Tweaked

Cracked Eggery Cleveland Park opens tomorrow, Friday Sept. 10. Washingtonian. Maybe they can crack the curse of this store front.

Always nice to get accolades from the national food media: Paola Velez, Bakers Against Racism Angel Barreto, Anju Full List

You might be looking for something a bit different, but the Ace Adventure Resort has cabins for rent, full kitchens, hot tubs etc. While it is an "adventure resort" mostly used for white water rafting groups, many of the cabins do appear to be tucked away. The resort is just North of the New River National Park and near the town of Oak Hill. I've only used their camp grounds and that was like, 20 years ago... Airbnb is another option.

Charlie Watts 1941-2021

2 Amy's is requiring proof of vaccination for dine-in. I believe proof is not needed for outdoor patio seating. We showed our credentials at the door and saddled up to the wine bar. The star of the night: Josiah's Brother-in-law's grilled veal chop (8oz) with grilled rapini, fresh shells beans, lemon. Pricy at $27 but damn was it tasty.

Looks like V Street is a pandemic casualty and has closed.

Vegan SIL demands good vegan food not half-assed here's some vegetable sides for your dinner. Fortunately Philly is a very vegan food friendly town, they even have fully vegan pizza shops: enter 20th Street Pizza. This store front pizza shop is located at South 20th Street between Sansom and Chestnut a couple blocks north of Rittenhouse Square owned by the same folks that run Blackbird Pizzeria in the Northern Liberties neighborhood. We ordered take, going with the Tomato Pie and Supreme. Both were square pizzas in the thicker crust style. The Supreme was declared the winner. I think, sadly, the pizzas suffered from being in the pizza box too long. It took us about 40 minutes to get to our destination from 20th Street. Would love to try them again fresh from the oven.

Wondering the streets of Philly, my brother and SIL wanted to try a tapas place they had heard about. I don't think they knew Barcelona Wine Bar is part of a chain. So we ended up here for brunch. I haven't been to any of the DC locations, so I have no point for comparison. That said, they did a good job for a late Saturday lunch/brunch, especially with two vegetarians and a vegan in tow. Their bread is served warm and is decent, with a crispy crust. The crumb is a bit pillow-y, but good for soaking up olive oil. The brunch fideo with chorizo and egg was very good. Fideo (or fideua) is basically a paella type dish made with a short, angel hair like pasta. I'd definitely order this again. The boquerones were served six on a plate with a generous splash of olive oil. I'm guessing these were from a package (I doubt anyone is making boquerones in-house), so hard to screw up but they went well with the bread, and really tiny little fishes are usually good. They did a good job with the mushrooms ala plancha, green beans with garlic and parsley, and spinach and chickpea cazuela. The patatas bravas were a good sized portion of well fried potato chunks, but the sauces were not particularly bravas: too mild and not overly flavorful. But, ya know, toss a couple of the patatas on the fideo with the chorizo and egg...it's pretty much a brunch win. Refreshing glasses of sangria, not too sweet, washed everything down. Service was good, friendly, and our server marked up the menu for veg/vegan friendly dishes. Again, I don't know what the DC branches of Barcelona are like, but the Philly branch did a satisfying job.

The English Premier League started off with a bang when tiny Brentford FC, newly promoted to the EPL, beat Arsenal 2-0 at home. Brentford's new stadium holds 17,500, for comparison Arsenal's stadium seats 60,000. This was Brentford's first game in the English top flight division since 1947. After the game, old men were literally crying in the stands.

