What thrills me...

... is the idea of living in this seemingly tropical climate where every steamy day ends in a release of rain and thunder and lightening from the sky...
...is sitting on our back porch drinking a 2003 Darioush viognier, purchased at the vineyard back when I had no concept of marriage, mortgages, or what a viognier even was, watching the wind and rain pound the trees and the ground...
...is not having to water our garden straight through July, our lettuce crunchy and fine...

And because I couldn't have said it better myself, and because it has been sitting at my home for almost 5 years, and because I wandered into a vineyard in the midst of construction at 10am on a weekday and fell in love with a white wine for the first time, “The 2003 Darioush Viognier Napa Valley posses texture and flavors so concentrated, the wine almost suggests a honey made from the pollen of honeydew melon, jasmine, citrus blossom, and honeysuckle. Amazingly, this Rhone-style white is not especially sweet; rather it pools luxuriously on the palate, then, like a summer raindrop, evaporates refreshingly.” Brett Anderson.

Berry trough

I cruelly forced Richard out of bed this morning, stuffed him in the car with some coffee and baskets, and drove all the way 'round the beltway to Poolesville to sample the ethereal summer blueberries.

At Farm At Home we arrived early enough to find bushes heavy with luscious fruit, and we picked and picked and picked until we had loaded our preferred blueberry-picking baskets with ripe berries. Yum. Yum, yum, yum. I attempted to convince him that the $50 we spent on berries we carefully picked was purely for health-enhancement purposes, and that it was cheaper than a few vitamins and a lot tastier. He didn't buy it, but tolerated the expenditure mostly because he wants to see what happens when I eat 16 pounds of berries in the coming days.

When I got home I discovered the true use for that bottom right-hand drawer in the fridge I had been foolishly storing onions in is actually a trough for berries. Yum.

Beer, frites, and pooping gnomes

After the symphony we decided to see if our lucky would hold and we could get a parking space in front of Brasserie Beck (of course we did, since this was a decidedly lucky day). I had wanted to try Beck, but looking at the menu online there wasn't much I wanted to eat, and I thought it was expensive for what it was-- so a late night beer was a perfect opportunity to give it a try.

I liked the space-- it pulled off that modern-yet-timeless feel with a nice balance of elegant touches and casual intimacy one would find in the cozy corner of a train station cafe in Europe. People were friendly here-- in fact, the service was top notch from start to finish-- welcoming, knowledgeable, attentive and relaxed. The beer menu is extensive and fun with lots of great descriptions. I told our waiter what I liked and he recommended a tasty brew from the Artisanal section of their menu. It arrive complete with its very own printed glass and an image of an apparently pooping gnome on the label. For $9 is was mid-range on their menu and not much of a bargain, and paired with the crisp, hot, parsley-flecked frites served with three fresh mayonnaises for $7, this was no casual beer and fries. But the beer was delicious, and it was fun and relaxing spot with excellent service and atmosphere, and unless you are feeling especially flush there is no way you will drink enough to wake up hungover.

A lucky night complete with sushi

How often can you score box seats for a Friday night symphony at the Kennedy Center for a mere $20? As if that wasn't enough to make you feel lucky, you hit no traffic driving there at 6pm on Friday night and park directly in front of your experimental dining choice for the evening, Kotobuki, in Palisades. Now, I know this is supposed to be a blog at least somewhat about eating in PG in the proximity of Cheverly, and I know I have done an exceptionally poor job lately. But the reality of it is there is less traffic in the summer, there are a lot of things happening, and we are just out and about a lot more than the rest of the year when we tend to stay closer to home. Perhaps the heat makes us itchy and adventurous.

Kotobuki is located in the sleepy Palisades area, a quick drive around Georgetown to the Kennedy Center. In its tiny upstairs room we were seated immediately (see, I said we were lucky) and munched on quality toro and hamachi sushi, shitake and avocado maki and some inari. We also tried the earthy-sweet burdock and carrot salad. I'm not sure the last time we ate our fill of nice sushi for $20, but this was our night. I liked the place-- simple, plain and quality for a good price-- these people have the right idea and I hope they stick with it.

