Shallal was pretty adamant:

"God forbid. That's not – no. I don't have any real political aspirations in that sense. I'm not looking to run for office. I think what I do is much more effective, much more in line with, certainly, my values and the way that I like to do things. I think, running for office, you have to, sort of, give up so many things that you otherwise don't have to do when you're running your own business."

Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Photo courtesy of Busboys & Poets

Now comes word that Shallal's eventual replacement in Artisphere's restaurant space, Casa Oaxaca operator Karen Barroso's Here Cafe Bar, is not renewing its contract after just seven months in business.

In a statement, Barroso tries to put a positive spin on the closure: “Although this particular restaurant concept didn’t translate for the Rosslyn business crowd, the catering arm of our business saw great results from our partnership with Artisphere."

A few days after the article was published, I received an e-mail from Nikki Lewis, the co-coordinator for the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Washington, D.C., one of seven affiliates tied to a national group dedicated to helping hospitality workers in a number of ways. She wanted to get in touch with Rockwell about a potential collaboration.

"ROC-DC is also frustrated with the NRA and RAMW. We led the first counter-lobby day against them this past April. We also infiltrated their national convention to get a better understanding of their agenda," wrote Lewis, referring to the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington and the National Restaurant Association.

"ROC is a tiny nonprofit with small capacity compared to the organized wealth and power of the NRA," Lewis added. "They're the 10th most powerful lobbying group in the nation. They clearly have way more bargaining power with insurance companies than us. Yet we are able to do it already."

ROC's health plan just got off the ground a little more than a month ago and, as such, has only a handful of workers enrolled, Lewis told me over the phone last week. It's a limited plan, she admits; benefits max out at $5,000 annually. Members pay $140 a month for the plan, with a $100 deductible.

"It's by no means a comprehensive plan," Lewis tells me. "If you get hit by a bus, it's not for you."

But it's a start and, according to a recent study conducted by the national Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, it's much needed. In a September report drawn from more than 4,300 surveys of restaurant workers, ROC found:

• 87.7% [of restaurant workers] reported not receiving paid sick days. More than 63% of all restaurant workers reported cooking and serving food while sick, thus impacting consumers’ health.
• Almost 90% of all workers surveyed reported not receiving health insurance through their employer. Workers without health insurance were three times as likely to visit the emergency room without being able to pay as their counterparts with health insurance.

ROC-United certainly has a daunting task ahead. The organization represents about 6,000 workers out of the estimated 13 million restaurant employees nationwide. Locally the numbers are significantly smaller: about 240 restaurant workers are members of the D.C. chapter of ROC. But the meaningful news here is that ROC and its modest health plan are open to undocumented workers, who often toil behind the scenes at restaurants.

"We are also reaching out to Latino media outlets because our plan doesn't discriminate based on documentation status," Lewis wrote me."[O]ftentimes that is a huge barrier to many of the workers in our industry."

The local ROC chapter is also working with a handful of restaurants to try to expand D.C.'s Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act of 2008 to cover tipped employees, which it currently doesn't. Several restaurants have expressed an interest in expanding (or already have expanded) the benefits even without a change in law, Lewis says; they include Teaism, Busboys & Poets, and Sticky Rice.

In the meantime, Rockwell and ROC are now aware of each other. They will explore possible collaborations for the benefit of those workers who feed us and serve us daily at D.C. restaurants.

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.

"Vegetarians and vegans choose not to consume meat products so we were left out of Meat Week, but everyone can participate in Meat Free Week," McDonald e-mails to Y&H.

"I don't anticipate that Meat Free Week will make anyone into a vegetarian, but I hope that it will open people's minds to the idea that they can have an amazing, entirely satisfying meal that doesn't involve meat," McDonald adds. "Maybe they'll remember a great Meat Free Week meal the next time they're preparing dinner at home or find themselves at a restaurant with a vegetarian option."

Meat Free Week got off to a rough start, much like Meat Week end roughly. MFW was supposed to launch on Saturday with a dinner with Gene Baur, co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, at Great Sage in Clarksville, Md., but the snow storm forced organizers to reschedule it for Saturday, Feb. 27. But you can still eat at Great Sage this coming Saturday as part of the revamped Meat Free event.

