10.24.2010

Curry Butter Acorn Squash, Celery and Pear Bisque and Other CSA Adventures

After the brutal hot summer, I could not be happier for the temperature to drop (at least its dropping at night finally?).  I got a surprise CSA share this week and have done some experimenting.  Last night after a long day at the Renaissance Festival (surprisingly precious a place, gorgeous tree covered village) we decided to try and make a new recipe from the Bon Apetit November magazine, Celery and Pear Bisque.

The Celery and Pear bisque can be made as follows - 6 cups of celery (2 cups of ours came from the deep green, slim stalk CSA celery and 4 cups from the mellow, light green whole foods celery), 4 csa Bartlett pears, 1.5 cups dark green bits of CSA leeks, 1.5 tbs thyme (we used dried) and 2 bay leaves all sauteed for about 10 minutes in 4.5 tbs of butter.  Added 1.5 tbs of flour and 3 cups of chicken broth and simmered for 20 more minutes, then immersion blended the whole thing.  

Tonight, I'm hoping to make this curry butter fruit baked acorn that I found on the epicurious website:


Its basically a mixture of apples, apple juice, raisins and onion baked into rings of acorn squash with curry infused butter.  I hope that it goes well!  What to serve on the side?

Brightwood Bistro, Good Luck!

As you may be aware, the Wards that make up the District of Columbia all have a unique flavor and atmosphere.  What is also unique, and mostly disappointing, due to uneven development, the NW quandrant of the city has almost all of the restaurants with a few districts scattered around Capitol Hill.  Therefore, whenever a restaurant opens up in what had previously been an area without, there is always a small amount of buzz (consider Rustik in Ward 4 and the new Rays the Steaks East River).  Remembering said buzz about the Brightwood Bistro at Georgia and Missouri, I picked up a Whats the Deal coupon for it and finally got around to using it on Thursday night. 


We drove up several miles from Mt. P to the Brightwood Bistro.  From the outside, the building looks brand new in a neighborhood of maintained, but aged.  We walked up to the door and saw the entire restaurant completely empty aside from the staff and the band. Yes, a band.  Normally, an empty restaurant at 8 PM on Thursday would be a no go for me, due to the coupon, we figured why not and headed in.  We were seated by a jazz band doing a rather loud soundcheck that we thought must be for a future night, given the emptiness of the restaurant.  But alas, they played, the whole time (some pretty good motown I might add) very very loudly, to the point that we could not converse. 

Aside from the music, the menu, O the menu.  It looked good, but the prices were totally wild for the neighborhood.  $15 Caesar Salad, $15 Burger, $28 Shrimp and Grists, $14 Chicken and Waffles.  Completely crazy. We would have also left at seeing the menu, if not for the 50% off coupon that we had.  The food that we had was pretty tasty, the burger was not from the freezer, but the sweet potato fries were.  The "wings" were entire jointed wings, served on top of super spicy bbq sauce with crumbles of blue cheese (we are comparing these at a high bar as we had truly amazing wings at Social several weeks earlier) and happened to be the same wings served with the Chicken and Waffles.  We had a "Missouri Milk" cocktail which was strong and punchy and actually, the only thing not wildly over priced at the Bistro. 

All and all, we will never go back.  For $15 for a burger, we could take on a couple more dollars and try the Michel Richard Central burger (have you tried it, is it worth it) or for the entire tab pre-coupon we could even have a delicious meal at one of our downtown favorites, Rasika coupled with the sound/emptiness ratio we were left wondering what the business plan was and if the Brightwood Bistro would ever be around to come back to.....