The same rationale of reducing waste can also be applied to vegetables and fruits: stem-to-root cooking. The New York Times provides plenty of unique ways to create edible uses for items, such as peach leaves (steeped for an aperitif), melon rinds (for crunchy cucumber-like garnish) and corn cobs (for stock).

Logan Cox's contribution to the full usage veg movement: crispy beet greens. Ripple's executive chef found a way to turn the magenta sphere's stems into a crunch reminiscent of Rasika's famous Palak Chaat (crispy spinach).

The green was found in a squash agnolotti dish a few weeks ago, although now this meatless composition has since changed with cubanelle peppers filling in for the gourd and cranberry beans instead of beet greens. Cox promises, though, that the beet greens will be back on the menu. (Oh, the troubles of reporting on constantly rotating farm-to-table restaurants.)

Cox separates the leaves from the stems, then adds the greens to a cold pain with olive oil. The leaves crisp up in three minutes, just as the pasta is cooked to order. The kitchen keeps the sauce, a ricotta fundido, away from the stems "so there's no liquid that can moisten the leaves," he explains, "so it won't be soggy."

The effect enlivens the dish, contrasting the soft pasta rounds with a snappy green, and squarely lifting Ripple into the thrift-is-chic paradigm.

Photo by sashafatcat /Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

The table at Dupont Circle’s Eola is covered in small appetizers that seem innocuous—tortellini, chicken fried steak, tempura fries. But take a second glance. All three dishes are made from parts of a pig’s head: The pasta is filled with brain. The golden, deep fried tempura batter hides slivers of ear. And the “steak” is a gloriously fatty jowl. The spread marks an opening salvo in an exuberant exploration of all things offal. And, in classic 21st-century culinary-culture fashion, the preparation of entrails and internal organs also represents something of a political gesture. Eola chef and co-owner Daniel Singhofen says he didn’t create his menu to shock his guests. Rather, he’s demonstrating his respect for ingredients.

“If we’re responsible for taking life, then we need to be responsible with what we do with that animal,” Singhofen says. “We try to use as much as we can, as often as we can, and not waste anything.” Not that the Culinary Institute of America–trained chef will cop to sacrificing taste on the altar of non-waste. “It’s a challenge to turn this stuff into a wonderful dish and then convince people to order it,” says Singhofen. “But when it’s good, it’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted.”

Singhofen believes that diners’ interest in this approach to cooking may come from adventure-food TV, not just from Michael Pollan–era ethics. “When people see Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern traveling the world eating testicles and hearts, they’re intrigued by it,” he says. At any rate, he’s not alone in the local haute snout-to-tail category: Galileo III, Bar Pilar, and Blue Duck Tavern have all embraced the movement, to varying degrees. But Eola may go farther still. “I don’t see it as a trend, because I have the responsibility, the knowledge and the ability to use cuts of an animal that a home cook maybe can’t use,” Singhofen says.

The chef has been honing his menu in the year since he opened. Eola takes nice care of non-porcine details, too: The breadbasket —often an overlooked element—is treated with the utmost respect. Slightly sweet brioche rolls are made in-house, dusted with sea salt, and served warm with salted butter. The space, likewise, is simple and pleasant. The first-floor dining room is a relatively narrow exposed-brick affair with a yellow back wall; the closeness gives the restaurant an intimacy and warmth. Black-and-white photos of autumnal sequences line the sides—a pair of lifeless leaves keep each other company in one shot, while another captures a wispy vine curling into thin air. The theme continues through the leaf-entwined light fixtures and candleholders. The kitchen peeks out from behind the pass, where a fake pig snout playfully covers the barrel of the smoke gun.

To the right of the kitchen, in the back, is a tile-lined bar. Unfortunately, you can’t sit there, which is a bit of a drawback for people waiting for the rest of their party to show up. Luckily, there is another bar upstairs, along with a second dining room, this one decorated with photos from a cross country road trip, where you can have a glass of wine or one of a dozen cocktails. Two notables are the Moscow Mule, which dresses up vodka with the zing of ginger beer, and the Bee’s Knees, which combines the floral sweetness of honey with a tart hint of lemon and the bite of strong gin.

But of course, we’re not here for fancy cocktails. We’re here to chow down on pig skull. Since we don’t want to leave any part of the porker feeling left out, we order everything, which constitutes almost an entire hog head. The ears are cut into three-bite-long straws, tempura battered, and then fried. When you crunch into them, there’s none of the chewy resistance you might expect if you’ve only seen pig ears offered as dog chews. Singhofen’s version melts in your mouth to reveal only the faintest hint of ham. A side of tartar sauce is a nice complement, but isn’t necessary to enjoy the dish.

