While the rest of the country’s knees are quaking from murmurs of a recession, I’ve often heard people in D.C.’s service industry say that this city is recession proof. At least when it comes to their tips. It’s a wealthy city (at least where the majority of the restaurants are located), the government isn’t going anywhere, and the place overflows with expense accounts. But the Post ran a slightly disturbing piece today of how chefs (although not across the board) are feeling the hit in their food costs and even in their sales. So I’d like to hear from servers. Are you feeling the pinch yet, or is it not trickling down?

An occasional series in which Kim tries to get dinner.

Restaurant: Duccini’s Pizza
Location: 1778 U St. NW, (202) 483-0007
Distance From My Apartment: 1.7 miles
Time Called: Monday, 8:24 p.m.
Time Food Arrived: 8:50 p.m.
Verdict: Good to go! Possibly the best pizza you can get delivered.

As far as pizza delivery goes in this city, I think Duccini’s is one of the safer choices. You’re going to pay a little more, but the food is better, and they’re more reliable. We ordered a large white pizza (oil, garlic, mozzarella, provolone, and cheddar cheese) for $14.99 and stuffed shells with meatballs for $10.25. It was perfect for a nice, cheesy carbo load. The shells, especially, are worth ordering. Creamy stuffing with some herbs, a slightly sweet tomato sauce, and delicious meatballs. And for about $25 (before tip) it fed two people, with half a pizza leftover. Not bad.

Mike Zwerin over on Bloomberg.com tries to make the case that Bob Dylan should be winning a Pulitzer for poetry rather than a special citation. I was in mid-scoff (yes, I love the Dylan, but it’s hard enough for poets to get attention without competing with Bob) until he made this rather good point via writer Rafi Zabor: “Even the poet we call Homer, who if he existed, sang his epics.” Sure, the singing was a way to remember their epic poems since they weren’t jotted down in a moleskin travel-size notebook, but perhaps the line between song and poetry can be blurred. Can Dylan’s lyrics stand up to the lines of Robert Hass, who just won a Pulitzer for Poetry? Let’s see…

From Hass’ “Heroic Simile”:
“A man and a woman walk from the movies/to the house in the silence of separate fidelities./There are limits to imagination.”

Vs.

From Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe”:
“Go melt back into the night, babe/Everything inside is made of stone./There’s nothing in here moving/An’ anyway I’m not alone.”

From Hass’ “Ezra Pound’s Proposition” :
“Beauty is sexual and sexuality/Is the fertility of the earth and the fertility/Of the earth is economics.”

Vs.

From Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue”:
“I had a job in the great north woods/Working as a cook for a spell/But I never did like it all that much/And one day the ax just fell.”

You decide.

An occasional series in which Kim tries to get dinner.

I’m introducing this series because, if you are like me, you order food more than you should. I’m a bit ashamed to say that my refrigerator often contains more liquids than solids. But delivery in this city can be frustrating. Many a night I’ve had to call back several times and for always the same answer: two minutes. So I am going to start keeping track of my delivery experiences so you, dear reader, can hopefully avoid those nights where all you want to do is go to bed, but you are still waiting on that goddamn pizza.

Restaurant: Sushi Go Round
Location: 705 7th St. NW, (202) 393-2825
Distance From My Apartment: 0.9 mile
Time Called: Tuesday, 9:33 p.m.
Time Food Arrived: 9:48 p.m.
Verdict: Good to go! Super fast delivery. Pricey but delicious and healthy.

Last night I wanted sushi. I called Sushi Go Round and ordered a house salad with ginger dressing ($5) and a dragon roll ($12). The woman taking my order said there was a $20 minimum. (My menu must be outdated because it says $15.) I threw in a creamy mussel roll ($6.50). She said it would be 45 minutes. While I was annoyed at myself for ordering more food than I needed and spending $25.85 before tip for my dinner for one, I no longer cared when my food arrived 15 minutes later. A new record! Plus, everything was delicious. I especially recommend the creamy mussel roll.

In Sunday’s Post Magazine, Tom Sietsema wrote a cover story on the increasing noise problem in restaurants. The result is that he is going to include noise ratings along with his reviews. Personally, I don’t get it. Here’s why:

1. Yes, there are loud, busy restaurants, and there are quiet, intimate restaurants. The ambience is already touched on in the review, so why do we need to know exact decibels?

