How Hard Is It For Restaurants to Source Locally?

agoraflatbread

I wear slim, light gray pants that stop an inch and a half above my ankle. I wear shoes with a peep toe. It’s a hot fall and I can’t make up my mind, so I split the difference: giving into the season, but remembering that just because we’ve passed the fall equinox, the temperature hasn’t ducked too low.

This same compromise appeared to me at a press lunch last week. Eating outside on a sunny day at Agora, yet enjoying fall’s produce.

House-made pita dough is turned into a soft flat bread and can be found underneath melted feta and manchego cheese, topped with thin slices of a Granny Smith apple.

So far, it’s a happy story for a meatless meal. I can find the joy of fall’s favorite offspring while I dine comfortably alfresco. And my gray pants are adorable, I might add.

While chatting with the chef, Ghassan Jarrouj, a native of Lebanon, he tells me the Peynirli Pide (the cheesy flat bread) receives its fall glow from “Washington state or New York apples, most likely New York.”

Jarrouj assured me that they are in the process of lining up several local growers to supply produce to the restaurant. With such a diverse variety of apples grown only miles away in Virginia, it’s hard to hear that customers can’t enjoy fruits of the Mid-Atlantic.

Now I know how easy it is to supply my own kitchen with farmers market goods (and if you don’t know, check out Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food, a new non-profit with a mission to educate the public on sustainable, local eating), but it is quite another issue to buy enough food for a restaurant.

In fact, there’s been plenty of stories on how difficult it is for restaurants in the DC area to source local ingredients (see The Go-Betweens by ES fav Melissa McCart.) But I’ve got to think restaurants can make it work for a few months out of the year.

Hopefully, Agora, there’s a local winter squash flat bread in my future.

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

grillonfire
I’m with you. No one wants to be drumming on a keyboard and sweatily gripping on a mouse the Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend.

So before you log off and dive into a three day feast of grilled meats, here’s how ESers kept us busy and laughing and thinking about grammitcal correctness.

But real quick, the results are in. Check out the winners in our crazy-grill-it contest.

And fine, one more thing, check out the Endless Simmer love in Melissa McCart‘s WaPo article on mini-grills.

Happy grill season everyone!

Carb Love
TVFF glorified refined carbohydrates in his post about Domino’s new *Bread Bowl Pasta*.

But, LC was able to see beyond the cheesey goodness and the nonsensical tag line:

Also, is it me or does “pasta so good you’ll devour the bowl” make no sense whatsoever. The bowl isn’t made out of pasta. And if the pasta is so good wouldn’t you want more…pasta?

More quotables post jump

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