olio d'oliva

these days, you could read olive oil labels for hours at your local grocery store or specialty market. there are so many choices in such a wide price range that i always find myself spending long minutes reading labels, examining color and in the end choosing one that has the nicest label or thickest consistency or nicest greenish yellow color - but almost always italian. 
well, it seems california olive oils are making headway in the market, so next time, when the lucini bottle (my favorite the last couple of years) i just bought runs low, i think i'm going to try a nice california bottle from this promising olive oil shop that just opened a couple blocks from home. 
mi dispiace italia!

20 great first lines from 20 great books

"My mother died today or was it yesterday." - The Stranger

"All this happened, more or less." - Slaughterhouse Five

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." - Mrs. Dalloway

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." - One Hundred Years of Solitude

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." - The Catcher In The Rye.

"On an exceptionally hot evening in early July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge." - Crime and Punishment 

"For a long time, I went to bed early." - In Search Of Lost Time 

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.” -  Lolita

"Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting." - The sound and The fury

"As Gregor Samsa awoke from a night of uneasy dreaming, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." - The Metamorphosis

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." - A Tale of Two Cities

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” - 1984

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Anna Karenina

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love." - Love in the Time of Cholera

"I am an invisible man." - Invisible Man 

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed." - Ulysses 

"Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress." - Middlemarch

"In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains." - A Farewell to Arms

 “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” - Pride and Prejudice

 “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.” - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

                    

music monday - fugazi

i have always said that the suburb of washington d.c. was a great place to grow up and the d.c. music scene in the mid to late 80's was one of the undeniable eye and ear opening reasons why. fugazi was one of those local bands and they are just about to release a collective archive of over 800 recorded shows. i wonder if i'll be able to hear myself almost getting trampled in one of them!
this song was on all the mix tapes i made in 1989.

pretty persimmon

i like to color coordinate my holiday posts (not really) so what better visual than this thanksgiving orange colored baby - a recently indulged persimmon tart from the perfect and always delicious hucklberry pastry window. 
at some point i am going to have to rename this blog 'i heart huckleberry and her siblings sweet rose,  milo and olive'.
have a lovely turkey day feast and a long holiday weekend- gobble gobble!

myanmar awakes

i have obviously been out of the loop on the asia news front because one day i was reading an article on daw aung san suu kyi's 2 decade long house arrest, the next i was seeing her on a live video interview at the clinton initiative and the next i'm reading in the nytimes that hillary clinton is going to be going to myanmar (the first secretary of state in 50 years) and that san suu kyi was being allowed to rejoin the political system. 
myanmar has gone from dictatorship to fledgling democracy in less than a year, an extraordinary pace of change that no one would have predicted last year. all eyes watch while all fingers are crossed. 

music monday - leaozinho

a perfect beautiful song performed twice by three perfectly beautiful voices on a lovely bright sunny morning....

universal children's day

grand openings

let me just say how excited my belly and i are that my three favorite local bakers, chefs and restaurant owners are opening their two new restaurants today.
pizzeria mozza's nancy silverton is debuting her short order seasonal burger bar this evening, while married duo, zoe nathan and josh loeb of rustic canyon and hucklberry fame opened their much anticipated pizzeria and bakery, milo and olive, this morning (they had their soft launch free food giveaway yesterday and the office drooled as we nibbled on our prized possessions of a warm potato spinach frittata, gooey sticky bun, homemade granola bar, fresh blueberry cake and just out of the oven dried cherry and nut bread)!
have a fantastic feast of a weekend - you know where i'll be!

:-)

okay, i'm guilty of this practice covered recently in a new york times article :p !

polishious

this earth sign's favorite nail polish colors this season...

glamour purse

merino cool

you don't know jaques

shaky alibi

i think it's written in stone somewhere; a perfect afternoon always consists of something sweet

paired with a strong little coffee.

these two delicious afternoon treats are from the little neighborhood belgian wafflerie, shaky alibi on beverly blvd. if it was just a bit closer to me, it would be my go to place for a perfect pulled espresso. 

magnifique! 

music monday - band of horses

i spent the past 4 days at home, sick, eating soup, reading the pulitzer prize winning the emperor of all maladies (not the most up-beat of choices) and attempting to clean-up and arrange my itunes folder, an attempt which came to a screeching halt yesterday when i landed on band of horses. the perfect haunting soundtrack for my sniffly cabin fever long weekend.

