Speakeasies In The DC Area

In June I went to PX. It's a little speakeasy in Old Town, Alexandria. Last year, some co-workers and I went to eat at Eamonn's A Dublin Chipper for some fish and chips. Really great fish, cool assortment of dips AND they deep fry chocolate bars! Anyway, it's a small place and we could only find seating outside on the side street. While we eating and chatting we noticed people knocking on the door of the townhouse next door. What made it unusual was instead of opening the door, the guests spoke through a little peephole that opened at eye level. If you had a reservation, in you went. One gentleman didn't have a reservation and was quite perturbed about not getting in. Curious, I went and knocked to find out what was going on. Turns out the speakeasy is open when the blue light above the door is on and a flag (a pirate flag) is hanging above the door at Eamonn's. You make reservations (for parties no larger than 6). They're known for being creative with their drinks and making a lot of their own juices, bitters, etc. Anyway, after months of talking about going, the FTC (Finer Things Club) finally went. Before meeting up with FTC, I did stop into Eamonn's for a small fish. They're really good and I don't get to Old Town often and, let's face it, I was going to have some drinks, food would be good to have prior to that. The blue light was on. We knocked. The peephole opened and asked, "yes?" To which S answered, "We have a reservation." And we were promptly let in, ushered up some narrow steps into the bar. We sat across from it (and right next to the bathroom door). They brought homemade chips and the drink ordering began! All in all, I started with a drink that had strawberry and rhubarb. It had an ice ball in it the size of a small snowball. It was really quite unusual (and I admit I wondered how they got it that shape). Next I tried to see how creative they were. They had home made ginger-ale so I asked if they could make me something using that. They did. It had some pineapple and other assorted goodies. Then I had something, I recall not liking, so I ended on a drink involving beets. Everyone else got interesting drinks as well -- such as grog! Here's a sampling of the drinks we all had that night.





FTC had gone to The Gibson, a speakeasy in DC. It was also dark and by reservation. It specialized in prohibition era drinks. I wasn't really keen on their drinks menu to be honest. I'm not a drinks connoisseur by any means, but they were both fun nights and an excuse to dress up. But, I'd take Eamonn's or Marvin (the restaurant next door to The Gibson) any day. Marvin served my favorite cocktail of the summer -- the Lawnmower: lemonade with tea infused vodka and mint!

Farmer's Market Carrots and Beets

In early June, I went to the farmer's market and bought a bunch of carrots. As usual, I let it sit in the frig a bit too long, so I decided to try my hand at a carrot soup. I looked at a bunch of recipes, but the one that caught my eye was from Nigel Slater. He doesn't like the sweetness of carrot soup, and I tend to agree with him. He adds tomato to the soup. So I cooked some onions, carrots and tomato in vegetable stock and put it through the food mill. I love my food mill! The taste was interesting in a good way, but I don't think I had the proportion right. It definitely tempered the sweetness of the carrots, but I think I may have put in too much tomato.



The other item I picked up during my trip to the U Street Farmer's Market was beets. I've cooked beets before, but this time I used all the beets -- including the greens! I added some of the wilted down greens, cooked diced golden beets, a nice spoonful of ricotta to some pasta. The leftover greens and beets made a nice side salad in and of itself. Beets are on my buy list the next time I'm at the market!

So Much Eating, So Little Writing....

I've actually been doing a lot of eating out, a bit of cooking, and only a tiny bit of training. We'll start with the most recent. I went to see the National Theatre's worldwide broadcast of Phedre yesterday at Washington's Shakespeare Theatre Company. The play was good -- although some of the monologues went a little long for my taste. But I went straight from work, so all throughout the day I thought of all the places where I could grab a bite to eat..... Cafe Atlantico, Teaism, Zola, Cedar (a new place in DC), matchbox, Ella's, etc. Then it struck me -- Full Kee -- a hole in the wall in Chinatown, but with a really good food – in Monday’s night case it was desire for their shrimp dumpling and noodle soup. I got my soup to go, went to the Atrium of the Portrait Gallery and proceeded to chow...or more accurately... slurp down.

This weekend, I cooked and grilled. On Saturday, ME and I made another version of the Chana Punjabi (this time with chickpeas and cauliflower) and Zucchini Vichyssoise. These two dishes are becoming standards for me. On Saturday, JW and I grilled -- a portabello mushroom burger for me and a regular burger for her. She did something very interesting with her burger and added tomato paste, Parmesan, and basil to the meat. And on Friday night -- I made a Greek styled orzo salad with a little lemon, olive oil, tomato, spinach, olives and feta cheese and an Asian slaw with red cabbage, carrot, sesame seed, sesame oil, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, salt and pepper. These were my offering for a picnic dinner before an outdoor showing of the movie Footloose. Unfortunately, a summer thunderstorm put an end to that.

All through last week, I also baked. I found this cool cookie website Cookie Madness. I used it previously to bake Brown Sugar, bittersweet and milk chocolate cookies and I did them again. I also baked butter cookies from Alice Water's The Art Of Simple Foods. The flavor was good, but I don't think it worked well as a drop cookie. Next time, I'll try rolling the dough out and using my cookie cutters.

I also baked chocolate chip, cranberry cookies. When I first made the batch, I didn't having any baking soda and the cookies did not rise. I left the dough in the fridge for about 4 days, and it may have been my imagination, but the cookies had a bit more volume than the first batch. I also made rice krispie treats. Mixing the rice krispies and the melted marshmallow and butter is really quite difficult. Putting into the buttered dish was even harder. The mixture was sticking more to my fingers and spoon then the dish. I eventually sprayed some Pam on a Ziploc bag and got the mixture in that way.

You'll notice, I haven't mentioned any training. That's because I really haven't been doing any. I'm going to have to buckle down in July if I hope to do the Tri.

Everything But The Kitchen Sink Frittata

I'm headed out of town for a long weekend away and needed to use the veggies (farmer's market squash, broccoli and mushrooms) before they spoil. I also head 6 eggs and some bleu cheese, so I made a frittata. I sauteed some onions and garlic, added the mushrooms and chopped up squash and stirred for about 3-4 mins. Added salt and pepper and then the broccoli with a little water so it would steam a bit. All that got put in my pie dish (which I use for everything else but making pies) with some chunks of bleu cheese and covered with some slightly mixed eggs. In my year of veggies, this has been a standard go-to meal for me and I'm really enjoying the variety of vegetables and cheese I can use. So, to sum up, I had a lovely, light dinner which was good post run and swim, as well as having enough leftover for lunch for the next two days!