Homecoming...

This past weekend I journeyed home, as many young professionals do, to the comforting arms of.....(wait for it)...my hair stylist. Yes, I did come home for a haircut. BUT, there were many other perks involved. 1) My cousin, whom I hadn't seen in over a year, was visiting my parents from Connecticut. 2) My close friend from my India program, Mimi, is working in DC this summer and I had not yet had the chance to see her. 3) I have many personal belongings that I stupidly decide to lug with me wherever I am temporarily living. Half of these clothes, books, photography paraphenalia, and shoes I probably don't need at all, yet I decide to bring them along with me anyway in order to create a more complete home for myself. So, this 24 hour trip home proved to be a lugging session of about half of the things I have accumulated from New York. And of course there is the obvious and probably most highly ranked reason for my travels: a hair date with my stylist who has been cutting my hair for 19 years. Yes, that's right folks. I've been with her since I was two. That is true loyalty.

After a morning of comfortable bus travel, I arrived in DC to be picked up by my mother and cousin at the bus station. Pete (my cousin) and I jetted home to settle me in and then we drove to my favorite bookstore, Politics & Prose, for some necessary fiction browsing.

After our outing we went to lunch in the Macomb Street restaurant enclave about five blocks from my house. We parked the car and walked up the street. Something caught my eye. In the place of an ancient antique store that my mother liked to frequent stood a brightly lit and painted new shop entitled "Something Sweet." Do you remember the Sesame Street interactive game "What doesn't Fit"? Well this sighting was a little like that. The series of restaurants on this strip have been imprinted in my brain so that the presence of a new shop sent off a message in my head with an appropriate robot voice: ALERT ALERT NEW RESTAURANT, MUST TRY!

I had to sneak in and check out the goods. Pete, confused but obliging, let me look even though he was ravenously hungry. The cute, but awfully mysterious shop, contained rows of neatly decorated cupcakes and hungry customers on line for a sweet treat. My eyes popped open. I scampered out of the store before my lack of will power would get the best of me and allow me to try cupcakes before having lunch.

At Cafe Deluxe, a local good ol' upscale American food joint, I dined with my mom and Pete on soups and salads. One of my best friends happened to come into the restaurant at the end of our meal for her own lunch date. I appropriately ran across the restaurant (yes, I ran), squealed and tackled her with a hug. What will continue to amaze me is the frequency of random run-ins when home for a brief vacation. If I have been away from DC for three months or even seven months, I will always run into some acquaintance or friend who also happens to be living away from home. Call it fate. Call it non-random. Call it a small world. Regardless, it's amazing and highly entertaining.

After lunch, I convinced my mother to come with me to my new cupcake discovery right around the corner. My mom, god love her, can never turn down a venture into a cute boutique, food, shoes, or otherwise. So, she's always a great partner in exploring these venues. We entered and after the anticipated oohs, aahs and "I can't believe this exists" comments, we decided to purchase cupcakes for Shabbat dessert and try some of their homemade ice cream. We bought an assortment of four cupcakes: Chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting, Vanilla with vanilla buttecream frosting, Red velvet with creamcheese frosting, and Vanilla with Chocolate buttercram and m&ms. Yum.

Mom and I shared a smooth and creamy peanut buttercup cup of icecream which ended up being almost three heaping scoops. Pete had a fluffy rocky road combo. The icecream was clearly homemade in that it lacked your typical freezer burned tastelessness from processing. It was the perfect consistency at room temperature--not too melted, not too soupy, but perfectly soft with elasticity that holds the flavors and the cold cream together. I can honestly hold one complaint for the peanut buttercup flavor: it did not have enough chocolate. Period.

As for the cupcakes, which were consumed several hours later by my dad, my friend Mimi, Pete, mom, and myself, I can say they did their jobs well. Large, but satisfying. Creamy, flavorful buttercream, and moist cake satisfied our already full palates and bellies. I would like to say that I would have preferred a richer and flavorful red velvet cake mixture. It sort of lacked the oomph that usually accompanies the blend of creamchesse frosting and the cocoa powder. Otherwise, each cake complimented its frosting and our appetites beautifully.

Check out Something Sweet at: 3708 Macomb Street Washington, DC across from Two Amy's and Cactus Cantina.
http://www.somethingsweetdc.com/www/index.php

Ooh Baby Baby

What do city girls in the city after work? They go out to dinner with their girlfriends of course! Succumbing to the Sex And The City trend of eating out with galpals, I met my friend Ali last week for drinks and the fateful girls dinner. As I have mentioned before, I work two days a week downtown in the heart of Soho--a shopper's heaven. You want to see fashionable ladies strutting around? Go to Soho.

I waited for Ali on a street corner in front of an air conditioned designer boutique. I was loitering, but didn't care. They want to waste their AC and draw in customers by leaving the doors wide open to the muggy NYC streets, be my guest. I plan to fully take advantage of their waste. So, while I was cooling off, I heard these girls, smoking cigarettes on what seemed like a coffee break, discussing their new vegan diets. "I mean, totally, like it's so good for you. Raw veggies, barely any gluten, nuts...Oh my god so many nuts. Though my skin is going to be like totally gorgeous." Listening to these women, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to question/discuss the vegan diet with my friend Ali who was a vegan herself.

After sixty "likes," you knows," and "oh my gods," Ali arrived and started directing us immediately to our destination: Essex Restaurant. Coincidentally, my friend Mimi had recommended that I try this restaurant for brunch. Ali and I walked through the streets of the Lower East Side, window shopping, sweating, and catching up on life.

