deangold

I am trying to work out with my favorite soft crab vendor getting a case. Cased are 40 to 36 crabs depending on size so I need to do a coop order. I have no idea how much they would be but in a normal year, $6 or $7 for jumbos is a reasonable price this early. But also to note, pricing on seafood seems to be 20% higher then I wouwld otherwise expect. Send me a DM if you might be interested. They would need to be picked up from Annandale/395 adjacent the day they arrived which would be a Tuesday or Thursday. I could clean them for an extra charge. I will know more at the end of this week.

Where did you get them?

Just three? Hocks, bacon, pork meat & lard would be 4. Tasso 5. Andouille 6. Looks like you are going for the healthy version!

We had a tomato that needed cooking. So I scrambled it with some eggs. But I added a few things to it. Crispy guanciale. Local spring onion. The last of our grilled & roasted veggies. A ton of reggiano. Spices. So a simple, light, healthy tomato and eggs. 😋 Spot gave us dirty looks because we were in the mystery room and he did not get any pizza out of it. So he ate his chow, lapped up water, and pooped. The scratching of kitty litter sounded particularly emphatic and angry. He is sleeping it off now.

The great ones don't need the crutch of alcohol!

We actually had some last of the Grotto vintage top butt sirloin steaks in the freezer. The last time they came out a little tough so this time, I cooked them in a 250 oven until they registered 115 and then took them out and let them cool. When we were ready for them, I heated a black steel pan til hot and seared them, lowered the heat and let them cook to 120 or so. Deglazed the pan as the steaks rested with some of our red, mounted it with butter and added a drop of lime juice to balance. The beef was super and none of the toughness showed with the modified reverse sear. The pan sauce was addictive. Kay and I wiped the bowl with our bread. We have two more pieces partially cooked for a meal tomorrow or Wednesday. Started with a salad of local red butter lettuce, lemon & Sichuan scallion oilve oil. Made a shio koji pickle yesterday from radish greens and some outside leaves of Chinese cabbage, all from Linda Vista farms. Then today, I put the pickle in a bowl and hit it with Tamari and lemon juice. and let it marinate 5 minutes, squeezed the liquid out and served it. Talk about making a tasty dish from what is usually trash. Used up last weeks Spinach from Barajas. Sauteed garlic and dumped in the damp spinach. Kept tossing it until some of the leaves were starting to brown. Put in juice of half a lemon and kept turning. When the pan was dry, I added rendered guanciale fat left over from our BLT lunch the other day. Some Atwater Cheddar. Good not the greatest cheddar but addictive. Bee's Knee cocktail was an experiment not worth repeating. Kay then made a couple of corpse Reviver #2 with the traditional absinthe. I have taught her well: they were perfect. With the steak, we enjoyed a bottle of Illuminati Riparosso Montepulciano d'Abrizzo. In my first restaurant job in LA many years ago, the first Italian winemaker I ever met was Dino Illuminati. Last year, his son and grandson came into the Grotto and were amazed that I had met their dad on his first and only trip to the US. The grandson was born in the 90's and I met the grandfather in 1984 or 85, before the kid was born. The bottle was defective. It emptied out faster than we drank it.

