From 200 entries to 20 finalists to two super-finalists to one Cutest Eater in the World.
With a staggering 5,372 final-round votes, Nathan is your winner. Passions started to overflow near the end of the contest, with some of our commenters a little skeptical of the soaring vote count, but our expert poll monitors have taken a look at the data and found no evidence of improprieties.
Congrats, Nathan! And thanks everyone for playing.
I sat there on the floor. Five rows of bookshelves mocking my single request. I wanted to make a cabbage and potato hash. I pulled four books. One had a hash recipe, but not what I wanted.
The night before I ate dinner at my friend, and fellow food writer, Scott‘s place. He follows recipes. He really follows recipes. Like doesn’t take this from that recipe, and this from that other recipe, and this from that imagination. His secret: good cookbooks.
I also think I own pretty good cookbooks, it just depends on the order. I have something in mind and then turn to a cookbook hoping to find the recipe. I invariably don’t. Then turn to the internet. Mis-match a few different recipes, throwing in some creativity, and usually figure out how to make it work. To get the best use out of cookbooks, you have to start at the recipe. A good recipe. Then buy ingredients. Or that’s what Scott thinks.
I borrowed his Indian cookbook, from which he made a few dishes for a Sunday night rooftop dinner. I’ve pledged to follow one of those recipes. Perfectly.
Until then. I kinda screwed up a hash.
Read More›
That's the whole package right there.
Editor’s Note: New contributor Elle joins the DC-based ES team with — what else — a DC rant. Welcome, Elle, and good luck on your quest!
I’m on a hunt. No, a quest. A quest to capture a surprisingly elusive prize: an awesome bagel (toasted!) that comes with awesome cream cheese (on both sides!) and awesome lox, somewhere (anywhere!) in DC.
On New Year’s Day, a friend of mine hosted a “hangover brunch” at her parents’ place in Manhattan. A few DC folks made the trip up to NYC for the NYE festivities, and our resident New Yorker was treating us to an impressive spread of quiche and French toast and Bellinis and….goodness, I can’t even remember everything she put out. But in addition to those made-from-scratch offerings, she had a bag of fresh bagels from Pick-a-Bagel and a heaping plate of lox.
My initial reaction? Something along the lines of “omgsofreakinggood.” I managed to polish off a pair of perfectly doughy, chewy bagels piled up with cream cheese and thinly sliced lox in a blink. Then it occurred to me that maybe decorum dictated I should stop hogging that heaping plate all to myself.
Read More›
This past weekend my coworker threw a birthday party for her two-year-old son. Earlier in the week we spent some time finding invitations (um, am I the only one who’s never heard of the Backyardigans?) and more importantly, figuring out food. It was a 2pm party, which is kinda an awkward time.
How many meals have you had by 2pm on a Saturday? Would you have eaten breakfast? Breakfast and lunch? Lunch? Brunch? Nothing?
Exactly.
Also, what would you expect food-wise for a 2pm child’s birthday party? Just chips? Sandwiches? Just cake?
My coworker decided on bite-size, semi-substantial fare. Whatever that means. Well, actually, I can tell you exactly what it means: Chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-A, burger sliders (very impressed she found mini-potato rolls), waffle fries (frozen), spinach and artichoke dip (with pita chips and tortilla chips) and some party punch thing where she dumped a bucket of sherbet-like stuff into a bowl with Sprite. Oh, and of course cake (with Backyardigan decorations) and little ice cream cups.
We also wanted to serve a more grown-up side. That’s where I came in. She initially thought of a pasta salad type dish, but wanted something a bit different. Couscous! Still a side, but a bit more refined than pasta salad. Plus, I had a few winter vegetables that would be a much better fit for a grain than for pasta. (I think sweet potato and noodles are a bit much.)
Read More›
-Thanks for all your iPhone resuscitation tips. Erica even added on a cooking tip:
This pizza sounds yum, i may have to make a batch of almond ricotta and try it out.
– Michael:
I love cherimoya! I’ve been devouring them like crazy since they started appearing at my market a couple weeks ago…the downside, of course, is that I’ve had to give up paying my electric bill to afford them. I only recently discovered them, and will say this: my first thought when eating one was “This tastes like breadfruit smells.” Which is about as awesome as you can get. If I roast breadfruit while I serve guests cherimoya, will they explode?
– Finally, Summer brings up a topic we’re always willing to tackle — picking on Padma:
Here’s an item I’d like to discuss: does anyone else find it odd that Padma named her DAUGHTER Krishna? Admittedly it’s been a long time since my comparative religions class in college, but the last time I checked, Krishna was a god, not a goddess.
And as of this morning, there’s talk of the baby daddy… But it’s not very shocking. It would have been much more interesting if she’d taken Stefan up on his t-shirt offer of “I make good babies.”
(Photo: iVillage)
Back in November or December I G-chatted BS and declared I had an awesome New Years’ Resolution. It would benefit my bookshelves and the blog. Every week I would cook a recipe from one of the 50+ cookbooks I owned. Sure, the one my brother bought me from Amsterdam that was a Spanish tapas cookbook written in Dutch would be a little tough, but, um, yea, I could make the gist of the resolution work.
It’s now March and I just started to pull out my many sources of recipes. On Monday night, like I said before, I pulled out my Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines from 2009 (note: I haven’t renewed/bought any subscriptions for 2010), plus Bon Apps 770 cookbook. I used the book’s UNrecipe for roasted parsnips, and incorporated it with spinach, ricotta and onions. But I also wanted something else. I needed a proper starch. I used Gourmet’s Panfried Smashed Potatoes.
Get this – I followed the directions.
Read More›Our weekly local roundup of the best eating and drinking events going down in Washington, DC…
Event of the Week: In true ES fashion my event pick of the week is all about pork. BLT Steak is hosting its inaugural cooking class, teaching techniques on how to prepare and cook pork, including a spit-roast. If it wasn’t my 30th this Saturday (Happy Birthday to Me) and I wasn’t getting sloshed at vineyards in Charlottesville, I’d be trotting on down there myself.
View ES Local: What’s Eating DC in a larger map
Remember, you can check out the constantly updated map any day of the week.
If you represent a restaurant or bar and wish to have your event listed on the ES Local: What’s Eating DC map, please write to me at britannia(at)endlesssimmer(dot)com.