Pechluck, Author at Pechluck's Food Adventures

Colonial Food in Virginia Part 1… Lunch at Mt Vernon Inn

November 6, 2010 by Pechluck 1 Comment

Washington DC is no cheap city, and with both the Rally and the Marathon the same weekend, hotel prices were steep. We decided to stay out by Mt Vernon/Alexandria, which is only a 30 minute Metro ride (and our hotel even provided a free shuttle to the station), and a 20 minute drive from the Reagan Airport.

So naturally we decided to visit Mt Vernon Estate, the home of George Washington. The estate includes an orientation center with a short film summarizing his life, a tour of the mansion that he worked once he inherited it from his brother, walking around the grounds which included actor/actress who would reenact/explain activities from the day, and a really great modern educational center and museum which had many videos to detail out parts of his life.

The Mt Vernon Estate also has the Mt Vernon Inn on location. On our first visit on Friday, we ended up only going to the inn for a leisurely lunch and visiting the gift shop, and then deciding we would rather return on Sunday to spend more time visiting the estate (a work conference call took up so much of the first half of the day). The Mt Vernon Inn has its staff dressed in colonial garb and serves traditional American food from that time – ranging from turkey pye to meatloaf and fried chicken to bread pudding, and using ingredients grown on the estate whenever possible. We went for the peanut chestnut soup and fried green tomato parmesan, followed by peppered Virginia ham and cheese sandwich, as well as simple lasagna. Peanut chestnut soup is awesome, why isn’t it more common?

Lunch at Mt Vernon Inn, colonial food, Virginia

They also offered local root beer and beer , and also “Ales of the Revolution” series from Yards Brewery which were created based on recipes from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. The George Washington Porter was our favorite. Apparently GW liked the Philadelphia style porter, a deep dark porter with a molasses added (apparently molasses was plentiful while barley had to still come from Great Britain), while TJ was a fan of regular British style tavern ale, and BF liked spruce beer, a beer that was often in the rations of Continental soldiers because the spruce also help provided Vitamin C. We bought a trio of these beers to have in the evening in our hotel room and I neglected to photograph them as we watched The Lovely Bones, so the last two photos are courtesy of www.lostinthebeeraisle.com

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Filed Under: Beer Review, Food and Drink, Travel Tagged With: colonial food, mt vernon inn, Virginia

Back from Washington DC/Virginia

November 3, 2010 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

I'm back from the Rally, and a long weekend in Alexandria, Virginia.

We met many nice people- people in costume, people with interesting signs that were thought provoking or humourous or had a political stance, people who talked about conservative and liberal points with reason and were willing to hear each other's viewpoint and consider them, not just try to destroy them. We enjoyed music, becoming a human experiment of waves and orchestra, and reminding people all over who e 80% really are rather than what is covered in the "news" now.

Here's some photographic proof I was at the Rally to Restore Sanity with 200,000-250,000 other people who believe in compromise and facts not shouting and disagreeing just because the other person is on the "other" side need to be part of the government discourse and process:

My view:

Hard to believe only a few hours before it looked like this…

Since shortly it would look like this

I was there!

After the rally we met up with friends back from PA and went to dinner. We tried Clyde's but the 1.5 hour wait was too much, so thanks to Opentable for finding us a restaurant that can accomodate us with only a 15 minute wait: Zengo, Asian tapas. Highlights were the sake flight (a glass of Dassai 50 Junmai Ginjoand a tasting of three flight that included fFrom left to right, the Tentaku Kuni 'Hawks in Heaven' Junmai, the Hakushika 'Snow Beauty' Nigori Honjozo, and Genbai San No Oni Koroshi 'Demon Slayer) and crispy tofu dish. The Carnitas Rice Noodles, with pork shoulder / mushroom / cashew / soft egg / hot ‘n sour sauce was ok but Saucebox has just a good a noodle dish for significantly less, and the Braised Beef Short Rib (very tender but not juicy) with oaxaca cheese mashed potato / huitlacoche~shiitake / dragon sauce was ok but nothing outstanding.