Next up is the brain tortellini. There’s an odd, primal thrill that comes from knowing that you’re sucking down gray matter. That being said, if you didn’t know the pasta was filled with brain, you’d just think you were eating a mushy meat. The dish is interesting in theory, but unremarkable in execution. On the other hand, the chicken-fried tongue with lentils, pickled shallot, and spiced apple puree is interesting in both concept and execution. The other offal-centric starter, the FBLT, is pure genius. Foie gras stands in for the bacon on a decadently truffled brioche and each bite threatens to overwhelm you with fatty depravity. It’s a haute cuisine glutton bomb of epic proportions.

All in all, Singhofen’s 360-degree ethos works to create a symbiotic relationship between the chef and his purveyors, like David Ober of West Virginia’s Cedarbrook Farms, who provides Eola with all things swine. “He’s maximizing his pigs and I’m keeping my customers happy,” explains Singhofen. “Because it means I’m getting all these odd little bits and pieces that we try to turn into beautiful meals.”

You’re not obligated to go the offal route at Eola. A vegetable-meets-fruit salad is a study in contrasts. The earthiness of the beets finds nice opposition in the tangy zing of the grapefruit slices, while the crunch of the pistachios contrasts nicely with the silkiness of the ricotta.

The velvety celery velouté is a little salty, so the main ingredient is drowned out behind a wall of saline. Celery has such a slight flavor profile to begin with that it has to be treated with incredible delicacy if it’s going to register. The crispy wild rice scattered across the soup adds a snap, crackle, and pop to the proceedings, but still don’t bring back that elusive celery flavor.

More successful are the quarter-sized scoops of trout rillette that rest on miniature toast chips and come topped with a caper and a sliver of lemon. The briny fish provides a nice backdrop for the salty pop of the caper and the spiky tang of the citrus.

Still, there’s a restraint and surprising lightness to Singhofen’s entrees. Where a more classically influenced chef might be heavy-handed with sauces and preparations, Singhofen lets his ingredients speak for themselves. The claws are left on the confited quail, reaching out in supplication for a prayer that was clearly never answered. This faithful departed rests next to a griddled rye cake and a tumble of jus-dressed winter root vegetables. The bird’s rich, duck-like flavor, works well with the slightly sweet jus and the grassy, earthy tones of the rye. It’s totally irresistible; in a short time it’s reduced to a pile of toothpick-thin bones sucked clean and a picked over miniature ribcage.

There are other appealing main courses. A tangle of oxtail sits in a savory broth filled with barley. It looks like it could be a soggy mess, but when you bite into it the beef it’s pleasantly chewy and the barley kernels have the consistency of wild rice. The Tamworth pork is glazed in sarsaparilla, easily the most underrated root soda of all time—bravo to Singhofen for recognizing its rightful place at the forefront of American cuisine. The sweetness of sarsaparilla is a nice complement to the pork’s own sugary tones, but never threaten to drown out its natural flavors.

This is all a nice lead-up to dessert. The brioche bread pudding is perfectly caramelized on the edges and served with a chantilly whipped cream sprinkled with nuts and dried fruits, which ties back to the pudding’s innards. Buttery and moist, it recalls the richness of the offal starters, but the portion is restrained so that diners don’t overstuff themselves in the final leg of the race.

A cookie plate full of choices like a crunchy chocolate hazelnut biscotti, a duo of soft brownie cubes, a bittersweet chocolate chunk cookie and a pair of ginger infused molasses drops is a comforting swansong. A peppermint meringue disc is picked up without design at the very end and becomes the perfect last bite, leaving a lingering freshness on the tongue.

Eola, 2020 P St. NW; 202-466-4441

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Food trucks flooded our streets and Twitter feeds. Connecticut Avenue welcomed a whole lot of ground-meat options (and then kicked one out.) In an age of comfort food, family-style Italian filled our carb-deprived bellies. But will mobile food, burgers and comfort food dominate 2011? Will small plates finally die? Here's our break down on what we'll eat in 2011.

OUT     →     IN

Burgers     →      Hot Dogs

Mansion-Sized Bars     →     Apartment-Sized Bars

Anthony Bourdain     →     Ruth Bourdain

Vegetarian     →     Vegivore

Where the Obamas Eat     →     Where Sam Kass Eats

Bacon     →     Offal

4 Loko     →     Spiked Hot Chocolate

Gulf Seafood     →     Gulf Sweets

Traditional Tacos     →    Korean Tacos

Jose Andrés in D.C.     →     Jose Andrés Everywhere

Brickskeller     →     American Tap Rooms

H Street's Food Identity     →     Wheaton's Food Identity

Small Plates     →     No Small Plates (at least here!)

Michael Landrum Doing Meat     →     Michael Landrum Doing Salads

Food Trucks     →     Food Trucks Buy Store Fronts

Andrew George and Scott Reitz contributed to this article
Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Chef-turned-food-writer David Hagedorn gathered 12 of his closest friends — or the dozen of us who could eat and drink late into the night on a Wednesday — for pig roast on the patio at Poste Moderne Brasserie yesterday. Y&H was among the group that crowded around the outdoor chef's table, itself tucked away among chef Robert Weland's wonderland of herb and tomato plants, and waited on our bronzed suckling pig to arrive on a giant platter surrounded by grilled stone fruits and the fang-dripping expectations of the gathered carnivores.

