Where to go for ethnic ingredients in Alexandria, Virginia

My previous post was on fu'ul, a standard dish across north Africa and a favorite of ours at Café Aurora. We had a little extra time today and I wanted to find the beans. I'd driven by a place near Aurora a number of times, but never stopped it. What a mistake! This place has an incredible selection of ethnic foods. I found a dozen varieties of canned ful, not to mention the dried beans. I also found…

Pomegranate syrup

Really good tahini

My favorite brand of Basmati rice (Tilda)

Chopped methi leaves (needed for the variation of Saag Paneer that I make; I'd never seen them before)

So much other stuff that I could have spent hours in there. The place is on Edsall Road, between Pickett and Van Dorn. It's a keeper.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/fair-price-international-supermarket-alexandria

BB

A fool for fu'ul

I’ve tried a few new dishes recently and can’t resist sharing a favorite with the world. WETA recently did a series on places that serve breakfast around Washington. One of the most interesting is Aurora Café, whose owners are Eritrean. It happens to be fairly close to my sons’ preschool and so we’ve been able to go there for a few breakfast dates. It won’t be a surprise to learn that the coffee is fantastic. I’ve had a few interesting dishes—kilcha fit fit (kinda like having spicy stuffing for breakfast) and eggs silsi (an Eritrean scramble) are two dishes I’ve had an enjoyed. Keen orders fu’ul every time she goes there and I happily polish off anything that’s left. We went there yesterday morning and ordered our usual. I was a bit disappointed to have no leftover fu'ul.

It’s a mushy bean stew served with a bit of yogurt and bread on the side to sop it up. Hunting around, I’ve found various recipes for ful, an Egyptian dish that appears to be related. I'm sure variations are available all across northern Africa. Fu'ul is a type of small fava bean. I tried an early version using edamame and lentils. Not bad, but not the real thing. Then I discovered an ethnic supermarket nearby that has the real beans--both canned and dry. Jackpot! My second batch rocks. If you can't find canned fava beans (the little ones), try using small white beans.

The other special ingredient is Berbere, a spice blend unique to Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine. I'm sure anyone from Ethiopia or Eritrea would protest, but garam masala is a reasonable substitute. The addition of paprika appears to be the primary difference. I hunted around a bit and I think this is the closest to what we've had at Aurora. Full credit to Jessica Balsam's blog. Serve with a crusty baguette.

I'm still looking for a silsi recipe.

Ethiopian Ful Medames
Serves 4

• 1/4 cup olive oil + more for garnish
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 cup minced white onion
• 1 teaspoon berbere (or 3/4 t. garam masala & 1/4 t. paprika)
• 6 cups cooked ful (or two cans)
• salt to taste

1. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil, and fry the garlic and onion for 2 minutes. Add the berbere and cook for 1 more minute. Add the ful and 1 cup of water and bring to a simmer.
2. Remove from the heat, mash the ful, adding water if needed to reach the texture of refried beans. Salt to taste. Return to the heat briefly.
3. To serve, divide the mashed beans between four shallow bowls and garnish as you like. Green onions, crumbled cheese (feta), minced jalapeño or tomato, plain yogurt (with a little berbere), and hard boiled egg are all good garnishes. Serve with a baguette.

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Berbere Spice Blend

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons cumin seed
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon fenugreek seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
8 cloves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
20 crumbled dried red peppers
1/2 teaspoon dried ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon turmeric
3 tablespoons sweet or hot paprika
1 teaspoon salt

Put all the ingredients up to the salt in a frying pan and heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. add the salt and grind the spices in a spice grinder.

Bubble Boys

This year was one big roll of the dice. Our twin sons have been thriving in a special needs program. Secondo in his second year of Miss Caitlyn’s class and Primo in his first year of Ms. Bridget’s class. Secondo was due to move into Primo’s class.

Child care had been a sore spot for us. We started with a friend of the family who took care of the boys at our home. We made it work for a year and half, but there were always stresses. We had a second sitter who did a good job and the boys enjoyed their time with her daughter, Favie. Still, it wasn’t always easy and cobbling together morning care before they went to school was always a challenge. They also needed more interaction with peers and it clearly was time to talk about preschool.

