Frolicking in Southern Food: Georgia Brown's

This cornbread is shaped like corn! Will wonders never cease?

Every now and again, I'm asked "What should be on my D.C. bucket list? What are some must-see, must-dine experiences I need to have hereabouts?" I have a new addition to my series of suggestions: Georgia Brown's, a restaurant with a well-deserved status as a Washington landmark.

You see, growing up in Maine and going to school in Rochester, NY, I think I always perceived Washington, D.C. as some sort of food frontier, the North's last culinary fort before the expanse of the deep fried South. In my mind, Southern food is buttered and fried then buttered again, then chicken fried (whatever the hell THAT is). I've since learned of the savory wonder of cheese grits and andouille shrimp stew, and of the sweet crunch of perfect corn bread, and I've since learned that there is no one "south," just as it's fallacious to claim there's a single "north," with one single culture, attitude, and cuisine.

Enough of my previously-held personal predilections (woot alliterative adjectives); on to Georgia Brown's!

As a padawan health nut, I generally avoid fatty, carby offerings for lunch -- let's face it, 95 percent of the time the meal wasn't worth the aftereffects. Also, I will fall asleep. BUT with the boss taking us out (she engages in frequent awesome bouts of feeding us!) and with what I'd heard about Georgia Brown's (WORTH IT), I decided to embrace GB's rich, spectacular, southern offerings.

The menu presents what could be described as up-scaled and creative versions of solid comfort-food classics. Deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes (more on these), fried chicken, jambalaya, and shrimp & grits; pretty much what you'd expect, I suppose -- but better.

But the execution...wow.

Also, see the cornbread picture above. Shaped like corn! SO ENTERTAINED BY THIS.

I opted for the lunch prix fixe menu, as did most of my colleagues, which included an appetizer, entree, and dessert. On my boss' recommendation I decided to start with a fried green tomato (a dish my mom always resisted making because she wants all the tomatoes to ripen up for jarring our sauce). No simple FGT these, though:

First of all, it was crispy and lightly breaded to succulent perfection. Served atop a sort of green tomato relish, or chutney or somesuch, the appetizer was drizzled with a light green onion mayo. Then, just to drop-kick it into the culinary stratosphere, the tomato was STUFFED WITH GOAT CHEESE. Yeah, you heard me. AWESOME. This dish wowed me, and was perhaps my favorite part of the meal aside from the aforementioned cornbread.

Here it is again.

Next, I selected the chef's special, which on that day was a brisket, served in a thick, rich, peppercorn gravy with vegetables atop a mound of red mashed potatoes.

My picture does NOT do the food justice -- the brisket was perfectly tender and generally well-spiced; it flaked nicely with my fork alone and without any of the stringy, get-stuck-between-your-teeth character brisket can at times acquire. Though delicious, it was perhaps the least adventurous step of my journey into GB's offerings.

Finally, for dessert, the chef provided a simple caramel-drizzled chocolate sheet cake and a piece of sweet potato pie/tart, with a solid dollop of home-whipped cream.

I have to say, the cake was mundane and totally outshone by the tangy, rich, nutmeggy pie. I made all-gone, likeso:

Talk about a lunch. Yes, I felt like I'd gained 74 lbs., and yes, it took inordinate levels of afternoon caffeine to remain productive -- but worth it? Abso-wicked-lutely.

Georgia Brown's has earned it's title as: "One of Hungry Sam's Favorite Restaurants (when someone else is picking up the tab)." Excellent, excellent experience; I highly recommend it.

Food Photo Round-Up

I'm starting to move to using a real camera (as opposed to the camera on my phone) for the blog -- hopefully you've noticed. Still, when I'm excited about something I'm eating in a given moment, I'll often snap a picture with my Droid.

The problem is, these photos tend to remain on my phone, since many don't warrant a whole blog post. But they still represent fascinating meals and delicious dishes, so here is the first semi-annual Hungry Sam Photo Round-Up!

