Snow Cream

A recipe for snow cream in the Washington Post generally would pass unnoticed in this area of the country, but the current "snowmaggeddon" we're experiencing makes this recipe surprisingly relevant. According to the Post:

Making snow cream couldn't be simpler: Mix together freshly fallen snow; milk, cream, or condensed milk; sugar; and vanilla. (Some recipes call for the addition of whole raw eggs, making the snow cream custardy.)

... John Groopman, professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, frowns on eating snow because of what the snow might pick up on the ground. "You would not drink from a water puddle on the sidewalk, so why would you want to eat snow from the same source?" Groopman asks. ... some snow cream devotees contend that the snow gets cleaner the longer it snows. Experts say there could be some truth to that idea.

Cooking to Contain my Cabin Fever

My hometown, Washington, D.C., has been walloped by a snowstorm of 25 inches, and now we're expecting anywhere from 8 to 16 additional inches of snow by tomorrow.

When Washingtonians hear forecasts like that, they panic, rushing to the grocery store and leaving the shelves practically empty. Which is why I'm glad I did my shopping early. Cooking has helped me endure the cabin fever that occurs when one is essentially locked indoors for several consecutive days.

So far, here is what I've cooked:

• Sour cream and maple muffins


• Duck risotto with dates


• A pot of chicken noodle soup


• Apple-cherry pie


• A pot of beef barley soup

Given that we're facing a new snowstorm this evening (that will shut down the city), I guess I should check my recipe files to see what else looks interesting enough to cook. Hmmmm.

A Shortage of Sweetness

We're used to hear economists and Wall Street insiders discuss the oil supply and potential shortages, but now it seems that a different commodity -- sugar -- is prompting a similar discussion.

Bloomberg News reports:

A global sugar shortage, which drove prices to the highest level in three decades, may peak in the third quarter this year ...

Sugar had its biggest annual (price) advance since 1974 last year as heavy rains and drought pared harvests in Brazil and India, the largest growers.

Today's Dinner Special: Noise

When it comes to interior design in restaurants, wood floors add class. An open kitchen adds an element of charm. High ceilings add dimension and "wow" factor. Unfortunately, all three of these design features add something else: noise.

In this article, the Wall Street Journal's Katy McLaughlin explores the noise factor by profiling a San Francisco restaurant called La Mar Cebicheria Peruana. She writes:

Even as restaurants are ditching style elements that squelch sound, they are bringing in more sources of noise: Open kitchens, lively bar scenes and disc jockeys and iPods programmed with the latest rock music. Loud music can make diners talk louder—which ups the volume even more.

... many restaurateurs often fail to consult with acoustical experts during the design process because of the cost, because the right look is paramount to them or because they believe that their customers actually enjoy the noise.

... David Myers, the chef and owner of Comme Ça in Los Angeles, recently hired a company to install acoustical panels on the ceiling to quiet a restaurant that was so noisy that "I had friends who didn't want to come back because it was so loud," Mr. Myers says.

I'm sure there were a lot of non-friends who felt the same way about Myers' restaurant. Maybe it's a sign of middle age, but restaurant noise matters more to me than it used to matter. It's not pleasant to go to a restaurant where you practically have to shout to be heard by your friend seated less than three feet away.

I wish more restaurant owners gave some thought to this during the interior design phase. They're investing a lot of money to create a space that may be very sleek and glam, yet so noisy that it turns people off.

Brasserie Beck is an excellent restaurant -- one of the best (purely in terms of food quality) in the city of Washington. But the noise level inside is so intense that I don't go there as often as I otherwise would. If you plan to dine there, ask them to seat you as far away from the bar area as possible.

Nachos: The Super Bowl Snack

The N.Y. Times recommends adding pork rinds to the menu for your Super Bowl party. But I have a feeling that nachos will remain the prevailing choice for snack food for most Super Bowl watchers.