Modernist Society scrapped for a few free drinks....

We went to Bourbon in Adam's Morgan for a Modernist Society gathering. This is a seriously busy place, and once we scored a table we waited 30 minutes for a menu. We finally ordered at the bar and waited for our food-- we were in doubt we would be able to participate in any of the activities.

I like the idea of Bourbon-- American whiskey at its best, decent pub food, and an undoubtedly thriving atmosphere. Plus, there was a fancy McCallen tasting there that night, and once you did the free tasting and filled out the postcard so they could keep up with their fans, you got a free drink at the bar. No kidding.

The bartender lost our order, we got hypoglycemic, he rushed the next order to us with drinks on the house, and we started wondering if we were going to get home. Needless to say, after the decent pub grub (ostrich and veggie burgers, the ostrich the better) the free tasting, the comped beers and the complementary whiskey with the postcard, we had the cheapest evening out we have ever had in DC. Seriously, ever. We paid $25 including tax and tip for the lot-- and I was almost embarrassed.

As for the Moderist Society, we never made it upstairs until the event was into the nightclub phase and it was time to waddle home. And for Bourbon, it is a half decent place with a humble bartender who can admit he messed up your order and send you away to pout with a drink on the house. We are sure to wander back at some point when we want a noisy and fun evening out.

26 minutes from Cheverly gets you to Georgetown (if you're lucky)

It's true. On a weekend, it is possible to drive from Cheverly to Georgetown in just 26 minutes (via 295 S to 395 S to VA then over the Key Bridge). Even more, you can go there to spoil your freshly-cleaned bodies after spreading mulch on your garden all day and looking distinctly unappetizing by the end.

And with your handy coupon $37 gets you a three course meal in the antiquated lushness of 1789 in Georgetown. It also gets you complimentary valet parking in Georgetown which is about the only reason you would ever even conceive of bringing your car here on a weekend. While $37 isn't something to laugh at, sometimes you just get enough done during the day that you feel you most certainly deserve a reward, and tonight was one of those nights. We were lucky to get a last minute reservation at 5:45, the only time available and we wanted to be at the French Embassy by about 7:30, so all was good, and Richard even had his suit jacket out and ready to go.

We sat in the proper yet sunlight second floor and ate a very satisfying dinner. My appetizer of hamachi was gently sea-salted and dressed with a lovely fruited olive oil, my husbands cavatelli were hand-rolled nuggets in porcini broth with these lovely clumsy fava beans, a nice contrast and decidedly contemporary. Dinner for me was "raw and cooked" king salmon-- this was a fun way to showcase the fine fish, with the same meal on both sides of my plate: salmon, king oyster mushrooms, arugula; with one side all raw and the other all cooked. This was one of the tastiest pieces of salmon I have had. My husband's local rockfish on a bed of leeks, calamari, and oyster mushrooms was just as delicious, if a bit salty on the skin. Desserts were good, but nothing to jump up and down over, although the guava-passion fruit sorbet makes my mouth water still.

What impressed me most? The charm, the fact that they didn't ask what kind of bottled water we wanted when I asked for water and lemon (I am SO tired of feeling cheap when I just want water and lemon), the ability for the food to honor it's stoic and traditional roots but be modern, fresh and creative, and the idea of serving fish not floating in butter. Given the quality of food and waitstaff, and the price-break on all of this, it is certainly a good value (my meal would have been $57 a la carte). We got out of there for $120 including 3 courses each, wine, coffee, tax, and tip. Probably won't be back anytime soon, but who knows the next time I will want to strap on some pearls and head to Georgetown for dinner.

