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Jordan Wright
April 6th, 2012
Hop on In
Seems like the holidays stacked up on us this year. It’s times like these we wish we were still in school or had paid federal holidays. But noooo – we’re still hopping around finding the best places to hang out, clink your drink and tuck in. So if you haven’t made Easter or Passover dinner plans yet, here are a few choices.
Go Greek
 Asparagus Salata - Photo credit Greg Powers Zaytinya is doing it up Mediterranean style with a Greek Easter festival that runs from April 8th through April 22nd. We dropped in last week for an advance sampling of some of the scrumptious dishes and they are totally wow! Head Chef Michael Costa is taking full advantage of the resto’s spit roaster to cook Sprarangia, a flame cooked lamb shoulder – all crispy and charred and tender at the same time. He serves it with Mayritsa a traditional Easter soup made from lamb’s liver (sign me up!), caramelized onions, rice, egg and lemon broth; a palate-cleansing salad of white asparagus tzatziki, pistachios and green asparagus; and Spanakorizo, rice pilaf with spinach puree and preserved cherry tomatoes and feta. Try the glossa – a rich dish of lamb’s tongue, potato skordalia, green olives, celery and candied pistachios.
 Lamb Kleftico - Photo credit Greg Powers These Greek Easter cookies are so craveable and packed to go for later or a hostess gift if you have that much self-control. For those of you who live and die for these heavenly sweets you can choose from – paximadakia, pastoules, spiced walnut cookies in honey syrup, and kourabiedes baked with a hint of Metaxa.
Why Cook Kosher When You Can Make Reservations?
Seems like keeping kosher is getting harder and harder for working Washingtonians – so little time so little space and nowhere to store all those dishes. But Passover celebrants – do not despair. Let a trained French chef keep you and your family kosher in style. Just bring your own afikomen.
Chef Michel Laudier of Tragara Ristorante in Bethesda, once top toque at Georgetown’s tony Rive Gauche, is preparing a traditional Kosher-style (without chametz) Passover menu featuring homemade gefilte fish with fresh horseradish and chicken soup with matzah balls to start. Entrees like grilled salmon or veal chops are tempting, but save room for a Passover roulade with strawberries and whipped cream doused with Sabra liqueur or haroset ice cream in a meringue shell with honey caramel sauce.
Jeepers Creepers Where’d You Get Those Peeps
It’s too late to get your dark chocolate-dipped Peeps at ACKC. Apparently we’re not the only ones that thought this was a super cool idea. As of this morning they were completely sold out. Instead we dashed across the bridge to the Peeps store in National Harbor and got them in turquoise, pink, purple and yellow. Now our guests can dip their own at the table with my favorite Icelandic chocolate. Finger licking approved.
Ham vs. Lamb – An Easter Dinner Quandary
 The patio at RIS Ris Lacoste is cooking up her sophisticated Modern American Cuisine for Easter at her eponymously named restaurant RIS, well located near the Kennedy Center. Start with chilled pea soup with lemon, crab and mint, followed by a delicately prepared salmon sampler with smoked trout, smoked steelhead trout caviar, smoked New Brunswick salmon, salmon rillettes and salmon cucumber tartare. How luscious! It’s a ham-or-lamb choice of entrees – a duo of lamb both shank and rack with a Shiraz sauce or a puff pastry-crusted ham Wellington. I suggest a nice Willamette Valley pinot noir with either one. Cross the finish line with a meltingly tender coconut cake and take a nice long walk along the river.
Very Cherry Patio Finds
The stunning Sofitel’s Lafayette Square patio is open for the season and they’re serving these delish mojitos through the month of April. I can’t believe we got the secret recipe from Head Bartender extraordinaire Vincent Gernigon!