This blog post by Bon Appetit's Andrew Knowlton offers these "10 rules for making nachos." From what I can see, they seem like sensible rules worth heeding. Here is one of them:

Don't buy pre-grated cheese (ever). Grate it yourself so that the cheese will be fresh and finer in texture, which leads to uniform melting.

I prefer guacamole or salsa to nachos-and-cheese dip, but I realize I'm swimming upstream on this one. I was lucky enough to be at last year's Super Bowl. I hope this year's game is even half as suspenseful as last year's 4th quarter was.

Vancouver: Ready for Both the Olympics and Foodies

Lots of athletes around the globe will soon depart for Vancouver in quest of Olympic medals. Yet, according to the N.Y. Times' Sam Sifton, the city deserves a medal of its own -- for the quality of its food. He writes:

Vancouver is a terrific place to eat. It is diverse and exciting in its culinary offerings. ... Vancouver is among the best eating towns in the history of the Winter Olympics.

Exactly what is it that makes Vancouver such a fine city for foodies? Find out by reading the article.

"And What Do You Recommend?"

I find it strange that this wikiHow page on "How to Be a Waiter?" makes no mention of how a waiter should respond when a diner asks for a recommendation on what to order. After all, lots of diners ask for one. From what I can tell, there seem to be two schools of thought among restaurant-goers. The first school is that if you want to know what's good or what's fresh, ask the server for his/her recommendations.

The other school of thought appeals to human cynicism. This other school questions whether a waiter or waitress is really giving you an informed recommendation or simply pulling a "recommendation" out of their hats. Or, even worse, recommending a dish that the restaurant has too much of -- i.e., nobody seems to be ordering the skate in ginger sauce or the poulet normande so the servers are told to recommend these dishes.

I'm caught somewhere in between these two schools. First, I think it depends a lot on the type of restaurant in which you happen to be dining. If the menu is fairly static -- no seasonal shifts or daily specials -- there's less reason to ask about recommendations. Second, I pay close attention to what my server says about the recommended dish. I tend to be suspicious if all they say is: "I recommend the sea bass." I usually want to know why they recommend it. Is it fresh? Is it a specialty of the house? If they can't offer me a little more info, I take their recommendation with a grain of salt (yes, pardon the pun).

Last but not least, I take a cue from the tone of the server's recommendation. If they seem tentative or as if they're reciting a couple of dishes from a list, I tend not to be swayed. But if they sound confident -- like they really want to steer me toward a dish -- I'm more likely to listen. After all, they have to know that the amount of my tip (to some extent) is shaped by whether the food they praised or pushed actually met my expectations.

Deciding how much faith to put in a server's recommendation would be easier if I had a good sense of how many waiters actually eat or try the food in their establishments. I think most servers do eat or try the dishes in top-flight restaurants, but that's just my guess. It's hard to know. If they aren't, there's a problem because waiters can't truly recommend a dish that they haven't tried, can they?

Pizza Pursuits in Washington, D.C.

Pizza has come a long, long way since I've been living in the nation's capital. There was a time when the few local chains in D.C. weren't making pizza that was much better than Domino's Pizza. Today? There are a lot of places where you can enjoy excellent pizza.

Here is my list of the top 5 places to eat pizza in Washington with the neighborhoods cited in parentheses:

1. Pizzeria Paradiso, two locations (Georgetown & Dupont Circle)

2. Two Amys, 3715 Macomb St. & Wisconsin Ave., NW (Tenleytown)

3. Sette Osteria, 1666 Connecticut Avenue, NW @ R St. (Dupont Circle)

4. Matchbox, two locations* (Capitol Hill & Gallery Place/Chinatown)

5. Pete's Apizza, 1400 Irving Street, NW (Columbia Heights)

Each of these places serves a NYC-New Haven style of pizza. This was a tough choice. There isn't much separating my top three choices as far as quality goes. Two Amys would probably be my #1 choice if they made a better crust.