These are some of the cookbooks I've been using a lot during the pandemic. Falastin: A Cookbook Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley. Palestinian cooking from Ottolenghi's business partner. A little more chefy/hip in the Ottolenghi mode. Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen More Palestinian from human rights lawyer turned cookbook author Yasmin Khan. A little more downhome family cooking focused. And yes, owning Falastin and Zaitoun is worth it. Ripe Figs: Recipes and Stories from Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus Yasmin Khan's follow-up cookbook focused on the Eastern Mediterranean and the impact of the ongoing refugee crisis. Bitter Honey: Recipes and Stories from Sardinia Regional Italian/Sardinian cooking from British ex-pat Letitia Clark. Her blog is also good. Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou Melissa Martin. Family recipes that serve as inspiration for the Mosquito Supper Club restaurant in New Orleans. Be warned, there are no short cuts in this cookbook, many recipes start with "cook onions for 1 hour" but totally worth it. Also most of the recipes are scaled for 6-8 servings. Maunika Gowardhan's website Regional Indian. She has moved most of her new recipes to her app, which only works for Apple, but her website has a good backlog of pre-app recipes. Her next cookbook devoted to Thali comes out this Fall.

Was running errands around the neighborhood yesterday and decided I needed a slice...white onion. Not enough by the slice stores in DC.

We stopped in the Center City location over the weekend and ordered three donuts: Blueberry Lemon, Banana Nutella, Chocolate Toffee. Looks like the fancy flavors rotate daily. We both thought the Blueberry Lemon one was the best. The donuts are on the smaller side but are super rich and tasty. We split each donut so ended up eating three halves and that was plenty. A short stroll to Rittenhouse Square with some coffee and donuts made for a nice Sunday morning.

Given the untimely death of Hung Liu this weekend, this show is pretty much a must see, IMO. Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands August 27, 2021 - May 30, 2022 “The story of America as a destination for the homeless and hungry of the world is not only a myth. It is a story of desperation, of sadness, of uncertainty, of leaving your home. It is also a story of determination, and—more than anything—of hope.” Hung Liu, 2017 Hung Liu (1948-2021) was a contemporary Chinese American artist, whose multilayered paintings have established new frameworks for understanding portraiture in relation to time, memory, and history. Often sourcing her subjects from photographs, Liu elevates overlooked individuals by amplifying the stories of those who have historically been invisible or unheard. Having lived through war, political revolution, exile, and displacement, she offers a complex picture of an Asian Pacific American experience. Her portraits speak powerfully to those seeking a better life, in the United States and elsewhere. Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands will be the artist’s first major exhibition on the East Coast. This is also the first time that a museum will focus on Liu’s portraiture. In Memoriam: Hung Liu 1948–2021 ArtForum

News today that Hung Liu has passed.

Final week before NMWA's two year renovation closure. Get there if you can.

Just back from NYC and saw several restaurants that were vaccine only dining, or you needed to provide proof of vaccination, or only vaccinated people could eat inside and non-vaccinated eat outside. I haven't seen DC restaurants doing this as much. That said, no one asked us for proof of vaccination the entire time we were there.

Ron Popeil, influential TV direct market salesman...would the infomercial be the same without him? But wait, there's more: NY Times Obit Many a hungover college weekend was spent blankly watching Ron...set it and forget it.

For Kusama fans and fans of botanical gardens. The exhibit features 10 pieces by Kusama situated around the gardens and buildings. I highly recommend shelling out for the full pass, which provides entry to the Kusama pieces that are inside buildings. All the pieces are located in and around the main NYBG entrance and Mosholu Entrance and are within easy walking distance of each other. For further exploring on the park in general, there is a trolley system or plenty of walking paths. It took us about an hour to subway out to the gardens from Mid-town Manhattan and then about a 15 minute walk from the subway to the botanical garden entrance. KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature

Funny to read all the ten year old posts slagging Eataly. You've gone about it all wrong. Spend the morning in Madison Square Park with a good book and coffee, pop over to Eataly Flatiron, grab a slice or two of Roman-style pizza from the Alla Pala counter, turn around and get a tasty dessert treat from the La Pasticceria counter, and then head back out and enjoy a picnic in the park. Their fresh pasta is also good and nicely survived the train ride back to DC. Their dried packaged pasta section also has some good finds, like Sardinian malloreddus and fregula.

We didn't eat in the Bronx, but the New York Botanical Garden is worth a visit (if botanical gardens are your thing). Think of it as the U.S. National Arboretum (along NY Ave) and U.S Botanical Garden (on the Mall) mashed together in a big park. And Kusama: Cosmic Nature runs through Oct. 31, 2021.

