towson Market has some gems, and is centrally located around Towson's businesses, though can be lacking in its selections.
• The Waverly Market seems to have the best selection of produce in a small area, and is - again - cozy.
  

City of Angels, City of Lunch

I sit in the United Terminal of LAX feeling as if I am about to pop. In my quest to see what I could of Los Angeles before I fly away from it for who knows how long, I overate. It all started back in Redlands when I met Jim and Gil for lunch at Hello Sushi (I picture Hello Kitty behind a sushi bar every time I think of it). The place has some good tempura and rolls. One roll that stood out big time was their albacore garlic roll. I've never had garlic in a roll, and I wish I would see more of it. Also good was my combo lunch of tempura and Japanese-style broiled mackerel.

After a long drive and a little sightseeing in LA, I headed through West Hollywood (WeHo) to locate a quick bite. My plan was to get a snack, do some more sightseeing, and then get some dinner before my flight. First stop: Pink's Hot Dogs, an LA/WeHo/Hollywood institution for 69 years now. Currently up for one of the eight things that are best about Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles Magazine, Pink's has satisfied everyone from folks who just step off the bus to television and movie stars and producers down the street at the Paramount Pictures lot. The many autographed photos on the walls betray the hot dog lovin' proclivities of everyone from Simon Cowell to Ellen DeGeneres, Celine Dion to Richard Simmons* to, well, Pink. They even have hot dogs named after celebrities, including Rosie O'Donnell, Martha Stewart and the incoming director of the LA Philharmonic. His hot dog sounds like a freaking mess. It's like they threw everything onto it. They have dozens of different varieties which will take too long to describe. Just check their website to see them all. They also serve burgers, but who the hell is going to order a burger at this place?

You wait in a very long line to order, but it is sooooooo worth it. After fifteen minutes smelling hot dogs in the beautiful weather (It clears up just as I'm leaving. That figures.) I go ahead and order a New York Dog – their 10” dog smothered in red onion relish – and a side of onion rings, with a Diet Coke (they also offer everything from Orange Crush to Yoo-Hoo). The total cost: $7.25. And it was a well-spent $7.25. The hot dog pops with every bite, and has the best flavor of any dog I've had in a long time. The onion relish is alright, but my mind is still on the hot dog. The onion rings were crisp – not at all soggy – and only a bit greasy. Plus, they weren't too big to not fit into the little Styrofoam tub of ketchup I got before I sat down.

The hot dog feast, in the golden Southern California sun!

I parked a little further up and walked the rest of the way into WeHo, stopping at the popular LGBT news and book store A Different Light. No, it's not that kind of “bookstore”. I headed back to my car with a copy of Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, featuring a pre-Will and Grace Sean Hayes, stopping en route at the little bakery Cake and Art. I had never seen this place, but it obviously does fancy cakes. It also sells a small but fancy assortment of cupcakes. I bought their black and white cupcake for $2.75 and saved it for the flight. I still haven't eaten it as of this writing.**

Behold: the black and white cupcake

Last stop before I hit LAX was one of my favorite LA restaurants. Nyala is on Fairfax Avenue, the heart of Little Ethiopia, and years ago when I lived in Redlands I occasionally would drive 75 miles just to eat there. Granted, there wasn't any Ethiopian food in the Inland Empire so I kinda had to drive that far to get some. Nyala is decorated in paintings of scenes from daily Ethiopian life, with mesob baskets sitting in various places around the earth tone dining room. It was around 6:30 when I got there, and I was the only one there at the time, so the service was pretty fast. I started off with a Hakim Stout beer ($4), made in Harar, Ethiopia. It's hard to describe – a little rich, not very chocolaty, and somewhat mellow. It was the perfect accompaniment to my yebeg wot (somewhat spicy lamb chunks "marinated in red wine and sautéed in seasoned butter, fresh onion, garlic and ginger", $10). It was a little gristly in places but still good, in a complex spicy, buttery red sauce. It came out flanked by a lentil stew and a green salad in a nice dressing, all on an oval plate, sitting on top of the only oval piece of injera bread I have ever seen. And this was after the customary appetizer, a hummus-like dip surrounded by super-skinny pita wedges. The best way I could describe it is a cross between hummus and tahini, mixed with pepper, cayenne and olive oil. I had to force myself not to eat the whole thing.

