mb palaver

FoodPalaver: Hold the Fiddleheads

Chef Vinod of Indique Heights, the restaurant preparing the Bhutanese food at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival I wrote about last week, pointed out on donrockwell.com a menu substitution I missed despite the clear evidence of my own photographs.  Chef Vinod says:

I am glad you liked the dishes - I am going to tone down the heat a little bit tomorrow for the Ema Datsi - I do not know whether you noticed that we changed the chicken dish to jasha tshoem instead of nakey tshoem - nakey means fiddlehead ferns which are out of season and cannot get them.

I hope I didn't get anyone's hopes up for those fiddleheads.  Though you probably knew they were out of season . . . .

(P.S.  Yes, the photo above is blurry.  You do not need new glasses.  As far as I know.)

FoodPalaver: Got Yak Milk?

If you find yourself near the Mall between now and June 29 or July 2 through 6 and have a hankering  for nakey tshoem or ema datsi, you will be in luck.  The Smithsonian Folklife Festival this year honors Bhutan, a small country in the eastern Himalayas between India and China.  In addition to watching traditional arts and crafts demonstrations, visiting a Buddhist temple built in the middle of the Mall, and viewing monastic ritual dances, you can sample three traditional Bhutanese dishes.  The rice and peppers dish, ema datsi, is traditionally made with yak milk.  According to Emily Wax of The Washington Post, the director of Bhutan's department of culture originally planned to bring a yak to the United States for the festival, but gave that up upon learning the animal would have to be quarantined for two months, which "didn't seem like the Buddhist thing to do."  They ended up having the food prepared by Indique Heights.  No yak milk, I presume.

A friend and I sampled a couple of the dishes yesterday (fortunately for us, before the real heat descended).  The ema datsi -- made with rice, cheese, onions, and slivers of jalapeno-like chiles-- was hot hot hot.  The nakey tshoem -- chicken with fiddlehead ferns, cheese, chiles, onion, garlic, ginger, and special seasonings (with ginger the most prominent flavor) -- was also hot, but not Africa hot.  Both dishes were quite tasty, a bit different from the usual fare, and served very quickly, a rarity at festivals.  We did not try the pork and cheese filled dumplings, or momos, though I wish I had for the name alone.

Ms. Wax says that in Bhutan, "blistering-hot chilies are the essential ingredient, probably because they raise body temperatures in the cold Himalayan climate."  Raising body temperatures in the blistering heat of the Washington summer might not be as good an idea.  Make sure you also get a mango lassi to cool off.

If Bhutanese food doesn't grab you, the festival is also honoring Texas, so you can have everything from Tex-Mex fare like fajitas and quesadillas, to barbecued ribs, to Vietnamese-influenced dishes at the Texas Noodle House (who knew?).  Full food listings can be found here, and everything else you need to know to visit the festival here.

MusicPalaver: Lots of Doings at the Folger

As an English major at Georgetown University, I was delighted to go to a performance of a Shakespeare play -- I don't recall which one -- in the beautiful Elizabethan theatre at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill.  Since then the Shakespeare Theatre Company has moved to Penn Quarter, but the Folger continues to put on exhibits, plays, and musical performances.

The Folger Consort is a chamber music ensemble, performing music from the twelfth through eighteenth centuries.  This week it celebrates Valentine's Day with "Seven Songs of Love," a program of love songs from the 13th Century, running February 15 to 17:

A rich and varied assortment of lyric song including the Gallician poet/singer Martin Codax's Seven Songs of Love, Western Europe's first song cycle.  Treating love in all its guises, the songs of the troubadours and lively dances for fiddles, harps, citole, and percussion celebrate the joy of love requited.   

In April, fans of Scotland and Shakespeare will have a treat in store with "Highland Ayres":

Macbeth's enchanted homeland has a fascinating musical tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. This trove of Scottish riches -- traditional and courtly, simple and sophisticated -- is explored with medieval accounts of battle, songs from the 16th and 17th centuries, distinctive Scottish music for pipes and fiddle, and music from the French allies of the Scots, preserved only in Edinburgh.

This musical event, running April 18 to 20, complements the Folger Theatre's production of Macbeth, which runs from February 28 to April 13.  Here's an interesting tidbit about the play:  one of its directors is Teller, of Penn & Teller, and includes magic designed by him.  (P.S. Teller is the quiet one.)  For those of you up in New Jersey, the play is running at the Two River Theater Company in Redbank until February 17.