Sofitel’s Cherry Mojito
 Cherry mojito from the Sofitel Hotel DC - photo courtesy of D. Murphy
2 oz Bacardi Cherry Torch
¾ oz Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice
Cerises griottine (aka Griottines Morello Cherries from France, a type of sour cherry with a dark skin)
Splash of Soda Water
Fresh mint leaves
2 Teaspoons of Granulated White Sugar
Muddle fresh mint and cerise griotte in a shaker. Add granulated sugar. Add Bacardi Cherry Torch along with some ice. Shake well to bruise the leaves. Pour into a highball glass topped off with soda water. Garnish with cerise griotte and a spring of fresh mint. A votre santé Vincent!
Jordan Wright
March 26, 2012
 The Travel Channel's Samantha Brown signs programs - photo credit Jordan Wright  Packed and rapt audience at the Travel and Adventure Show - photo credit Jordan Wright
Travel and Adventure Show in DC
The thrills and chills at the Travel and Adventure show at the convention center last week were not from the food (a few vendors kept us from near starvation), but a myriad of exhibitors luring us to climb mountains, scuba dive, zip line or go on safari in South Africa.
Seasoned travelers Samantha Brown of The Travel Channel; Pauline Frommer of the famed Frommer’s Travel Guides; Patricia Schultz author of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die; and Marc Peyser, Editor at Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine, were on hand to give tips to a packed and rapt audience. Sam, as her fans call her, was her adorable, ever-effervescent, elfin self – even prettier in person, if you can imagine that.
 Rock wall climbers at the Travel and Adventure Show in DC - photo credit Jordan Wright  Scuba practice at the Travel and Adventure Show - photo credit Jordan Wright Dining with Two Presidents, one First Lady and a James Beard Award Nominee
During a private luncheon last month our first FLOTUS Martha Washington regaled me with tales of her life with George, and their elegant style of non-stop entertaining. The afternoon featured an historical menu drawn from the estate’s records of the Washingtons’ favorite foods and created as a tribute to the General and his wife by chef, author and television personality, Walter Staib.
Here’s what he prepared starting with a refreshing raspberry shrub. Vol au vent prepared with Virginia ham and Rappahanock oysters; West Indies pepper pot soup with Scotch bonnet peppers and cheese straws; local sturgeon collops (quite lavish with sturgeon going for $300 a pop these days) stuffed with Maryland crab; a trilogy of turkey – pot pie, stew and terrine with mushrooms and pecans, and a casserole of sweet potato and apple; finally the legendary “Excellent Cake” from Martha’s recipes, a many-layered affair made with black tea, spiced rum syrup and orange buttercream icing, and an array of scrumptious 18th century tarlets, cookies and shortbreads. It’s no wonder Staib has been nominated for a James Beard Award this year!
Staib, whose critically acclaimed Emmy-winning program “A Taste of History” on PBS, came down from his City Tavern restaurant in Philadelphia to prepare the six-course luncheon to celebrate the opening of “Hoecakes and Hospitality” a new exhibit about food and entertaining at the Mount Vernon Estate, Museum and Gardens in Virginia.
Opened in 1773, the original City Tavern played host to George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, but you can dine there on Staib’s 18th century style gourmet cuisine today. www.mountvernon.org.
 Pave of roasted cod with Savoy cabbage, lardons and mushrooms at The Jefferson - photo credit Jordan Wright This week at The Jefferson hotel in the Private Wine Cellar at the Plume Restaurant I dined with Thomas Jefferson. Well not quite, but all his favorite foods in a seven-course dinner as interpreted by Chef Chris Jakubiec. Sommelier Michael Scaffidi, formerly of the French Laundry, purposefully selected seven vintages, from the hotel’s extensive wine collection of 1,300 labels, to echo Jefferson’s travels.
Despite the current scandale about foie gras (now banned in California) who could say “non” to fois gras parfait paired with 1993 Zilliken Forstmeister Riesling Auslese, followed by a cool mint-scented English pea soup with pea mousse and pea shoots accented by an Albarino from Bodegas Adega; and a rich gratin of braised rabbit. On to a distinctive pave of roasted cod with a “red” Cumieres champagne made from the pinot noir grape; filet of beef with truffled pommes dauphine indelibly charmed by an exquisite Massolino Barolo; and summed up with Jefferson’s favorite floating island served with Klein Constantia “Vin de Constance” from South Africa. So yummy! Gilding the lily were chocolate mignardises served with Blandy’s Malmsey Madeira. If only we had booked a room for the night. Sigh…
The hotel will be offering “Jefferson’s Journey Tasting Menu” from April 10th through April 14th. To view the rest of the delectable dishes and wine pairings go to www.jeffersondc.com.