1) Sample plate of mom's Christmas cookies!  

My favorites are the decorated cutouts and the lumpy chocolate ones (called Chinese new year cookies).

FESTIVE

 2) Homemade eggs benedict, grapefruit, and mango! 

My hollandaise was a little too lemony, but still pretty tasty.

POACHED

 3) My colleague Peggy's homemade whoopie pies!

REGIONAL

 4) Tandoori chicken from Naan and Beyond (D.C.)! 

Pretty good, and not at all dry, as tandoori chicken can sometimes be.

RED

 5) Butternut squash soup from Le Pain Quotidien (D.C.)!

SOUP?

 6) TONS of sushi at California Rollin' in Rochester, NY

The ones with sauce are BBT rolls -- regular tuna rolls, tempura fried, with Dinosaur BBQ sauce on top. AMAZING.

ETHNIC! AND ANTHONY!

I hope you enjoyed the photos! Next time, maybe some pictures of food from my trip to Savannah this coming weekend. I will leave you with the traditional blessing of my people: May you eat brunch.

Potlucky

Potlucky. Adjective. The quality of having inadvertently succeeded in one's duty to a potluck.

I got potlucky. This time.

You see, I consider a potluck to be a form of verbal contract in which individuals entering into a potluck agreement (via RSVP) must bring some food or drink item to fulfill their obligation. I attended a work potluck last week; indeed, I organized it (if sending a confusingly worded Microsoft Outlook calendar invite counts as "organizing"). In doing so, and particularly because I was the "organizer," it was incumbent upon me to bring something.

Except it was a LONG four day week. Prepping for some intense work stuff had gotten the better of me, and I arrived home at 10:30 PM on Thursday night after work and a quick grocery store run, pretty beat, with nary a bit of cooking already done.

Fortunately, I got potlucky.

You see, the dish I was making was nothing more than my own attempt and take on something I saw my French uncle's French mother make the previous weekend. The dish, an onion, cheese, and potato tart, was simple in its essentials, but I had no specifics for quantity, spices, etc. I'd asked her, but I speak minimal French (Bonjour! Alouette!) and she speaks minimal English. Whatever.

Before I started the crust, I preheated my oven to 350 degree, started diced onion sauteeing in butter and set two large red potatoes to a boil in salted water. I began to make a fillo crust as fillo should be prepped, layering it in a 9" pyrex pie dish and brushing melted butter between each layer, trying to tuck the rectangular sheets into something resembling an ovoid. It's cool stuff, fillo; doesn't really look edible when you play with it uncooked. And yes, I consciously chose the spelling "fillo" over phyllo. Deal with it.

I continued to cook my onions until they'd caramelized to light brown and become quite sweet, grated up a bunch of cheddar cheese, and made sure to pull the potatoes out of the boiling water right before they finished cooking. Once I had enough layers of fillo -- again, no rhyme or reason, just a wild guess! -- I filled the bottom of the crust with the caramelized onions and covered them with a layer of cheese. On went a layer of potatoes, thinly sliced, another layer of cheese, and another of potatoes. I reserved a little cheese to be added later in the baking process (no burned cheese, please).

Now, I vaguely recalled my uncle's mother using a bit of ground cloves, and so I followed suit, sprinkling a small amount, less than a 1/4 teaspoon, between layers. Just a sniff of the proceedings informed me the cloves were a good call. Finally, I painted the edges with more melted butter and set the whole thing to bake for about 15-20 minutes. Five minutes before it finished I added the final layer of cheese.

The dish came out nicely. Well, it looked nice. I'd experimented too much to have much of an idea of what it would actually taste like. I went to sleep, finally, ready to try the damn thing just to see if it was any good.

Kinda looks like I have a heavy hand with the cloves. I promise I didn't.

