Not Derby Pie

We spent nearly two weeks in Berlin at the beginning of January. It’s a funny thing, going on vacation to a very cold country in a very cold season. For the bulk of the twelve days, we were extremely cold. Think numb fingers and toes, brief peeps at the outdoors under gobs of scarf and hat. I’m not someone you’d call a trouper – just ask my travel companions! – and in at least half of our pictures, I’m the one jumping up and down in the corner of the frame, trying to stay warm. Still, there’s something kind of magical about traveling to a city in the off-season. It felt truer, somehow, to experience Berlin at a time when most of the people “experiencing” the city weren’t tourists, but residents.

And it’s worth mentioning that what we found to be cold was actually quite mild for Berlin: highs of 8° C, lows of maybe -2°? Nothing compared to the -20° C they put up this time last year. So we’ll take it.

In many ways, I’m still processing our experience. On one hand, this was a vacation. It was a chance to get away from busy jobs and cold winter (well, in theory?) and experience a city we’ve both long wanted to visit. We ate great food, drank fantastic and embarrassingly cheap beer, visited countless museums, and took in every ounce of Berlin. On the other hand, this was also a trip about experiencing Germany’s past. D’s uncle was born in a Bomberg DP camp back in 1947. I don’t think her family has been back since then. Germany memorializes the victims of World War II in many ways, and we spent several days of our trip really steeping ourselves in this period of German history. We also spent a day in Worms, where we visited the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe, and a day in Heidelberg, where we visited the Rabbinical college there. We saw the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie (the historical checkpoint between East and West Berlin), the old Reichstag building, which housed the German parliament before the war. In many ways, this trip was a study in the stark contrast of the old and the new.

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The latest installment of my Weekday Lunch series, making midday meals the best part of your work week.

This time of year, our house is mostly a calm shade of grey. The scarce daylight hours feel like borrowed time, where after lazing around for a few two many minutes, I suddenly freak out that the sun is half gone, and drag my sluggish, slippered feet into the kitchen to bask in what little brightness is left before dusk. Hey there, January. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

As winter has tightened its hold, I’ve taken comfort in the various components of meals I’ve stowed away in our freezer. There are bags of cooked barley and brown rice, blanched green beans, and even kabocha squash braised in coconut milk. There is plenty of stock — some poultry, leftover from Thanksgiving, and some vegetable, made from my carrot peelings and celery and leek scraps. These bits find their way into dinners and lunches: the stock becomes soup, the rice gets tucked under my new favorite aloo muttar (recipe soon!), and that kabocha — I ate it alone, because it was perfect.

Just before we left for Berlin, I took half a bag of the frozen barley and made this lovely salad that Heidi shared in the December issue of Food and Wine. Yes, I’m talking about salad. In January. Pick that jaw up off the floor.

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A couple weeks ago, before our (glorious!) trip to Berlin, I got a group email from a cook friend asking if anyone had a favorite recipe for blueberry muffins. We all wrote back with our favorites, and a few themes emerged: good blueberry muffins need the tang of sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk. They need a good amount of sugar (sorry, I know I’m breaking the cardinal rule of healthy January blogging, but it’s true). A crumb topping can be polarizing: some swear by it, while others (cough) think the craggy, sturdy top of a blueberry muffin is delicious as is and best unadulterated. (Though, before you peg me with hard, pale, winter tomatoes, let me say that I’m still very much on team crumb-topping for everything else. Coffee cake is best when the ratio of cake to crumb makes you furrow your brow and ask whether the thing can honestly be called a cake.)

To this inquiring friend, I sent along my all-time favorite Cooks Illustrated recipe. Another friend swore by Ina Garten’s formula. And then, even though there wasn’t enough flour in the tub, and only three of us were eating breakfast, I yanked a ziploc of blueberries out of the freezer (yes, I freeze summer blubes in portions perfect for blueberry muffins, everyone does that right?) and whipped up a batch of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, substitutions-galore blueberry muffins, 12 for the three of us. And guys? They were perfect.

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Somewhat embarrassingly, D and I have a knack for “discovering” places that, quite definitively, have already been discovered. Take, for instance, our trip to Tuscany back in 2007. After roaming the streets of Florence for 45 minutes or so in search of a spot to sit and eat, we happened upon a dimly lit trattoria with a vegetarian pasta sampler on the menu that caught our eye. Five bite-sized courses and a bottle of house wine later, we were a bit slicked, a bit stuffed, and very happy. We ordered lots of dessert, ate it all, and promised ourselves we’d go back again before leaving. We went back the next night; we ate exactly the same thing. What a find! We fancied ourselves adventurers. Then, in 2010, a friend shared his plans to head to Tuscany and asked for recommendations. We couldn’t heap enough praise on that little trattoria we’d found. It’s so authentically Tuscan! I gushed. You can’t find anything like it in the States. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught another friend of ours smirking. Have you been? I asked. Yep, he had. And he’d loved it so much that he’d invested in the chef, who had since opened outposts in San Francisco…and Washington DC. My little hole-in-the-wall was not only a global brand, it had a branch in my backyard. That’d be Acqua al 2, on Capitol Hill. Oops.