I took our car in to be washed after our many trips to the garden stores and the Alexandria recycling depot for dirt, plants and leaf mulch/mould for our container garden. Our car wash/details guys are We Care in the Home Depot parking lot. There was a wait and the wash would take a half hour so I headed over to Marky's in the Home Depot parking lot. Marky was cranking out 5 Philly steak sandwiches so I got a shady spot and waited for my chili cheese bacon dog. All the while, he was talking a mile a minute to his two customers who were waiting behind his bog order. Finally he plopped our bacon wrapped dogs on the grill and grilled the buns. The dog came covered in melted american cheese, good chili, grilled jalapenos, grilled onion and a big handful of broiled fries topped with seasoned salt. This is not gourmet foods. It all comes from Restaurant. You get a free drink with the combo and it was 7-11 brand water. The dog was so messy I had to eat most of the fries separately to get the mess folded in the bun. I think as much chili and cheese wound up on my hands as the dog. But none of it went to waste as I would have impressed Spot with my grooming technique. This was a street food dog at its finest. Thinking back on my Dog Haus dog, for far more money, this rocked. And Marky is Marky. One customer asked when he opened in the morning and he said "Depends on how hung over I am." Having done this much damage to my diet and health, I was not done yet. The car has just been pulled in so I was going to sit for another half hour so a Philly steak seemed in order. As I ordered it, 5 George Mason "kids" acme in and 4 ordered Phillys and one a burger. So I got to see the Philly process from start to finish. Marky sliced onion and green peppers and cooked them to order. He grilled some large Jalapenos. One the veggies weer done, he tool layers of thin sliced steak from Restaurant Depot that are real rib eye, not SteakUmms. Not great rib eye but tasty. When the steak is sizzled a bit, he dumped green peppers and onions atop and then flipped them with his spatula, added more peppers and American cheese. The bread looks like a classic Philly roll, but again, it is Restaurant Depot. The bread gets grilled, spread with mayo, tomato & lettuce goes on top.then the bread is put on the meat pile. He then flips the mess into a tray, more french fried on top and seasoned salt. Where the dog is really good, this is amazing in a greasy way. Much messier but not hand and arm staining! Now I was ready for a nap but I had a few hours of errands to finish. I had to take a nap when I got home! If you are at the Home Depot at Little River and Backlick, and Marky is not too hungover GO! Your cardiologist needs the work! You will not I did not take a picture of the sandwiches. First my hands would have been too messy and second, thos things need to be consumes as hot and fresh as possible. That is Marky and one of his major source of business, a Home Depot worker. Marky looks like he is hung over but not too hungover. And the greasy grill. The egg was destined for a burger with bacon, grilled onions and peppers, grilled jalapeno, cheese, fried egg and quote possibly chili. The next time I feel self destructive, that is my order. The Philly steak will come second!

We finished off the Profish order with ceviche. Scallops and the fresh shrimp marinated in Key lime juice, olive oil, spring onion & Sichuan peppercorn. Served on local red butter lettuce with the last of our Indian cukes. . Quite light and yummy. I will say the shrimp did not knock me over, but the scallops and crab claw were stellar. Not cheap but really good. We also finished off the Asian Pear and cucumber salad we made last night. The overnight in the marinade did wonders and turned it into a super salad. We scored a bug bag of cukes from Spring Valley and have the other half of the Asian Pear {a white variety not the usual russet skin type} so a repeat performance is on the way. Atwater rosemary Italian. Very good white bread. Their sourdoughs are better, but this was nice for a change. The last of the Sake Onikoroshi. As is often the case with the 1.8 liter bottles, the third day's drink is better than the second or first. In this case, it was 4th day I believe but it was smoother than on first opening. 3 dinner's worth of drinking for $46.00 from H Mart and it is even cheaper at Good Fortune.{$42 or $43} A bunch of bananas. We had some Manzanos and Thai bananas that looked scary but were really delicious. We really love these varieties, but they are not really good until the are mostly black to even slightly shriveled. Spot ate pizza and Chateau Alexandria. He also slept a lot. he has learned to jump on Kay's chair and we fear soon he will be posting himself. And the days of keeping his greenies on the desk are numbered. A cat with a big green fairy on his back. Sad! Spot eating a greenie, or my fingers. Either that or Bruce from Jaws!