First, the beer...

...then the tahini-like dip...

...and at last, the yebeg wot. Mmmm, wot.

And so that is why I am sitting on the floor of the United Terminal (you find a closer place to sit next to a working electrical outlet), feeling like I can hardly move. And with about an hour until I board. I hope I can just get some sleep once I'm in the air.

* Am I alone in thinking it odd that Richard Simmons of all people is eating hot dogs? It's not a low-cal sort of place.

** I eventually ate the cupcake, of course. It was rich and fudgy.

Other photos:

Oh my! Now for the president with pink hair.

Until the sun goes down over Santa Monica Boulevard.

The electronic billboard in the back had a changing ad for the new Get Smart flick. I was paying more attention to the dozens of dining options.

WeHo: LGBT mecca of Southern California. Outside of Palm Springs at least.

And lastly: no, I didn't stop in. But I'm sure it would've been a gas, no?

Blogger Dinner at Dukem - Wait, I MISSED It!

Several bloggers, including Marginal Foodie - heck it was organized by her - trucked off to Dukem last night for a food blogger dinner. Unfortunately I had a class last night, so I could not go. But as bloggers start talking about it, I will link to their reviews. I hope y'all took my advice and ordered the honey wine!

So Dukem looks good for dinner this weekend...

It's Melkam Yelidet Beaal (New Year) in Ethiopia! They're still on the Julian calendar (not on our souped-up, more glamorous Gregorian one), so today they hit the big 2-0-0-0! How do you say "Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999" in Amharic?

ראש השנה

Of course we can't forget: Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year! It's now the big 5-7-6-8, too.

Impromptu Road Trip to New York: 1 of 2

I took a very impromptu trip back to NYC yesterday, once I found out that Company, that excellent musical I saw last month, is closing this Sunday. It’s a shame, really, but it’s for the best. You don’t want the show to get stale.

Just some quick notes on what I did and where I ate (everything else stays in New York). Photos to follow. NB: I got many of these recommendations from another Frommer’s book, Pauline Frommer’s New York City Guide.

Street Food – from hot dogs to halal

After the train station I decided to save some money and just eat food along the way to the hotel – the Gershwin on 27th Street, between 5th and Madison (next to the ubiquitous Museum of Sex). At this funky hotel I had booked a bed in a 10-bed hostel room for just $41! (Even better, they upgraded me to a 6-bunk room for the same price). Thought I’d hate it, but I didn’t.
My first stop: the ever famous Sabrett’s. Someone told me a while ago that this is New York’s finest hot dog. I may have been confused. This was the most flavorless hot dog I have ever eaten, and I have eaten many hot dogs in my life. I don’t know if it’s because all the flavor was boiled out of it. I have had better luck with an Esskay frank boiled for 5 – 10 minutes. But the thing was inedible. Maybe if I see one grilled or fried, I’ll try it. But not boiled.

I had even worse luck with a knish that was encased in a rock-solid outer shell. Kind of like that chicken I had at Higgin’s in OC. But I fared quite well, however, at one of many halal food stands further along. I got a falafel sandwich on pita. It was messy, and the falafel was not crisp. But it was very tasty. Maybe that’s where all the flavor from the hot dog went – but wait, then it wouldn’t be halal, would it?

Meskerem

Next I hit the specialty sales by the Empire State Building. Bought a nice shirt to use that night at Prato’s. Then it was a quick jaunt back to the hotel to dress, and off I went for dinner.
Meskerem is not related to DC’s Ethiopian-American institution. This was where I ate before I hit Company. For $15.95, I got a small lentil sambusa (like a samosa, but of Somali/Ethiopian origin) with this great sauce - berbere sauce perhaps? – and a plate of lega tibs, or lamb chunks in mild Ethiopian spices, and a Diet Coke. Beer is on the menu, but don’t bother because they don’t have any – it’s BYOB!