2. How do you give a restaurant an average rating? Price range is easy to give, noise range is not. The noise level changes drastically depending on the night of the week, the hour of the night, the distance from the bar or a large group, etc. I don’t see how one can say a restaurant comes in as 70 decibels.

3. What in the world are restaurants supposed to do? They already are padding/cushioning/draping things all over the place, and it still doesn’t seem to be enough for people. Really, the “problem” is that D.C. is becoming a great place to dine. And restaurants are slammed. And people make noise. This reminds of my itty-bitty hometown in Pennsylvania. The older folks in town complained that kids had nothing to do and were getting into trouble. After a stroke of brilliance, they built a movie theater. Then they started to complain that kids were loitering on the square outside the movie theater. They shut the theater down.

I say welcome the crowds, welcome the noise, and if you want a quiet evening, cook dinner or order takeout from a nice restaurant.

The Post ran a fantastic spirits column in this week’s Food section, in which Jason Wilson describes a game he and his brother play called Liquor Store Archaeology. Basically, they try to outdo the other with old-school finds. Sounds like quite a bit of fun to me. Anyway, his current find is a bottle of creme de violette, which he uses to make a Blue Moon cocktail (combined with gin and lemon juice). So, if you’re like me, you’re about to go buy a bottle of creme de violette. In case you get tired of Blue Moons, here are some more recipes to experiment with (And they are experiments. Thanks, Google!):

Blue Moon #2 (adapted from Esquire Drinks Book)

• 2 ounces gin
• 1 ounce dry vermouth
• 1 dash orange bitters
• 1 dash creme de violette

Rainbow

• 1/2 oz creme de violette
• 1/2 oz creme de cacao
• 1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
• 1/2 oz yellow chartreuse
• 1/2 oz green chartreuse
• 1/2 oz Benedictine
• 1/2 oz brandy

Fizz a la Violette

• 2 oz gin
• 1 oz creme de violette
• 1 egg white
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 oz cream
• 1/2 oz fresh lime juice

Without a doubt, since yesterday’s announcement, everyone has been scrambling to read more poetry. Why is April National Poetry Month? It was started arbitrarily by The Academy of American Poets who chose April for this reason: “With input from booksellers, librarians, poets, and teachers, the Academy chose a month during the school year so that schools and students could participate fully.” Sexy.

But the Academy also points out that April makes some interesting appearances in poetry. While spring may make some people throw on a tank top and go skipping through a field of wildflowers while licking an ice-cream cone, others just find it a bit depressing. Some stunning examples are in T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” when he writes, “April is the cruelest month,” and in “Spring,” where Edna St. Vincent Millay writes, “April/Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”

Do you want to celebrate National Poetry Month but don’t know how? First, read more poetry. Then, go to Poets.org where you can find contests, celebrations, poem-a-day, etc. There’s also a great page devoted to D.C. poetry. Here, you can read about our poet laureate (yes, we have one!), find readings and festivals, read poems about the city, and read D.C.’s favorite poems. In case you can’t wait to find out, No. 1 is Dylan Thomas‘ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”

I remember seeing my first Sacagawea dollar. It was summer 2001, and I was working at the Boogie Woogie Bagel Boy in Oakland, Calif. I thought it was a joke, like the $200 bill a guy tried to use the day earlier. It was, obviously, for real, and the rest of the summer rained golden dollar coins. It was exciting. In the fall, I came back East, and my Sacagawea spottings became fewer and fewer, until there seemed to be no Sacagaweas at all. I once worked in a bar in D.C. that had two Sacagawea coins permanently stationed in the corner tray of the cash register. The drawer always came up $2 short until someone remembered the coins. We didn’t know what to do with them. Give them as change? Take them home as tips? Include them in the drop? They seem like fake money. No one uses them. Are they just piling up in collectors’ houses?

During a little Sacagawea research, I stumbled upon this shocking information. There are presidential dollar coins! The Mint is releasing four a year. 2007 saw the unleashing of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. 2008 has already brought Monroe, with Adams (the other one), Jackson, and Van Buren close behind. I’ve never seen any of these coins. Have you? Why make money if no one’s going to spend it?