Unfortunately, April is really too late to make the move. Given that some folks have their preschoolers’ applications to Harvard ready, I should have known this was the case. There was a highly recommended preschool close to us (and my neighborhood pub I shamefully admit). We just missed the cut there. A pair of twins had cancelled the week before we applied, but one of the spots was taken.

We happened upon a program at Creative Playschool. The school is located at a Methodist church a mile from home and very close to the hospital where they were born. It seemed a good fit and works well for our commutes. I am happy to say that they have thrived. It’s a good omen for kindergarten, which is coming up this fall.

Peer interactions have been interesting to watch. P&S are one of three sets of twins in their class—the other two pairs are identical. One pair of girls, the other boys. My kids are on the sweeter side. Perhaps it’s a side benefit of autism. R. and W., on the other hand, are all boy. Two Fridays in a row, I had to sign forms after R or W scratched Primo. One day, Primo had a welt on his face and he said the R. had “licked” him. I suspect that was after getting a good chomp in! I sympathize with the father. He’s a nice guy and I’m sure doing his best. I suspect that school at this age is all about civilizing and socializing kids. Mine need socialization; his need civilization.

Lots of good stuff too. I dropped off the kids one day this week. While I was signing them in, I noticed that Secondo was the recipient of a group hug from the girls. One of the other boys hadn’t quite figured what was going on, but decided to hug Secondo on general principles. Both of them looked confused. There was a new boy in class the next day who was a bit shy and not sure what to do. Primo went up and introduced himself. This from the kid who was freaked out by being in a class 18 month ago.

There will be many hard days to come, but I think I’ll enjoy it for now. The special needs program was this marvelous bubble and we were afraid what would happen once it popped. Well, they’re in a bigger bubble at the moment, but it’s a friendly one. I’ve read enough to know that P&S have a difficult road ahead of them. At least it’s paved for now.

Oh! Did I mention that Secondo completed potty training? He finally got the idea of rewards. I’ll be happy to buy many bags of M&Ms to keep them happy.

BB

Ode to a Chick

It started innocently enough, as affairs often do. A blog post here. An email there. Then it descended into a full throated affair. But I should begin at the beguin.

I was an avid reader of a Kim O’Donnell, a former writer for the Washington Post. She had one of the earlist food chats, What’s Cooking, and wrote a terrific blog, A Mighty Appetite. She’s done wonderful work for tasty vegetarian cooking and I try to follow Meatless Mondays and have done a couple of Eating Down the Fridge weeks. The Post killed her chat and she eventually relocated her blog to TrueSlant (since purchased by Forbes).

One of her blog posts caught my eye: Superfly Fries. Panisse are akin to French fries made from flour from dried garbanzo beans. I buy mine at Indian groceries where it’s known as Besan. You bring chicken stock up to a simmer, stir in the flour, and cook until it thickens. Then pour out the batter in a pan and refrigerate. Cut into segments like home fries and deep fry. Serve with a bit of mayo.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/mighty-appetite/2009/04/super_fly_fries.html

I then proceeded to buy too much of the flour and didn’t want it to go to waste. Turns out that a 50/50 blend of wheat flour and besan is great in many recipes. I’ve done some homemade pasta and it’s wonderful. Nice and nutty. Also makes great pancakes. This stuff was definitely in the rotation.

The capper came this past week. We’ve started doing the South Beach diet. Or rather, the lovely Keen is doing it full bore and I’m trying to be supportive. So, I make SB compliant meals and limit my consumption of carbs to finishing up after the boys or catching happy hour on my own. Thing is that not having any kind of bread or rice is difficult. I’ve made some nice discoveries. Tofu goes nicely into a beef stew (adds the missing satiation of mashed potatoes and picks up flavor from the sauce). Still, sometimes you want some bread.

