Thai Place, Washington, D.C.

Last night Leo had had such a busy day at the office he was too tired to go to the gym and I was hungry after a full day of sitting at a desk with no lunch break, so we decided to head out to an early dinner at Thai Place, our West End/Foggy Bottom neighborhood place. It was a good choice, since I'm being vegetarian for Lent and Leo is doing a no-carbohydrate Atkins diet right now.

A lot of people say that Thai Phoon and Thai Tannic are the best Thai restaurants in town, but we've always been happy with Thai Place. Not only do they have food which seems to be just as good as the more popular places, they have the extra advantage of being very inexpensive. So, off we went, and, even though it was a Friday night, we were there earlier enough we didn't have a problem getting a table. Thai Place has been getting very popular these days, especially since they've added an upstairs dining room where I understand they have a sushi bar—I've yet to be up there.

After our personable waitress brought Leo his Diet Coke and me my hot jasmine tea (I gave up alcohol, too!), she discussed the menu and took our orders. Leo started with a shrimp tom yum soup, which had lots of tail-on shrimp and small mushrooms in a clear lemongrass soup broth with herbs and a hint of pepper spice. For his main course, he took advantage of the new sushi bar and ordered an assortment of sashimi. I chose from the vegetarian menu and selected the panang tofu with a bowl of steamed white rice. My panang tofu was a huge serving of fried cubes of firm tofu and steamed brocoli florets in a panang curry sweetened with coconut milk; a big sprig of basil garnished the top of the food. I thought it quite tasty, though it was almost more than I could eat by myself. The only problem with coconut milk-sweetened foods is that I'm not a great fan of sweet entrees, so it would have been nice to have had a second entree to be able to split with someone else; perhaps another trip.

The nice thing about last night's dinner was the price—where else in D.C. could you get a nice, sit-down, Friday night dinner for just $10 (well, $11....I thought the waitress was sweet, so I over tipped).

Maslenitsa—Pancake Week

Our Russian friend Svet cooked dinner for us last night, starting out with big glasses of carrot-green apple juice he juiced himself, then he made these big, thin pancake-thingies and got out the good Russian caviar—a red caviar, in this case—so we could have blini. Of course, the first thing he made me do was learn to pronounce the word correctly. I've always called them BLEE-nees, but the correct pronunciation isn't plural and puts the accent on the last syllable: blee-NEE. He started off with several eggs (and several pieces of accidental egg shell!) in a blender, eventually adding milk, oil, flour, and a pinch of salt, not really following a recipe or doing any exact measurements at all. He poured the thin batter into a large, oiled skillet and cooked the pancakes there, turning them several times. When it was time to eat, he spread a pancake with butter and added a couple of generous spoonfuls of caviar, spreading it around the middle of the pancake. Then he rolled the pancake up into a tube and proceded to eat it. For the second blini, instead of caviar, he used fruit preserves (he seems to be quite partial to black currant). Since this is Maslenitsa, the pancake week which is the Russian Orthodox Church's pre-Lenten equivalent to Carnival or Mardi Gras, it was an appropriate and traditional meal.

The Orthodox don't start Lent until Sunday, unlike those of us from liturgical denominations of the Western church. So, while I've already started my Lenten discipline, Svet wasn't the least bit sympathetic, and on the second day of Lent made me break my food rules already! I'm being vegetarian and giving up meat, fish, alcohol, and desserts for Lent, but he insisted that I had to eat some Swiss milk chocolate infused with orange essence, Lent or not. And, the jury's still out on the issue of whether or not eating caviar violated my prohibition on meat; I submit that it did not, however, on the grounds that I'm being an ovolactovegetarian and can eat chicken eggs, which means that caviar (fish eggs) is just another "ovo" food. Fortunately I'm not Orthodox like Svet; according to strict Orthodox tradition, meat, fish, dairy, and eggs are all forbidden during their Great Lent!

Benjamin French Lodge, Georgetown, D.C.

Last night, Svet Metroed over after work and we walked into Georgetown to go shopping on Wisconsin Avenue. Since we were in the neighborhood (as in right across the street), we decided to pop in for dinner and a meeting at Benjamin French Lodge. Very friendly and impressive group of guys. They had a great dinner, too, with a tasty all-you-can-eat buffet featuring a chopped salad with romaine, vegetables, and chickpeas, a caprese salad (slices of tomato, mozzarella, and fresh basil leaves), pork chops, chicken breasts, poached salmon, a vegetarian penne casserole, and an interesting "pilaf" made with orzo pasta. For dessert they had an assortment of individual cakes, bars, and cookies. Beverage choices included canned soft drinks and some bottles of red bordeaux superiore. And the best part was that it was free!

Lent

Today is the first day of Lent, so my restaurant visits will slow down considerably until Easter. I'll still be going out now and then for the usual business meals, so there won't be a total drought, but it will be much simpler fare, and I'm toying with the idea of being vegetarian, though the jury's still out on that one.

Making cheese

Tonight I went over to my Russian friend Svet's house, as it was time to tend to the "tvorog" Russian cheese we started making Thursday night. It's actually been amazingly simple. We started by putting two gallons of whole milk and one-half gallon of buttermilk into a big kettle, and then left it out on the kitchen cabinet, covered, for at least twenty-four hours. In this case, we poured it up on Thursday night about 11 p.m. and then didn't tend to it again until noonish today, so that was about thirty-six hours.

Then, the milk, which looked pretty much like the consistency of commercial eggnog, got put in a preheated 350-degree oven for one hour. Then, the oven is turned off and then kettle was left inside to cool down. It was about tenish tonight when we got back from our shopping expedition, so I guess the baked milk cooled for about eight hours. Then, Svet took the kettle out of the oven and removed the cheese with a slotted spoon to a colander, where the cheese drained.

After gravity draining for maybe an hour, Svet served some tvorog in a bowl with a couple of big spoonfuls of black currant preserves, then stirred the tvorog and preserves together. It is actually quite good. The taste and texture are very reminiscent of ricotta cheese with that special buttermilk tang.

Here are some pictures of the cheesemaking process tonight:

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