We’re suckers for a name. It’s proven in this article by Gary Regan who created a tasty-sounding cocktail of single-malt Scotch (he recommends Oban or Springbank) and Canton ginger liqueur. He first named this concoction Whisky Qing after the Qing Dynasty, which is around when ginger liqueurs were first made in China. The drink went unordered. When he changed the name to the Debonair, the drink started to catch on.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to make the jump that people aspire to be the drinks they order. Clearly, if you are drinking a Debonair, then you are debonair. After an unofficial survey of popular drinks ordered in bars, I have discovered that Washingtonians want to be cosmopolitan Manhattanites who study aviation and ride in sidecars with their girlfriend, Margarita. While drinking mojitos. So get your work done and head to a bar where you can live out your dreams. Happy Friday!

Today marks the beginning of the peak days for the cherry blossoms. The National Park Service predicts the trees around the Tidal Basin will be their prettiest from March 27 to April 3.

In honor of the season, here is some cherry blossom poetry by D.C. poet Judith Harris via Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry.

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I grew up in a rural area. I like hiking. I know how to put up a tent and start a fire. But the lovely people who live in Front Royal, Va., are good; they can smell the city folk from two blocks away. Last weekend some friends and I rented a cabin for a little R&R, which included a couple trips into town. Here’s what I learned:

1. Don’t Buy Firewood. This is a dead giveaway. After an unsuccessful fire from the soggy wood we chopped with random tools we found in the basement–including a mini chainsaw, a sledgehammer, and something called a wedge–we went searching for wood to buy. We found it at a 7-Eleven. And we got heckled. Actually, we got passively heckled. Two guys getting in their car had a very loud conversation that went something like this: “Shit! They’re buying firewood!” “Oh my god, I can’t believe it! They’re buying firewood?!” Not enjoyable.

2. Don’t Buy Fancy Coffee. OK, this one should be obvious. But if a town has a cafe, it seems reasonable to stop by it and buy a cappuccino. We did this. As we were walking down the sidewalk of this sleepy town, there were suddenly people hanging out every window (or so it seemed) making fun of us and our coffee. Much laughing ensued.

3. Don’t Take Pictures of the Anti-Abortion Signs. It’s hard to resist, especially with gems like: “If you can read this sign, you weren’t aborted.” But I’m pretty sure we got a nasty stare from a guy on his dirt bike.

4. Don’t Drive a Rented Chevy Impala. Enough said.

Using proper grammar is important. But there is a time and place for calling someone out on poor usage. Like in school. Or maybe at the dinner table with your children. (Go ahead, comment on my use of fragments.) There seems to be some strange correlation between people who love dining and people who hate bad grammar—to the point where they feel they must comment on it in a chat. This often happens in Tom Sietsema’s Wednesday dining chats. Here are some snippets from this past week’s chat:

Investing:”a debate between my husband and I”?
No, “my husband and me.”
Arrggghhh.

re: No, “my husband and me.” : thank you, that’s one of my pet peeves.

Washington, D.C.: Not necessariuly for the chat, more for you:
“one of my favorite places to whet my whistle…” You “wet” your whistle, i.e. lick your lips to make it possible to whistle. You “whet”, i.e. sharpen, a knife.

What the hell? (And, yes, there is a typo in that last one.) Why do people do this? Here’s my theory of about five minutes: Eating is a base act. It’s a necessity. It’s about survival. And no matter how much you dress it up, the whole physical process is pretty unattractive. Some people have an insecurity about this and feel they must overcompensate and prove they are not just animals. They must prove that they are thinking people. They must make catty grammar remarks. Am I way off on this? Any other theories?

Every week, former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser (with help from the Poetry Foundation) sends subscribers of his “American Life in Poetry” series a poem along with a brief explanation of why he’s drawn to it. This week’s poem is by David Tucker and is a nod to newspaper employees.

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State flower, state tree, state bird…why not state cocktail? At least that’s what state Sen. Edwin Murray (D-New Orleans) thinks. He’s proposed to make the Sazerac, which was invented in New Orleans, the official state cocktail. According to Janna Goodwin, a researcher for the National Conference of State Legislatures, this would be the nation’s first state cocktail.

In the event that this opens the floodgates of states frantically claiming cocktails for their own, D.C. should be prepared. When I think of the nation’s capital, I think single-malt Scotches. I’m pretty sure we can’t lay claim to those. Anyone have thoughts to what D.C.’s cocktail should be?