Today Science Daily is out with scary results about pregnant mice exposed to BPA, the scary chemical linked to scary plastic water bottles. Apparently, injections of BPA into pregnant mice make the mice subsequently infertile. This is all inconclusive of course, but not so inconclusive as to cause this directive: “We don’t know what a safe level of BPA is, so pregnant women should avoid BPA exposure.”

Add it to the list of don’ts unless you are an uncaring, neglectful not-quite mother (caution: rant is on the way):

Read More “Old & Pregnant and Sick of Being Told What Not to Eat” »

I might be biased since I’m a regular at Jyoti, but I’m a regular for a reason: the naan. I’ve tried the fancier Indian places in D.C. and have yet to find any that does it as well. Giant, chewy, crusty: It’s the ultimate in Indian carb. The aloo paratha is also fantastic. Rogan josh leans to the spicy side, although it is, of course, no vindaloo. Since I’m wimpy, I prefer the less-spicy chicken options­—makhanwala and masala are both reliable. The tikka, as it almost always is elsewhere, is fine if you like your chicken bone-dry; enlist chutney for help. Ambience here is near-perfect: not cheesy, not classy. It’s on the strip and outside tables do allow prime seating for the parade that is 18th Street NW, but at its heart, Jyoti is a neighborhood joint and service reflects that. Don’t be scared by the grumpy waiter who’s there just about every night. He’s a big softie inside, and once he knows you, he’ll serve up a “special” glass of wine—to the brim. It might not be a proper pour, but it is more bang for your buck.

After six years working at the Subway in Cleveland Park (3520 Connecticut Ave. NW), you’d think manager Uma Mali would get sick of the airy bread, the pressed meats, the sliced cukes. But no. “I eat it every day. I never get tired of the sandwiches,” she says.

Today it was the veggie burger: “I like it. Some people don’t.” Her favorite is turkey with bacon. She’s tried all of them. Even the Big Philly Cheesesteak, which looks, even in the photograph in her shop, a bit lacking.

Her boss, the franchisee, has a loyalist on the payroll for sure, although he initally wanted to hire her husband. “He [my husband] worked for him in Virginia and when he was going to open this one, he called my husband. But my husband had a job” (he works as a cook at a Marriott). Before Eating Fresh full-time, Mali mostly babysat. She commutes from Gaithersburg and works 50 hours a week. She has two boys, 16 and 12. Like Georgetown sandwich artist Shuva Sharma, Mali is originally from Nepal. “People know people,” she says about the Nepalese domination of Subway franchises in D.C. Unlike Shuva Sharma, she allowed her picture to be taken.

If you had to stand in a 3-foot-by-3-foot vending cart all day, pouring butter and cheese powder over popped corn five days a week, you’d hate it too. “It’s like if you worked at McDonald’s. Maybe you’d eat it for a week, but after that?…,” says the owner and chef at Fresh Popcorn for All Ocassions by Mike, Michael Habteselas.

Habteselas, 52, has been dishing out corn for 14 years in the District. He used to come in from Arlington. Now he lives with his wife and four children in Fairfax. Three days a week he’s at 7th and Maryland SE; two days a week he’s here on New Jersey Avenue by the Navy Yard and Nationals Stadium. At lunchtime, there’s a line at least a dozen people deep that doesn’t let up. Maybe it’s the lack of choices in the neighborhood. Maybe it’s Mike’s sunny disposition. Maybe people just really love freshly popped corn.

“I wish I had a place like that,” he says, pointing to the popular Subway across the street. “I’d do coffee, though,” he says. He’s got experience: Until a year or two ago, he did coffee out of a cart in the a.m. and popcorn in the p.m. Then Starbucks moved in and, well, he wanted to spend more time going over his kids’ homework with them, anyway. He carts the schoolbooks they don’t need to work with him in a cardboard box and studies up so he’s on top of what they’re learning.

“Who’s got chemistry,” I ask, taking a look. “The 9th grader.” How’s her grades? “Straight A’s….They do good. All of them,” he says. “I do this four or five hours a day because it’s a living, but I like to be home with them.”