If history is more your thing, check out the Folger Shakespeare Library's current exhibit, "History in the Making:  How Early Modern Britain Imagined Its Past":

This exhibit considers the ways in which the early modern British made, and remade, their own history. "Making History" focuses on how key events, such as the controversial execution of Mary Queen of Scots or the murderous Gunpowder Plot, were interpreted in the period, as well as on crucial ideas that helped shaped those interpretations.

It also examines some of the period's most important figures, both real (Charles I) and imaginary (Shakespeare's Falstaff), and the roles they played in the making of British Renaissance history.

"History in the Making" is on display in the Folger Great Hall until May 17, Monday through Saturday, from 10 am to 5 pm.

Folger Shakespeare Library
201 E. Capitol Street, SE
Washington, DC  20003
(202) 544-4600

HistoryPalaver: Celebrating Martin Luther King Day at the Folger

If you're still looking for a way to celebrate Martin Luther King's legacy today, head to the Folger for a poetry/speech reading and open mike event hosted by Donnajean Ward, the Folger Consort Manager, and Teri Cross Davis, Folger's poetry coordinator.  The event is free, and runs from 2 to 5 tomorrow, Monday, January 21.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Martin Luther King, Jr.
August 28, 1963

Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capital Street, NE
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 544-4600

ArtPalaver: Annie and Ansel at the Corcoran

If you want to see "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005" at the Corcoran, you'd better act fast:  the exhibit closes this Sunday, January 13.  You would be wise to order tickets ahead; friends told me they were shut out last Sunday, and the Corcoran website now says that it's likely that tickets will sell out for Saturday and Sunday, January 12 and 13, and that you should call Ticketmaster at (202) 824-0786 "to confirm ticket availability prior to your arrival."  I recommend using this link to order online (the link is somewhat buried on the website). You've got a bit more time to see the Ansel Adams exhibit.  It closes January 27.

As Dubliner learned the hard way a few weeks ago, the Corcoran is closed on Tuesdays.  Check out hours and directions on their website.  Tickets for these exhibits are $14 (plus service charge if you order ahead).  The Corcoran offers brunch in the atrium on Sundays.  It used to be a gospel brunch; the website doesn't say whether it still is.  Regardless, but particularly if they do still feature live music, I wouldn't recommend it for this Sunday. With the crowds tonight it was so loud in the atrium I thought my head would explode.

If you are interested in a bite to eat before or after your visit to the Corcoran, tapas at Taberna del Alabardero, Peruvian food at El Chalan, and Italian at the revamped Spezie are all within a few blocks.

Corcoran Gallery of Art
500 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC  20006
(202) 824-0786
nearest metro:  Farragut West (blue/orange line)

WinePalaver: Tour de Vin at the Phillips

Tour de Vin Wine Tasting Experience
Thursday, October 25, 6:00 and 7:15

Tomorrow night, you can check out the "Impressionists by the Sea" exhibit at The Phillips Collection and sample wine from the six major wine regions of France.  The Tour de Vin Wine Tasting Experience, with Lisa Airey, director of education for the Society of Wine Educators, takes place at 6 and 7:15.  Admission to the exhibit and one of the wine tasting sessions is $25 for Phillips Collection members and $35 for nonmembers.  Alliance Francaise members can attend the 6:00 session at the member price.  (Admission to the exhibit alone costs $14, as far as I can tell from some conflicting sources.)

The Phillips Collection
1600 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 387-2151

DCPalaver: Dupont Circle House Tour

If next Sunday is half as nice as yesterday was, you could do worse than spend it wandering around Dupont Circle peeking into people's houses. The annual Dupont Circle House Tour takes place Sunday, October 21, from noon to 5 p.m. The tour is self-guided: you pick up a brochure and map, and choose your own itinerary. I took my parents on the tour when they were visiting a couple of years ago, and they enjoyed getting a glimpse of everyday Washington homes, a bit more upscale than my own.  The houses varied from designer showcases, to quirky gems, to what seemed to us to be ordinary houses with owners hoping to increase their homes' cache when they go on the market.  If you are looking for refreshments, a Victorian tea will be held at the Hotel Palomar.  You can also visit the “Resident Artists Living And Working in Dupont Circle" Exhibit at the Washington Studio School while on the tour.

Tickets cost $25 in advance, either online or at a number of area retailers, and $30 on the day of the tour.  Find out more information at the Dupont Circle Citizens Association website or call (202) 265-3222.