After Meskerem I hit Barrage, a festive little gay bar on the way back to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, for a pint of, um, something. It wasn’t memorable. Even more memorable than that was the Heineken I had at another gay bar, the New York Eagle, after the show. Very few people there on a Tuesday night.

Dining Suggestions - from a POLITICAL Blog!?

I rarely inject politics into this blog - it's just not what I want to talk about on here. And I'm not doing it now, either. But I was scanning the Matthew Yglesias blog at the Atlantic Magazine website. The guy made a food recommendation of all things: Zenebech Injera in DC:

I wouldn't quite give it the unqualified endorsement ("This restaurant with two tables is now the best Ethiopian place in Washington") that Tyler does, but the Doro Wat is unquestionably the best I've had in town. I like the titanic tibs at Madjet more than the lamb tibs I had at Zenebech. The place is definitely worth checking out if you like Ethiopian food and don't mind a total lack of ambiance.

This information he got from Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide. I like Tyler's motto: All food is ethnic food. Cowen also recommends a nearby Thai restaurant.

Dukem #2

Dukem Ethiopian Restaurant is a good date place. I say that because of the way Ethiopian food is traditionally served. You eat large dollops of different Ethiopian dishes served on injera, a very large, spongy pancake-like bread. The injera is not only what you serve the food on, but is also what you use as your utensil. You rip off a piece of injera (usually off of a separate, folded piece of injera they bring with your food), and pinch it between your fingers, using it to pick up a piece of food. Etiquette demands that you are not sloppy with it, though most Americans are incapable of being sloppy, perhaps to the amusement of most Ethiopian retaurant managers (oh, don't ask for silverware; you'll just look silly).

This way of eating is good for a date, mind you, because the traditional way to serve injera to a group of people is to serve all the people on one plate - difficult if there are, say, ten in your party, but ridiculously easy if there are two.

It is Dukem where I recently went on a date (my first in a while - I don't have the time to date anymore). I met my date at the restaurant. Now, he had phoned in reservations (which is probably de rigeur at the original Dukem in Washington, DC, which is probably much bigger than Charm City's small, two-story restaurant next to the Meyerhoff). But he found when he got there that reservations were not needed - the place wasn't terribly busy. It was early, after all.

So my friend and I were given the option of ordering something to drink. The waitress suggested beer or a traditional Ethiopian honey wine, the national drink. I've said before, I don't enjoy wine, and honey wine of all things makes me wince - it's an acquired taste, I suppose. So I went for the beer - Harar Lager. My date, who does prefer wine, ordered the beer, too. It was quite smooth; I could see myself drinking it again!

We avoided appetizers and ordered our meal. We opted for one plate to share from. It seems that, just as most Indian-American restaurants feature lunch buffets, so most Ethiopian-American restaurants feature combo meals - and come on, it's pretty easy to serve six or eight dishes in the Ethiopian style on a large injera bread. Dukem has several combos. Normally, I'd be eating alone - don't feel bad for me; I prefer that - and so would order a smaller combo. But as I was eating with someone this evening, we opted for one of the larger combos. We got Dukem's combo #25, and everything was great. A little info on this combo: it comes with three meat and five veggie dishes. I got the lamb tibs, cubed lamb pieces in a spicy seasoning. It was a little chewy but so flavorful, with little pieces of jalapeños and onions. He got the milder minchet abesh, ground beef cooked in garlic and ginger - yum! In the center was a large beef wot (or wat, a traditional Ethiopian stew), which was also very good. And of course the vegetarian dishes surrounding it were also delicious. My favorite among favorites was the cabbage with sweet potato and carrot - I just really liked the flavor. Also on the plate were some good stewed collard greens, a raw tomato salad and two lentil dishes. It was all too good, another reason why I love Ethiopian food as much as I do.

Afterwards, we passed on dessert and the traditional coffee ceremony. For two people, it was a pretty good $43 before tip. And from there... well, that's none of your business!