Enter the humble garbanzo bean. Or rather, the chick pea. I did say this was an ode to a chick. It’s allowed under the diet for reasons unclear to me. Perhaps it’s the protein content. I don’t know. However, Keen found an amazing recipe for a chickpea flatbread called socca. It’s absurdly easy and sensational. Probably takes about 20 minutes to make. Put a cast iron skillet in the oven and turn it up to 450. Do a basic mix of chickpea flour, water, salt, and pepper. If you like them, add some onions and a bit of rosemary. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into the skillet, swirl, and then pour in the batter. Bake for 15 minutes and then turn on the broiler for a minute or so to finish.

Unbelievable. The stuff is amazing. Here's the relevant links as I have nothing to do with this recipe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/dining/19mini.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/dining/191mrex.html

So, I’m in love with a chick, even though it’s a pea. Fortunately, my wife is willing to allow this affair of the stomach.

BB

The Three Most Important Things About Catching Mice? Location. Location. Location.

We dealt with a mouse infestation last year. I think they originally took refuge from all that snow in February. One mouse is cute. Even two. They’re little, quiet creatures. I actually removed one or two gently (you can fling a mouse a goodly distance by its tail). Sadly, they can’t be toiled trained and tend to leave their ever so tiny and cute mouse poo in not so cute places. They started getting bolder as well. Once they started mooning me, it was war.

Off to Home Depot. I have to say that the race to build a better mouse trap has succeeded. It’s like going to the computer aisle at Best Buy and about as confusing. You can get traps that all but put the mouse in a tiny little coffin and play Amazing Grace as it is lowered into the trash can. In the end, I went with four or five claw like contraptions along with a similar number of baited traps.

We’d spotted the mice at a few places, so the claws went there. The mice had gotten into a few spots, so those were natural locations. We used to have a bin full of various sweet things, generally candy or jelly brought back from trips to Costa Rica. I found a few empty wrappers one time and thought who would eat a candy and then leave the wrapper? What happened, of course, was the mice found the candies and would consume them, leaving a wrapper behind. As the mice apparently had a sweet tooth, I used Nutella for bait instead of peanut butter.

The early results were impressive. I think we caught a dozen mice the first week. Well, caught is a euphemism as the claw is not for those who prefer catch & release trapping. I started putting X’s on the most successful traps. Fortunately, we didn’t have enough mice for one of them to make ace. Ten kills, right?

I never saw any mice in the poison-baited traps. They were purported to trap the mouse, but ours were a bit too small. I did see a couple had some serious nibbling, so I suspect they were effective in a quiet way. There are probably some dessicated mouse carcasses back behind our cabinets. So we could finally relax.

Well, until this winter. December was brutally cold for Washington. It’s not as bad as Minnesota, where I went to college, but I also tended to wear warmer clothing there. We started to see some evidence of a renewed infestation. I spotted the first mouse this afternoon. It was nibbling on something it found on the range top (which admittedly needs cleaning). We’re better prepared this time. We bought a lot of storage containers so there’s no easily available food. We just need to keep the kitchen clean at night.

And finally to the title of tonight’s post. The mouse came up from behind the range and I’m pretty sure they use the electrical cord as a ladder. So, I moved one of the claw traps to that spot. A couple of hours later, Keen mentioned that she thought she heard it snap while she was doing her workout. Yup. Mouse #1 down. The trap triggered about five minutes and caught mouse #2. I’m curious as to if there will be another victim by morning. Sorry, mice. We’re not ready for pets.

Update from this morning: Mouse #3 down. We'll see what tomorrow morning brings.

BB

A tale of two more iPads

The replacement iPad arrived Thursday morning. It's pretty and shiny and I had fun tracking its progress from China to Hong Kong to Alaska to New Jersey (a surprisingly brief stop in light of weather) to Virginia. Keen restored her iPad settings and has had much fun with it.

We had a friend over for dinner Thursday night. A call came into Keen's phone, but she didn't answer it as she didn't recognize the number. Then I got a call from the same number. It was someone asking if we'd lost an iPad (yes????) and who said he'd mail it back to us. I voluntarily mentioned a reward. I'd happily pay a few hundred dollars for the return of our iPad.

