Endless Simmer - A Food Blog

While DC will never achieve the greatness of New York/New Jersey pizza, it does produce a quality wood-fired version at Sette Osteria. The restaurant, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing busy Connecticut Avenue, is a good choice for those craving Italian carbs. Its version of bruschetta is more like a salad, with heaps of arugula and cherry tomatoes piled high on one piece of grilled bread, which makes this usually sharable appetizer difficult to split. That’s okay, though - it’s too good to split. Arugula salad with shaved fennel and pecorino shavings, tossed with lemon vinaigrette, is large enough for a light lunch with a refreshing crunch. Ai peperoni e melanzane, a pie topped with smoked mozzarella, eggplant, and roasted bell peppers, will satisfy your needs for a savory, smoky, slightly charred pizza.
For: Getting your Italian fill on this side of the Atlantic.
Entrees: $9-$19. 202-483-3070. 1666 Connecticut Ave, NW

Originally in the Onion - AV Club / DC local edition

Photo: Sette Osteria

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Second hungry hungry celeb spotting in one week! Our Manhattan correspondent Brian spied Golden Globe winning actress/Mary-Louise Parker baby daddy stealer/PS 3 graduate Claire Danes order a salad and then fall into a deep, meditative trance at the Cosi on 6th Avenue between 22nd and 23rd.

Send your shots of famous eaters to info@endlesssimmer.com

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- Bacon: Making salads unhealthy since 1870. [Not Martha, via So Good]

- Bacon is the new candy. [Bacon Unwrapped]

- Might as well put it in your ice cream too. [Serious Eats]

Photo: Not Martha

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I first discovered halloumi cheese in South Africa last year. A trendy SA chain called News Cafe serves an avocado salad with fried halloumi, grilled brinjal and peppadews. Since I didn’t know what any of those things were, I had to try it. I ended up making several return trips for this amazing fried cheese.

For the record, brinjal is just eggplant, and peppadew is a spicy red pepper native to South Africa. But that’s beside the point, because halloumi was the real discovery. This super-salty, extra-firm-but-slimy goat/sheep’s milk cheese is actually from Cyprus, and if you try to say otherwise, the Halloumi Police will get you.

I’m not sure why it’s so prevalent in South Africa, but I have never noticed it stateside before, so when I spied it at the co-op last week, I jumped for it.

In taste, it’s probably most similar to a queso blanco, and like that Mexican cheese, it’s most exciting because it can be fried or grilled. A few recipes around the web recommend dipping it in flour, but I just tried it straight up and got this nice golden brown after frying thin slices for about a minute each side in extra virgin. The outside is a crisp golden brown and the inside is just a tad melty.

Since I didn’t have any peppadews lying around, I made my own version of the salad, with roasted red peppers, cucumbers, and of course, pine nuts.

*This post is tagged both Greek and Middle Eastern for redundancy’s sake, not as an attempt to fuel any cheese-related territorial conflicts.

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It’s been a long time since I have actually written more than one sentence for this blog, so bear with me here.

The picture above was our dinner last night. I’d like to be able to take credit for that juicy, golden chicken filled with creamy spinach, goat cheese,  sun-dried tomatoes and tons of garlic, but I can’t. I can take credit, however, for those soggy greens on the plate!

After the jump, the story of how to turn Monday into a real, bona fide cooking night…

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At a work conference last month I had a food breakthrough. Usually at conferences there’s terribleness: dry fish, boring chicken, well-done beef and enough half-empty plastic water bottles to fill a city dumpster. And while this latest outing surely contained those components, it also proved to open my horizon, or whatever that cliche is.

In college and shortly after, I only ate Caesar salads. Only. I liked them with grilled (or fine, breaded and fried) chicken and hard boiled eggs, but no croutons. I don’t know, the crunch bothered me and they’re so hard to get on the fork. Oh, and sometimes I’d take it in a wrap - the only real variation.