Ramping It Up For Spring
Throughout March and April all eight Chop’t Salad DC locations are using the seasonal delicacy ramps in a vinaigrette available for any of their create-your-own salads. The ramp, a mash up between garlic and leeks, has a very short season to tempt you. In addition three spring salads take you to Morocco, Sardinia, and the American Southwest.
Try the roasted Moroccan Cobb made with farro, roasted carrots, parsnips and cauliflower on a mix of romaine and spinach with charmoula vinaigrette; or inspired by Italy’s beautiful island of Sardinia, the Sardinian, a unique rendition of the classic Caesar salad made with organic baby kale, FreeBird grilled chicken, Fiore Sardo Cheese, flatbread crisps, and romaine lettuce with a lemon Caesar
dressing. Or giddyap to the Southwest with the Four Corners Cobb
made with FreeBird chipotle chicken, rattlesnake beans, cotija cheese, avocado, tortilla chips, and romaine and served with green onion cilantro vinaigrette. So healthful, so spring! For locations visit www.choptsalad.com.
Jordan Wright
March 23, 2012
Special to The Alexandria Times
 Jay lies in his mother's lap in 1964 boat image - Photo courtesy of Jay Alvarez Beginning April 4th MetroStage will present the compelling tale of one family’s escape from Cuba. The one-man drama is written, directed and performed by Jorge Alvarez whose parents crossed the 90 treacherous miles across the Straits of Florida by boat to Florida’s shores in 1964, five years after Castro came to power. Once a glamorous island destination, where socialites and celebrities frolicked in glittering nightclubs and casinos and where headliners from around the world entertained both the famous and the infamous, the island became a communist outpost, riddled with poverty. Landowners were stripped of their property, and those who could, fled, making their way – mostly in rickety boats – to freedom in America.
The show has been playing to sold out audiences in New York and is currently under development as a musical. I spoke to Alvarez by phone to learn about the process of writing his play.
Jordan Wright – How old were your parents when they left Cuba?
Jorge Alvarez – They were forty and I was around five. My brothers and sisters were here already. They had already taken the “Peter Pan” flights. [Code name for the Catholic-sponsored CIA project of “freedom flights” that brought over 14,000 children from Cuba to Miami – days before regular direct flights were cancelled.] My father was an avid sport fisherman and had his own boat. Sadly we later found out that another family who left that same night was caught.
JW – Who encouraged you to tell the story?
JA – First of all I’m not a writer, this is the only thing I’ve ever written. I’m an actor. And this was just written through me.
I grew up listening to the stories. I was in California at the lake in Franklin Canyon Park near Beverly Hills where Opie from The Andy Griffith Show threw the stone in the opening sequence, and I was listening to tapes of my father telling the old stories. I started writing down conversations that I imagined between my parents. But then I put it away for two years. Around October of 2009 I had a reading of the play for the first time. I said, “I wrote this thing and I’m looking for someone to shape it for me.” Theresa Gambacorta [actress, playwright, director] gives me her card and says, “I’ll do that.”
It’s really a love story – love of country, of family – an American story. I didn’t set out to write a political piece of theatre. It’s a story about this particular family at this particular time in history. I think that’s why it is resonating with so many people. It’s not a commentary on Fidel or the United States.
Here in NY we have a reception after the show and I go out and meet the audience. Quite often people want to share their stories or their grandmother’s story. They really connect on a visceral level on what it’s like to be an American, no matter what their nationality.
JW – I understand it will become a musical. Can you talk about that?