I'm sure there are some Washingtonians who read this list and wondered: "Why isn't Coppi's on this list?" I have had pizza at Coppi's twice and enjoyed it, but it doesn't belong in the top 5. However, it deserves an honorable mention.

* - I recommend going to the Capitol Hill location on 8th Street SE, between E and F Streets. The waits there tend to be shorter at peak times than at Matchbox's other location.

Review: Cook This, Not That

The N.Y. Times' Alex Witchel is fond of the "Eat This, Not That" series of books that have been co-written by the editor of Men's Health magazine. Witchel writes:

These books give menu guidance to the angels and devils perched on the shoulders of the millions of Americans who eat at chain restaurants.

In this article, Witchel announces a new cookbook that's a spin-off of this series:

Last month brought the publication of “Cook This, Not That! Kitchen Survival Guide” (Rodale, $19.99), written, like the others, by [David] Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, a contributing nutrition editor at Men’s Health. In its first week on sale, according to Nielsen BookScan, it became the best-selling cookbook in the country, providing recipes for healthier home-cooked versions of dishes from restaurants like P. F. Chang’s, the Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen.

Although Witchel generally likes the new book, his attempt to replicate a dish from the menu of Olive Garden didn't go so well. He learned this lesson:

But when it comes to the home cooking event that is spaghetti and meatballs, that toothsome duet of comfort and luxe, I’ve got my eye on this month’s Bon Appétit. Its Spaghetti and Meatballs All’Amatriciana calls for ground beef, white wine and applewood smoked bacon. It serves eight. Which means next time, I will be cooking that, not this.

Bad Cookie Marriages

Some people just can't leave well enough alone. Oatmeal cookies are wonderful. So are chocolate chip cookies. But someone came along many years ago and decided to marry the two cookies. Presto: oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies.

Oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies aren't bad, but they aren't nearly as good as each of those cookies by themselves.

And I've encountered other cookie combos that make no sense to me. I bit into a cookie on a tray at my workplace the other day, thinking it was an oatmeal cookie. No such luck. It was an oatmeal-peanut butter cookie. Ugh. Boy, was that terrible.

I love homemade butterscotch icebox cookies, but now I see that someone has created an oatmeal-combo recipe for them.

Do you like molasses cookies? They happen to be my favorite. But even they're being tampered with. Someone has created a recipe for peanut butter-molasses cookies. That sounds positively revolting.

There's even a banana-oatmeal-chocolate chip recipe lurking out there. Are they kidding me?

Worth the TV Time

Last night, I watched the Food Network's show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate." This episode featured salty foods. And the salty-caramelly brownies from Baked, a shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., looked amazing.

Alton Brown discussed a down-home restaurant in Georgia where there are no menus; the staff simply bring you the meal for that day. Country ham seems to be the centerpiece.

I can tell that I'm really going to enjoy this show.

Beyond the Spatula

Medical tweezers? They are one of the tools of the trade increasingly found in the kitchens of top-rated restaurants in New York, L.A., Chicago and other cities.

In this video, chef David Beran of Chicago's Alinea is shown using tweezers to assemble the garnishes for a pork-belly dish.

Savory, Versatile Ginger

I love the flavor of ginger in just about anything, from Thai food to gingerbread. So this article posted on the Washington Post's "All We Can Eat" blog caught my eye.

As Monica Bhide exlains in her blog post, ginger is one versatile food. And she offered this advice when you're shopping for fresh ginger:

When buying fresh ginger, look for pieces that have relatively smooth skin, without blemishes and wrinkles. Ginger keeps well in the fridge for up to a week. If I buy extra, I make a paste and freeze it. Many times I will grate it along with garlic and green chili peppers ...

Another thing that caught my eye is the recipe (at the end of the article) for double-ginger doughnuts. I recently combined olive oil, maple syrup and grated fresh ginger and tossed it with root vegetables (diced carrots, parnsips and brussels sprouts), roasting them for about 45 minutes. It was a marvelous side dish. And how's this for a beverage?