Thing 62: DC Central Kitchen

If you've been paying attention at all, you know I love to cook.

Feeding the people in my life is how I show them I care about them. The process of creating really good food, from scratch and all natural, brings joy to me and the people I share meals with. So it makes sense that when I want to help out in my small corner of this world, that I would choose to do it through food.

Last Sunday, I volunteered for the first time at the DC Central Kitchen (DCCK). What better way to spend an early Sunday morning than preparing food for those who need it most?

DCCK is a remarkable organization. For starters, their kitchens pump out around 4,000 meals a day, every day of the year, for approximately 100 partner agencies, all nonprofit human service organizations for the low-income and homeless populations in the area. Who prepares so many meals? Well, of course there are volunteers like me (and you!), but the majority of the cooks in this kitchen are graduates of a 12 week course that DCCK offers to low income and homeless individuals to train them in the culinary arts. After 12 weeks, these graduates are able to become certified food handlers, and are often placed in working kitchens of local hotels, restaurants and catering companies. DCCK is feeding the homeless and underprivileged, and teaching those same people to feed others, helping them get a fulfilling and well-paid job. In addition, the DCCK runs a catering service that employs people from the program, all proceeds from which are pumped back into the DCCK.

I arrived at the DCCK, located near the courthouse at 2nd and E St, NW, promptly at 9am on Sunday. I was directed to a small waiting room with about a dozen other sleepy-eyed and quiet volunteers. We were given a brief orientation by the executive chef about the history of the program, how the people we'd be working with used to be in jail or on the street. Then he explained that we would go into the kitchen, put on our aprons, put on our hairnets, wash our hands and then put on rubber gloves before being assigned to our work stations.

I ended up under the watch of Chef Bo, a black man in his late thirties who ran around observing and helping out wherever he was needed as a line of us cut vegetables or prepared baked fried chicken for the ovens. I spent about an hour and half trimming the ends and peeling the skins off of about 100 onions -- two huge sacks of yellow onions that Chef Bo slung over his shoulder and deposited at our work station. I was partnered with another volunteer named Sarah, a high school junior from Bethesda, Maryland, whom I had to show how to handle a chef's knife and who gossiped with her two friends about boys and colleges as we chopped and peeled.

After the two sacks of onions were peeled and washed, we were sure the next step would in fact be dicing 100 onions, and Sarah and I were getting ready for the tears that would flow as we cut so many onions. Instead, we were told to take a brief break and return for another job.

Back in the break room, we were met with a selection of Costco muffins and water and coffee. Our fellow volunteers trickled in for their breaks, now more talkative as the early morning had worn off. We introduced ourselves, shared muffins, told our stories. Nearly everyone there was in school -- either high school or college -- except for me and one other married couple. Apparently, altruism dies off a bit once it is no longer required by a professor or a guidance counselor. The woman who was not in school told me that she felt so inconsequential at her job as a government contractor, pushing numbers around all day in Access, that she felt a strong need to do something that she felt actually mattered. Her husband, a bespectacled, mousy Glaswegian, seemed be along to avoid any marital tension.

After coffee and muffins, we went back into the kitchen, re-washed and re-gloved, and got back to work. The second half of the morning I spent packaging food up for distribution. I packed up so many containers of hot, buttery, mixed vegetables, scooped out of a giant (30 gallon maybe) hot pot by another volunteer. After they were covered and packed, one of the workers packed them into catering travel containers - those heavy plastic plastic trunks that fit stacks of trays - for distribution later that day, still piping hot and fairly nutritious.

The final task of the day was unloading five cases of bags of frozen broccoli florets (organic Whole Foods brand), into one of the giant hot pots. Ever wondered what 100 bags of broccoli look like? The little green florets were piled literally as high as I am tall, and the vat needed to be stirred with both hands, with an oar.

At noon we were free to go, and Chef Bo hugged each of us and thanked us sincerely for helping out. I left the fluorescent light of the kitchen behind and emerged into the midday sunshine, happy I could help while doing something I love to do anyway -- feeding others.

If you can find an open time slot, please consider volunteering at the amazing and fun DC Central Kitchen.