Today we were at Westover Farmer's Market. Atwater was sold out of croissants when we preordered and didn't have any extra for grab and go. SO we decided to grab some Banh Mi from here. There was a ling out the door and the system was not well spelled out. A guy who phoned in his order couldn't tell where to go to get his order and despite arriving right after us, he only got his order a minute or two ahead of us. Everyone had masks on and there was a card reader for every person working the line. We feasted. 2 crispy egg roll: these were piping hot and crispy. Not just due to the heat lamp, because they were bringing freshly prepared trays of goodies the whole time were were there. A++. I really can't remember a better spring roll except maybe Present or Pho Hot when they first opened. Only downside was no sweet dipping sauce. Next time I will know to ask. 3 big summer rolls with shrimp and pork. Tasty but I can't say that I haven't had lots better. B- #1 cold cut special: lots of mystery pork meat, pate, spicy mayo, veggies and a goodly amount of chilies. Really good. A #2 grilled pork- I think our last pork bahn mi was the BBQ pork and we should have done that. Or even more so, the BBQ pork belly. The grilled was a touch dry, but with all the trimmings it went just as fast. B 2 iced coffees with condensed milk. Delicious! Less sweet than some, nice crushed ie rather than cubes. A All in all, this is my second favorite Bahn Mi joint. I prefer it to the one in Eden Plaze, Soi #1 I htink. Not as good as Le Bledo in Springfield which is my standard to judge by. Where overall, Bahn Mi DC is an A-, Le Bledo is an A+. It is just we are much less likely to be close by and Bahn Mi is not the kind of food you make a special trip for.

We ordered a pizza the other night and there was a little service glitch, but the owner was spot on in handling it. This has been chronicled elsewhere so Now I want to celebrate both the pizza and Armando, the owner. The joy of frequenting a small owner operated pizzeria is that you are keeping the money local and contributing to a lot of hard working folk's income. IN taking care of the issue, Armando gave warnings to his people, so complaining did good and didn't get someone fired for one offence. Armando is obviously a stand up kind of guy. As I texted to him in the approximately 15th text back and forth, " I am glad I can be even more loyal to our favorite local pizza. He replied "Love it!" I could go to Arlington or Falls Church for more famed pizza, but this pizza is really good, made with love, and 3 minutes from the abode. And I am not sure that the other pizzas are really any better. Their crust is not thick nor thin. They say New York Style, but whose New York Pizza. The sauce is less sweet than a typical NY slice, but good and tomato-y. The sausage and pepperoni on the Valentino's special is really good if not house made or artisinal. The peppers and onions etc are fresh and more warmed than cooked. We keep on forgetting to say make it a little well done so the crust is a little underdone to my taste, but that is on us. We will definitely be back, and not just because our next pizza is free!

They say an owner begins to look like your pet after a bit. We have now had Spot for 7 weeks and I think Kay has taken this too far! I mean the glare is spot on, as it were, but I think she is looking more and more like the cat every day! Of course Spot is a beautiful cat. Today was his first jump up on her chair. Maybe his losing 6 pounds is going to be more trouble than we think. The meowing {"feed me!} was bad enough!

As new cat mom and dads. we are still learning. Kay and I have a dispute. For the last two nights, spot has literally walked over to my head, stomped his paws on the mattress and when I wake up, he turns around and shoves his butt in my face. Kay says it is because he loves me. I maintain he is overly proud of his butthole and wants me to complement him on it.

We had scallops two ways. First round was pan seared, deglazed the pan w/white wine & mounted it with homemade garlic scape butter. Decadent, perfect glazing & browning on the scallops, garlicy punch from the scapes. Second round was grilled on the yaki niku grill w/lemon juice, tamari, wasabi. Even better as the pure flavor of the scallops came thru even more. Profish did well with the scallops. The rest of out pound of scallops is marinating overnight in lime juice, olive oil & red sichuan peppercorns for ceviche with the remianing shrimp. Veggies were grilled spring onion, grilled asparagus. Again, dunked in the scallop butter sauce or in the shoyu, lemon, wassabi combo We had a bag of key limes that needed finishing off: so after squeezing half for the ceviche, the rest went into our daiquiris. Clement Pure Canne rum, Martinique pot still distilled pure cane rum, the key lime juice and rich brown sugar simple, well shaken and double strained. Unreal. Last of the Marco Carpinetti Moro. Last of the 3.5x vanilla gelato. The alcohol {1 TBSP 2x vanilla and 2 Tbsp rum} made the gelato soft and creamy so we had to scoop out small servings, so two were had. Don't side eye me, they were small.Enjoying another oz of the Pure canne Clement. Like drinking rum from an ashtray of all you smoked were perfect cigars.