When the pig finally landed on the table, with the sort of ceremony that I imagined surrounded a Roman feast, most of us had already downed a cocktail and/or several glasses of viognier or rose, which had more than primed us for pig meat. We had plenty of pork flesh to choose from.

But before the sacrificial pig made it to our corner of the patio, Weland's kitchen had soaked the young porker in a combination of soy honey, cardamom, and ginger, and injected some of the same mixture under the animal's thick skin.  He purposely limited the pig's exposure to the flavoring agents, so as not to overwhelm the natural flavor of the pork meat. Weland also opted not to salt cure the skin, lest the pig lose moisture from the process and dry out while roasting over the open, hickory-fueled pit in the middle of Poste's courtyard.

Perhaps as a result, the skin on our suckling pig had a chewy, almost leathery texture, not unpleasant but not the crisp crackle that I had been expecting. I related this to Weland, who expressed some dismay and humbly admitted that the "Poste Roasts" are still in the experimental phase. "It's sort of a learning process each time we do this," Weland told Y&H.

The best part of the meal, for me, was the chance to literally do some nose-to-tail eating — and, for once, not just read about this resourceful use of animal products. During the course of the meal, I sampled ham, loin, shoulder, and pork skin, but thanks to Stefano Frigerio, the former Mio chef who now sells his own jams and sauces, I got to try so much more.  Frigerio secured a good knife from the kitchen and started breaking down the pig's head.

Before I knew it, I was trying pig cheeks (fatty and still gooey with connective tissue), tongue (dense and livery), and even brains, which Frigerio had spread onto a crusty piece of bread as if it were pate. (The gray matter was indeed creamy, but also surprisingly livery.)

I told Weland about our head games, and he was delighted. "That's very cool," he says. "That's true nose-to-tail eating." He said that, in the future, the kitchen would serve the offal meats from the skull, should any Poste Roast diners want to take up the gustatory challenge.

The roasts are offered daily at Poste (except Thursday), and you don't have to go the pig route. Weland's team will also roast locally sourced duck, goat, brisket, lamb, squab, salmon or poussin as well. It's a helluva deal at $27 a person (not including drinks, dessert, etc.)

It's even more of an adventure for those who want to go beyond the standard animal cuts.

Baum + Whiteman, the self-described "world's pre-eminent food + restaurant consulting company," has predicted the top 13 trends we can expect to see next year in the increasingly fragile hospitality industry. B+W warms up to its list with this caveat: "The global economic meltdown is forcing profound changes in the hotel and restaurant world. Costly frills are out. Wanton indulgence is now bad manners."

So guess what's in? Comfort foods, bistros, and, in an apparent nod to Ren-Fen geeks everywhere, turkey legs. Below are the highlights of Baum + Whiteman's list.

• Bistros: "So all those new restaurants that recently were hell-bent for opulence and dripping with luxury will now be part of the cyclical 'bistro-ization of America.' And if not bistros, look for "osterias", which are the Italian equivalent."
• Fewer Celebrity Chefs at Hotels: "We look for fewer hotels turning their restaurants over to star chefs. The cost of building these things often outstrips potential profits, and when times get tight, hotels can do without. Besides, we’re running out of star chefs."
• Comfort Food: "Exotic seafood topped with micro-greens and frou-frou is out of bounds in the face of 401(k) deprivation, so the old standbys are coming back," including mac 'n' cheese and spaghetti and meatballs.
• Turkey Legs and Other Meats: "We’d be surprised if TURKEY LEGS don’t pop up on menus around the country, as well as lots of BRAISED AND FRIED CHICKEN—this time in various ethnic flavorings, particularly from twice-fried Korean chicken chains that are growing in popularity wherever you find concentrations of Korean expats."
• Even More Offal: "Last year we predicted a great upswing in innards and odd parts, and this year we’ll see even more. Guanciale (pigs’ cheeks), pigs’ feet, tripe, lardo (cured pork fat), artisan salami, beef cheeks, tongue, neck meat, oxtails … and chicken livers taking the place of costly foie gras."
• Fewer High-End Tasting Menus: "LUXURY RESTAURANTS that got away with $75-and-up price-fixed dinners will be unbundling their menus, allowing cash-strapped patrons to control their checks by ordering a la carte."
• More Underground Restaurants: "There’ll be big growth in 'black market' restaurants this year … one-night-only unlicensed dinner ventures staged by skilled home cooks (and occasional professionals) in warehouses, garages, cellars, vacant nightclubs and personal dining rooms. With ambitious menus, these dinners are by invitation only … word spreads via blogs, text messages, notices on Craigslist."

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying the turkey leg trend. As Jack Nicholson's character says in As Good As It Gets: "Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here."

Image by Flickr user corsi photo.