After all of that eating we decided there was more drinking to do (much more, it turned out). We drove to the French Embassy for the summer festival. This was a lot of fun, with free flowing champagne ($6/glass) and French cidre ($4/glass) loads of decent and good music all over the grounds and a general festive atmosphere. We were happy we didn't try to eat here, since it seemed that a sizable number of folks at the festival were in fact waiting in line for food. I should remember to put this on the calender for next year, and to remember to wear better shoes for dancing and to get the bubbly earlier before they run out!

Smithsonian and the nightclub experience

The only food involved in this post is a take-away dinner from Teaism consumed in the lovely gardens of the Smithsonian headquarters on the mall, since I couldn't find any parking anywhere near the Penn Quarter on a Friday night. It was one of those nights when the city decides to run a go-kart social experiment by blocking off all of the streets downtown heading south and gets to see what happens when all cars are funneled in one directions. Anyways, my veggie bento-box was delish, and kudos to Teaism for providing something as nice as roasted veggies with miso sauce, silken tofu in ginger soy, and seaweed and sesame covered rice all in a nifty little box. The $8.95 price tag in this neighborhood warrants a special reward for picnic possibilities.

The whole reason we were downtown was for the After Hours party at the Hirshhorn. And party it was-- by 8pm the line wrapped around the block with probably 500 people in it. While it might seem daunting, it was mostly entertaining watching a diverse sector of the youth of DC strap on whatever digs they deemed appropriate for such an event-- which turned out to be anything from stilettos to the more artsy choices of yellow sneakers or but-cheek-bearing dresses.

The center of the outdoor pavilion of the Hirshhorn was turned into a giant nightclub complete with a DJ from Berlin and mojitos served in bio-degradable cups. It was all centered around the opening of the new show"Realism" inside, and the museum was full of revelers watching wacky movies and milling about. It couldn't have been a better evening for it, and kudos to the Hirshhorn for pulling it off yet again.

Does anyone eat around here?

When we moved in 2004 from upper-crusty Beacon Hill in Boston to Cheverly, we found almost everything we wanted-- a garden, a community with character, a house bigger than a shoebox located on the metro and close to our work. At least we thought so until our first night here when we got hungry...

In retrospect, our decision was entirely silly, but we went to the nearest "grocery store" at Landover food (which offered a wider selection of malt liquor than all other food combined) and the reality started to settle in. We lived in a place where people only ate things they could buy at the 7-Eleven, the KFC, or if they were supremely motivated, at one of the crap grocery stores in the area. We started to miss the chic little Thai place and bakery down the hill from us in Boston, the co-op, the markets. And so we ate some mac and cheese from a box with some frozen veggies and pretended we had just taken the wrong road to look for food.

And in some ways, we had. In the past years I have followed about every potentially sensible piece of advice about finding food and fun in the DC metro area, and have discovered gems all over DC, NoVA, and the Bethesda area. All are less than an hour, and as a country girl from NH, I was used to the idea that you had to drive to seek out good food. What I couldn't get used to was the idea that here I was, a typical resident of my cute little village littered with recycle bins full of packages from Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, and yet there wasn't anything apparently interesting to eat in the area. That means all of these people leave to eat. Has anyone ever looked at how much money people from PG spend in DC, Montgomery Co, or Anne Arundel Co on food alone?

With a bit more devotion I have found more and more places around my home where I can not only get something to suffer through, but something to be proud of. We have a long way to go around here, but this blog will attempt to inspire and awaken the local taste buds to some of the "local" food. And since life isn't just about food, there will also be some thoughts on fun living around here.

Now, there are caveats. I don't eat things that are so far removed from where they came from they are completely unidentifiable (like most traditional fast food). I also eat almost entirely vegetarian (although I will eat hormone and antibiotic free chicken), and although I love shellfish I am allergic to some of it. Yes, I am one of THOSE people. But I have an experimental palate, and keep in mind that since much of the world can't afford meat on a regular basis many traditional cuisine focus on simple, filling, vegetarian dishes. Many of the bits about food and fun aren't in Cheverly, or even anywhere near Cheverly, but I will try to share the rationale and the travel times when I can.

Time to eat...

Bevin