Brandon Eats

The Much Anticipated Chocolate Festival

The Chocolate Festival was really amazing if you like wandering around an empty arena having tiny samples doled out to you by stingy vendors.  At ten bucks a ticket, that works out to almost a dollar per sample--a sample of say, a quarter of a chocolate chip cookie or one single chocolate truffle from places like Kroger or the Hermitage High School Technical Center.

Spring Market Report

17th St. Farmers' Market: Springtime at the Farmers' Market is a little lean, comprised mostly of greens and an excessive amount of bedding plants.  Nonetheless, the little jewelry and handbag stalls are there too, as well as assorted t-shirt vendors, coffee sellers and, of course, the librarian.  Still, it's worth making the trip for--fresh eggs are available (for $2.50!), the pork people of Double A Farm are a definite presence, and you just might find, as I did this Thursday, an entire stall of verdant, pencil-thin, picked-that-morning fresh asparagus.  Cook it just for a few minutes to preserve each spear's springtime snap (nothing at all like the woody crunch of the out-of-season, grocery store variety).  Or, since the weather's  still cool, roast it carefully in the oven to bring out its full, green flavor.

Roasted Asparagus

1 bunch of fresh asparagus

1-2 teaspoons olive oil

coarse salt to taste

1-2 tablespoons grated fresh Parmesan

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Snap off the inedible ends of each asparagus spear and place on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Drizzle with olive oil and roll so that each spear is thoroughly coated.  Sprinkle with coarse salt.  Roast for approximately 8 minutes, turning with tongs after 3-4 minutes (don't overcook!).  Transfer to a bowl and sprinkle with the Parmesan.  Serve.

{I think I'm going to rename my site, "Easy Recipes for the Mentally Lazy"}

asparagus aspirations

Credit Where Credit is Due

I've been hard on poor Ellwood Thompson's and as my enthusiasm has waned for Fresh Market, I really need to give Wade and his friends the praise they deserve for expanding their meat department.  Although there were only two, sad little bone-in chicken thighs alone among all the boneless pieces surrounding them last time I was there, the beef is truly outstanding now.  A butcher is on hand to cut your meat to size (necessary, since the pre-cut varieties are woefully thin) and the meat on offer is a brilliant red (is that carbon dioxide misting the meat case every few minutes?) and marbled beautifully with lovely FAT that keeps the cuts moist and juicy during cooking.  Tender under the knife, with a beefy, not mushy flavor, salt and pepper are the only enhancements needed.  For more reading about the choosing the perfect cut of beef, see the Washington Post (Picking Perfect Steaks, February 15, 2006).

Zukes

It's not quite zucchini season yet, but it's always good to have a few spare recipes around, especially when your children like and will actually eat it.  One of the most surprising--surprising because of it's simplicity, its ease, and its exceptional flavorfulness--comes from the venerable River Café in London.  It appears in their first UK cook book (NOT the one available on Amazon.com here in the US).  The River Cafe (which spawned Jamie Oliver before fame hit) specializes in Italian dishes composed of very fresh ingredients prepared very simply (get the "Naked Chef" connection? Very cute, huh?  A little like Jamie Oliver in the earlier, leaner years? ).

D-d-d-delete

Somehow I managed to delete the link I posted earlier to the exhaustive (and exhausting) Style Weekly restaurant issue, on newstands today. Deveron Timberlake, the always astonishing food and drinks editor, deserves the highest of accolades and lots and lots of chocolate for the amazing job she did and all of the hard work it took to pull this issue together so magnificently.

Dogwood Grille

For the curious, here's my original review of Dogwood Grille published back in August of last year on the old blog:

Fan restaurants come and go, and Dogwood Grille and Spirits opened in an inauspicious spot on Main Street that had seen its share of restaurants close down. Location, location, location, isn't that what they always say? Well, the Richmond restaurant scene continually confounds that old cliché--from Mama Zu's in Oregon Hill to 1 North Belmont Restaurant (a former 7-Eleven), and now, Dogwood Grille (I have a really hard time not putting a "the" in front of that name but I'm resisting).

Richmonders have proven that they know their food and they'll show up when it's good. I had a difficult time getting a reservation and finally took an early 6:30 pm cancellation in order to go on a Saturday night (well, I was calling Saturday morning), but since I get hungry early, this was just fine. The only problem with the early reservation--the problem for my dining companion, that is--was that everyone else eating in the restaurant happened to be in their late fifties and early sixties, and we had a brief flashback to our one and only visit together to the Union Square Cafe.