Mango & Tomato

3/10/10

My Knife Skills Class for 5 DC Food Bloggers (and friends)

Last month, or maybe two months ago, Tammy from Adventures of a Florida Girl in DC posted a question on Twitter to see if anyone could recommend a knife skills class. I jumped in and offered my services (so to speak).

You see, I've assisted a knife skill class at Sur La Table, and have been a witness to numerous knife skills mini lessons by Robyn Webb. I was ready to teach! Adventures in Shaw jumped in and offered her beautiful kitchen as our classroom. Soon, we had Brian from Urban Bohemian, Alejandra from One Bite at a Time and Thrifty DC Cook on hand. I had my lesson plan in mind, my knife sharpened and my cutting board ready to go. What we did not expect was the insane amount of snow! We had to cancel the class. I was sad, to say the least.

Not to worry! Last Saturday we finally gathered for the knife skills lesson. (After reading my post, I really hope you will check out reviews from Adventures of a Florida Girl in DC, Adventures in Shaw, Urban Bohemian, and One Bite at a Time. Also, huge THANK YOU to Adventures in Shaw for all the photos you see here (we took the photo class together, and it has obviously paid off) and to Brian for the videos from the class.

On the "menu" for the class we had onions, garlic, oranges, peppers and potatoes.

The students (pictured below are Thrifty DC Cook, Alejandra and Tammy) were eager to learn! We also had two great snacks from Thrifty DC Cook.

And here's me: the teacher! I'm wearing an awesome apron I received from the POM Wonderful people. I hope no one is a prude who is reading this: we all found it hilarious!

The first lesson was how to segment an orange. It's a great skill to have for making a fruit salad, adding citrus to Greek yogurt, or simply to show off to your friends.

After segmenting the oranges, we happily ate our fruits of labor.

Next up: how to cut an onion. I demonstrated two different ways, and everyone preferred the 2nd option.

Girl

All of my hard-working students were shocked when there weren't any tears after all the onions we've chopped. The efficient way of cutting an onion reduces the amount of juices released, and makes you cry less! A win/win situation.

Next up: potatoes!

After dicing and slicing the potatoes (which Adventures in Shaw collected, as she did all the other vegetables), I showed a fun rolling technique for the carrots. This technique makes three-dimensional triangular shapes, and is great if you want to roast the carrots. I also demonstrated dicing, slicing, etc.

Then there was time for the garlic. For the love of fresh flavor, please don't buy jarred chopped garlic! It's just not the same. And in all honesty, it doesn't take more than a minute to chop the garlic yourself. After the chopping, I used some Kosher salt and demonstrated how to make a paste from the garlic. If you are looking for a short-cut (and why not!?), just use a microplane, which will also do wonders with ginger.

After garlic, I demonstrated a quick way to chop parsley. You gather up all the parsley like a bouquet, then chop off the stems and roll the remaining thinner stems with leaves into a tight ball. You then cut through the leaves, turn the pile 90 degrees and cut again. Repeat till you get the size of parsley that you need.

And for the final lesson, I demonstrated two ways to "open up" a pepper. The first way is by cutting away the sides of the pepper in between the "membranes." That leaves you with the core and the membranes.

I also pointed out that it's best to slice a pepper on a diagonal, and that you should never cut a pepper shiny side up: it dulls your knife and can cause accidents if a knife slips.

The second technique of opening up a pepper was the most popular part of the class. Just check out this video!

I'm happy to report no fingers were cut in the class! Everyone was patient, eager to learn, and picked up my instructions well. I think all five of my students are on their way to being more efficient and safe cooks!

If you live in DC/VA/MD area and want to take a class from me, please contact me.

3/8/10

Full Kee & Chinatown Coffee Company

One of the great things about having a twin sister is sharing friends. To be completely honest, ever since Anna and I were little, she was often the one who would go and find a friend, and then I'd join in. Luckily, she also loves my friends in DC, so I feel like I've paid her back for all the friends she brought into my life.

This past week, one of Anna's friends from CIA (the Culinary School, not the Central Intelligence Agency), Wendy, was in town. And as we've done any time Wendy is in DC, we met for lunch. Previously we've visited Oya, Zaytinya, and others. This time Wendy wanted to go to Full Kee. I was game.

I've been to Full Kee many times: some times were better than others. Luckily, the restaurant wasn't packed (like it usually is for dinner), and we were able to get seated quickly.

Wendy ordered a shrimp dumpling soup, and was quite a fan of it!