Where did you go?

Anappolis for crabs. New York City for broadway shows.

We made a cold soba style dish based on Zaru Soba. I boiled fronzen soba noodles. After pulling the noodles from the water, I cooled tham in running water and served with a dipping sauce of bottled soba noodle sauce, grated daikon, sliced spring onion. salted Indian cukes & asian pear marnited in persimmon vinegar, soy, mirin, rice syrup, fish sauce Frozen dumplings, boiled & served in the soba cooking water flavored w/soy & black vinegar. On some of the Asian street food videos we wach on YouTube, they are served "noodle water" on the side. Taking inspiration from this, I tried it and it was very good.

I have had no less than 9 texts with the owner of the establishment. He took all our information, he reviewed his records, identified the two team members in question, wrote them up and explained that they clearly did not follow his guidlines. He admitted his manager on duty has to leave for a personal issue and that this happened in is absence. He issued us a credit for the full amount of our purchase. He promised us he would redouble his efforts to run his business the right way. he also let us know that he personally talked to the two team members. I don't think I could have expected a better response. I would have done the same although I usually added to the amount of the refund/credit but that was me. He has strengthened out desire to support his business. He got in touch with us within an hour of the second note I sent him on his contact form on his website, about 24 hours after the first notice.

Tonight we had the fresh shrimp from ProFish order. Baked in local heirloom tomato sauce with sauteed garlic, spring onion, oregano. Topped with homemade breadcrumb and some oil. Good dish. We also has a roasted & grilled veggie pasta. I chopped up the still abundant grilled veggies: turnip, carrot, garlic scape, kohlrabi, radish, fennel, asparagus all from the Westover Farmer's market. I sauteed garlic & spring onion with spices in olive oil then dumped in the roughly chopped veggies and let cook while the water heated. I used Mancini spaghetti which is very good pasta. When the pasta was almost ready, I dumped a cup of pasta into the veggies and cranked the flame all the way. I let the pasta cook in the veggies and water for a minute or two until al dente. A splash of oil, fresh ground pepper, lots of fresh grated parm finished the dish. The wine was Marco Carpineti Moro, an organic greco bianco from Lazio, not to be confused with Basilicata greco, Sicilian greco, or Greco di Tufo in Campagnia. The old saying is Germany is the land of one grape and ten thousand wines {not true as Germanay has a handful of grapes, not one} and Italy is the land of 10,000 grapes. In any case, it was rich and round, with a nice implied sweetness. The wine is not fruit driven, but textural, earthy & minerally. Delightful. We still have some for tomorrow and the scallops. Spot has pizza. He ate it all with relatively little fuss. He left a dainty amount of chow so he even has nibbles for late night snacking. Cat morem and I have strawberries and strawberry sorbetto for our late night snacking. Which is now.

Actually it should have been our work is done as spot takes credit for the rare occurances I do somehting right.

When we had the grotto, fatigue or carelessness was not an excuse if we failed DCARBA stings for underaged drinking which were run on use several times a year. If you can have a sign on your door, you can damn well make sure your team members are following it. I am sorry but as a member of a very high risk group and my wife being at high risk too, I am pissed off. I am just giving them time to respond to their contact us form on their website. So far, no reply.

When I first adopted Cat Mom and Cat Dad, I never had to get up on my back paws for anything. Which is good because I was too fat. Now Cat Dad and Mom have starved me, and now they have me hooked on "Greenies." Look at how Cat Dad uses my weakness to exploit me. This is unfair. It must stop! I am going to report him to the ASPCatA. Anyone got more Greenies? I'm crashing hard man! Please? I mean help a cat brother out! And bring cheetos!

My work is done here. 😈😸

Their stuff looks great but the pricing makes it hard to pull the trigger.