doctor's orders

i'm congested and sniffly and achy and can't really smell or taste but this delicious, comforting and warm farro tomato soup recipe was just what the doctor ordered last night. the recipe is super simple and makes enough to feed a small (sick or healthy) army. 
have an amazingly great, kleenex and cough free, weekend - and happiest of birthdays my #3! 

dc soundtrack

i didn't get a chance to try this app out while in dc this week, but sounds like a great, novel way to experience the national mall. bluebrain also just released a central park app for you lucky new yorkers.

burger x 2

my week long dc pig-out trip could not come to an end without a mention of 2 burgers. the first is the new york transplant of shake shack, which in nyc is one of my favorite burgers, but in dupont circle, not so much. the burger was the perfect size, and actually looked amazing on the tray - but the meat was a bit too salty, a bit too gamey and frankly tasted like an average fast food bite. the crinkly cheese fries however, were really really fresh and crispy and perfect.

the second burger is from ray's hell burger in arlington. ever since obama took russian prime minister dmitry medvedev for a burger lunch here last year, the lines have been long and the reviews endless. well, burger seekers, the hoopla is not just hype! this burger was the best i've had in dc since i moved away - the meat perfectly ground, cooked and juicy - and an obvious descendant of ray's steak house a flew blocks away. come hungry, come early and come with cash - this delicious burger joint accepts no credit cards. 

chelo kabob

a week with my family always involves a delicious saffron rice and grilled kabob feast that looks like this:

dinner courtesy of shamshiry restaurant. photo's courtesy of kacy jahanbini.

music monday - house of cards

i always want to listen to radiohead when i'm back in dc. maybe it's the winter chill, the turning leaves, the familiar drive down along the river...or maybe it's just the soundtrack of knowing you can always return to the place where you grew up, but never really go back home...

blue duck tavern

i don't think dc had a locally sourced, "farm to table" restaurant on it's radar a few years ago, but since the healthy organic food friendly obama's moved to town, the city is experiencing a bit of a "local food' revival. i've been reading about one of the first family's favorite restaurants, the blue duck tavern, for a couple of years now, and finally had the change to sample it last night. it's a big, loud, open kitchen space, with an on-point attentive staff and a protein rich locally sourced menu. of course the room was too dim for my camera phone to do the deliciousness any justice, so i will list our evening's choices -

watercress and shaved fennel salad with ewe's blue cheese, almonds, citrus vinaigrette

oven roasted bone marrow, spiced pumpkin butter

48 hour marinated and 8 hour braised beef rib, house made steak sauce

jumbo lump crabcakes, frisée & fennel, sweet mustard dressing

creamy carolina heirloom gold rice, kobacha squash, chestnut, aged gouda

caramelized onion and goat cheese pie, pine nuts

pumpkin, cranberry and walnut cake, blis cream

espresso ice cream

orin swift "the prisoner" napa red 

the dinner was truly lovely,  and a deserving member of the top 10 restaurants in dc list for the past three years.

have a mouthwateringly perfect, longest weekend of the year.

have marzipan, will travel

when i feel jet lagged, i crave sweets (who are we kidding, i always crave sweets). but waking up the morning after a flight, there is nothing i want more than a strong coffee, a fresh squeezed juice, a thick piece of warm bread and a dark chocolate bar.  
well, today i can't stop eating this.

seriously, it's a problem.

speedy gazelle

i had been holding on to an old mac powerbook that i wanted to recycle and found this awesome company that buys back used electronics. just enter your old equipment's stats and instatntly get a quote for your used gizmo. gazelle supplied me with a free shipping label for my used laptop and two weeks later i received a nice, surprisingly fair check in the mail. 
the whole process was really quite speedy and efficient - you know, like a gazelle!

mini früute

mini bite size sweets are the latest trend in desserts shops and these little perfectly designed bite size babies from a new diminutive pastry shop früute popped up in my neighborhood a couple of months ago. the little tarts are displayed and packaged beautifully and the dozen or so flavors all sound mouthwatering and tantalizing. we tried the budino, yuzu , and i went back another day just to sample my all time favorite fruit, passion fruit. their adorable size and delicate design really makes you wish to fall in love with each $3 bite, but somehow they lacked a rich and clear flavor and i just didn't savor them as much as i do another beautifully deliciously designed small treat, a $2 lette macaroon..