dinner at Citronelle

Forget elaborate gifts or weekend getaways - Mark and I usually celebrate anniversaries and/or birthdays by eating somewhere we wouldn't be able to justify any other time of the year. My personal shortlist of D.C. restaurants special enough for that once-a-year trip include Komi, Restaurant Eve, CityZen, Citronelle, Minibar, and the Inn at Little Washington. We've done Komi and Eve, so this year for our second wedding anniversary, we made a reservation at Citronelle, Michel Richard's flagship restaurant.

Citronelle definitely has a different atmosphere than Komi or Eve; the latter both feel comfy, while Citronelle is more of an officious-French-waiter, D.C. dealmaking sort of place. That's not to say the service isn't excellent. It is, and if you can get over feeling intimidated by it, it's fun to sit back and admire the complicated dance. Anyway, we went with the promenade gourmande, the more reasonably sized of the two tasting menus. If it hadn't been a weeknight, we'd have done the wine pairings, but when I've gotta work the next day, that's just too much for me. So I started with a glass of Sancerre for the first few courses, than asked the waiter to recommend a red that would go well with my heavier courses (it was a Bordeaux and it was fabulous, but that's all I remember. I was a little put off that he didn't even ask me about my preferences, though - I asked and he just nodded and whooshed off and reappeared with a bottle). First came the amuse bouche, or rather a trio of them: egg surprise, escargot crumble, and vitello-tonnato. The "egg surprise" was a mousse-like cauliflower puree topped with smoked salmon, served in a perfect eggshell half. The top half had a little handle that you lifted up to reveal the puree. The escargot was in a tiny, thimble-sized ramekin, and the vitello tonnato looked like a tiny, pretty wedge of layer cake, one of Richard's many whimsical presentation touches. Next was a silky vichyssoise with house-made potato chips (fried in clarified butter - yum). That was followed by a fried soft-shell crab on a bed of chilled ratatouille. I felt like the crab itself wasn't all that special, but the ratatouille was nice.

Next, a melt-in-your-mouth broiled sablefish with a swoon-worthy caramelized sake-miso glaze. However, this was one course where Mark's vegetarian counterpart got short shrift: my fish came with a little mound of veggies (baby bok choy, etc., with Asian flavors). His dish? Simply three mounds of those same side-dish veggies. It felt like such a dated attitude toward vegetarians. A place that respected them as diners with equally sophisticated palates would have aimed a little higher. In fact, now that I'm on the topic: When we sat down, our waiter acted befuddled when Mark wanted to order a vegetarian version of the tasting menu. (This was after Mark told them he was vegetarian twice: once when he made the reservation on OpenTable, and again following up on the phone. We're aware this is the sort of thing a place needs to know in advance.) The waiter said something like, "Are you sure you want that?" I think there was some confusion because I was getting the regular tasting menu, and the waiter said Mark would have gaps where I had courses and he didn't, because the vegetarian tasting menu was shorter. Mark said that was fine with him, but then the waiter said no, no, it's no problem, the kitchen can do it. I have to say, Komi and Eve were never confused by the request or anything less than gracious about it. (In fact, I think when we first arrived at Komi, the waiter came over right away to ask Mark whether he ate cheese and eggs before he could even remind them he was a vegetarian.) In retrospect, Mark would've been better off with the shorter vegetarian tasting menu, because they don't seem to have enough ideas to sustain a longer one. (Hence the three piles of the side veggies from the sablefish dish.)

Anyway. Next came the lobster burger, my favorite dish of the night. It was a perfect little slider on a brioche roll with what I think was a tomato-ginger jam. (I think it's available in a full-sized entree version at Citronelle's casual-dining counterpart, Central. That would certainly lure me in there.) Perfectly moist, and just the right ratio of lobster to bread. It was served with more of those buttery potato chips. They were delicious, and certainly made sense with this fine-dining take on the burger, but then again, I'd just had them a few courses back. Hmmm. (Similarly, Mark was served asparagus two or three times, and not really in an "asparagus three ways" sort of way. Maybe if we'd gone with the wine pairings, we'd be tipsy enough to not remember?) Next, black angus steak with veal sweetbreads, morels and asparagus. It was good, but it had a tough act to follow after that superstar lobster burger.

