Dish of the Week: Ceci e Tria
Where: Centrolina
You can sometimes successfully wrap a ribbon of Chef Amy Brandwein’s buckwheat pasta around the tines of your fork, but stabbing at a section of the folded noodles and swabbing them in the oil bath below though is more likely to yield success. Mixing buckwheat flour with 00 pasta flour adds a nutty, earthy flavor to the pasta, along with some heft.
Ceci e Tria, currently featured on Centrolina’s daily menu, pairs the buckwheat noodles with vibrant and fresh green chickpeas that you don’t commonly come across, along with anchovy, garlic, and parsley.
“It’s popular among a certain set,” Brandwein explains. “A lot of people are sent off by the anchovy,” which is listed as the next ingredient right after the pasta and the garbanzos. Yet the anchovy is but a faint suggestion, with far stronger notes of garlic and parsley emerging on the palate.
Brandwein came up with the dish to serve at an event with acclaimed New York chef Gabrielle Hamilton, who discusses in her memoir her time spent in her mother-in-law’s kitchen in Puglia, Italy. The rustic buckwheat noodle dish is inspired from Puglia and won acclaim from Hamilton, much to Brandwein’s delight. Now it’s a stalwart on Centrolina’s menu.
The Post featured a recipe for the dish this summer including directions for making your own basic buckwheat pasta. Home chefs without the time—or a pasta rolling machine—can skip that step by shopping Centrolina’s mercato section. The homemade pastas Brandwein produces and uses in her restaurant’s dishes are all displayed neatly in a case there, including ribbons of the buckwheat ribbons.
As fall approaches in earnest, Brandwein anticipates keeping a buckwheat pasta on the menu with a slight change-up: fresh green chickpeas may be swapped out with small bits of cauliflower fired in the wood oven. The cut of noodle may be switched, but the recipe for the buckwheat pasta dough stays the same.
Small Bites
Food Fridays at American History Museum
If you thought museums were only for tourists then you better rethink your Friday lunch
hour. The National Museum of American History is now offering live cooking lessons in the new Coulter Performance Plaza. From now until the end of the year Food Fridays will showcase a guest chef and a Smithsonian host preparing a recipe and talking about the history and traditions behind the dish. Demonstrations take place at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and the Stars & Stripes Café downstairs will feature dishes inspired by each chef. — Johanna Mendelson Forman
Banned Books and Cocktails
The D.C. Public Library Foundation will host an opening night fundraiser party on September 25th for the 2015 Uncensored exhibit at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. The exhibition, corresponding with the annual National Banned Books Week, will feature the work of local artists exploring the intersection of data and censorship. At the opening party, for which tickets are $50, signature cocktails will flow from a list of D.C.’s heavy hitting mixologists like Adam Bernbach, Phil Clark, Trevor Frye, and Chantal Tseng—some perhaps inspired by banned books like Tseng’s classic sherry flip last year.
Park Hyatt High Tea
In the West End, the Park Hyatt is inaugurating a new high-end, weekend tea service. Offered during the limited window of 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday in the hotel’s tea cellar, the Tea Table will feature savory sandwiches (probably on white bread with the crust cut off), crab deviled eggs, lobster rolls, and tarts. The sweet part of the table will see a rotating selection of pastries, scones, seasonal jams, and other confections. The event is priced at $45, $20 for children, tea not included. A pot starts at $8 and runs all the way to $300 (!) depending on what you select from what the hotel calls “one of the most unique and expansive collections of tea in the United States.” Sommelier Christian Eck, also a noted Tea Specialist, is on hand to guide sippers to the perfect selection among the vintages dating back to 1949 and explain the cultural significance, flavor, and chemistry of their choice.
Every Day is a Cocktail Party
The Riggsby has begun a weekday cocktail party happy hour. Hors d’oeuvres and drinks at the newly redone Carlyle Hotel are inspired by what chef Michael Schlow’s parents used to serve at their home dinner parties from a bygone era. Think slightly elevated fairly standard American fare like homemade potato chips and hanger steak brochette paired with classic martinis, Manhattans, and gimlets for $6.
Bourbon Heritage at Jack Rose
National bourbon heritage month is happening right now! Jack Rose Dining Saloon is celebrating with a week’s worth of events starting next Wednesday. They’re most excited about a Saturday evening five-course dinner with whiskey author Fred Minnick. Limited to 20 guests, A $125 ticket includes a cocktail hour meet & greet with the author, the food and tasting of five selected bourbons, and a signed copy of Minnick’s latest tasting guide. Other events during the week include a $5 barrel-aged beers on Wednesday night, a Dram & Grain bourbon cocktail takeover on Thursday, “Pappy Hour” on Friday, and a chance to visit owner Bill Thomas’ hidden whiskey cellar, by RSVP only, late Saturday night.
Gluten Free Mead and Cider Dinner
City Tap House will serve a special gluten-free dinner on Wednesday night in partnership with Maryland’s Charm City Meadworks and MillStone Cellars. Hard apple cider is a typical gluten-free beverage of choice. Mead is not as typically available though getting there—even outside the gates of Renaissance fairs. Produced in a fashion more similar to wine, it uses honey instead of grapes as the base ingredient. For $65 per person, City Tap House will pair pours of basil-lemongrass mead, wildflower mead, and pumpkin mead and several ciders with gluten free menu items.
Brainfood Burger Battle and Pig Roast
A couple of food fundraisers benefiting Brainfood, a D.C. non-profit youth development organization, promises to be quite tasty. This Sunday from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Poste Moderne Brasserie hosts a burger battle between Chefs Kyoo Eom of Poste, Matt Adler of Osteria Morini, Joe Palma of Bourbon Steak, and many others. Tickets are $75 and include tastes of all of the burgers, specialty cocktails, and beer from Three Stars Brewing, and DC Brau. The following Sunday afternoon, Osteria Morini will host their second annual Maialata, an Italian pig roast including wines from Country Vinter, beers from DC Brau, and Prosecco. Tickets are $65, or $40 if not drinking. Throw in a little extra to buy tickets for a chance to throw a pie in the face of chefs Scott Drewno, Kyle Bailey, and Danny Lee.
Yom Kippur Dining at Dino’s Grotto
Dino’s Grotto offers a Kol Nidre dinner for those looking for a filling meal before the the Jewish day of atonement, and the fasting that accompanies it, begins. Sundown on Wednesday, September 23 is at 6:48 p.m. Dean Gold will begin serving the dinner, which costs $44 and is full of Jewish-Italian dishes along with Gold family touches, from 4 p.m. on. The next evening, for a breaking the fast meal, Gold will allow fasters to choose any or all of the menu, which includes grilled vegetables, arugula salad, a barley soup, risotto with heirloom tomatoes, faroe island salmon, tuscan crepes, sauteed greens and butternut squash, chopped chicken liver, veal patties, and almond cake.
