Given the dearth of decent chili options in the area, save for Urban Bar-B-Que’s smokehouse version and the thick, meaty one at Bobby’s Crabcakes, I opted to do something I rarely do: shop the frozen food section at Harris Teeter. I had heard the chain sells Cincinnati’s famous Skyline Chili.

I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that, until I pulled the frozen block from its packaging and popped it into the microwave, I had never before sampled Skyline Chili. I was certain this was not the ideal way to taste one of the country’s signature stews. I was, in fact, prepared for it to suck hard. I had a block of Parmesan cheese and a bottle of Mexican hot sauce at the ready, to cover whatever disgusting flavors I found inside this factory-made hunk of rock-solid meat and pasta.

Read More “Frozen Skyline Chili at Harris Teeter: Better Than You Think” »

You’ll be able to make your own homemade snow cones in a few hours, using only syrup and mother nature’s finest. But poor Boomer kids in the ’70s had to make do with this freaky looking abomination from Hasbro, which turned ice cubes into little rice-like chunks of “snow” for their summer treat.

Urban Bar-B-Que’s David Calkins calls his smokehouse version the Two Step Chili because the ingredients come in pairs, sort of like the Noah’s Ark of stews. Two different kinds of meat (ground chuck, chopped brisket), two styles of beans (pintos, black), and two sources of heat (chipotle, jalapeno).

What Urban’s chili lacks in presentation — my most recent “bowl” was served in a Styrofoam cup with a plastic spoon — it more than makes up in flavor. By Calkins’ own estimation the chili is prepared with about 25 different ingredients, but the most important one, arguably, is the chopped brisket.

Read More “Urban Bar-B-Que Does Chili, Too” »

Last Friday, your humble Y&H servant spent some time compiling a working  list of restaurants planning to brave the winter storm that, at the time, was already dropping a serious load on us. I then promptly went home and didn’t see the inside of a restaurant until….well, last night, when Carrie and I went to our local steakhouse and tied one on at the bar.

We blamed it on cabin fever… that, and Elliott the bartender.

Massive snowfalls might bring out your inner cocooner (or inner drunk), but it brings out my repressed desire to cook, cook, and cook some more. This past weekend, I practiced what I preached (or, more precisely, practiced what I bitched about). I avoided the grocery store and cooked from only the ingredients we had on hand.

I produced this little beauty, made from those Portabellas that I’ve been wringing my hands over for a few weeks now. Carrie then one-upped me the following day by producing this sweet-and-savory omelet made with date-and-hot-pepper-infused duxelles.

Read More “Y&H’s Sno’Overit, Here-We-Go-Again Survival Guide for the Next Storm: Cook at Home!” »

Not too long ago, Amber McDonald says she was the kind of aggressive steak eater who would have been an eager participant in Meat Week. But the antitrust lawyer switched to hardcore veganism a “little over a year ago when I read that a study had proven that cows were as intelligent and emotional as dogs. It woke me up. Why love one and eat the other?”

 Then she read last week about Meat Week and had another thought: “I knew that there needed to be an alternative point of view, and the community responded so quickly and with so much enthusiasm that it’s clear they agreed.”

The community, in this case, is the vegetarian/vegan crowd, including D.C. Vegan and Compassion Over Killing, and together they agreed to quickly organize a counter-programming event to Meat Week. It’s called, of course, Meat Free Week. Don’t fear it. McDonald says it’s not designed to brainwash you into vegetarianism.

Read More “Rescheduled Meat Free Week Running Through Feb. 13″ »

After writing about chili, and tasting various versions of it, this past week, I was itchin’ to make my own. And when better to tend to a large pot of chili then with 20 inches of mother nature’s finest outside the door?

The only problem with making chili is that you can’t totally improvise the dish. You must have certain ingredients, you know, like chili peppers and meat. Perhaps tomatoes (don’t start with the tomato-hating, all right?) and onions and cheddar cheese, too.