A vegan bake sale scheduled for Sunday was also cancelled. A rescheduled date has not been announced.

But other than those changes, Meat Free Week plans to plow forward this week, with stops at other restaurants, including the Mansion on O Street, Nora, and The Source by Wolfgang Puck. Check DC Vegan for any weather-related changes. Also check it for any questions about the week-long event, including prices, attendance, and advice.

"Oh and, if the First Lady is reading this," McDonald adds, "she's welcome to join us too."

The current schedule, subject to change:

Monday, Feb. 8: The Mansion on O Street, 2020 O St. NW. Dinner from 5:30 to  8 p.m. Reservations required here.  To get $5 off your dinner, note "$5 Off Meat-Free Special” in the "additional comments" field of the reservation form.
 
Tuesday, Feb. 9: Sticky Fingers Bakery, 1370 Park Rd. NW, to benefit Compassion Over Killing. 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.  No reservations required.
 
Wednesday, Feb. 10: Busboys & Poets, all locations, 11 a.m. to Midnight. No reservations required.

Thursday, Feb.  11: The Source by Wolfgang Puck, 575 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Reservations recommended.

Friday, Feb. 12: Restaurant Nora, 2132 Florida Ave. NW, 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Reservations recommended.

Saturday, Feb. 13: Great Sage, 5809 Clarksville Square Drive, Clarksville, Md. 5 to 10 p.m. Regular dinner option. Reservations recommended.

Saturday, Feb. 27: Dinner with Gene Baur, 8 p.m. at Great Sage. Reservations required.

No animals were harmed in the making of these desserts.

Last Friday, we here at Y&H Central sampled some new seasonal desserts created by Danielle Konya, founder of the Pennsylvania-based Vegan Treats, a bakery that employs the nuclear option when making sweets. VT uses no butter, eggs, cream, or cream cheese. Konya, after all, is an ethical vegan, with a strong pro-animal/environmental philosophy behind her bakery:

Clearly, there's nothing appetizing about the needless suffering of ten billion animals a year for their flesh, milk and eggs. And there's really nothing tasty about aiding in the destruction of our environment for a cupcake. After all, the more one learns about the milk and egg industry, the more sickeningly un-sweet desserts made with them become.

Vegans don't often inspire a lot of cuddliness, particularly among editors.  Erika Niedowski, assistant managing editor here at the paper, wasted no words: "I don't think vegans deserve dessert at all," she e-mailed me after our tasting. "I mean, what do they need dessert for, they've given up everything else. (Maybe a poached pear, but not anything more.)"

She may be joking.

Niedowski, however, did like the same dessert as all the other City Paper testers who sampled them (including me): Konya's caramel pecan cake, a moist, not-too-rich confection studded with little pieces of pecan for texture. I'd order the cake even if I had non-vegan options.

I was also impressed with Konya's seasonal cheesecakes, which are not cheesecakes in the leaden-bomb tradition of New York delis. Her pumpkin version has good sweet gourd flavor but a light, fluffy body — without the assistance of a single egg for airiness. How she does it, I have no idea. But it's a welcome alternative to the typically dense cheesecake.

"The 'cheese'cakes were great on texture, lighter than many cheesecake mixes, but low on hints of creme cheesiness...which makes the entire experience very mysterious," noted tester Ruth Samuelson, aka Housing Complex. (I should add that the caramel-apple cheesecake would have been a lot better without the thick, impenetrable layer of caramel on top.)

The low points for me were the pumpkin pie, whose filling was rich enough (even without condensed milk) but whose limp crust suffered without butter, and the chocolate-hazelnut pumpkin spice cake that left a bad, almost carob-like taste in my mouth even with all the other ingredients to counteract it.

Other tasters agreed. "The Choco Hazelnut cake was the only that couldn't pass as normal," Samuelson e-mailed me.

If you're interested in Vegan Treats, you can find them at Busboys & Poets, Java Green, and some other locations around the metro area.

Chef Rusty Holman, the chef at Eatonville

My tablemate and I are sitting at a two-top by the large picture window at Eatonville, which provides a semi-comfortable, climate-controlled view of the parade of mini-skirts and flesh that walks up and down the bustling 14th Street NW corridor.  We're half way through our appetizers when the food runner brings our entrees. She seems oblivious to the fact that we're still eating our first course; she's also a little slow on the basic laws of physics. Our tiny table barely contains all the plates she has just unceremoniously dropped off, her job here done.

