Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features

Capital Chefs: Ris Lacoste of Ris (Part 2)

Photo courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
Ris Lacoste’s Endive, Walnut & Blue Cheese Salad with Port Vinaigrette
courtesy of bonappetitfoodie

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time wandering through the produce aisles staring at vegetables and wondering what in the world you should make with them. You’re overwhelmed by the options and the daunting threat of those veggies passing their prime in the bottom of your refrigerator’s crisper. Stress no more. Chef Ris Lacoste of Ris shared with me a recipe for an endive, walnut and blue cheese salad with port vinaigrette. I know, it’s winter and the thought of salad seems foreign. But this dish is hearty and a great way to get creative and bring some bright flavors into your kitchen while we wait for warmer weather. Click through to find the full recipe.
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Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features

Capital Chefs: Ris Lacoste of Ris (Part 1)

Photo courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
Chef Ris Lacoste
courtesy of bonappetitfoodie

Growing up, Ris Lacoste thought she would be anything but a chef. She was a pre-med student for two years at the University of Rochester; then she had visions of becoming a UN translator when she got her degree in French at UC-Berkeley. But all the while, Ris was working in the food and restaurant industry in some capacity since she was a teenager. “It was going on my whole life, but I didn’t know it,” she says. When she was 12, she started working at a Polish market on weekends helping out by stocking shelves. By the time she was 16, she was a short-order cook and later an assistant manager at Friendly’s.

Then came France. In 1981, Ris moved to Paris to study French and got a part-time job at La Varenne Écôle de Cuisine as a receptionist and an editorial stagiaire. Her payment? Cooking classes in exchange for work. Slowly, she came to see that all the experiences along the way–talking to the milk man at the Polish market, learning about purveyors, interacting with customers–all of those things pointed her in the direction of becoming a chef. After receiving her grand diplome in French cooking, Ris moved back to the states and started working for Bob Kinkead, before making the move to 1789 in 1995, where she was the executive chef for 10 years.
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The Daily Feed

Know Your Houses, DC!

Photo courtesy of kimberlyfaye
IA NW: Row Houses
courtesy of kimberlyfaye

I love DC’s many housing styles. The standard federal rowhouse is a DC fixture in the neighborhoods, but how can you ignore the beauty of the Victorians that line the great boulevards? Add in the bungalows and arts & crafts houses (my personal favorite in the free-standing varietals) and you’ve got some really amazing houses in the District. DC Urban Turf breaks it down which is which, as well as adding in a little history about each model. Know your houses, DC!

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed

Third Annual DC Meat Week Starts January 29th

Courtesy Mike Bober

Dry rubbed, smoked, pulled, braised and brined–no matter how you like your barbecued meat, there’s something for every meat-eating, ‘cue lover at DC’s third annual meat week. For eight nights, you can head to different restaurants around the city (and close by in Virginia) and try all sorts of slow-cooked dishes ranging from dry-rubbed Texas brisket to vinegar-based Carolina pulled pork or saucy Memphis or Kansas City ribs.

In 2005, Meat Week began in Tallahassee, FL and arrived in DC in 2009 after food blogger, Mike Bober of Capital Spice started the Washington Chapter. This year is the first that the event has expanded to eight nights.

DC Meat Week starts Sunday, January 29th and runs until Sunday, February 5th. All of the events are open to the public and most are set up as “pay as you order.” You can find the full schedule after the jump.
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Arlington, The Features, We Love Drinks

We Love Drinks: The 1K Beer Walk

Photo courtesy of jcm_DC
Porter
courtesy of jcm_DC

If you’ve ever wanted to run a marathon but worry about whether your beer gut will slow you down, Washington Wine Academy‘s DC School of Beer has a perfect solution: the Beer Walk!

The beer walk took place last Saturday and Sunday – a week after the wine walk – in the underground maze of the Crystal City Shops. Both “Beer Walk” and “Wine Walk” are pretty self-explanatory.

After you sign in and show ID, you pick up your race number, t-shirt, glass, and drink tickets. With twenty tickets and generous pours, a $20-$35 ticket (depending on the day/time of the heat you sign up for) will get you feeling pretty good – especially if it’s only 2pm when you start, like it was for me.

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Music

The Winning Ticket: Augustana

This week we are giving away a pair of tickets to see Augustana at the 9:30 Club on February 4. Tickets for this concert are available on Ticketfly or at the 9:30 Club box office.

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address by 5pm today. One entry per email address, please. Comments will be closed at 5pm and a winner will be randomly selected. The winner will be notified by email. The winner must respond to our email within two hours or they will forfeit their tickets and we will pick another winner.

Tickets will be available to the winner at the 9:30 Club Guest List window one hour before doors open on the night of the concert. The tickets must be claimed with a valid ID. The winner must be old enough to attend the specific concert or must have a parent’s permission to enter if they are under 18 years old.