Thing 32: Corduroy

Have you been wondering where my fancy power lunches have gone? Because I sure was. But then wouldn't you know that a friend of mine just got a job with a pretty big client and voila - a leisurely lunch at Corduroy on a Friday afternoon is in order.

"Have you ever been there? It looks like a hotel restaurant," my coworker tells me before I head downtown.

"But, it is a hotel restaurant," I reply, puzzled.

"Well, you'll see when you get there." And I did. The thing is, for the talented chef that Corduroy boasts, and the beautiful and delicious food that he delivers, the decor looks like a hotel restaurant. The room feels impersonal. It feels like any number of hotel restaurants from Portland to Little Rock to Wilmington. Which is a shame, because the food is really good.


When I arrive for our one o'clock lunch, my friend is already there and seated, tucked into the beige banquette running along the far wall of the restaurant. The wall behind her is mirrored, allowing me to scope out the action of the dining room behind me. The waitress comes over to give us menus and take our drink orders. She helps me pick a light red wine offered by the glass, a Cote du Rhone that is delicious and winds up going well with the rest of my meal.

My friend and I open the menus, which are covered in grey corduroy, and spend a long time deciding what we want to eat. It all looks really delicious and we want to take full advantage of my expense account.

After we order, we spend time catching up. My friend was recently married and has just started a new job, so there is a lot to talk about. The woman at the table next to us is dining alone and at one point joins in our conversation. She comments on my digital camera; it's pink and cute as a button (thank you Boyfriend) and she wants to know what kind it is so she can get one too. We talk with her for bit. She's a regular at the restaurant and tells us that we are in for a treat.

The first courses come, and they are beautiful to look at. I've ordered the oysters on the half shell, and six large, fresh Atlantic oysters arrive nestled in a small mound of ice and garnished with a spot of seaweed salad. The Asian salad reinforces the salty taste of the ocean in the oysters and is a nice complement. My friend has the asparagus salad -- six spears of asparagus dressed up with a creamy dressing and some frisee leaves. The pale yellow of the frisee and the bright green of the asparagus, streaked with the white creamy dressing are a beautiful combination on the plate.

Our plates are cleared just as our entrees arrive. Again, mine is beautiful to look at. I've ordered a salad nicoise, the traditional french composed salad with haricots vert (green beans), hard boiled egg, canned tuna, tomato, and olives arranged on bed of lettuce. This version, unsurprisingly, is a bit more modern and sophisticated. In the center of the plate, lightly dressed watercress is piled high and studded with carmelized red onions. The various elements of the salad rest around the watercress -- long, thin haricots verts, tiny black olives that taste like they've been cured in-house with generous quantities of thyme, and two beautifully pink, rare pieces of tuna steak, seared with black pepper to form a crust and garnished with a few large flakes of salt. Two poached quail eggs sit at the very top of the lettuce, replacing the traditional hard boiled chicken eggs. When I cut into them, the soft yoke runs across the greens, dressing them further with their richness.


My friend has ordered steak frites, and while less pretty to look at, the steak arrives glistening and juicy, with a generous portion of thin, golden, crispy french fries. I wish I could tell you how they were, but we both eat selfishly from our own plates, without even offering a taste. We want every bite for ourselves.

It is, after all, a late Friday lunch, and being in no rush to get back to our offices we order dessert. Fresh berries with creme anglaise for me, and vanilla creme brulee for my friend. The only disappointment of the meal came in the form of very sour blackberries, and a very skimpy creme anglaise. The blackberries were a disappointment because Corduroy's chef, Tom Powers, is known for using local, seasonal ingredients, and I am disappointed that he chose to serve a fruit that was so obviously unripe. And the very meager portion of creme anglaise -- that rich vanilla sauce made with creme and eggs -- is probably a kindness for diners who may order fruit to stay on a diet, but I love the stuff and wanted more. However, the berries do come served with a homemade banana sorbet which is wonderful and tastes of the concentrated essence of bananas.

Our lunch is drawing to a close, and we've enjoyed the food, the service, and of course the catching up between friends. I pay the bill, which comes to about $90 (including a generous tip), which seems completely reasonable given a glass of wine and three courses each. If you were to scale back the ordering just a bit, you could have a really special and delicious lunch for around $30, from one of DC's better chefs. It is completely worth it.