Mark Peel - Influential California cuisine pioneer, co-founder La Brea Bakery and Campanile. NY Times Obit LA Times Appreciation I had an unremarkable meal at Campanile a year or two before it closed. But I'm 99.9% sure that Nancy Silverton has dining with friends at a large table nearby.

Well, two out of three ain't bad 😁

We just got back from a multiday road trip from DC to Denver and then a 10 day stay in Denver. We stayed in higher-end hotels during the drive and weeknight hotel prices were pretty good, we were paying about $150 a night, staying one night per hotel. In Denver we stayed with famly so that was easy. We stayed one night each in Louisville, St. Louis, and Kansas City. We found that the further west we drove the less mask wearing became compared to DC. By the time we reached Kansas City it was like there wasn't a pandemic going on. Pretty much no one wore a mask, indoors, outdoors, in restaurants, at the hotels, even the staff. All three hotels we stayed at had signage about wearing masks. At the Brown Hotel in Louisville all staff were wearing masks. At the Westin in St. Louis all staff wore masks but some had noses exposed. At the Fontaine in Kansas City most staff had masks on but not all. All the hotels had limited food service. So if you are staying at hotels plan accordingly. We ate in the bar area at the Brown Hotel and as mentioned all staff had masks, and it felt like they were sticking to Covid protocals. We did take out in St. Louis. And we ate indoors at a restaurant in Kansas City, and as mentioned it was like there wasn't a pandemic. Regular seating, I only saw one or two staff wearing a mask, and our waitress was not. In Denver, pretty much no one wore masks outdoors and I believe mask wearing was required to enter businesses. The one restraurant I ate at had ample spacing between tables. When driving we found at most rest stops and quick gas/food stops it was about 50/50 with mask wearing. A random Starbucks we stopped at in Missouri had no indoor seating and all employees wore masks (I took that to be a corporate Starbuck's policy rather than local protocals) We flew home from Denver via United. I'd say there was a very high 95%+ compliance with mask wearing at the airport and the flight. It really felt like a normal airport/airplane experience, just most people had a mask on. I even got yelled at by surly TSA staff for not moving quickly enough through the security screening, so that hasn't changed (but seriously, I don't envy TSA right now, it looked like a really high stress job and security screening at the Denver airport is always a nightmare) We are both vaccinated, so after a certain point we decided to trust the vaccines. I'd say right now it's pretty much a mixed bag on mask wearing and other Covid protocals. So it really comes down to your own personal tolerances re: Covid protocals, masks, social distancing etc. Good luck!

The drive from Kansas City to Denver, all 600 miles, calls for some distractions. Enter Goodland, KS, home to the World's Largest Easel, which holds what must be the World's Largest Van Gogh painting of sunflowers (the state flower of Kansas). But wait, there's more. Refuel at the very good Good Grounds Coffee & Bistro. They pour a nice latte and the pecan coffee cake is fabulous. I'm kinda pissed that we didn't make it in time for the biscuit sandwiches. I-70 Kansas at Exit 17. Absolutely worth it!

We arrived late afternoon on a rainy day in Kansas City. We stayed at the very nice Fontaine Hotel along Brush Creek and the nearby museum district. The hotel had nice rooms with king sized beds and a good 7th floor bar which opened out onto a terrace with a swimming pool. I'd stay at the Fontaine again. Unfortuantely, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art was closed by the time we arrived so we walked around the grounds and sculpture park. It was getting late and the hotel had a deal with the next door Jax Fish House and Oyster Bar. Yikes seafood in Kansas City...the place was pretty solid. It's the sister branch of Jax in Denver and has multiple certifications for sustainable sourcing (if you believe these certifications). Anyhoo. Good oysters, especially the Wellfleets. A solid bowl of crawfish and sausage gumbo. Excellent fries and tasty golf ball sized hushpuppies. The JAX margarita was medicore. The next morning we went to the very busy on a Friday morning Classic Cup Cafe. We ordered take-out and the Everything Bagel with bacon, egg, and chive cream cheese hit the spot, pretty good cubed home fries too. It was close and convenient.