JA – A full musical score is being written for the play by Paquito D’Rivera who is a legend – a jazz musician who has 13 Grammys, is a Kennedy Center honoree as a Living Jazz Legend, and was awarded the National Medal for the Arts.
JW – How do you think that will change the impact of the story?
JA – Part of the beauty of the show is its spareness. It’s really storytelling. But as a musical, in my gut, I think it’s going to be amazing. Cuba is going to be really hot, hot, hot with Antonio Banderas about to play Fidel Castro in a movie.
JW – How do you feel about bringing the show here?
JA – I’m so excited. I lived there for ten years when Dupont Circle was my old stomping ground. I got my acting legs in DC when I trained at Studio Theatre and the Shakespeare Theatre’s Summer Workshop. Later I worked there and at Source and did “Shear Madness” at the Gala Hispanic Theatre. I love Washington!
This interview was conducted, condensed and edited by Jordan Wright.
At MetroStage from April 4th through April 22nd 1201 North Royal Street, Alexandria, 22314. For tickets and information visit www.metrostage.org.
March 19th, 2012
Jordan Wright
Special to The Alexandria Times
 John Lescault as the enthusiastically delirious “Brother Russia”. Brother Russia is a great big full-out rock opera – of that there is no quibbling. With music by Dana Rowe and book and lyrics by John Dempsey – collaborators on the Witches of Eastwick and The Fix – its world premiere at Signature Theatre presents twenty-seven full-throated emotional numbers sung by eleven cast members – most doing double duty in multiple roles – in a tightly directed show with lots of romance, razzle-dazzle, a dash of gender bending and a soupcon of Slavic philosophy. But the play-within-a-play has me conflicted.
It opens with a ragtag group of touring actors, whose impresario translates as more Svengali than the purported mystic Rasputin the playwright would like you to believe. “Tonight’s story is the most Russian of all stories. It is my story!” he declares. And so the wheelchair-bound modern-day megalomaniac who calls himself Brother Russia rewrites history to suit his vanity and his second-rate cast.
 Natascia Diaz, as Anastasia, the Tsar’s daughter, sings "Crush Me" in the world premiere of "Brother Russia".  Rachel Zampelli (as the Witch) discovers young Grigori (Doug Kreeger), a “Child of the Wood” in "Brother Russia". John Lescault is tremendous in his portrayal of Brother Russia. He is the glue that holds the overly wrought piece together. Doug Kreeger plays his alter egos, both Sasha and Grigori. Kreeger is vocally and emotionally commanding, in a role that keeps him onstage through his rise from a lowly Siberian village to the luxurious Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and the massacres of the Russian Revolution. I hate to be a spoiler but he dies three times, twice by poisoning, but also stabbed, shot and other niceties to please the Brother Russia’s whimsical story telling. It is dizzying the amount of times he is brought back to life. “Compare an hour of life to death’s eternity,” he oddly proclaims.
In a tale of love and war, the show takes elements from the days of Czar Nicholas as well as classic Russian folk tales and convolutes them into total fiction. Is that good or bad? In any case it’s got plenty of the required murder, mayhem and sex wrapped up in royalty and peasants. If only it were told straight.
My issue with the show is that it swings in and out of quasi-history and into sheer fiction, batting about the audience’s emotions like a tennis ball in perpetual motion. No sooner are you invested in the characters and cozily enjoying a sweeping period piece, than they are lobbed back at you with sarcastic asides provided by the blustery and capricious Brother Russia and his disgruntled cast members including Nicholas played by the captivating Russell Sunday who is fierce in red patent leather platform heels.
 Grigori (Doug Kreeger, holding basket) is happily greeted by a group of strangers for his healing powers. Pictured left to right: Stephen Gregory Smith, Erin Driscoll, Russell Sunday, Rachel Zampelli. But don’t toss the baby out with the bathwater yet. The music is terrific and memorable, especially “The Spirit and the Truth”, “Elsewhere”, “I Belong to You” sung by Anastasia and Grigori and the show stopping “I Serve No Man” sung by Grigori.