Essex. Now how do I put this? Simply amazing. We arrived at 6:30, smack in the middle of their happy hour special: half-priced drinks from 6-9pm. The restaurant also has a nightly seafood special. Our novice waitress kept forcing the mussels special on us even after we articulated and re-articulated Ali's vegetarianism. However, I did have a ginger pear saketini and a mango belini half price so I won't complain.

Over drinks, we had mini spanakopita that weren't identified as such, but tasted exactly the same as the Greek specialty. Girl talk increased exponentially as the entrees arrived. I had a delicious manchego macaroni and cheese with an edamame, green bean, and blood orange side salad. Strange combination, I know, but the kick from the citrusy beans complimented the tangy creaminess of the cheesy macaroni. So filling! Ali had the real kicker though. Essex does a Potato Pancake Special that blows most latkes out of the water. It is set up as a triplet. One potato pancake has a huge slab of creamy goat cheese with fresh argula. The second is topped with sauteed onions and a side of homemade applesauce. The third--last, but not least--is a potato pancake topped with smoked salmon, caviar, and creme fraiche. Miraculous. Whoever thought a greasy Hanukkah dish could be so good?

After stuffing ourselves to the brim with carb-tastic food and alcohol, Ali suggested she educate me on vegan cooking by taking me to BabyCakes, a bakery that offers "all-natural, organic and delicious alternatives free from the common allergens: wheat, gluten, dairy, casein and eggs." They also sweeten most dishes with agave nectar, the syrup from the center of a cactus!

The store reminds me a little of an artists studio mixed with a barbershop. It has that narrow, working-space quality and the homey feeling of a private studio. Original local art graces the walls of this small shop and cushions line the quaint window seat area at the front. I purchased two cupcakes. The carrot and the brownie. The brownie was strangely sweetened with organic ingredients, almond flour, and agave nectar. There is no milk in the chocolate so it is extremely rich and thick. It sort of felt like the first time I tried Diet Coke. I couldn't place the aspartame flavor, but I let it bubble on my tongue for a while until the sweetness settled into my palate. I think agave-flavored anything is an acquired taste like Diet Coke...you need to accept the fact that it will not buzz like refined sugar.

The Carrot Cupcake, on the other hand, was like eating a nuttier carrot cake. It was delicious and flavorful, but there was no creamcheese frosting. Substitute frosting may look glossy and beautiful from a display case, but it doesn't stand a chance against creamcheese. There is a reason god made female animals produce milk (beyond the obvious infant nuturing concept). Dairy is for delicious creamy consumption! As Julia Child says so aptly, "you can never have too much butter." So true. So very true.

In short, while the decor and the ambiance of BabyCakes was adorable and my company beyond wonderful, I can't say that I would grab a vegan cupcake before a delicious buttercream frosted masterpiece. And I wouldn't even dream of making these kinds of desserts at home for myself because, as Ali says, "You need to spend approximately $100 at Whole Foods to get all the weird required ingredients for a single batch." Thanks, but no thanks.

Essex Restaurant: 120 Essex Street, NY, NY 10002 near the Essex, Delancey Street Stop (F, J, M, Z)
BabyCakes: 248 Broome Street (Btwn Orchard & Ludlow) NY, NY 10002; near Delancey Street Stop (F, J, M, Z)

Morning Magic

What gets you up in the morning? Sunlight? A persistent alarm clock with a death wish? A suggestive kiss from a significant other? Whatever it is, stick to that motivator because it is valuable. For me, I can honestly say its the smell of good food in the kitchen.

Growing up, almost every weekend and many weekdays, my dad got up early to get started on his to do list. Incidentally I have adopted this organizational habit and it is addicting. But, that description of my life is for a different day. Anyway, my father would do a fair bit of cooking in those early mornings. One of my favorite things he would prepare is his famous meat sauce. The trick to the sauce is that it slow cooks over multiple hours and the flavors are layered. Before we had a slow cooker, he did it old school--letting the sauce simmer at low heat in his enormous Le Creuset pot. I think if my father could have two wives, he would marry his slow cooker in addition to my mother.

But back to the sauce. The smell of ground beef sizzling among carmelizing onions is enough to make my mouth water and wander out of bed drooling. Yes, I know it sounds strange. The smell of sizzling meat rises me out of a warm comfortable bed. You have no idea how good it smells until you hang out in my kitchen. Even all you vegetarians out there would go crazy over that aroma.

Living in New York on my own doesn't exactly grant me the luxury of waking up to prepared food. I'm a very "light receptive" sleeper. I don't wake up without light which proves to be quite a challenge at college during the grey New England winters. I don't like to sleep in, but on this grey morning I found myself look over at my cell phone thinking it must be around 8, but in fact it was 10:49. Christ. I got up guilty and shamed that I had slept so late and wasted the day, but productively made coffee. I thought to myself, what can bring me back to my parent's kitchen and get me out of this morning funk? What do I have in the refrigerator?

Eggs. Tomatoes. Turkey Sausage. Onion. Garlic. Aged White Cheddar Cheese. Rosemary. Whole wheat olive loaf bread...a meal in the making! So, in my exhaustion and with the aid of strong coffee, I threw together one of my favorite breakfasts--Egg Scrambles. With the same strategy as my dad, but a lot less finesse, I layered the flavors. First the onions, then the turkey sausage, then tomatoes and garlic, then eggs and rosemary and cheese. Then I toasted the slices of olive loaf in the hot pan. I know I don't have the energy to eat this luxuriously every day, but maybe the memory of the smell of sweet turkey sausage, rosemary, and garlic will rise me out of bed more easily.

For amazing egg scrambles if you are ever in the nation's capital and my hometown, hit up Open City on Calvert Street in Woodley Park. Weekend brunches are packed so get there early!