But, I’m growing up. I now add grains, avocado, red peppers and I don’t know, a million other things. But I just couldn’t handle the F-word: FRUIT.

Blackberries - love them, strawberries - love them, grapes - love them. In salads - never.

But then I went for it.

With the force of BS (and his pro-fruit agenda) behind me, I chose the mandarin orange and cranberry salad over mixed greens rather than the tired Romain. And I can’t lie, it was fabulous. The little bits of mandarin became a pop of flavor, letting the light vinaigrette mingle in the background with the assortment of cucumber slices and carrot shreds. Now I can’t say I’m a total convert, but once in a while I will worship to the alter of fruity salads.

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My girlfriend makes a pretty cool roommate. So after we moved in together last Spring, I came to realize that the most difficult adjustment I’d have to make to our new digs had nothing to do with co-habitation. Because we chose an apartment, I’d have to learn to live without a grill. Even typing that out makes me want to punch and curse. I HATE not having a grill. In my previous life with grills, I had exalted them to the highest status. They’re like slutty angels on Earth. Easy, social, fun, delicious, smoky, drippy, dynamic, versatile, outdoor goodness.

Since I began cooking, the grill has always been my favorite medium. When I was in High School, my friends ruthless gang and I would grill all of the time - every week, sometimes every day. We cooked hot dogs, burgers, steak, brats, kielbasa, italian sausage, pork roasts, chicken, ham, bread, tricked out civics, books, virgins, christians, everything. For a while I used to carry one of those cheap gas Coleman hibachis in my trunk, just in case. We grilled in the summer, the winter, at midnight (Midnight Steak Team Represent), in the snow, in the rain, at the beach, at the pool, at Burke Lake, damn; everywhere that Sam’s buddy, that furry goose looking thing, wouldn’t eat Green eggs, we grilled. That was about 10 years ago, and I never lost it. Since then, I’ve always lived with people that shared the love. In college we got stoned to the bejesus belt and grilled pizzas in donuts in the front yard. And they were f*n good. I love grills.

So yeah, enough fecking background. All of that rant for one simple reason - the other night, I decided to grill Christmas in July, or whatever. Click below to keep reading, sucka.

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If you thought that Dangerous Minds song was the pinnacle of Coolio’s career, well you were wrong, wrong, wrong, because the flamboyant 90’s rapper “is ’bout to teach yo’ ass how to cook.”

Yes, you read that correctly. In a definitively amazing attempt to heighten his post-Gangtas Paradise career to Flava Flavian proportions, Coolio now has an online cooking show, complete with video hos and and a creepy sidekick. Take if from me, learning to love “Cookin with Coolio” is as easy as 1-2-3-4.

In episode one, Coolio doesn’t actually cook anything, but he does prepare a beautiful caprese salad that is allegedly “better than ‘yo momma’s titties.” I don’t know about all that, but you’ve got to admit, it does look pretty delicious.

Other words of wisdom from Chef Coolio:

- This dish will come in handy if your girlfriend is “one of those salad eating bitches.”

- Go light on the Extra Virgin, because “an oily salad ain’t shit.”

- Also, try to finish off your caprese with a healthy dusting of what may or may not be marijuana, and it helps if you end most sentences by inexplicably yelling “Shaka Zulu.”

Rachael Ray he is not. He is, however, one million times more entertaining than Rachael Ray. And - if you send in the best video response to Coolio’s lesson, you can win an autographed bell pepper!

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I’m sure you noticed, but ES did not take part in any New Year’s resolution crap. Know what 80 and I did New Year’s Day - we sat at a bar and drank, went to dinner and drank, went to another bar and drank, and then went home and drank. There were no salads involved and the only exercise we got was stumbling from place to place.

Sure, I used to make a resolution. Same one every year, in fact - lose ten pounds. I’m old now, though. I’m done resolving. But, as I still live in America, with ab-fucking-surd standards for women, I’m forced to eat right sometimes and work out once in a while.

Pictured above is my first healthy meal of 2008. Recipe is post jump.

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