Next, the cheese course. Then a strawberry cocktail - a little dish with a sort of strawberry compote in the bottom, then a nice little mousse layer, topped with a mint granita that was so fresh and clean and herbal-tasting. One of the best "palate cleanser" courses I've had. Dessert, Richard's take on a Kit Kat bar, was fabulous. A dense chocolate/hazelnut crispy layered thing with pistachio ice cream and rhubarb tuiles .... sigh. Oh, and then somehow we found room for the petit fours. And managed to waddle home. :)

Overall, though? I sort of felt like we'd been sized up and mentally seated at the kids' table. They have a certain number of star dishes to trot out, and they're incredible, but a lot of Mark's dishes felt like afterthoughts. Maybe they figured we didn't know any better, but we do. In the future, I'll get my lobster burger fix at Citronelle's casual sibling, Central, and we'll do our special-occasion dining at places that treat us like we know what's going on.

oat-apricot bars (and a great springtime cocktail)

So what do you make when you're craving something sweet that's also portable for lunches and such, and you're also impatient for summer stone fruit to make its debut? CHOW's Crumbly Oat & Apricot Bars, made with dried apricots and apricot jam, do the trick. Aren't those gorgeous? They turn out just like the picture. The crust reminds me of the salty oat cookies at Teaism, one of my favorite neighborhood snacks. As noted in the comments on the CHOW website, it's important to use kosher salt for this, not only because table salt is saltier and more densely packed for its volume (they'd be salty indeed if you used a tablespoon of table salt), but also because kosher salt won't totally dissolve in the crust mixture, resulting in appealing little bursts of salt playing off the sweet.

I was almost dissuaded from trying this recipe because of the user comments. But having made this and having had them turn out fabulously, I have to say I have no idea what these people are talking about. Raw flour taste? Not sweet enough? What did they do? Seriously, these are great.

And as for the drink, I think I have perfected my version of a pomegranate martini. Two shots of vodka, one shot of Grand Marnier, a splash of rosewater, a generous squeeze of lemon, topped off with pomegranate juice. The rosewater is nice with pomegranate and it makes the drink something more than just spiked fruit juice (got the idea from a similarly embellished sangria I had recently), and it's not cloyingly sweet. Some boys might even drink it (just don't tell them about the girly rosewater).

I'm watching Dirty Dancing on cable as I type this - What was Jennifer Grey thinking in the '90s when she got that thoroughly generic nose job? Why did she do that? What was wrong with her real one? That is all.

Gotta go - it's time for the big finale. Ooh, here they all come marching down toward the stage for the big lift! Nobody puts Baby in a corner!

just in case you're sick of winter

reverse-engineering a lebanese dish

Mark and I got back from a trip to South Africa yesterday (proper post on that to come). Despite the 17-hour flight, I'm feeling remarkably not very jet lagged, so I was looking forward to cooking tonight. While in Cape Town, we ate at a Lebanese restaurant and had a dish that even Mark had never had: the menu called it potato harra, and it consisted of cauliflower and potatoes--fried or roasted, I wasn't sure--with a spicy, brothy sauce full of lemon and garlic. If Lebanese cooking has a "holy trinity" of flavors, lemon and garlic have got to be two of them. (I'm not sure about the third. Parsley, maybe? Mint? Tomatoes? Chickpeas?)

Anyway, we loved it, and I vowed to re-create it at home. I cut cauliflower and potatoes into bite-sized pieces, tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and set them in a pan to roast at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, I chopped up a lot of garlic--just keep peeling those cloves until you start to get a bit scared--and mixed it up with some olive oil, smoked paprika and a little cayenne, and let that all sit while the veggies roast. Then I poured that over the partially roasted veggies (I think the garlic would burn if it was in there for the full half hour), tossed it to coat, sprinkled some panko bread crumbs over the top, and roasted for about 15 minutes more.

I also took a few liberties with the original. I wanted there to be some protein so this could be a one-dish dinner type of thing, so at the end, I mixed in some chickpeas along with the lemon juice (and a little veggie broth to adjust the consistency). And I thought it needed a little extra zing, so I added some chopped preserved lemon. Oh, and some snipped chives (because, well, I had them on hand, although parsley or cilantro would probably make more sense). And I served it with quinoa (also very protein-rich).

