Posted by Jon Renaut
Sun, 27 May 2007 14:39:00 GMT
As many of you may have, I saw Ani's Raw Food Kitchen on BoingBoing the other day. Yesterday morning, we tried her recipe for a Spanish Breakfast Scramble.
I've never really tried raw vegan cooking. I mean, I'm certainly not going to start eating vegan exclusively, but that doesn't mean I can't learn anything from the diet.
Now, before I go any further, let me just make it clear that the wife cooked all this, not me. I just found the website. Well, BoingBoing found the website. Anyway.
So, we tried it yesterday, and it was quite good. "It was better than I thought it was going to be," says the wife. I concur.
The fact that you have to watch the video on her website to learn how to prepare the meal is a pretty annoying way of encouraging you to buy her book, but I suppose I understand. As a result of this, I've done some quick Googling for other raw vegan recipes. Much of what I've found is buried in self-righteous crap - "Oh, you aren't a raw vegan? You probably kick puppies too." But I'll keep looking.
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Posted by Jon Renaut
Thu, 10 May 2007 00:58:00 GMT
I don't like to throw away food. I mean, who does? But sometimes you're left with some kind of random stuff in the fridge, and you don't feel like going to the store, but you really would like some dinner. What do you do?
Well, if you're me, today, you order pizza.
Actually, I'm just kidding. What you'd do, if you were me this evening, is go to Hi Market and buy a six-pack of Sierra Nevada, two Vitamin Water XXX's (Because you've never seen that flavor - it's all rich in antioxidants and stuff), and some corn tortillas. Then you come home and wait for your wife to get home from happy hour. Late, as usual. And her cell phone died over the weekend, and you haven't replaced it yet, so she couldn't let you know. It's okay, though. You just naturally assumed that she'd be late, and it didn't bother you that much.
Next, you take the leftover onions and green pepper from making veggie burgers the other night. You saute them in some organic canola oil because you just ran out of organic olive oil over the weekend. Then you add some Quorn fake chicken, the spicy black bean salsa you made last week to serve with fish, and serve in the tortillas with some rice.
Your wife might then have to add the tail ends of two bottles of store-bought salsa and a bottle of picante sauce because it's a little dry, but luckily that's not enough to give her credit for cooking, so she still has to clean up.
You might later have to do some work, because you've been spending a lot of the work day checking your site traffic after not one but two links from Wonkette this week (A slow week, you guess. You swear you're not paying anyone on staff there. Really.).
Anyway, that's what you'd do if you were me.
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Posted by Jon Renaut
Sun, 22 Apr 2007 15:20:00 GMT
What a beautiful morning. It's sunny and warm and all the windows are open. My wife is cooking me breakfast. There's a huge pile of my mother-in-law's chocolate chip cookies on the counter (I wanted to empty the box they were shipped in so the cat could play in it). This afternoon, the wife and I are going to take a little walk, and my family is coming over later for dinner.
Last night, we went to Merkado for dinner. It was quite good. I had the special, which was halibut over a black bean and mango salsa. I highly recommend it. The fried banana dessert was also great.
This is especially relevant to residents of Columbia Heights because the company that runs Merkado, as well as Grillfish and Logan Tavern, is opening a new restaurant in June or July right at the Columbia Heights Metro stop. They're going to call it Logan @ The Heights, which I think is a dumb name. Maybe they think that Columbia Heights can't stand up on its own, and they have to associate Logan Circle with us so we know their restaurant is cool.
In any event, I'll try the new place when it opens.
I also need to try the Intercambios at Dos Gringos in Mount Pleasant. It seems like a cool idea - it's a semi-structured informal conversation designed to meet new people and brush up on your language skills. I've been saying that I'd like to brush up on my Spanish, so I should actually do something about it.
Posted in Life, Community, Things to do, Food | 1 comment
Posted by Jon Renaut
Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:00:00 GMT
Tell me if this sounds like a nice Thursday evening.
It's about 72 degrees out, sunny, pleasant breeze. At about 5:30, I walk to 16th St to catch the S2 bus down to K St and walk over to meet my wife and some coworkers at Bottom Line. A former coworker and good friend who moved to Philly was in town, and another former coworker and good friend who just switched jobs was there, too. We hung out until about 8 and then caught the 42 bus back (Never mind running diagonally across the intersection of 17th and I, that never happened). Around about Dupont Circle, we realized we had no food at the house. No problem, send a text to Google and get the phone number for Radius Pizza, which we've been told is some of the best in DC. Forty-five minutes later (A little slow, but tolerable), they arrive with a giant pizza. Wow, was it good. Expensive ($23 for a large), but a huge pizza, and one of the best I've had. Then we fell asleep watching the NCAA tournament.
And now it's my last day at my job. I'm staying with the same company, but moving to a new project. I start the new on Monday (Unfortunately I can't take some time off in between), and it's on Metro, which is really cool. I've only had one commute in my life that didn't involve driving, and that was just a winter break job one year in college. So I'm excited.
So, I'm in a pretty good mood. And rambling. You can tell I'm in a good mood when I start rambling about not much in particular.