Just don’t expect it to follow any semblance of Russian textbook history. This musical comes across as a mash-up of Mel Brooks Springtime for Hitler, Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha and the Broadway version of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. And if you like those shows – and who doesn’t? – that’s not all bad. It’s certainly got all the boxes-checked requirements of a hit Broadway show, yet one that is suffering from an identity complex. One can only hope for some editing of this meandering two and a half hour show before it is considered a fait accompli.
Through April 15th at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
Jordan Wright
March 2012
Special to Indian Country Today Media Network
 Terri Rofkar's Lituay Bay Robe Teri Rofkar (Tlingit of the Raven Clan from the Snail House) of the Sitka Tribe of Alaska sees patterns and shapes emerge from wool and roots. Using cedar, spruce tree roots, ferns, and mountain goat wool she collects in the woods, and along the shoreline of her Northwest coast home, the internationally renowned artist has been weaving exquisite baskets and textiles for over 25 years. Her robes are made with traditional Sitka freehand weaving techniques that date back over 6,000 years. Descending from a family of weavers she is inspired by “a deep connection to my ancestors.”
In creating ceremonial regalia she weaves in the once lost art of the Tlingit Raven’s Tail style of twining that uses ‘formline’ figures to represent the creature or spirit. Rofkar’s expertise also extends to the more highly stylized and representational Chilkat style of curvilinear and circular forms, one of the most complex weaving techniques in the world and the only one that can create perfect circles. Chilkat robes feature long wool fringe and are used for both ceremonial as well as dancing robes.
But though these loom-free techniques derive from an ancient culture, Rofkar is not wedded entirely to the past. “I listen to heavy metal when I work,” she cheerfully explains debunking the notion that she is a strict traditionalist unwilling to experiment with new concepts as an artist. “Change is the one thing that is constant. Traditional arts continue because they adapt and change with society. I’m not changing the methodology. It is the same as it was thousands of years ago. My technique and my intent are still there.”
Her latest project the “Tlingat Superman Series” will comprise three ceremonial robes, two of which will use modern technology. She credits a seminal meeting with the noted anthropologist and textile expert, Alice Kehoe, who spoke to her of “extending yourself beyond what you might be capable of” that drove her to explore new ways of applying her technique.
 Teri on the beach with mountain goat wool The first and most traditional robe, which Rofkar estimates will take over 2,300 hours, will be in the earlier Raven’s Tail technique and will be woven from mountain goat wool that she spins herself. “These robes are created all by hand. It’s the same kind of textile you see with Kennewick man, found 9,000 years ago in Oregon, or the mummies of South America, discovered around 30,000 years ago,” she elaborates. “The patterning on the robe will be accurate. Design work and art was our written language. Our village goes back 11,000 years with its stories of flood times and when the ice advanced.”
The complexity of the Tlingit style of finger weaving is well known. “We used math and science, but we didn’t use Western terminology for it. So in the Western mind it didn’t exist. Weaving is all math and not many numbers,” she says.
Drawing from symbols of animals and clan crests spoken of in Native oral history, traditional robes can often include headpieces with frontlets that might include sea lion whiskers or shells. “In Alaska our top predators have been bears and killer whales and I plan to weave grizzly bear tracks and killer whale teeth patterns into the robe.”
As an eco-conscious artist and 2004 Buffett finalist for Indigenous Leadership, Rofkar is concerned with sustainability and stewardship of natural resources and her passion is palpable. Some of the trees she sources from are hundreds of years old and known to her family for generations. “Tlingit culture recognizes that animals, plants, people and places all have spirits and American Indian relationships to the earth are great examples of this. Native people left the land sustainable and preserving the environment is a part of the Indian community since we’re so in tune with it,” she asserts. “In fact when the invaders came it was like, ‘Hey! There’s nobody here!’ ”
Following this philosophy she will use locally found copper and hemlock bark for the coloring and mountain goat for the wool. “I just found an ancient population of mountain goat for my wool fiber source,” she reports. In addition she will use her beadwork skills to describe the building blocks of life, “I will incorporate the double helix [into the robe], because it represents the proteins of amino acids. “
In 2010 Rofkar visited the Kunstkamara Museum in St. Petersburg where she viewed the largest collection of the oldest Raven’s Tail robes. “They had six robes. All acquired in Lituya Bay in 1788. They realize how important they are. I had no idea they came from that area. Ten years earlier I had woven my Lituya robe that was all about my clan group and the fault lines and plate techtonics and megatsunamis of the area. It sure gave me the context of why I’m so obsessed with them.”