I'm not sure that our old iPad will be coming back home, but it looks like a serious possibility. Regardless of the motives of the person who currently has possession of our iPad, I'm happy at the prospect of its return. Ironically, the new (refurb) iPad has some kind of a problem that causes it to reboot spontaneously when one is in the middle of listening to something. Looks like it might get returned. Odd times.

BB

A tale of two iPads and one chocolate orange

The Grinch visited the Blade’s household this week. Or rather, Mrs. Blade visited the Grinch. Keen was working at the DC jail earlier this week. It’s not a fun place to go. Right where Massachusetts Avenue rams into the Anacostia River. It was also an unpleasant job. CJA work, otherwise known as public defenders. Always out of hours and slow in paying. Keen spent the better part of a year working on one job for this attorney and still hasn’t gotten paid. Judges love to put conditions like no invoicing until a case is finished and then they take their own sweet time finishing the paperwork. I’m sure they’re grand folks and sweethearts at home, but from the perspective of a contractor’s spouse, it seems like we’re at the mercy of someone who thinks he’s a minor diety.

So, Keen dutifily trudged to the jail and waited for the attorney to arrive. She put her stuff in a “lock”er and spent an hour and a half with the attorney and her client. I should note that the “lock”er had a “key”. She then returned to the “lock”er and spent quite some time swearing in front of several attorneys. The iPad was gone. Gee, you think the staff at the DC jail can be trusted? My guess is that someone else had a “key” to the “lock”er.

No need to go over the ensuing details. Some tears were shed. Two outstandings bottles of wine were opened to salute the lost bauble. One advantage of being a freelancer is that one can take work one normally wouldn’t. So, a replacement fund will build up, hopefully in time for next spring’s release of the iPad 2. Meanwhile, we’re picking up a refurb iPad that will eventually be resold. The iPad more than paid for itself in work opportunities that Keen picked up by being online.

One more thing. If you have ever heard anything unpleasant about AT&T, don’t believe it. Believe that they’re much much worse than that. The first thing I did was to cancel the credit card linked to the iPad. The second thing was to call AT&T and cancel the 3G account. They make it impossible to cancel the service unless you want to do it from the iPad. The iPad was freakin’ stolen! First time after getting through, Keen was transferred to Apple (who couldn’t do anything about it). The next time, she was told that because this isn’t a contract, it couldn’t be cancelled and we’d have to wait until a renewal attempt was made.

The second iPad in this tale appeared this morning. We dropped off the boys at preschool and had a rare morning date up at Northside Social, a new place in Arlington. We settled down with our coffees and breakfast (Nutella donut for Keen; the best sausage and egg sandwich I’ve ever had for me). After a bit, I noticed that someone had left his iPad and a pair of gloves up at the counter near us. Its owner returned after 10 – 15 minutes. Really. We’d debated for a bit and I decided to go up and let him know that he should probably keep a better eye on it as our iPad had just been stolen.

He blew me off in a nice way. He said he’d kept his eyes on it. Right. I went up to check to make sure it was an iPad and not simply a nice pad of paper. He never noticed. After my warning, he left for a couple of mintues (with the iPad open) and I noticed him chatting to someone. He left again to pick up something. Sigh… His iPad probably wouldn’t be stolen. Would you like to risk $800 on probably?

And finally we come to the orange. One of Keen’s treats this time of year is to pick up a Terry’s chocolate orange. A few wedges in coffee makes a nice orange mocha. We’d picked up one a week or two ago and I left it out with some other groceries. Bad idea. There is a very savvy squirrel in my neighborhood (and one with a sweet tooth I”ll wager). By the time I came out, the chocolate orange was gone. Well played, señor ardilla.

It’s not a big deal, right? I was over at Trader Joes doing some final shopping and Keen reminded me to pick up a replacement orange. Sold out. Doh! I have been forgiven for carelessly losing the chocolate orange

So, we will spend our Christmas sans iPad and sans chocolate mochas. But with a lot of warmth and many tamales.

Feliz navidad.