The latest in food porn

Today's breakfast: baked French toast, using Challah bread. Maybe it should be international toast instead...


And lunch - koosa fusion. Turkey filling instead of lamb, and an Italian twist on the sauce - garlic & basil in addition to the usual tomato.

The Pinnacle of Food and Wine Instruction?

I've walked by it all summer long, the new Alta condo building on Thomas Circle, opposite the hooker-laden (still) Washington Plaza Hotel. I've even checked out the website to see when it would be opening. And frankly, I'm a little skeptical that it will be opening on time, this "autumn," with a class schedule to come out later this month. Nevertheless, I wait with bated (not fishy) breath.

CulinAerie (with little accents on the "i's") is a new recreational culinary school set to open at 1131 14th Street NW. It bills itself as "the Pinnacle of Food and Wine Instruction." Hmm....I'm excited to see what there offerings are, and just plain old thrilled that I won't have to leave the District to take a serious cooking or skills class. All you ever see advertised here are lame "Cooking for Singles!" classes where half the class is trying to separate egg yolk from whites for the first time ever and the other half thought it was a singles mixer in a kitchen and is appalled that they're cutting up one-person portions of veggies.

Merkado, how I will not miss thee.

One of the saddest culinary experiences I've had in years past is the anticipation with which I awaited the arrival of Merkado in Logan Circle in 2005....only to be disappointed at the execution of the Latin/Asian fusion thing. This week, I received an email from the restaurant group stating that Merkado will be closing on August 24, and the space will be renovated for 2 weeks to welcome Commissary, a Tryst-like wine bar, coffee, cafe, WiFi lounge thing. It sounds a little schizophrenic to me, but maybe it'll be a new place to have lunch on my Fridays off.

Ecstatic find of the week!

Bruegger's Bagels are in DC! They brew Green Mountain Coffee! Technically, the local coffee company Swing's is closer to my office, but there's this white neoclassical building between us that makes a quick jaunt unpredictable. So, I'll take Brueggers/Green Mountain Coffee. See ya, Starbucks!

Ahead of the CSA Curve...

...or so says my friend Preston. He spotted this article in this past week's NY Times about Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) programs. I don't know how long CSAs have been around, but Preston got into it in the summer of 2006, and waxed so poetic about it on a drive to the beach that I quickly scoured my local area, found two that delivered with a block of my place and then signed up to take over the one-person share of someone who was trying to get out of hers.

CSAs are usually run by local farms; before the growing season starts, a farm offers shares in the produce to be grown. Shares can come in different sizes, like single shares, 4-person shares, etc. Members pay for the shares -- usually -- before the first seed is sown, and a lot is weather dependent. So, if there's a drought, or temps are unusually high, then the produce bolts and shareholders are a little screwed, but, if you think about it, the food in the grocery store is weather dependent, too. Come early June through early October, vegetables arrive once a week in a van one block away from me, and I wander over after work to pick 'em up. This actually works out pretty well for single cooks since it's annoying to have to buy, say, an entire bag of carrots when all you really need is one for a recipe. With a "single" share, I've essentially paid for what one person "eats" in a week. Although, even this is kind of ludicrous because in October, there'll be times when there are 3 sweet potatoes a week in a single share, and anyone who eats 3 sweet potatoes a week is not eating much of anything else.

What I like about CSAs, though, are 1) how close it is for me to pick up my vegs; 2) the new vegs that I've been introduced to (and then have to figure out how to prepare); 3) the likelihood of my tomatoes or peppers getting caught up in the latest salmonella epidemic is rare; 4) FRESH foods; 5) I actually think it's cheaper than buying them in the store. And that's good enough for me.

On distance running

Depending on how one defines "distance," I don't run distance. The furthest I ran was 7 miles, and that was by accident. I'm now signed up for a 7.5 mile (more or less) race and a 10 miler. Yikes. I don't want to ever want to run a marathon because moving for close to 5 hours just does not sound attractive to me. But I track people who do, like Jonelle, who ran Boston for charity, and Jon, who actually qualified and recently told me that he wants to shave off more minutes from his time. More yikes. Which is why the idea of selling and buying race bibs for the elite race confuses me. Because everyone who is not insanely speedy at Boston is wearing a charity bib, right? So if you paid $500 for an illegally re-sold bib acquired by someone who qualified, and then all of the sudden you pull up at the Boston Public Library 5 hours after you started, someone's going to wonder. And sure, you may have run the Boston Marathon course on Patriot day with a bib on, but it's not like you earned it one way or another.

In other news, last night, I went to a stride clinic/promo event at Pacers Running Store and conducted by Newton Running. Those were some pretty funky trainers that would have fit better if I'd tried on a wide shoe. I was also told that I had a calcification on my toe joint and how to deal with that in my shoe, but the question remains: what the heck is the calcification and what does it mean?

On speed training.

I really have little to contribute on the topic of speed training, other than I'm not great at it. Thursday, I thought I was scheduled for two one-mile repeats, although at the end of the day, long after my run, I realized I was supposed to do six miles, with three miles in there at tempo. This has created utter havoc in my training schedule for B2B, but at least I've already bought part of my costume for that and have the excuse of "Oh, it's just B2B, I was doing that for fun!" I digress.

So I measured out a 1-mile section of the Mall, ran a warmup, did two repeats, and hated nearly every minute of it. The shocking part being my consistency: I did each piece within 30 seconds of each other. And were they faster than what I do my longer runs are, as this NY Times article discusses? I dare say so.

Good luck to the Boston runners tomorrow!

Mmmm...lasagna

Mushroom and ground turkey lasagna. Yum.