365 Days of Food

I’m always in search of the best option for when you just need to feel full and don’t have time to think about what you’re eating. Whatever I have needs to be tasty, but not distracting, such as tonight when we went to a meeting after work and Viet got me a container of pasta…

Wrinkled potatoes. This is a recipe from the Canary Islands, bringing you part of the way from the food of Spain to the Caribbean. The simple preparation yields a distinctive result: Boil potatoes in water with a tablespoon of sea salt for every two pounds of potatoes; wait until the water has entirely evaporated; then…

We had dinner guests, a family of four, and I harvested peppers from the garden. Until then I hadn’t realized how many different varieties of pepper I had growing (bell pepper, poblano, jalapeño, and a sweet variety the color of a shriveled space alien), and I omitted the two hot peppers before adding the rest…

It was a perfect weekend in August. I made coffee cake in the morning and spent the afternoon reading More Than This by Patrick Ness, a dystopian YA novel that could easily become a movie someday. We watched swimming and ordered Korean from Seoul Food, where they had a special bowl that combined sweet potato…

I dreamed about election night, certainly not for the last time, and woke up thinking we had elected Ronald Reagan president and he was 102 years old. After work we were watching the opening ceremonies at Duplex Diner and I knew from memory that the only safe choice for me to order would be spaghetti…

Stopped with coworkers for a tanqueray and tonic at Rocket Bar, a place I last visited about six years ago with a separate group of coworkers, and which has remained exactly the same. There is a lot to admire in the way they cater to the basic needs of early 20-somethings without pretending to be…

They pulled us out of work for a brief celebration to commemorate a year in our building, and I had chips from District Taco with a red salsa that was jam-textured and pleasantly fiery, hot enough that it makes you feel exhausted while your taste buds try to catch up. For dinner I put together…

Chocolate almond bars. I used a recipe for “chocolate mint squares” which calls for peppermint oil, but goodness knows where I’m supposed to find that, so I substituted almond extract instead. You prepare the dough by combining melted chocolate and butter with beaten sugar and eggs, a half cup of flour, and the almond extract….

When I woke up, the logic of a dream had convinced me that somehow they’d passed Brexit in our own country and I would have to adjust my life to the new reality. Actually, I just had to figure out how to accommodate the new “Safe Track” Metro schedule that would be in effect all…

For breakfast I took the first Roma tomato that ripened outside and cut it up with a jalapeño and some basil, mixing them with eggs. I thought of making huevos rancheros, which in my head just means “spicy eggs,” because as a pasty resident of the North I have no real idea of what they…

I made a salsa with tomatillos, onions, and parsley, and just enough jalapeño to give it a little bit of kick in the background. We had Spanish mackerel, which didn’t really taste like much, but the salsa was there to make up for it, and I roasted purple potatoes to go with the fish. I…

At the local Irish pub, the outdoor heat gave way to powerful AC and the Tom Petty cover singer told us he was learning to fly. I’m still figuring out how to keep myself above water, but we’re all at different stages in life and must learn to get along anyway. We had the potato…