The next day was go time. Now, the crust had gotten a little soggy spending the night in the fridge, as is liable to happen, so a brief reheat in the oven at work was necessary as we approached lunchtime. Good thing, too; the crust ended up as flaky and delicate as only fillo can be, so I imagine that the last minute stint in the oven had been necessary. I think the tart came out was pretty tasty -- the crust was golden brown, the filling was savory, rustic, even earthy, and the folks at work ate it (so it can't have been that bad!). The bottom crust was a bit of a pain to cut through, but other than that, no complaints. It seems, despite no real recipe, too little sleep and barely enough time, I'd gotten potlucky.

If I have a real complaint, it's frustration at myself that I didn't photograph the other dishes my coworkers made. There was Vermont-style baked beans (in a special baked beans crock!!!), a broccoli salad, beets, eggplant punjabi, cookies, chips and guac -- definitely a fun way to liven up lunch.

Here again, the money closeup:

A Few Good Sandwiches

OK, cooking is all well and good, but sometimes, you really just want a sandwich.

Making a sandwich is an art form -- don't try to deny it. Why else would Subway call them "Sandwich Artists"? But I digress.

I don't always keep sandwichy things around my house -- after all, lettuce, tomato and other sandwich accoutrement often go bad faster than I can eat them. But seized as I was by a craving the other night, I constructed a pretty tasty sandwich:

Sandwich dominated.

We're talking about some honey-roasted turkey, thick-sliced on toasted nine grain bread with romaine lettuce, swiss cheese, tomato, red onion, and stone-ground maple mustard. The sandwich is pictured here with my signature chipotle-cinnamon baked sweet potato fries (recipe at the bottom of the post).

I have an identical sandwich for lunch today. I combat the all-too-frequent soggifying of the bread by the tomato by ensuring a protecting layer of turkey AND lettuce rests between the bread and tomato.

If you like looking at pictures of sandwiches I have eaten (and why wouldn't you?) hit up some blasts from the Hungry Sam past discussing sandwiches!

• Potbelly's Breakfast Sandwich
• Chicken Salad, Apple, and Cheddar Panini
• Amazing Turkey Club at Lawson's (z"l)
• PB&B&J Awesomeness

And as promised, a recipe:

Chipotle-Cinnamon Baked Sweet Potato Fries

-One sweet potato per person
-Olive oil
-Ground Chipotle Peppers
-Cinnamon
-Salt and Pepper

1) Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2) Using a sharp knife, cut sweet potatoes into wedges. The goal is to cut them into as similar a size as possible so they cook at the same rate.
3) In a large bowl or plastic bag, toss potatoes with olive oil (about 1 tsp/potato), chipotle (about 1/2 tsp/potato or to taste), cinnamon (1 tsp/person), salt and pepper (just eyeball it).  Make sure wedges are coated thoroughly.
4) Grease a baking sheet and spread the wedges out so they're just one layer deep.
5) Bake 30 minutes or until wedges reach desired doneness (crispy, soft, whatever you like). It helps is at some point you flip them.
6) Enjoy!

I Love Chipotle and Other Thoughts

I received a poorly spelled anonymous comment on my last post about what happens when I go grocery shopping hungry:

"i aspect a food blaggor too be eatign the fansy stakes nd potaytoes nd vegatabels not the leen packest and soops why do yo thnk yo are a godo food blaggor if yo eet these bad fodos." 

Translated into English, the comment reads:

"How dare you, sir, call yourself a food blogger! This sacred art is sullied by your boxed-rice buying proclivities, your preference for pre-made bread crumbs, and your insistence upon purchasing peanut butter! It is unacceptable that you should have anything in your freezer at all, in fact. I deride you and your affront in the strongest of terms!"

Now, I assume this is one of my wonderful friends having a little fun. (Because God help us all if public schooling has failed some poor soul so thoroughly). But a good point is raised -- isn't the point of food blogging to share exotic recipes and demonstrate a thoroughly epicurean lifestyle?