The plus was if you want to try several Asian dishes, you could- that's the plus of tapas style- but I'm pretty familiar with a lot of Asian dishes and the pricepoint, even with the more higher end ingredients, didn't justify the price in my eyes. But, if you are looking for a hip atmosphere and to try several dishes that you might otherwise have to try many Asian restaurants to get a similar variety, I could see the appeal.

We also went to Mt Vernon and had colonial food- which I will cover in the next post.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Travel Tagged With: washington dc, zengo

Tastebud Farm Porcetta Delight

October 26, 2010 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

I had to go to the dentist, and on the way to work afterward stopped at the Portland Farmer’s Market. it was a rainy chilly day, I had no cash so had to walk to the only Wells Fargo I know downtown which was 1 mile away, I had been working through work emails before I left for the dentist and was irritated at some miscommunication that was causing a “work fire” situation that I had hoped would have been put out… and I had just been at the dentist.

It was the last day of the Farmer’s Market this year at Pioneer Square. So, there weren’t very many booths, only one aisle’s worth. But, when I saw Tastebud, and their offering of a porcetta and chanterelle bagel, I reached out for the comfort.

And boy, did it comfort. I left in a good mood even! On my choice of wood fire oven baked bagel (I picked wheat), pesto was liberally smeared all over both halves. Then it was covered with fresh arugula, and sweet onions, and topped with huge juicy slice from their sausage stuffed porcetta and topped with chanterelles and sweet caramelized onions. Super messy, but I didn’t mind as I sacrificed my umbrella to keep my food dry and I would take the raindrops. Look at how huge the bagel sandwich is, well worth the $6. They had the whole porcetta masterpiece behind the glass at their booth and it looked soooo good- it was wrapped almost like a giant meatloaf, and I wish I had photographed the crispy skin goodness followed by tender meat that was showcased in the cross-section.

If you can make it to the Farmer’s Market at PSU (the last of this year) on Wednesday, check them out! Tastebud is always a safe bet.

Filed Under: Food and Drink, Portland Farmers Market, Portland Highlights Tagged With: porcetta, portland farmers market, Tastebud, Tastebud Farm

Going to Washington Dc…

October 25, 2010 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

I am not really a political person. But, I do believe in sanity. And, the way the news portrays the US now, it doesn't seem very sane. I hope that I can help prove that there are a lot of us sitting on the internet or in front of the TV, shaking our heads, at how crazy dominates the conversation, and how because of reactions to sensationlism and extremist positions that are spotlighted as if its mainsteam, it is taking pieces of our freedom that our country worked so hard to give so many generations and which other nations aspire to.

And, that we getting sick of takng it.

Which sign do you want to hold up?

I don't really like crowds. DC is on the other side of the country. But, I'm going anyway because I want to take a stand. If you share this belief, even if you can't go to DC, check and see if there is a local version of the rally happening near you- many cities all over the world are having local meetings to show support, and in the midwest/east coast even arranging day trip buses, so check out the Official Rally Site.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Weblogs Tagged With: washington dc

Amaizing…

October 22, 2010 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

Too tired to write much… this whole month of October has been very draining, even though I had just come back from a weeklong trip to Chicago for a wedding followed by laid-back vacationing in Florida and the Bahamas. At the workplace, I've had to work with people in four different time zones, and balance multiple streams of tactical work along with defining two strategic directions. That means early morning and late night calls with multiple projects, so I haven't been going out much. Being tired also means I haven't been keeping up with exercising, so I also need to cut back how much I eat.

It looks like I'll be staying here at TypePad: I was trying really hard to get the hang of WordPress because it seemed to have so many possibilities. But, the import from vox didn't go as smoothly as TypePad's, and I couldn't fix the errors in pictures and layouts and just decided to give up as my patience just ran out.

Thankfully, last weekend I was able to getaway with friends to visit Sauvie Island to wander a corn maize and do some pumpkin inspections, and eat some corn brushed from a huge group butter container, yay! It was so nice to be able to just turn the thinking off and be chaufeurred off to silliness where others planned the fun and I was along for the ride, thanks!