So says NPR’s Morning Edition, which is airing a segment today that claims the United States “is a far spicier nation than it used to be.”
Here are a few pieces of data from the NPR report to prove the point:
“Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show big gains in Americans’ spice consumption since the 1970s, including 600 percent more chili pepper, 300 percent more cumin, and a whopping 1,600 percent more ginger.”
Just when things were moving in the right direction for Roberto Donna, the celebrity chef now finds himself on the hook for potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the D.C. Wage Payment and Collection Law (DCWPCL).
On Tuesday, Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled the Donna was “personally liable under the FLSA and DCWPCL for minimum wage, overtime, and equal pay violations because he is an employer under both the FLSA and DCWPCL.”
Lamberth set a hearing for 11 a.m. Thursday, August 5, to determine the damages to 11 former employees who worked at Galileo in the District and Bebo Trattoria in Crystal City. According to an article Wednesday in Law360, the employees’ attorney, Denise Marie Clark, noted that “her clients originally sought roughly $400,000 in damages, but would revise the figure to take into account wages they received.”
It still could mean that Donna will be personally liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages at a time when he’s still trying to launch Galileo III in downtown D.C.
The class action suit was filed in April 2008 by two bussers, seven servers, floor manager Hicham el Hallou and personal assistant/marketing and public relations coordinator Elizabeth Scott. According to Lamberth’s opinion from Tuesday:
In a post earlier this month we mentioned it took us awhile to recuperate from the mania of SAVOR, the annual American craft beer and food pairing event put on by the Brewers Association. The event puts D.C. in a beer frenzy for days before and after brewers and booths fill the National Building Museum with beer from all over the country. After taking an appropriate amount of time to fully digest the experience (not to mention the alcohol), we are finally getting around to posting about the evening. Come on, it’s never too late.
Before we begin, it should be noted that we took a new approach this year. At previous SAVORs, our passion (ahem, obsession) has driven us to fastidiously plot out a course and budget time to get to as many beers as possible. At this year’s SAVOR, we decided to take our time, talk to folks, and leisurely mosey across the floor.
The positive result of this “stop and smell the…noses” attitude is that the night felt less like Supermarket Sweep; the drawback is that we only got to a fraction of the beers we hoped to sample. This is mainly a result of our pacing but also because many tables ran out of at least one of their beers fairly early. Still, out of the brews we did try we had some clear favorites. Read on for our top beers, some fun quotes, and a list of post-SAVOR write-ups.
Can’t get to the Eastern Shore for blue crabs this summer? Or even to Cantler’sin Annapolis? Well, how ’bout the trendy 14th Street corridor in the identity-crisis ‘hood of Mid-City? Can you manage that?
If so, you can sample some of those classic Maryland crustaceans. Bar Pilar has a special blue crab dinner available now through the end of August.
Chef Justin Bittner is drawing on his Baltimore heritage to serve up a tray of steamed blue crabs. The Bar Pilar crew plans to do this the right way, too: They’re going to spread newspapers across your table; steam those crabs in a mixture of cider vinegar (rather than using it as a dipping sauce), water, and Old Bay; and then serve those beauties with a simple dip of melted butter.
The Daily Beast has crunched some numbers and determined which U.S. cities have the most caffeine running through their veins. As you might have predicted, the Pacific Northwest is the jumpiest among us. Seattle comes in first with 35 coffee shops per 100,000 residents, followed by Portland with 28.
The District slips in at No. 11, with a seemingly minuscule 12 coffee shops per 100,000 residents.
The last time I visited Mr. P’s converted school bus in the back of a Safeway parking lot, the aging senior responsible for this mobile barbecue operation was nowhere to be found. Perhaps that’s not unusual for a 74-year-old pitmaster trying to quit the smoke business. But if I know anything about barbecue, it’s this: If the pitmaster is AWOL and his first lieutenant is nowhere in sight, either, you should get the hell out of there. I, however, decided to stick around, even though I couldn’t spot joint namesake Fate Pittman or his No. 1 apprentice, Victor “Preacher Man” Wilson, who apparently has taken a job at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It didn’t matter. Mr. P’s spareribs were as satisfying as ever, with just the right amount of smoke penetration, seasoning, and chew. I even sampled the chopped pork — not a common shoulder cut but a variety of hacked-up pork parts, the woman inside the bus told me — and it was sour, smoky, and slightly spicy. It’s not my preferred barbecue style, but I kept wolfing the stuff down anyway. The secret to a pleasurable Mr. P’s experience is simple: Unless you’re from Western North Carolina, like Pittman, or enjoy a ketchup-based sauce, eat the ribs straight-up, sans that sticky-sweet coating. Oh, and skip the sides altogether, with the exception of the collards.
Safeway parking lot, 514 Rhode Island Ave. NE, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays
What’s better than drinking good beer? Well, nothing. But sharing it with people who also appreciate it is a close second. Bruce remembers fondly a day in 1998 when a German friend surprised him on his doorstep with a six-pack of Weltenburger Kloster Barock Dunkel–his favorite at the time (for sentimental reasons) and still very hard to come by on this side of the Atlantic. And just this morning another friend surprised him with a bottle of Saint Botolph’s Town, a dark ale produced by the Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project, a gypsy brewer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But it’s not like we’re always on the receiving end. The Lagerheads have given their share of beer gifts over the years, too. So we ask you: what’s the best beer gift you’ve ever received?
In 
What’s better than drinking good beer? Well, nothing. But sharing it with people who also appreciate it is a close second. Bruce remembers fondly a day in 1998 when a German friend surprised him on his doorstep with a six-pack of 