I decided to go with wide noodles and a brisket. But I wanted some color and asked our waitress to put some vegetables in the soup. She said "sure," but did not let me know what would be included. When the bowl of soup came to the table, I was shocked by the generous portion (for under $6!), and happily surprised to see rapini! After adding a bit of hot pepper sauce, I was ready to dig in. The noodles were soft and almost melted in my mouth; the brisket was tender and well seasoned. I just wish there weren't fatty pieces floating around: fat grosses me out! I would have absolutely taken leftover noodles home, but I did not want to deal with the fat chunks.

After soup we decided to get coffee (specifically, Wendy was going to get coffee, and I was planning to get hot chocolate because my personal trainer allows only one caffeinated beverage a day, and I've already had a diet Pepsi for breakfast: don't judge!).

I remembered that @ThriftyDCCook has been raving about Chinatown Coffee Company, and we decided to check it out.

First thing first: I absolutely loved the industrial design: the exposed brick walls, the stainless steel, the minimum lighting fixtures. And they had local art displayed on walls: a great plus.

This place had two menus: to stay or to go.

Wendy ordered coffee. The barista was less than pleasant, and was actually kind of snooty for no apparent reason. To add to this unfortunate situation, Wendy did not think there was anything special about coffee.

My hot chocolate looked absolutely beautiful: I love coffee/hot chocolate art.

But let's not be shallow (I know, it's hard for me sometimes): what really matters is how it tastes! Ugh: it did not blow me away. The hot chocolate was super watery: I really think I could have done the same out of a mix. Disappointing to say the least.

It was great seeing Wendy as always, but next time we'll choose somewhere else to go for coffee/hot chocolate. Any recommendations in Gallery Place area in DC?

3/5/10

Celebrating Food Event

A few months ago, I received an email from Les Dames d'Escoffier inviting me to their Celebrating Food! Seventh Salute to Women in Gastronomy event. The line up of guests and workshops sounded like fun, the price for the day ($95) was doable, but I just did not want to attend solo.

I decided to email a bunch of my food-loving friends and see if anyone was interested. Luckily, Quinn said yes! (Read her recap here.)

Never mind the fact that I only had 5 hours of sleep (went dancing the night before), and a long Metro ride all the way to Shady Grove, and that Quinn and I were waiting for each other at different Metro stations, I was thrilled to attend this event, and eventually Quinn and I found each other, registered and were ready to check out the breakfast selection.

Unfortunately, we were a little bit late and there was no coffee!!! You can see my very sad face that Quinn captured for her update! Instead, I had tea, Greek yogurt with fruit and a chocolate croissant.

The keynote speakers were Carla Hall and Nongkran Daks. Did you know Carla was the first chef I assisted at Sur La Table!? She is just as high energy, friendly, knowledgeable and fun as she comes across on Top Chef. Nongkran Daks is the owner and Executive Chef of Thai Basil in Chantilly, VA and has appeared on Bobby Flay's show (LOVE him).

After the introductions, Quinn and I attended our first workshop: Trucs of the trade. The workshop featured Carol Cutler, Sheilah Kaufman (who I've assisted multiple times at Sur La Table as well), Nongkran Daks, Katherine Tallmadge, Kathy Gold, Susan Holt and Janis McLean.

Nongkran showed us how to juice a lime using the edge of your knife: for the love of god do NOT do this at home!!

Nongkran also said that you can use the leftover of juiced limes and lemons and rub them on your heels to make the skin softer. You know what? I tried it at home, and it really does work!!!! Great for the Spring and Summer season.

Our second workshop was Food Writing With Flavor. This is definitely something I can improve for the blog. Sometimes (ok, most of the time) I just write little captions for my photos, instructions on the recipe and add a question for the readers (you!) at the end. This workshop was quite eye opening, but everything will require practice, patience, practice and time.

The workshop was held by David Leite (3 times James Beard Award winner who wrote The New Portuguese Table, and has published his work in multiple impressive publications), Domenica Marchetti, an author of two cookbooks and contributor to Washington Post, NPR, etc; Joe Yonan (see the photo below), editor of the food and travel sections of the Washington Post and Bonnie Benwick, Deputy Editor of the Washington Post Food Section. I actually met Bonnie several years ago when Washington Post came into my apartment to teach this Jewish girl how to cook pork properly.

Basically, it's important to write about what you know and have passion for. Joe Yonan recommended writing memory pieces (something that you remember from your childhood, something that has touched you deeply, influenced you, etc.). Domenica spoke about writing from a journalistic point of view, asking questions, observing details, listening carefully and being accurate. She said writing needs to be visual, concise, funny and important. David spoke about having a voice, using active verbs, and that writing wasn't simply putting down the words you would use for speaking. And finally, Bonnie gave us the don'ts of writing (overusing adjectives and adverbs, assuming the audience knows basic things, trying to write like someone else, forgetting to re-read your earliest pieces).