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Posted by Jon Renaut
Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:11:00 GMT
This was the first weekend where I really feel like I took advantage of living in the city. Friday night, we went to Georgetown to see Hexagon. Saturday, we went to Luna Grill in Dupont Circle for lunch, back to Georgetown, then to Woodley Park. We ended up at The Raven in Mount Pleasant, which many consider to be the best dive bar in DC. I'm not inclined to argue. Sunday, we took my brother-in-law and his girlfriend on a monument tour, which gives me an excuse to be a bit of a tourist.
Hexagon was pretty interesting. I didn't know what to expect. The brother-in-law had said that he was going with some friends, and we should get tickets. Except then they didn't get tickets. So the wife and I went alone. It was a great opportunity to learn a bit about the buses. We found that the 42 bus takes us right down to Dupont Circle, which is convenient. It was very cold waiting for the bus to Georgetown, and the sleet in our faces didn't really help matters. But at least we were inside during all of the snow.
So, we got to the school where they were performing. We walked in, and it took me a minute to find someone less than twice as old as me in the crowd waiting to take their seats. There were young people, but I imagine the bulk of the crowd was 50+. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just that I felt very young, and under dressed. So, the show started. They dance and sing songs about politics. Some of it was pretty funny. One of the funniest things for me, that probably doesn't amuse anyone else, was that the woman they had playing Nancy Pelosi a few times could have been Laura Bush's sister. Or maybe it was actually Laura Bush. Apparently some politicians have had cameos on stage with Hexagon, including Janet Reno. I wonder if her appearance was as funny as her SNL skit. Did you see the one where Will Ferrell was doing "Janet Reno's Basement Dance Party" or something like that, and she smashed through the "brick" wall wearing the same outfit? I almost wet myself.
Anyway, Hexagon was good. Some of their stuff missed. They did a little Borat skit that I think most of the audience didn't get. But they did a song called "Turning the Elephant Pink" about how the entire Republican party is closeted gays. A little juvenile, perhaps, but the dancing pink elephants and the guys dressed like the Village People were pretty funny. All in all, I'd say go see it, but don't cancel cooler plans to do it.
I had been to Luna before, so it wasn't terribly exciting, but the food was good, as usual.
We wandered around Georgetown, then met a friend of the brother-in-law, then went to Dean and Delucca for coffee. I wasn't impressed. The BIL got bad service, and my coffee was mediocre. But the company was good, so I can't complain.
That evening, we went to the Afghan Grill for dinner. Service was a little slow, and they were out of coffee, but the food was great, and they brought us free dessert to make up for the coffee.
The Raven is exactly what a neighborhood bar should be. It's smallish, but it never got too crowded, even though it was St. Patrick's Day. I guess everyone nearby was down the street in Adam's Morgan getting belligerent and puking in alleys. We overheard one of the bartenders mention that she didn't know anyone in the bar, implying that she usually does. The wife and I will definitely go back. If you're going to go, remember that they don't do tabs, and it's cash only. They have Magic Hat #9 and PBR in bottles, so there's not really anything else you need. It's cheap, too.
Sunday morning, we went to the Mall. I had actually never taken a photo of the White House, which seems kind of strange. It's nice to have people visiting from out of town because then I don't feel so bad about taking pictures of the Washington Monument and stuff like that. We saw the Lincoln Memorial, the reflecting pool, the Korean War memorial, WW2, Vietnam, and most of the stuff in between. The Vietnam Memorial is funny - it's much more solemn than the WW2 Memorial, even though a lot fewer people died. I think because it's so personal - you can actually read the names of real people who died. It's pretty powerful. People are even quieter there than a lot of other places.
We closed out the weekend with lunch at Potbelly, which was delicious, as expected.
So, it was a full weekend. Got to see a lot of the city, and learned a few helpful bus routes. And now I'm back at work.
Posted in Life, Things to do, Getting around, Food | no comments
Posted by Jon Renaut
Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:16:00 GMT
My brother-in-law is in town for a job interview, so last night we went out get some dinner. He was craving a burger, so we went to The Diner in Adam's Morgan. I'd never been. I'd recommend it - the service was good, my burger was good, and they have Sierra Nevada on tap. Ten minute wait at 8pm on a rainy Thursday wasn't great, but it could have been worse.
What was great, though, was watching the end of the Duke-VCU game. I had been glancing at the score now and then throughout the second half. Like any normal person from the DC Metro area, I hate Duke. And so the highlight of the evening was definitely when VCU's Eric Maynor pulled up and hit a quick jumper from the foul line to put VCU up, 79-77, with 1.8 seconds left. Most of the restaurant yelled. The two girls sitting at the table in front of me, who probably didn't even know there was a TV in the place, let alone a tight game going down to the wire, jumped.
It was anti-climactic when Duke missed their desperation three to end the game. But it was still nice to watch.
Have I mentioned that I love living in the city? Now, when we have guests, we can walk 5-10 minutes and find all kinds of cool stuff. A walk like that from our old place left you in a little strip mall with an old Safeway and a Radio Shack. We can give them directions to Sticky Fingers rather than Dunkin' Donuts. They can hop on the Metro when they need to go somewhere instead of borrowing a car.
Actually, we don't need guests to do all that. But we have guests now (Well, technically we have A guest until his girlfriend arrives, and I think she's on the Flyer from Dulles to West Falls Church right now).
Posted in Sports, Things to do, Food | no comments