The fact is, I really want more time to savor chef Rusty Holman's cheddar tart, this precisely executed savory pastry crammed with white cheddar, roasted tomato, and Vidalia onions, all topped with a weedy garden of microgreens. The tart is the perfect appetizer — balancing flavors and textures and temperatures with the kind of verve seen by circus bears on bicycles. (I mean that in the best way possible, really.)

The tart gives me hope that owner Andy Shallal, better known for his playpens for bleeding hearts, has indeed picked the right person to lead Eatonville's kitchen following his ill-fated chef-search contest. But then we dig into those entrees waiting for us on the table's edge. My "crispy chicken breast" is an odd almalgamation of fried and smothered chicken, a hulking piece of breast meat, dry and flavorless underneath its thick coating, which is not redeemed by its mushroom gravy. The "fish and grits" is a plate brimming with fried catfish, bland and muddy, which provides little satisfication without a generous scoop of jalapeno-cheddar grits to accompany it.

I would like to report that I could wash away the bad taste in my mouth with my Blue Lemon Drop, but I can't stomach another swallow of the cocktail, which goes down like sugary, blueberry-scented serum. Instead, I'm left to drink in the wild ambiance of Shallal's Eatonville, an homage to Zora Neale Hurston, which feels like Tobacco Road meets the antebellum charm of Gone with the Wind meets the post-radical elements of commercial graffiti art. I have to say, I'm quite fond of the interior-design mashup.

Conry takes a break from his job interview to answer questions.

As I noted in today's cover story on the Eatonville chef contest, Trent Conry was, without much question, the most accomplished toque among the nine finalists who competed for the $75,000-a-year gig at Andy Shallal's new Southern restaurant. And yet: The former executive chef at Ardeo and 701 didn't even make it to the finals in the cooking contest.

During the semi-finals, Shallal told Conry that his modern approach to Southern cooking — and perhaps even his personality — wouldn't make for a good fit at Eatonville. During a long phone interview several weeks after the competition, Conry says he wasn't surprised by his dismissal, even if he looked stunned and hurt when Shallal delivered the blow.

Conry tells me his reaction was more of a sudden shock. He says he was momentarily spacing out; he was expecting his would-be boss to talk more about the dishes before deciding which of the chefs to bounce. Instead, Conry remembers Shallal launching right into this announcement: "I’d say you’re probably the most talented [chef] we had, but that’s not all we’re looking for...I’m not sure we’re going to be a great fit, and that’s why I think we need to move on.”

"I really didn't think I was going to make it to the end," Conry  says. "Andy had an idea where he wanted to go with the restaurant," and that idea didn't include him.

In some ways, Conry admits he wasn't suited for a restaurant devoted to Zora Neale Hurston and her writings. The chef rattles off his SAT scores to prove his point: He scored 731 in math — and 302 in English. Perhaps even more problematic, Conry has back troubles that make it impossible for him to sit still and read for prolonged periods.

Not that Conry's blaming his back completely on his inability to get through Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, which the competing chefs were supposed to use as an inspiration to prepare one meal. "I started reading it," he says, "and I was, 'Oh my God, I can't read this.'"

Instead he did some research on Eatonville and its foodways. He discovered that no generic idea of Southern cooking could touch the area's real culinary influences, which come from both the Spaniards and the native American Indians. In the end, though, Conry's dishes for the Hurston challenge fell back on traditional notions of Southern cuisine, which only made sense. He prepared chicken with rosemary, asparagus, and mushrooms; buttermilk biscuits, and Dr. Pepper-braised short ribs.

I got to taste a number of Conry's dishes during the course of the contest, and I found many of them creative and delicious, particularly his take on a vegetable pot pie, a deconstructed version that seemed to confound a few judges. So I had to know: What did Conry think of Rusty Holman, the second-place finisher who got the Eatonville job when Shallal fired the real winner, Chris Newsome?

"Rusty made some dishes that were really really good," Conry says. "They were simple, but they were solid."

Conry, by the way, is still unemployed, just like Newsome.