I say no. At least not at Hungry Sam. I eat like a normal person. Sure, maybe I have an absurd food-oriented enthusiasm streak, and maybe I do cook more than the average 24 year-old D.C. professional, and maybe I'm a tad adventurous (I ate alligator last week!) -- but ultimately, it's silly to think even foodies never eat a frozen pre-made meal.

The fact is, this blog is not about food elitism. If that's what it means to be a food blogger, I don't want any of it. My sole purpose is to share my love of food and the enjoyment I get from it, whether I'm roasting a chicken with some exotic technique, grilling a bizarre meat like buffalo, or chomping on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I'm an advocate for cooking food from scratch because I think it's a good, healthy way to enrich a part of life that so many people see as a chore. But fatigue hits us all, snowstorms spank Districts of Columbia and having some frozen or easy-to make mixes in the pantry is smart.

So, anonymous commenter, prepare to be outraged by today's food fun: I love Chipotle burritos.

Stolen from somewhere.

I've been sick and in a lousy mood, so I went out and bought a fast food burrito for lunch. AND IT WAS AWESOME. It was perhaps the best thing I could have done for my mental health. From the bland, luke-warm tortilla to the greasy yet savory chicken chunks to the diced up lettuce (iceberg!), this burrito was exactly what I wanted to eat and it made me happy and full. I believe in healthy food, home-cooking, and the benefit of kitchen creativity, and yet sometime, you just want a fast food Chipotle burrito.

Now THIS is a Chicken Pot Pie

I think the photo speaks volumes, and requires no fuller context. Suffice it to say -- if you want an Epic Chicken Pot Pie the likes of which maketh my jaw to drop, hit up the Daily Grill on 18th and M NW.

Woah.

The gentleman consumer who polished off this beast, my boss Seth, said it was pretty good, although he was disappointed it didn't have a bottom crust.

Regardless -- impressive feat and impressive pie.

Oh, and if you ever take your lunch business to the Daily Grill, get the spinach artichoke dip. It was definitely among the best I've had in memory. My chicken cobb salad sandwich was good, not great, but most everything looked pretty tasty.

Friends, Readers, Foodies -- if you're rocking the Hungry Sam enjoyment, please consider following me on Google my clicking "join" over on the right, and sharing it on Facebook! Also, shoot me recipes! I'll make 'em and if they're awesome, I'll post 'em.

New Job, New Neighborhood, New Lunches!

Creating and accepting change is tough, but infinitely more so if one's net movement is ultimately backwards. I am extremely fortunate to have recently taken a step forward: I have just found, applied for, been offered, accepted, and started at the American Association of University Women as Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator.

I am incredibly happy with this move -- I get to continue advocating and working on women's issues and gender equality, which is awesome; I get to work with an energetic, committed, and passionate grassroots -- the AAUW members -- all over the country; I get to work with my coworkers, whom I would tend to describe as "bad-ass"; and, in the context of Hungry Sam, I now work in a new neighborhood where new lunch options abound.

Over the next several months, I will explore these many and varied options, ranging from fast food and buffet Indian to sandwich shops, sit down grills, and seafood. While not quite the epicurean paradise that is Dupont, site of my former employ, the Farragut area nonetheless has a great deal going for it.

In a quick teaser, both for me and for you, I ate lunch out for the first time at the new job on Friday, hitting up Naan and Beyond, a takeout Indian food joint with an ever-changing menu and an excellent array of options. I tried the Lamb Tikka sandwich, which is basically a gyro-style roll-up with naan instead of pita. AWESOME. The chunks of lamb were tender and plentiful; the veggies were fresh and tasty, and the mint yogurt sauce (not actually raita) was superb. Most of all, naan is SO MUCH BETTER THAN PITA. It just is; don't ask me why. Here's a quick pic:

Will I be back? You bet your tuchus I will. Delicious, fast Indian food, one block away from work, and CHEAP (we snagged two big sandwiches and three samosas plus fixins for less than $20).