How to Take a Sandwich Home

Last month, I was in Arlington, Virginia to meet a friend for brunch. Good brunch makes me happy, seeing a friend who I haven't seen in years makes me happier. I was lucky enough to be able to combine the 2.

We went to a nearby restaurant, Harry's Tap Room. My friend has a deep interest in food and she is very concentrated on the aspects of sustainability, local produce, subsidies and the economy of farming. She took me to a restaurant that has not only delicious food, but the food is also local and hormone free, if not organic. These are all ideas that I think are worth supporting, but I still have the notion that these foods are pricey and full of extra-fiber. Not the case at Harry's. The prices are good and neither the food nor interior of the restaurant suggest that anything is green about the place.

Aware of the fact that I am not a professional cook & do not live anywhere near Maryland, I was delighted when I recently saw frozen Chesapeake Bay crabcakes in the supermarket. I got some English Muffins, made a Hollandaise sauce & poached some eggs. All in all, a really good start for breakfast. Had I made some hashbrowns & a fruit salad, it would have been a really good brunch.

Captain Pell

Here in Germany, there is a decided lack of seafood. From an ecological standpoint, this is great - the over fishing of species is not promoted and the consumption of local fish is in the foreground. In theory, a great idea. In practice, I miss shrimp, lobster, oysters and crab. During the recent trip to North America, I made a stop in Fairfax Virginia to visit Captain Pell. His crab shack has been on Highway 50 for over 30 years, selling fresh Maryland bluecrab to those slightly inland. They seem to even have a truck to transport the goods, in an emergency, ambulance-like hue.

My companion, the trusted local, has always preferred crab cakes to a plate full of crustaceans but joined me nonetheless in our crab feast. It wasn't so much of a feast - it was a crustacean extravaganza.

We were told to reserve a table on weekends & to ask what's best that day. We arrived on a weeknight and didn't have a reservation. I don't know what the wait is like on weekends, but there is Donkey Kong Junior in the lobby to keep one busy. I imagine, however, that there must be a line to play.

That day, the large crab were the best catch, so we ordered a dozen of those. A dozen crab between 2 people is quite an accomplishment, especially considering neither of these 2 people are particularly gifted in the art of eating a crab.

We took the legs off, smashed open the claws with a wooden mallet & dipped the meat in apple cider vinegar. Then we took to prying open the main shells. After pulling off the gills, we pulled the meat out of every chamber. In the process, we ended up with some pretty mangled hands.

A fun meal, a fun place but I'd be so happy if there was a nail salon next door.

Captian Pell in Fairfax, VA. Click here for more info.

Shopping in Strasbourg - I

While on a whirlwind shopping tour in Strasbourg this weekend, I managed to swing by the supermarket, and in the 40 minutes before they closed, I got wine, cheese, meat, fish & some veggies. The freezer will be full.

I've eaten baby goat, I've eaten snails, I've had oysters, cockles, lamb, quail, pheasant, ostrich; I'm not afraid of eating animals. Normally the rule is: if I'm not allergic, I'll try it. I know that I'm not allergic to crab; I know that I really like crab meat. As I saw the 3 pre-cooked crabs in the fish section, I selected the one with the least amount of barnacles, with the best colour, in short, the cutest crab available. Tonight, I pulled that crab out of my fridge & prepared to turn him into a seafood quinoa-isotto.

After having done my research on the best way to open a common crab, I set to work. But he looked so darn cute. I like to dive and if I saw this guy underwater, I'd stop for a while and look at him, maybe even have a little chat - he's that cute.Now, I know it's a little silly to be remorseful over the same food I was so excited about while in the supermarket.

1. crab is dead
2. if I didn't buy it, someone else would have - on sale!
3. he's here now and it would be wasteful to not use it

Good. I'll take it apart, make that quinoa-isotto I was planning & be more careful of my purchases in the future.

I took the shell apart, breaking the top off allowing me to get into the inside to pull out the meat & buttery bits. At this point, I realized that I was dealing with a female crab. This is the result of my meticulous meat extraction:

This is the plan for seafood quinoa-isotto:

take 200 g squid & 100g shrimp out of the freezer
sautee 1 onion (chopped) & 2 cloves of garlic (minced) in olive oil over low heat.
Add 1 cup rinsed quinoa & stir around.
Add safron-infused chicken broth (I had some in the fridge) bit by bit, allowing liquid to soak. Maybe about 2 cups.
Throw in cut up squid & allow everything to cook for 30 minutes.
At the last minute add shrimp, & both crab meat & crab red stuff (I think it was roe, but I'm really not sure - I was just squeamish).

The result was decent, my girlfriend came over & said it beat the pants off the salad she was about to make herself.

I still have a bunch of meat (& cheese & wine) from the shopping trip - I'll try to post about that as I slowly extract things from the freezer.

Post-Birthday/Bellini Blues

Well, I made it back from Venice in one piece and I have to say, it was delicious! Of course it was great to see the museums, the basillica, the glass blowers, the gondolas, the carnival masks and the rest of a beautiful city but to be honest, Venice has been on my list of places to go for years now, if only for a Bellini.

The Bellini was created at Harry's Bar and is the signature cocktail at a bar which hosted Hemmingway for months. I first heard of the existence of this cocktail in Brett Easton Ellis' novel American Psycho as the narrator seems to be plagued by restauranteurs trying to gain his favour by giving him & his party free Bellinis, while all he wants is Finlandia vodka. A controversial novel which I am not recommeding; I am simply stating, this is the first time I had heard of the cocktail and it has intruiged me ever since.

In Hemmingway's favourite watering-hole, I sat down to lunch & was asked if I wanted the house-cocktail. I had been waiting decades for this pleasure. I wasn't even phased by the ridiculous price tag. Aware of the subtle signs indicating that taking photos inside the bar are prohibited, I snuck a pic of my Bellini. I did not take pictures of the carpaccio, the marinated raw beef specialty also created at Harry's. The cocktail was good but what was more fun was watching the bartenders pour them out. Everyone drinks Bellinis there! What really surprised me was the colour - the local peaches are a different colour than I am used to. Where I am from, peaches are, well, peach! A slightly orange hue, certainly not the pink that was on my table.

Of course, not all gastronomic delights have to be as pricy as Harry's. The Rialto market has a wonderful fish market. The market was fascinating because of the logistics. Everything is brought in by boat, and this fascinated me. The wares were also noteworthy and appetizing! They have calamari, complete with their own ink sack used for colouring pasta (I tried black pasta with a tomato crab sauce - phenomenal!), and they also have Moeche, a tiny crab, which I saw for the first time. The next day I tried them, battered and fried and as succulent as any Atlantic-coast crab shack can ever be. But with a Pinot Grigio instead of beer.

So here I am, back in Germany, and although I just played tourguide here, the lack of seafood reminds me that I am no longer on the Adriatic. That's fine, though. I can console myself with the alpine cheese I just bought in the Bavarian Alps, or, when the weather allows, I will sit on the balcony & share the 1,5 L bottle of Bellini I brought home with me.