Then there was our first trip to Paris. Roaming around one Sunday morning, we stopped for brunch in an adorable little cafe. Over great bread, dips, spreads, and quantities of jam bordering on obscene, I marveled at our luck; we’d thought we were in a bit of a dead zone, food-wise, and I’d started to give up hope of my last breakfast in Paris being anything special. Then we found this place, and all was right with the world. Especially the spreads. I even bought a jar of their jam, and thought I might cry when the rather unsympathetic French airport official insisted that I leave it behind, since I’d forgotten to tuck it into my checked luggage. What would I do if I couldn’t slather that jam on my morning toast back in America? Would I have to wait for my next trip to Paris to eat such a delicious breakfast? I was both smitten and sad. That is, until I discovered that this “local cafe” had exploded all over the world, including in my neighborhood (yet again), and made all its jams and spreads with all sorts of crap that isn’t fruit or sugar. Yeah, it’s Le Pain Quotidien. I’m a joke.

Fortunately, on our second trip to Paris, I was more cautious. I did research. Armed with stacks of print-outs from Chowhound and David Lebovitz and Clotilde, I managed to avoid Paris’s version of big-box stores (hello, Paul) and found spots with heirloom recipes, old-school methods, and one-of-a-kind offerings. We ate epoisses and even mimolette. I tasted every honey Maison du Miel sells. And of course, because we were tourists and we could, we made the great pilgrimage to Poilâne.

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A certain one of the two people who inhabit this apartment would like the other one of us to make chicken more often, where the certain one of us is not me, and more often is every day. Alas, we can’t always get what we want, if we’re not the ones who do the cooking.

But lucky for her, two of our friends had babies in last two weeks, and the holidays have had everyone out of the office, leaving me with loads of downtime and plenty of reasons to cook. So last week, I made a big, tasty mess in the kitchen. I mixed and rolled and baked and oops! ate too many of three batches of cookies, and I made enough mujaddara to feed a medium-sized army, and because the elf on the shelf was watching, I made a big pot of chicken with enough for our friends and D. The best part? It’s chicken that smells and tastes like an involved weekend project but comes together like a quick weeknight dinner. Just in time for your New Year’s resolution to cook more at home. We know each other well.

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The other night, we met friends for dinner at a restaurant we last visited almost exactly one year ago: Range, in Friendship Heights. We went last February, for my birthday, with a few close friends. The restaurant was brand new and very on its game. We had a fantastic meal and even better drinks – some of the best I’ve had in the city.

This time, our meal was less memorable: the servers were green and very conspicuous, awkwardly explaining and pointing (very closely!) to every element on the plate, interrupting our conversation at what seemed like all the worst moments, and insisting on giving us their spiels when we clearly already understood the concept of small plates. (Restaurants: for heaven’s sake, stop with your spiels! Let us eat cake!)

But the drinks. The drinks! They were still as wonderful as I remembered from one year ago. I had an old-fashioned glass full of scotch, pumpkin shrub, and bitters with a hint of cayenne. And D, well she had the most intense drink of all: basically a big glass of whiskey, with a hint of maraschino and bitters. But mostly whiskey. The strongest, least smooth Old Fashioned you’ve ever had. And what was it called? The Mother-in-Law. Of course.

Before we go any further: I love my in-laws. Got that?

But that’s a well-named cocktail. It makes you laugh when you drink it. It sticks with you long after it’s gone. And if you liked it, you’ll know exactly how to order it next time.

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Christmas may not be our holiday, but we’re hunkering down for winter vacation nonetheless. I’m wrapped in a thick blanket, my feet tucked into cozy slippers, and there’s bergamot tea on hand. To go with the tea, I made a second batch of teeny tiny cookies, which I’ll tell you about soon. But first things first: let’s talk about breakfast.

I did a quick scan of the archives this morning and discovered that we’ve never discussed waffles, which seems like a moderate injustice considering how many great waffles this kitchen has seen. The wait ends now; these gingerbread waffles were too good not to share. And if, like us, your table could use just a bit more gingerbread stuff (the gingerbread, ginger snaps, and gingerbread flavored tea apparently aren’t enough), waffles will do the trick.

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