20 Things You Should Believe If You Want to Feel Morally Superior to "Foodies"

First we feast has a slideshow listing "20 Things Everyone Thinks About the Food World (But Nobody Will Say)." Nevermind that first on our list of internet tropes to avoid is the slideshow, it's a pretty though provoking list. Some of it, like 'most people just want wine that tastes like wine' is pretty banal. Others like "The sustainable food movement is only relevant to rich white people" are likely false. But it's an amusing read. My favorite? Tex-mex food is better than authentic Mexican:

Why do we, in food media, discount so heartily Americanized ethnic foods? Many bastard cuisines, from red-sauce Italian to Americanized Chinese food, deserve more praise for the distinct styles of cooking they've become. Tex Mex is so often looked down upon by the fooderati for its reliance on cheese, sauce, and beans. SO FUCKING WHAT? Go ahead and look down on a combo meal for being heavy, then go stuff your face with Frédéric Morin's version of the double down at Joe Beef. That's right—you are a hypocritical glutton! Sorry, we've become violent… The point here is not to fight fire with fire, but rather to suggest that Tex Mex is worth vaulting into the pantheon of real American food. Ever had a fajita in San Antonio? That shit is transcendental. And no amount of Rick Bayless can stop it.

 Which of course harkens back to this post of mine: "Authenticity in Food".

h/t: The Gray Report.

Union Market

Photo by sirmichael, on flickr

Union Market opened last year in the NE to great fanfare. It's a large hall filled with artisanal merchants and food vendors. I've been there a couple of times, but this was the first time I've been since it was kicking on all cylinders. It's a bit hard to get to if you don't drive; a couple buses pass nearby, and it's walking distance from the New York Avenue metro, but it's not actually close to the metro, and taking the bus home gets a bit complicated for us. But the shops there are all lovely.

Our first stop was Buffalo & Bergen, Gina Chersevani's new spot. It's a reasonable facsimile of a New York deli, with bagels (made with real New York water!), knishes, and sodas. Since it has two of the district's best bartenders, Gina and Rachel Sergi, it also has a number of very excellent cocktails. I haven't tried the bagels, but the knishes are very good. The Reuben knish I had could have been a bit tangier, but the short rib knish my wife had was right on.

Since I'm a bit of a cheese fiend, we had to stop by Righteous Cheese for a cheese plate. The plates are a bit expensive here, and I'm not sure what we got was quite a $24 plate. Not to mention that their insistence we both get something, and not just split a cheese plate, left a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, though, the cheese plate was very good, and the beer pairings tasty and inventive.

Our third stop was Rappahannock Oyster Co. We went a little overboard here, but in our defense, mmm seafood. We got a dozen oyster, a crab cake, and a bit of salmon roe, and every bit of it was delicious. The crab cake was the best I've ever had, the salmon roe was like Gushers for adults, and impossible to do wrong. The oysters were great. They gave us three varieties, the middle of the road Rappahannocks, the briny Olde Salts, and the sweeter Stingrays. My wife had a glass of manzanilla sherry, and I had the Flying Dog Oyster Stout, both of which went great with the food.

Union Market was great fun to visit, even if logistics mean we're not going to be down here every week. If you've been to the butcher, let me know what you thought; I didn't get a chance to try any of their products.

A Sharper Image

Photo by Dan Sorensen, on flickr.

I'm reminded by a post from Rowley's Whiskey Forge of the annual sharpening of the knives. What I didn't know until a couple years ago was that knives should be sharpened annually. While using a steel each time the knives come out helps keep them aligned, it doesn't actually sharpen it. While most hardware stores will do it for you, it's easy enough to buy a sharpener and do it at home. I use this one. It's also important to actually remember to do it! Rowley apparently does his knives every holiday season; I do mine around Thanksgiving. So if you haven't done it yet, go sharpen your knives! It's not to late to use Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday as your mnemonic device, just try not to think about any potential symbolism.

Himalayan Heritage

 We're often torn about what to do for food after a workout. It's usually late, and we're usually tired, so we don't usually want to cook. But eating out two or three times a week would be a bit of a strain on our pocketbook. So, we're always looking for deals in Adams Morgan, especially for places that seem like they're not going to mind too much if we're a bit grubby. Himalayan Heritage fit this bill, so I got the deal, and we headed over.

 I wanted to try and order something that was more on the Nepali end of the spectrum, less on the Indian end, so I got the "Himalayan Karahi," a "Mixture of Barbeque chicken, and lamb cooked with tomatoes, capsicum and coriander leaves in medium spices with red wine tossed in an iron souk." My wife got the Muglin Thali, a combination of several different dishes featuring prominently a goat curry. The dominant theme of the meal was tough. My chicken was tough. Her goat was tough. It was tough to get service. We weren't very happy with the meal, but I was going to chalk part of it up to being crabby until I realized we were there for two hours. That's much too slow for service. Perhaps we caught them on a bad night, but I don't think we're going back.

Pork!

Lauren DeSantis reminds us that Cochon 555 is only three months away:

Guests will be treated to an epic pork feast of seven whole heritage pigs from amazing chefs, wines from five different small wineries plus special tastings from celebrated food and beverage producers. New additions in 2013 include the streaming live cocktail competition called "Punch Kings" featuring local mixologists, our unique take on "Guy on His Buffalo" Cocktail Series, a special Mezcal tasting and the launch of the TarTar Bar. Everyone enjoys butcher demonstrations, interactive tasting contests, ice-cold brews, artisan cheeses, Rappahannock River Oysters, the infamous Manhattan Bar, a pork-spiked dessert, cold brewed coffee and to close the evening, attendees and local judges will help us announce the 2012 NYC Princess of Porc.

 A lot of these sorts of events are pretty gimmicky and not really worth the cost of admission, but I've only heard good things about this pork-centric event. Tickets start at $125.

Places to go next week

Urban Daddy reminds us that Graffiato is starting their late night pop-up series next week Monday. On the first Monday of every month, Isabella is handing the kitchen over to another area chef. Kicking it off is Bryan Voltaggio and Owen Thompson, so it should be awesome. I'm not sure I can stay up that late anymore, but someone should definitely let me know how it is. The full schedule is here.

State of the Blog: 2013

I've had this blog for about a year now. I always told myself I'd do a year, and then see how I felt about it. The good news for both of my fans is that I'm going to continue the blog, but I need to make it more fun for me. Originally, I wanted to make sure I had at least one post a day. In order to make that happen, I created the Small Plates posts -- they were something easy I could do, even when my work schedule ramped up. The problem is twofold. First, I just don't enjoy writing them, or any of the administrative work behind them. Second, when I'm not posting much other than them, it makes the blog look like just a rehash of other people's posts. So those posts are out. I still plan on covering any news that looks particularly exciting, but that will be in an individual post.

Other than that, you can expect more of the same commentary on my cooking and drinking, and I'm hoping to do a better job of posting reviews. As far as new content goes, I'll have a post up later today or tomorrow talking about a new series I'm hoping to start soon. Happy new year to both of you, and if either of you has a suggestion for what you'd like to see, please feel free to make a comment.