So I walked the streets like The Omega Man to our local Co-op, where I ran straight into the politically correct buzzsaw. There was no 80-20 ground beef or even a lean chuck cut to be found. (Hell, I couldn’t even get my hands on fresh peppers, so went with the jarred version and powdered cayenne instead.) I settled for a grass-fed organic strip streak and andouille sausage for the proteins, which perhaps is not settling at all. The issue for me was cost. I was not going to shell out a ton of cash for chili meat. So I stocked up on dried kidney beans and veggies instead.

You can see most of the chili ingredients in the photo above, including a couple of peppers from Morou Ouattara’s new spice line. (The alligator peppers, perhaps, weren’t the best fit for the stew, since they had a cooling, pine-needle, Szechwan peppercorn-like quality about them. I used them sparingly.) 

 Once I had the ingredients, it was a pretty simple process:

Read More “Surviving Snowmageddon with Homemade Chili” »

It was the perfect weekend to cook those homegrown Portabellas. It was the worst weekend to cook those homegrown Portabellas.

It was perfect because Carrie and I were snowbound in our Takoma Park home, our cars buried in drifts and walls of snowplough-created ice, snow, and slush. (Plus, I did mention our cable/internet was down all weekend?). It was the worst because, well, I refused to play suburban Gladiator just to get my hands on a cartoon of milk, some double-stuff Oreos, and a family-size tube of Ben Gay for the post-shoveling team.

So I had to do what cooks always did before the advent of convenience stores, 24-hour Harris Teeters, and farmers markets. I had to whip up some godforsaken hash from the ingredients on hand.

Read More “Grow Your Own Mushrooms: How We Cooked the Portabellas” »

Domino’s Pizza: Perhaps doesn’t suck as hard as it used to?

The snowmageddon has laid waste to most of our weekend plans here at Y&H Central, which is a pisser. Maybe Carrie and I will, instead, take part in the urban adventure offered by a few restaurants and bars, which are planning to ride the storm out. Or maybe we’ll just hibernate with our nuclear winter’s worth of pantry provisions.

With all the snow, of course, it’ll be a good time to catch up on your Y&H reading. Here’s a start. The most popular posts from the week:

1. Is the New and Improved Domino’s Pizza Any Good? (*)
2. Food News You Can Use: Wine and Wagamama Edition
3. If You Must Buy Enough Supplies for a Stand Down with ATF Agents, Go to Target
4. Chili Reception: Where Do You Go for a Good (Non-Ben’s) Bowl?
5. Cupcake Craze Hits NoVa: Alexandria and Clarendon Shops Open
   

* A certain light-drinking Budweiser beer was, once again, a popular item among readers, but we’ve stopped counting it.

Pete’s will be riding the storm out.

For those who didn’t stock the pantry in preparation for the Armageddon — sorry, snowmageddon — you might consider braving the elements and heading to a nearby restaurant. A number are doggedly riding out the storm this weekend.

Here’s our working list. Please add to it as you learn of others:

• Pete’s Apizza The owners are housing employees at a nearby B&B so that the Columbia Heights pizzeria can serve all your pie needs. “All they have to do is walk to work” tomorrow, says co-owner Mike Wilkinson
• Dino Owner/chef Dean Gold e-mailed today to say, “We expect to be open tomorrow.”

Read More “Which Restaurants Are Braving the Storm? Y&H Has a Working List.” »

Rumors of restaurant closings are serious business. Serious enough that I just can’t let them sit there without some sort of official response. So after my colleague Todd Kliman at the Washingtonian Tweeted today that “Inox is closing, according to a trusted source of mine,” I called the McLean restaurant to get its side of the rumor-mongering.

After all, I remember talking to a person inside Citronelle who said rumors of its closure in Georgetown had impacted business.

Chef Jon Mathieson quickly returned my call and noted, “Yeah, we’re closed today and tomorrow.” But he said, weather permitting, Inox will be back open and operating on Monday. (In fact, the chef wasn’t completely giving up on Saturday night; he said Inox managers and owners would make a final decision after the storm had passed.)

Read More “Inox Chef: Reports of Our Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated” »