If today does not turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts

capitals hockey, The Daily Feed

Capitals Declaw Bruins, 5 -3

Photo courtesy the author

With the team missing Alex Ovechkin (suspension), Nicklas Backstrom (injury) and Mike Green (injury), expectations for the Capitals’ Tuesday night tilt against the Boston Bruins were not high. In fact, most commentators expected the Bruins to steamroll the Caps like so much Boston asphalt.
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Sports Fix

Sports Fix Special: A Day for Wicked Pixels

Photo courtesy of philliefan99
one way FAIL
courtesy of philliefan99

Boy, what a morning.

First up was Alex Ovechkin, who today opted out of the All-Star Game, citing a lack of passion brought on by a 3-game suspension for an off-his-feet hit on the Penguins Zbynek Michalek during Sunday’s game. I can understand his frustration with the league for a 3-game suspension when Michalek was cleared of a similar hit in the exact same game. It can be hard to be a professional hockey player. That is also why he’s paid $9.5M on average per season. As Don Draper says, “That’s what the money is for!” I suppose that he’ll instead be chilling in his new house in McLean, valued at $4.2M.

In acting the petulant teenager, Ovechkin hurts the fans and the league, when he’s really just angry that his team can’t seem to feed him the puck up close to the net. Look, Ovi, I know you’re having a rough go of it right now, but the answer here is to buckle down and do more not do less, especially in the face of criticism. There’s a lot of concern out there for the team’s work ethic, and that there’s no combined leadership on the ice. By opting out and saying that you’re just not feeling it, well, I have to wonder – have you felt it at all this season? I know you’re hitting like crazy, and your game against Pittsburgh this week saw you with 3 points, but I’m not seeing the leader that I was hoping for.

The Capitals, in standing by their star, are at least giving him an “honorable” out, and given the lack of discipline for Michalek, that seems to be at least justified in part. In doing so, aren’t the Capitals doing more to hurt the hockey capital’s enthusiasm for the sport as a whole? I had thought that this was an organization dedicated toward hockey as a whole, but this latest set of actions seem to belie that isn’t the case always.

And now on to the firing of Flip Saunders, first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.  The Wizards have started the year at a lovely 2-15, including a 20-point loss in Philly last night, a game in which they trailed by 30 at the half, which is something I was pretty sure was only possible when a JV team plays the varsity at DeMatha. Sadly, it’s not likely that the elevation of assistant Randy Wittman to the head coach, even temporarily, is going to change the slide of the Wizards – not that they can slide much further down the charts.

I can’t remember a more terrible day for Monumental Sports in the new era, and though it feels like piling on, the state of DC sports is fairly deplorable, given the Redskins’ back to back 6-10 seasons, the Wizards seemingly-perpetual last place position, and the Capitals struggles amid an abundance of talented players. How terrible is it that a .500 season from the Nationals seems to be the brightest spot in the DC Sports world right now?

So yes, Uncle Ted, this is a day for wicked pixels, but it’s hard to dodge these as just being the words of some pajama-clad bloggers when it’s the whole of the sports media with their head in their hands wondering what could possibly be going on.

Eat Like Me, Food and Drink, The Daily Feed

Sugar and Champagne Affair

Photo courtesy of Plantains & Kimchi
chocolate custard, cocoa crumble with roasted banana ice cream @ Watershed- Washington, DC
courtesy of Plantains & Kimchi
It’s almost time for the Sugar and Champagne Affair — back next month for the eleventh year. As the name implies, Sugar and Champagne is a dessert and bubbly reception that benefits the Washington Humane Society.

Once again hosted by Chef Todd and Ellen Gray, the event highlights all things sugary and sweet, with chefs showcasing their confections. Of course, leashed dogs are welcome and encouraged to attend. So walk around with your favorite four-legged friend and eat desserts and doggie hors d’oeurvres respectively.

Chefs on-hand for the VIP reception include:

New this year: you can also meet contestants from TLC’s show Next Great Baker. Held Wednesday, February 1st, at the Ronald Reagan Building, the event begins at 6pm with the VIP Chefs’ Tasting Room followed by the General Reception at 7pm. Click here to purchase tickets.

Entertainment, Music, Night Life, We Love Music

We Love Music: Cass McCombs @ Ottobar, 1/21/2012

 

photo by Sandy Kim

Cass McCombs turned Baltimore’s Ottobar into a spacey dreamworld during his set Saturday night. In the midst of his US winter tour,  he played with a full backing band, including keys, bass, guitar, pedal-steel guitar and drums. Opening was Frank Fairfield, along for the duration of the tour, and Walker and Jay

First to the stage was the Baltimore based trio Walker and Jay. Gathered close around one microphone, with only acoustic instruments, they looked and sounded like they could have walked right out of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?. There was an upright bass, providing the backbone and rhythm for the set, a fiddle, and the lead singer switched between playing banjo and what looked like some kind of steel guitar. Their old-timey country/bluegrass/blues was both lovely and rousing, and set an intimate mood for the evening.  Continue reading

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed

Red Apron Butchery Wins Good Food Award

Photo courtesy of laura padgett
glover park farmers’ market 7.10.10 – 32
courtesy of laura padgett

Locavores rejoice: Red Apron Butchery has been awarded a 2012 Good Food Award in the charcuterie category. Red Apron, a creation of Neighborhood Restaurant Group, was the DC area’s only 2012 finalist and winner out of approximately 1,000 submissions.