After the second session, there was lunch!!! Quinn and I met up with Sally (who I met through a few other DC food blogging events) and met a brand new blogger Jenny. We walked around tasting different offerings, sipping wine, and chatting.

First thing first, Blanc de blanc sparkling wine from Thibaut-Janisson Winery in Charlottesville, VA. It was light, sparkly, and I said "yes" to an offer of a second sample! Boy, did it go to my head fast.

Then I sampled a few cheeses from Cabot. Unfortunately, Quinn gave up cheese for Lent, and had to be satisfied with a few money saving coupons.

Next on the menu, I tried chocolate bark from BlackSalt.

And guess who was a big sponsor of this event? CHIPOTLE! I've loved them ever since I visited Anna in Dallas 8 years ago and tried Chipotle for the first time.

Moving on to a bit fancier food, we tried fresh mozzarella and cured meat from il Canale.

Then I tasted rice and chicken curry from the owners of Indique, Indique Hights and Bombay Bistro.

I need to cleanse my palette, and had a scoop of pear sorbet (not pictured) from Moorekno's Ice Cream.

This photo of me is courtesy of Quinn. You can see my newish camera and my awesome silver bracelet :)

Next, I tried the sticky rolls from Hawthorne Fine Breakfast Pastry. It was hard to choose just one dessert from the variety they offered, but my choice was a good one!

And I can't forget the wine! These wines are imported from Souch Africa. Of course I loved the Riesling, but what surprised me the most is that I really liked their Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004. It wasn't as bitter and dry as some of the red wines I'm used to...perhaps I'm developing my taste buds? Most likely, this was just a really good bottle of red wine.

After all the food, it was time for more workshops. And as if I wasn't tipsy enough, Quinn, Jenny and I took Mixology workshop. You see, I don't really drink much, and when I do, I go for pretty sweet cocktails.

This class opened my eyes to many things I normally would not try. And after trying them, I must admit I'll stick to what I like :)

Below, you see hands of Gina from PS7 mixing a lovely creation using poached pears (and their liquid), Scotch, and Balvene.

Here are the three cocktails we've tried. As you can see, I did not drink too much because they were rather strong for me, but they did taste good.

We also attended a workshop about restaurant reviews. But I'm getting too tired of writing this recap, so I'll leave you with the photo of Rainbow Rose, something we had with chocolate at the end of the event.

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this entire experience! I also ran into Amy Riolo, another Chef I worked with at Sur La Table, Amber Pfau (who has a PR restaurant business), chatted with Carla Hall (who remembered me!!!) and just loved listening to people who are passionate about food and are able to make a living from it.

3/3/10

Lunch: The Source

Last week Elyssa and I met for lunch at Wolfgang Puck's The Source located in Newseum. This was my second time at The Source. The first time I went to this restaurant was several years ago for my birthday, and I still remember the beautiful and sleek decor, courteous service, and most importantly the juicy Kobe burger.

This time around I contemplated ordering an entree, but the 3 course lunch was just too good to pass. [Dear, The Source. Thank you for updating your on line menu to reflect the correct price for your lunch special: $28 instead of $25.]

First Course: Creamy Seven Onion Soup with Bacon Confit, Caramelized Fuji Apples

First thing we noticed about the first course was the large portion size (I wasn't complaining!). The soup looked rather bland in the pretty white plate, but the flavors jumped out once I stirred the soup. Good thing neither Elyssa nor I keep Kosher: the bacon was smoky and added a nice balance to the sweetness of the apples.

As we were eating, our waitress stopped by and brought us a dish of green beans with walnuts and black sesame seeds: a crunchy little snack!

Second Course: "American Style" Kobe Cheeseburger with House Made Pickles, Maryland State Cheddar

Yes, despite wanting to be a bit more adventurous, I ordered the burger again. Look at the photographs: how could I have said no to this!? I liked the crispiness of the toasted bun, which was also topped with black and white sesame seeds.

The portion once again was rather generous. The burger (I had mine cooked medium rare) was juicy and coated with melted cheese. I really liked the slightly sweet pickles and a few marinated onion rings served on the side.

The French fries were crispy, but could have used something a bit more inventive than ketchup and mustard.

Third Course: I asked to have fresh fruit instead of the dessert.

Elyssa had Molten Chocolate Cake with Espresso Chai Ice Cream

The description of the dessert was mildly misleading to say the least. This was more of a phyllo satchel stuffed with Nutella. No one was complaining, it was just difficult to eat, but tasted delicious (Elyssa gave me a bite). And the presentation was playful and adorable.

The ice cream had a hint of cardamon with a strong espresso kick.

Overall, this was a great lunch: delicious food, great company, and relatively good service (it took us a bit longer than I expected to get our bill). Perhaps next time I'll try something other than a Kobe burger!

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