DCPalaver: WalkingTown DC

WalkingTown DC, fall edition, will hold more than forty-five walking and cycling tours all over the city on Saturday, September 29.  All tours are free, and include a range of neighborhoods and topics, including:  Scandals, Scoundrels & Scallywags: The Seamier Side of Georgetown; Down by the River:  Walk the Anacostia Waterfront and Poplar Point; Embassy Row; From Slavery to Freedom in Adams Morgan, Get Back to your Roots: US National Arboretum; Old Mount Pleasant; Before Harlem There Was U Street; Congressional Cemetery; Barracks Row Revitalization Tour; History of Brookland; and many more.  Full details are available at culturaltourismdc.org.

To make it more interesting, Cultural Tourism DC is teaming up with DCist to sponsor a photo contest around the event.   Simply attend one of the walking tours, take photos, upload them to Flickr.com, and tag them with both WalkingTown and dcist.  Deadline for submission is October 14, and prizes range from Arena Stage tickets to publication of the photo in Cultural Tourism DC’s "See DC" brochure, which encourages visitors to explore Washington’s neighborhoods.  You can find all the details at DCist.com.

DCPalaver: Opera on the Mall

You sometimes hear people lamenting about young people's lack of enthusiasm for opera.  Given the cost of tickets, it's not surprising that it's a tough sell.  Here's a chance for the hoi polloi to get a taste of opera -- and spend a beautiful first-day-of-fall day on the mall -- for free.

Tomorrow at 2 pm, the Washington National Opera will present a simulcast of Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème at its third annual Opera on the Mall.  The event will take place on the Washington Monument grounds at Constitution Avenue and 15th Street, NW.  (The forecast calls for 80 degrees and sunny:  bring sunscreen!)  It will be simulcast to colleges and high schools around the country.  It is also being shown at the AFI Silver Theatre and Old Town Theater here in the DC area, but the AFI simulcast is sold out (so it would be wise to call the Old Town Theater in advance at 703-683-8888).  If you'd rather see La Bohème in a more traditional setting, the production continues its run at the Kennedy Center until September 30.  Though a quick glance doesn't show many tickets left, I've lucked out before by calling the Kennedy Center on the day of performance, when they sometimes release additional tickets.

And now a note for our lower-brow audience:  I was going to include in this post a photo of Opera Man.  I googled "jon lovitz opera man" under the mistaken assumption that Lovitz played that Saturday Night Live character.  Turned out Lovitz played Opera Man's brother in one episode, but Adam Sandler played Opera Man himself (how could I be so wrong?!).  I included a photo of Sandler in a previous post, so I don't dare do it again lest you think I'm Sandler-obsessed. But the search turned up a Wikipedia article about SNL characters that included this bit of Opera Man's shtick.  My favorite part is Wikipedia's explanation of the joke.

Tom Hanks-o, nominato,
second time-o, you're-a great-o!
Next year vacacion, go to France-o,
Give someone else a freakin' chance-oh!

(A movie poster of Billy Madison appears, which Adam Sandler clearly is joking that he is not Oscar worthy material given his heavy dependence on sophomoric humor.)

DCPalaver: It's Chic To Be Greek (don't blame me -- that's their slogan)

Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church is hosting its 47th annual Greek Festival this weekend, September 21 to 23.  Sample homemade Greek food during the day, and dance to live, traditional Greek music in the evening.  That'll be a great way to work off all that baklava.

Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church
4115 16th Street, NW (16th and Upshur)
Washington, DC  20011
(202) 829-2910

Friday & Saturday:  Noon to 9:30 pm
Sunday:  Noon to 8:00 pm

Friday:  11:30 am to 9:00 pm
Saturday and Sunday:  Noon to 9:00 pm

(These times are from the church's website.  Yesterday's Washington Post food section listed different times, though their website event listing is consistent with the church's website.)

Edited 9/21 to change times -- The Washington Post tells me they called the church and the paper was right, the church website was wrong. Go figure.

Admission and parking are free.
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Here's another tidbit from yesterday's food section:  Michel Richard, chef of Citronelle and Central, will demonstrate from and sign his book Happy in the Kitchen next Monday, September 24, at 7:30 pm, at the Friendship Heights Village Center, 4433 S. Park Ave., Chevy Chase.  The event is free, but Citronelle's website says "Please sign up in advance by calling 301-656-2797."