A dinner party for very important folk

The amazing, world-stomping (17 countries in one year!), Alphorn-tooting Madeleine Abromowitz graced the DC population with her presence this weekend. To commemorate the event, I threw a dinner party. And since the party was to be attended by Watson fellows and a Fulbright scholar, aka people who are "kind of big deals," I knew that I had to try my darndest to whip up the best that my little kitchen can come up with.



I had in mind a light summery meal of fresh bread, antipasti, and salads and my friends were nice enough to accommodate their contributions to that theme. On the menu were:

Two loaves of freshly baked bread
Roasted red peppers + mozzerella
Ina Garten's marinated artichoke hearts (recipe below)
Feta + watermelon + spinach + arugula salad
Pearled cous cous salad
Two types of quinoa (red and white!) salad by Rob and Roz
Zucchini corn cake by Colin
Potato salad by Helen and Bobby
Bean salad by Jess Engebretson
A fantastic peach pie by Madeleine
Chocolate cake

A good idea

About three years ago, the Scientific American podcast did an episode on the huge monocropping of bananas. It talked about how our grandparents ate a banana cultivar tastier than what we have today before a fungus wiped it out. Inevitably, our current banana, the Cavendish, is threatened by yet another fungus. This goes hand in hand with the seed bank article in the current National Geographic, which presents the paradox of needing to feed 7 billion people with high yielding crops while preserving a diversity of farming practices and thus our future food supply.

Between all that talk about America's unsustainable banana eating habits and the NYT article about the terrible inequalities of banana pickers in Latin America, I find myself totally unable to eat bananas. That is, until recently, when I saw fair trade bananas at Whole Foods.

I haven't researched very deeply into this but a quick trip to google makes the whole thing seem more or less legitimate. Excited, I bought a few, and make this quick and delicious "ice cream." This is is a great summer frozen treat recipe, for those times when you've finished all the Ben and Jerry's in the freezer and it's too hot to even open the door, let alone walk down the block to Giant. If you stock up on bananas, freeze a bunch of them, you'll never find yourself without ice cream.

While this recipe is infinitely adaptable, I like this particular version because it lets the peanut butter shine through. And if you eat this straight from the food processor, you'll get soft serve. You can also let it harden in the fridge for a few hours for ice cream as well (I would imagine, since I've never actually been able to get to this stage, ever).

NYC food recap

I have to confess that I more or less disliked New York for many years. My first visit took place over the dead of winter. As a silly teen, I didn't wear nearly enough clothes, and wind blew between the oppressively tall buildings right through my clothes so I was miserable almost the entire time. Adding insult to injury, the mounds of honey roasted nuts I ate on that trip gave me my first breakout ever. Needless to say, that was not my last. Many subsequent trips also took place in the winter and I never really did embrace the damp, cold, unfamiliar and unfriendly city.

But over the years and visits, as I explored more and more of the city (often in better weather), I found myself getting more excited as I figured out the subway, ate some fantastic foods and returned again and again to the museum of natural history. This past weekend I went up to visit my dad, who is here on business, and found myself really falling head over heels in love with this place.



For me, memories of places are often formed through the lenses of food and this visit was no different. Throughout the trip, my dad and I spent most of our time either eating or traveling to places to eat. And that's exactly how I like to travel.

Pasta Carbonara

My great uncle is the lucky owner of several productive hens, making me the lucky recipient of a dozen awesomely tasting eggs. I honestly don't remember the last time I ate chicken eggs so delicious.



Aside from a simple fried egg that's wonderfully fresh and tender, I can't imagine a dish better suited for these eggs than a carbonara. I went for this recipe, which was amazing. However, I made the mistake of not adding enough bacon and parsley -- I ran out of bacon (a sad affair) and was worried the entire bunch of parsley would totally overwhelm the dish but found myself missing the greens to cut the richness a little. Despite these setbacks, dinner time was pretty quiet, until everyone had eaten their fill, that is.

Salad with herring and small potatoes

As much as I like to complain about how expensive the Dupont Circle farmer's market is (6+ dollars for a single tomato??), there are plenty of reasons why I go back as often as I can. Last weekend, I found the most beautiful head of lettuce there for only 3 dollars. Compared with the 4-5 bucks you can spend for a few ounces of organic bagged greens that goes bad in a few days, this is totally worth it. In fact, I've stopped buying pre-bagged salads altogether in favor of this technique. Now, I am much happier with the quality of my greens and my salad budget.



The single head of lettuce took up my entire salad spinner and lasted several salads. (Next to the spinner is a bunch of Erba Stella, which is an Italian herb with a light, savory taste -- I highly recommend sauteing it with a little garlic in pasta or tossing it in a salad for some color contrast against some beautiful Boston lettuce) One of the salads I made more than once is this one, which was adapted from a recent Serious Eats post. I used canned herring instead of tuna because I like the texture and flavor of the former much much more but you can use pretty much any canned fish you'd like.

Vodka gnocchi

I've never been much of a pasta eater. I don't really know why. Maybe it's because it's one of the foods I eat the most slowly, and if you know me at all, you know it how slow that would be. It's virtually impossible for me to finish a plate before it goes cold. And cold pasta is rarely delicious.

But everything changed when we made this dish.

This is a seriously amazing recipe. My stomach is grumbling and my mouth is watering as I think about it. It combines the lovely mouth feel of a great cream sauce with a tomato sauce's tanginess, plus some vodka. I tried to understand the role of vodka here but failed -- some claim that since ethanol is such a good solvent, it can readily hold onto all the good flavors of a dish. But my question is: if all the ethanol evaporates during the cooking process and vodka is supposedly a tasteless alcohol, what exactly does it do?



Well, regardless of this mystery, this dish has become our go-to meal. I use gnocchi because I can actually manage to eat it fast enough without everything going cold by the time I finish AND because Trader Joe's gnocchi is fantastic. And if you eat everything with a spoon, it doesn't really matter that the shape of the gnocchi doesn't do anything to hold onto the sauce.

Mango Smoothie

For me, smoothies are the perfect post-workout beverage. It's cold, nutritious and damn tasty. After frisbee today, I made the best mango smoothie yet: 1 part (by volume) of TJ's European style yogurt, 1 part frozen mangos, 1 to 1.5 part soy milk, a bit of maple syrup, a squeeze of lime, and the secret ingredient: a pinch of salt. It was so good -- creamy, cold, tart -- everything I needed after running around for 3 hours. I found that the small pinch of salt really brought out all the flavors whereas in its absence smoothies can often taste a little flat. So even though I originally added the salt to bring a tropical, margarita-like flair to my mango smoothie, I'm convinced that its will help other fruit smoothies in a similarly awesome manner.

On a separate note, my smoothie consumption has vastly increased after I started to use my beloved immersion blender. Instead of having to take apart all those finicky pieces on a blender, all you have to do is rinse off the stick after use. Things cannot get anymore perfect than this.