We had a disturbing experience tonight. We ordered from one of our local favorites. When Kay went to pick up the food, they had a sign saying no entrance without a mask. But when Kay got to the pick up counter, the gentleman handing over the food was not wearing a mask. Well since he was willing to endanger his customers' lives, he was no gentleman. I emailed the restaurant and am waiting for a response. That is why I am not naming them, reporting them, or going apeshit on social media. I will report back on their response.

Wednesday Heated some of the last of the frozen duck bolognese lasagne from the Grotto stash. It was amazing.Pour some local heirloom tomato sauce, also Grotto vintage from the freezer, and practically smothered it in grated parm. Restaurant has a fine commercial parm for under $10 a pound, but it comes in 10# 1/8th wheels. I don't know if international gourmet sells retail, but they have 2 and 3 year parm in 3# and 2# packs respectively/ It comes from a really high quality parm supplier. We opened a 2001 Dolcetto Vigna Tecc from Luigi Einaudi. This is a dogliani Dolcetto, home to the origins of Dolcetto production {although the oldest producing dolcetto vines are Marcarini's Boschi di Berri vineyard in Alba which is grown on its own rootstock {they use copper sulfate to keep the phyloxera away.} This bottle has no reason to still be good: dolcetto is supposed to be a drink young wine and EVERYBODY know the aging wine from Piemonte is Nebiolo. Whel everybody is wrong and the shibboleth of bif wines last longer is again destroyed. What makes for a wine aging is acidity and acidity alone. Tannins can help control oxidation, but if the wine does not have acid backbone young, it will die in the bottle. I learned this from Paul Draper, Dave benion, Forrest Tancer, Louis Martini and Joe Heitz in the 1970's and it is how I have bought wine ever since. And all my Italian wine producer friends and acquaintances say the same. Any my drinking of wines that should be over the hill by wine expert standards that are actually wonderful while big name shit like Gaja is bilgewater. 30 and 40 year old German whites can be astounding and Chenin Blanc is as ageable or more so then white burgundy/ In any case, this wine was addictive: Big lush round feel, loads of spicy, ripe and juicy berry flavors and not a single sign of its 19.5 years of age. We decided to open the bottle instead of coravin it thinkin that at its advanced age it might not be worth the argon expense and we were wrong but right. We polished off this fantastic bottle watching Manon Lescaut on the Met Opera stream which was entirely appropriate. The 50 year old Renata Scotto had no business trying to portray a 15 year old virgin about the enter a convent, who instead chooses a life of sensuality that winds up with her being deported to America for prostitution. She dies of thirst in the desert around New Orleans. Scotto was amazing, even more so than a young Domingo back when he was dashing and skinny {I never was dashing but I was skinnier!} Of course, DesGrieus sexually harrasses Manon into going to Paris with him and living in sin, so maybe it was type casting. Who says opera isn't uplifting and educational. Everything I know about New Orleans, prostitution, Japan and China come from Puccini operas. And let's not forget my learning about the Alaska gold rush from watching Fanciulla. I have another bottle of the Einaudi Vigna Tecc 2001, and a 1997. Plus a 2001 I Filari. I cant wait to open these! Spot had pizza. He eats about 1/3 of the can and retreats to his bedroom. I have to take the bowl, scrape down the pizza into a pleasant looking mound, take it to his bedroom and wave it under his nose and then take it back to his dish spot and he comes and eats more. One more repetition and he is finished. The bowl had to be a metal bowl identical to the one he eats his chow from. And he complains loudly if we are slow getting the pizza out of the can or fluffing his leftovers. And immediately after finishing his pizza, he demands his leftover chow even if he did not leave any over, And get this, he does not tip us, or kick in for the rent. But he does let us sleep in his bed because it makes it easier for him to meow loudly in our faces at 4 am. And I think we are up to a consistent 2 claws in his reviews. And spot loves opera. He sits in bed and stares at the computer screen the entire time we watch. He has even been known to break out in his favorite arias and sing aloud. He does need to work on his enunciation because his Italian sounds a lot like his French. At least he loves the cheap seats and does not demand premium Orchestra seating. Spot preparing to sing Nessun Dorma. He prefers the newer Franco Zeffirelli production to the original.