In November, I bought some crosnes at the Union Square Greenmarket from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm. As you can see in the photo, they look like grubs. They taste slightly nutty after being lightly sauteed in oil.
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Tony has made ribs a few more times in the slow cooker, including once when we had Lou over for dinner after New Year's, using this recipe from About.com Southern Food, with a couple of tweaks. He also made them once in the oven using this Alton Brown recipe, but we didn't like them as much.
And he made a wonderful lamb tagine that we ate on Dec. 10, along with one of the three delicious wines DC Mark and Mike sent us. (We didn't wait until Christmas to open the box. Or the bottles.)
He's also been doing some juicing. Here's a purty and tasty pineapple and cranberry layered concoction he made me last month:
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On Dec. 17, Jack treated Hanif, Mark, David, and me to dinner at Dirt Candy. He had also invited Tony, who politely declined the offer because he didn't think DC would be able to accommodate his dietary needs. Even though it's a vegetarian restaurant, the menu includes a lot of dairy and bread-like substances. Like the Jalapeño Hush Puppies with Maple Butter that we devoured as a pre-dinner snack. And the waffle that came with my cauliflower-centric entree. I enjoyed everything very much, but my favorite course was—shocker!—the dessert: Ice Cream Nanaimo Bar, made of sweet peas, mint, and chocolate.
Mark and Hanif:
Jack and David:
David had also gotten the cauliflower entree. All of the appetizers and entrees were built around one ingredient; carrot (which we shared along with the hush puppies), corn, celery, and Swiss chard were some of the others.
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And speaking of Swiss chard, my favorite salad green I found at the Greenmarket this fall was micro Swiss chard. The Two Guys From Woodbridge had it one day not long before Christmas, but I haven't seen it since.
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On the first Friday of this month, I went to Bob and Jen's for a chicken and eggplant parmigiana dinner. Kelly, who was Jen's maid of honor at B&J's wedding, was visiting from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Here's what the four of us looked like back then, on July 19, 1996, in my photo of a photo from B&J's wedding album:
And here are Kelly, Jen, and Judy in the present time, posing for me during dessert:
Willy and Emily and Vita and Steve were also there from B&J's building. It was a great night.
I agree Dirt Candy was a fun, unique, tasty experience. But notice I did not use the word "filling"! After you left us Bill, the 4 of us went to IHOP and pigged out. It was a delicate situation because we didn't want to offend our gracious host Jack, but we all felt better when Jack himself ordered a BLT with onion rings. Dirt Candy might be fine for the "ladies who lunch" crowd, but i won't go back until with introduce the "Hungry Man Specials".
Posted by: Mark (Hungry Man) Heskin | January 31, 2012 at 01:58 PM
I knew you were heading to the IHOP that night. You "pigged out" there? Dude, you had hush puppies! :-)
Posted by: Bill Hawley | January 31, 2012 at 10:35 PM