Dinner at my desk

In what's becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence, I ate dinner at my office desk again tonight. Although I'd rather be dining at home, it's all for a good cause -- burning the midnight oil to help some folks in need. To keep us plugging away, my employer uses a system called Seamless Web to deliver food directly to its worker bees' door. The only real restrictions are that you're performing overtime work and that you stay within the generous $25-per-meal limit. Ah, the sweet incentivizing of working.

Behold the three-pronged art of maximizing your order:
1. Steer clear of places that charge a delivery fee (ruling out Takeout Taxi-affiliated restaurants).
2. Don't order from take-out spots based in Virginia or Maryland (increased delivery time and cost).
3. Never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body.

The somewhat depressing notion of dining all'interno becomes more bearable when you can surround yourself with cartons of wakame salad, lemongrass chicken, tuna rolls, summer rolls, and a $4 bottle of Aquafina.

Fishhh...

The best kept food secret in Washington is the tuna ceviche at the rarely frequented Agua Ardiente in D.C.'s West End. For 10 bucks, you get a school of diced tuna chunks, swimming in an addictive blend of sesame oil, soy sauce, and ginger. So simple, and so cleanly perfect. And if you're balking at the idea of paying $10 for a what amounts to tuna sashimi appetizer, consider that you're getting four times as much tuna as would be included in Firefly's good-but-not-as-good tuna sashimi appetizer. This isn't even to mention that you'd be paying at least $20 for the same amount of tuna at any of this town's fine sushi establishments.

Also, not to be missed is their papaya mojito, which isn't yet on the drinks menu. The briskness of the mint balances the sweetness of the fresh fruit and rum. The closest equivalent is the raspberry mojito at the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara. And if you can't make it out there for drinks with Britney and Cletis, you can always hit up Agua.

Making Bob Marley spin in his grave

Every month or so, I buy four buffalo hot dogs at the Dupont Circle farmers' market from the French guy who works at the Cibola Farms stand. I pick up ground buffalo meat for everyday cooking (I know, I know...), but I'm there for the tasty, spicier dogs. Tastier and spicier -- and healthier (though a hot dog's still a hot dog) -- than the chili half-smokes at Ben's Chili Bowl that deserve high praise. When I grill them up, I want to sing "Buffalo Hot Dogs" in the place of the title refrain of "Buffalo Soldier."

The Emerilization of the world

Each year, the Mall in Washington plays host to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The Folklife Festival typically shines its benevolent paternalism on cultures of countries that are: 1) established tourist spots for wealthy Americans; 2) emerging tourist spots for wealthy Americans; or 3) formerly war-torn regions on the verge of becoming emerging tourist spots for wealthy Americans. If the organizers take on America, they walk a fine line between turning it into a cultural freakshow by trotting out people from the stereotypically poorest and historically most forsaken regions of the country (Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta) and calling attention to areas that need it. But this year, they dropped the charade and conjured up Food Culture USA -- gastro-tourism for wealthy Americans.

I stopped by on Saturday and camped out in the "Beyond the Melting Pot" tent for the cooking demonstrations. Let me preface this by saying that I love watching cooking demonstrations -- and not for the free food that often follows them. You can surf the aisles at Costco for that. No, I love watching cooking demonstrations because I pick up a wealth of techniques by watching the chefs do their thing.

First up was Steven Raichlen -- barbecue guru, Baltimore boy, and Barry Gibb lookalike. I watch his show, Barbecue University, virtually every Saturday morning and I don't even own a grill. Although some of his techniques necessarily apply only to outdoor grilling (e.g. building a three-tier fire with your charcoals), you can easily apply others to your work indoors (e.g. what is the thickness at which you should cover a steak?). In 45 minutes, he put together grilled shrimp on sugar cane skewers, grilled chicken with a tomato-based marinade, and grilled peaches with mint leaves. His dexterity isn't surprising when one considers that he once defeated an Iron Chef in a barbecue battle on the original Japanese television show.

What was alarming was the audience's reaction to his adding butter and spices. "I'm going to add a little more butter here," he remarked in making his "B-3" glaze for the peaches. The audience let out some whoops and "Yeahs" to indicate their approval of his adding more of a "bad" ingredient. And this is Emeril Lagasse's fault.

He's rightly considered the grandfather of the modern-day cooking show (he took the baton from Julia Child and ran with it) because he ushered in this notion of watching cooking as entertainment. Without Emeril, Iron Chef simply isn't popular in America. And I thank Emeril for that -- and for his outstanding food, which I've had twice in Orlando.

But what bothers me is the effect Emeril's show has had on the work of other chefs who perform in public. Raichlen wasn't adding butter to get a crowd response. He was adding butter because, well, things taste better with butter. But the audience's Pavlovian reaction was to hoot and holler. Which then shows the chef that he is a pretender to Emeril's throne.

Even worse, I was watching the pizza episode of NapaStyle with Michael Chiarello (the former chef at Napa Valley's Tra Vigne). NapaStyle stands alone as a cooking show that focuses on techniques rather than recipes. Chiarello had brought his his daughter Giana and her friends to help him make some pies. Chiarello asked one kid whether he wanted to add some more pepperoni. And the kid did so -- with a "Bam!" Yelling the competition's catch phrase in your host's house! Chiarello sheepishly shook it off, and the kid was just a kid. But you know that Emeril was doubled over in laughter at home.

When Emeril arrives at the Folklife Festival at the Mall, the audience will have found its muse. Until then, don't say "Bam."

Duck, duck, duck...

Roasted ducks in the window of a restaurant in Toronto's Chinatown.

Back on the scene

The Gastropub has re-opened its doors after a 4-1/2-month hiatus. Although I've been eating well and cooking some interesting things in the interim, work has been kicking my rump roast. My return to the literary kitchen doesn't mean that work has stopped kicking my rump roast. It's just that I'm ready to get up and do my thing. I wanna get into it, man. You know, like a, like a pasta machine, man. Movin', doin' it, you know. Can I count it off? One, two, three, four...