Because of my last-minute additions, the panko didn't stay crunchy, of course, after getting all mixed in, but that was OK because it ended up thickening the sauce just a bit.

The verdict? The flavors were right, I think, but the veggies didn't get as browned and crispy. I think maybe they were fried in the original. I think I could still get away with roasting, just with a bigger pan. I think things don't get as browned when the pan is crowded. So it was a different dish, but a keeper in its own right. We loved the added dimension of the preserved lemon - sort of a Moroccan twist. Arab fusion, if you will. :)

I've managed to parlay my presidential politics obsession into a blog post...

...because I'm just that lazy.

Courtesy of CHOW, now you have a handy-dandy reference guide to the presidential candidates and their food likes and dislikes. Just in case your state hasn't voted yet and you feel you need to take this into consideration. As you can see, by and large, they are fans of the grill, and vegetables generally don't fare well (though there's no mention here of Hillary's stated love for hot peppers and mango ice cream -- I have to admit, she might be the best candidate to go chow-hunting with. She sounds the least picky). Even Barack Obama gets in on the vegetable hate, avoiding beets. Et tu, Barry? That hurts me.

off-topic post: the hokey pokey baby

After 18 hours of labor, Griffin danced his way into the world on Saturday, January 26, 2008, at 3:47 pm. The doctor said he was doing the hokey pokey in the birth canal--"you put your head out, you put your head in, you put your head out and you shake it all about." Fortunately, he eventually tired of dancing and decided to finish being born. (P.S.--this explains a lot of the kicking the last nine months--practice!)

As we had noticed in his 20 week ultrasound, Griffin does indeed have the pointy little Duex family chin. He weighed in at 7 lbs 12.5 oz and 20 inches long with light brown hair and plenty of it; we can't decide if his eyes are dark blue or grey.

As for personality, well, he's like most babies. Cries, sleeps, eats, looks cute. He likes flying--going through the air in his daddy's arms--and bouncing. He also has perfected the art of roaring while simultaneously making the baby bird sucking face. He wants his food and he wants it five minutes ago.

That's what told us his name. While "Griffin" had been on our short list, any kid that can be part lion and part bird at the same time clearly deserves the name of a such a magical creature (gryphon). Add in his 'claws' (sharp fingernails) and his powerful neck (can already move his head around on his own, even if he can't hold it up long), and he's definitely got us enchanted.

He's home with us now--he and "Maman" are doing well. We love him. And that's what it's all about.

surviving the winter

Winter is not my favorite time of year. I believe that people should hibernate; who are we kidding that we can function normally when the days are short and the temperatures icy? Now that we are planning to move to Ottawa, I think I really have to learn how to survive winter.

It seems that Canadians have really learned how to embrace the winter. The five dollar bill, after all, includes images of ice hockey, sledding, and ice skating. These images say some good things about Canada's national priorities, but if winter is a dominant part of the money-scape I fear that winter in our new home will be endless.

And how can a winter-hater survive in a land of seemingly endless winter?

Since meeting Will, I have learned to accept winter just a little bit more by ramping up my winter sports activities. Before Will, I would occasionally go snowshoeing. I liked it well enough, but it was a poor replacement for summer hiking. I would only go out on bluebird days when there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Now I have two pairs of skis and I go out almost every weekend. It makes a difference; this winter, even with loads of snow, I feel pretty content.

The other trick for winter survival, of course, is comfort food. Hot creamy tea, melty chocolate chip cookies, mashed potatoes. And perhaps the ultimate savory comfort food: shepherd's pie.




My winter has been a quest for ways to prepare the stacks of lamb in my freezer. I'm not sure why it took me so long to do the obvious. What else should you make in the middle of the winter if you have a supply of lamb and the hope to forget that it is 20 degrees outside and that you are moving to Canada where you fear it will be 20 degrees below zero?

I made the Gourmet version of shepherd's pie, which was a little fussy with its pearl onions and leeks but totally worth the time. The mashed potatoes on the top were divine and it's a miracle I didn't eat them all while waiting for the stew to braise. I made a mess in the oven because my cast-iron pan wasn't quite big enough, but again--completely worth it. Shepherd's pie and a Guinness? More winter, I say.