The Good Food Awards, started two years ago, honor “tasty, authentic, and responsible” foods in eight different categories: beer, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, pickles, preserves and spirits. Winners of Good Food Awards must adhere to certain standards, including no usage of artificial ingredients and no usage of synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or GMO foods. The Good Food Awards honor artisans from across the country who focus on honoring traditions and cultures through food, as well as local ingredients and sustainable practices.

Chef Nathan Anda accepted the award for his crème de cochon, a whipped lardo made from Ossabaw-Red Wattle crossbreed (that’s a type of hog, for you laymen) with garlic, coarse black pepper, rosemary and sel gris. Anda and Red Apron’s crème de cochon beat out 11 other butcheries who competed in the category.

While you can find Red Apron’s cuts of meat and other products at various farmer’s markets or at Planet Wine Shop in Alexandria, the butchery is planning on opening a location in downtown DC later this year.

Featured Photo

Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of Paul Frederiksen
Going Home
courtesy of Paul Frederiksen

A good long exposure makes for a great picture. And if you take the shot in the right light, it can become magical. Take Paul’s long exposure of traffic along the George Washington Parkway. We see traffic coming and going; the white of the oncoming lights and the red of the receding ones. But in addition to the artificial light, there’s the wonderful purple and oranges of the evening sky. Such a mixed lighting situation can be difficult to capture in a photo, because the lights of the traffic are not as bright as the light of the sky. But Paul used a neutral density filter, which reduced the overall light of the scene and allowed him to keep the lens open longer. Thus those near perfect lines of traffic and a gorgeous sky. Well done!

Food and Drink

Rustico’s Beer Academy

IMG_9022
IMG_9022
courtesy of Hans Bruesch

Remember that class you took in college where after fifteen minutes or so you realized that the professor had forgotten more about the subject at hand than you could ever hope to learn? This past Saturday, Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s Beer Director, Greg Engert, did his best professor impression (complete with button-down sweater) and reminded the participants in the inaugural Beer Academy class just how little they really knew about beer. Add in six absolutely delicious beers and even the frigid weather and coating of ice couldn’t keep the class from being a huge success.
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Eat Like Me, Food and Drink, Foodie Roundup

First Look: District Kitchen

DSC00097

Photo Courtesy Tricia Barba

After driving right by it and then almost walking past it, I finally made it into District Kitchen. It’s not really as bright in the dark as the picture makes it appear to be. Open just almost two weeks, the Woodley  Park restaurant has almost mastered its customer service skills, and it’s a great addition to the neighborhood.

On the inside, District Kitchen looks rustic, simple, yet open. It reminded me of almost a Sonoma/Graffiato hybrid, but with more space to move around. The restaurant only sits about 70, but it feels like there’s more room and not like you’re sitting so cramped in. And, don’t expect to hear others’ conversations…not because it’s quiet or because there’s great noise absorption, but because it’s so loud you won’t be able to distinguish who is saying what. Still, I liked the ambiance…cool and neighborhood-centered.

As more restaurants are doing these days, the menu is printed on card stock and divided into: Snacks, Small Plates, Salad & Produce, and Mains. There aren’t too many choices, so you won’t be overwhelmed by an almost unmanageable selection.

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Weekend Flashback

Weekend Flashback: 1/20-1/22

Photo courtesy of csuspect
Living in the Shadows
courtesy of csuspect

Please raise your hand if you hate weekend snow fall as much as I do. Talk about a waste. At least everyone who follows the Federal Government got a two hour delayed opening. The rest of us get to walk/drive through the ice the slackers never around to shoving when it was snow (personally, I’m looking at you Park Service; if I slip while walking through Franklin Park, it’s on!). Well, if you’re getting in on time, or a little later than normal, go ahead and check out some of the shots from the weekend. And stay warm out there! Continue reading

The Features

The DCCK Movie needs your help

It’s hard to say how important programs like DC Central Kitchen are to the District. There’s just so many aspects to it that carry such incredible value – is it their programs providing meals for homeless shelters? their programs working with school nutrition? providing produce to markets in food deserts?

Chief among the programs that DCCK champions is their job training program, that takes people that need a second chance, and train them to work in commercial kitchens all over this city. The Liberation is a Kickstarter project that will follow one class through the 14 weeks of training through to getting their jobs. They’ve got about four days left, and they need your help to make their goal.

Contributions over $50 will be tax deductible, as well, as the Big Sky Film Institute is a 501c3 non-profit.