Side note: I stopped by Eastern Market Day on Sunday, and got my first look at the damage.


There is an easy way to help. Tomorrow, many establishments will be donating a portion of their profits to the Capitol Hill Community Foundation. Click here for more details, or go out and buy a meal and a round of drinks at any of the following:

18th Amendment
Belga Cafe
Ebenezer's Coffeehouse
Express Business Center & Lounge
Fin McCool's
Hawk & Dove
Lounge 201
Marvelous Market
Montmartre
Murky Coffee
Pour House
Schneider's of Capitol Hill
Science Club
Sonoma Restaurant and Wine Bar
The Old Siam
The Ugly Mug
Trattoria Alberto
Trusty's
Tunnicliff's
Union Pub
Ventor Sports Bar

Thing 7: Tonic

Yesterday was “dine out to fight AIDS” day, with a number of participating restaurants donating anywhere from 25 – 100% of their profits for the night to Food & Friends, a very worthy cause indeed. So GFD and I gathered up various friends and significant others, and chose to spend our for-charity dollars at Tonic, a bar and restaurant in the evolving Mt. Pleasant neighborhood.

We chose Tonic for several reasons – they were donating 35% of their profits to Food & Friends, while most other places were only doing 25%, I am trying very hard to go to places I’ve never been and neighborhoods I might not normally go to, and I had heard that they made a rockin’ mac ‘n’ cheese. Also, the review in the Post had made it sound like a laid back place with dressed up comfort foods that went out of its way to cater to the locals in the community. It sounded like the kind of scene I dig.

I’m going out of my way to say that I really wanted to like Tonic. And I am really sad to report that I didn’t. I was completely underwhelmed and disappointed.

It didn’t help that I had made 9:00 reservations and that no one seemed to be ready for us and we didn’t get seated until 9:20. Then there was the debacle of our waitress spilling an entire glass of red wine and an entire vodka martini directly into the lap of one of our dining companions. She clearly felt terrible and the restaurant gave him a t-shirt to wear, offered to launder his shirt while we ate, and comped his entire meal, but he was understandably cranky after that.

No, the real disappointment was the food. I concede, the tater tots were delicious, being deep fried and wonderfully crunchy (“more tot than tater”), and came with a ‘kitchen sink’ dipping sauce that we all enjoyed. But that was the highlight of the meal. And frankly, when tater tots are the highlight of your menu, there is a problem.




The mac ‘n’ cheese that I was ready to write home about? It came served in a cast iron skillet and looked promising, but the cheese sauce was runny, not thick, the flavor was bland instead of rich and cheesy, and the texture was grainy from some kind of cheese they use that didn’t melt smoothly.

I had a half rack of ribs, that came dry rubbed and with a sweet apricot BBQ sauce on the side to dip them in. They were fine, but not particularly memorable. My dinner included a side of baked beans, slow cooked with bacon, which were tasty. Other people ordered a chili burger (a big ol’ mess of beef, chili, cheese, bacon and sour cream), a flank steak, a strip steak, a veggie burger, and meatloaf. The meatloaf – a gargantuan slab of meatloaf with a thick mushroom gravy and a side of mashed potatoes, was the best thing anyone ordered by far.

We were all stuffed full of meat and carbs and couldn’t bear to look at a dessert menu, so we got the check. I had the beginnings of a tummy ache, and the boyfriend wasn’t doing too much better. The combination of such heavy food at such a late hour wasn’t sitting well. No one seemed thrilled with our Tonic experience, but at least our dollars went to a good cause, right?

Side note: I’m writing about the things that make DC special, so I have to write about the ducks. As I was waiting for the 42 bus to Mount Pleasant last night, at a corner of Franklin Square, there were about 50 ducks in the park! A homeless woman was feeding them stale bread, and they were all in a huge, writhing duck cluster, honking and squawking away. I have no idea where they came from – there is no body of water nearby – or if they’re there every night as I’m not usually hanging out in Franklin Square after dark. It was just this strange anomaly, fifty ducks not three blocks from the White House in the middle of downtown.

I took some pictures, but I’m limited to my Treo until I buy a digital camera, so forgive the poor quality.