Another robe will be created from Kevlar, a bulletproof fabric. It’s what she defines as her “tongue-in-cheek” reference to the Sitka park rangers who wear bulletproof vests. “In our Native communities there isn’t even any car theft. We only have 14 miles of road here. When we’re in our cars we call it joy riding!”
Of the recent use of Native images for ‘homeland security’, she explains, “There have been a plethora of images for the term, so this is my political statement. They [the park rangers] are the people that are the caretakers of our sacred ground. It’s not for protection from the bears that they wear it.”
“When I do my patterning on the Kevlar robe I will use those top predator patterns and do it accurately. It will be where science and art meet to tell the stories of legends and dance – to stretch our creativity. When I first came up with the concept I didn’t tell anyone for a while. I knew it was risky,” she admits. “But I knew if I didn’t get it out there it would haunt my dreams.”
The final piece in the series is called, “The Robe of Enlightenment”. It is inspired by the Maoris of New Zealand whose ancestral war chants sung during their rhythmic Haka dance is also used by Hawaiian football teams before a game or after a win. Rofkar recognized elements of Maori symbols that are similar to Native Alaskan weaving.
Haka is the theme song for this robe. It has the embodiment of the “Okay, we’re ready. Bring it!” she emphasizes. She also acknowledges being inspired by Del Beazley’s popular Hawaiian Maui “Superman” song. “I think it embodies leadership. And I’m looking for a hero. Before there was a Clark Kent there was a Superman.”
 Rofkar weaving a continuum robe In this garment her strategy is to fuse luminescence and nanotechnology into the fabric. “I visualize it as the warps are fiber optic and could be in an audio frequency that gets louder, and the wefts are embedded with nanofibers that are aluminum and programmable. Tassels and lights could be embedded too and change color, “ she describes, “much like the story of the raven changing color.
As a lecturer and educator Rofkar has taken her woven arts to the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts, the Field Museum in Chicago, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 2006 she was the Native Arts “Smithsonian Visiting Scholar” at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and in 2004 she won the Governor’s Award for Alaska Native Arts.
She received a USA Fellowship in 2006 and performed at the inaugural USA Fellows Celebration at Jazz at Lincoln Center dressed in one of her spectacular robes. In 2009 she was awarded the National Cultural Heritage from the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
She is aware of her responsibility to the craft. “I am really challenged to incorporate today’s fabrics and technology into the traditional textiles because those are the textiles of this generation. I thought how awesome it would be to take the regalia to the next level where it would be programmable, where I could integrate the knowledge that young people have today with music and sound and hip-hop into the Robe of Enlightenment.”
Reflecting on the future of art and its relationship to technology she muses, “If we don’t use our creativity and stretch it in ways that it hasn’t gone before, how do we know what the applications are. When we go into space we learn a whole lot about what our technology is and can apply it to other things. I think that this kind of thinking is something that has been missing.”
Acknowledged to be one of the few living practitioners of the Tlingit woven arts, she ventures, “I thought, I’m the one carrying the culture forward by doing the weaving and creating the pieces, and all of them have extensive stories about plate tectonics and earthquakes, mega tsunamis and migration. I feel I am just the conduit. It’s the twining that is moving through me.”
Rofkar’s work can be seen at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, DC, the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska.
 The Cliffs of Moher - photo credit Jordan Wright Jordan Wright
Go Green!
After a grand sweep through Ireland last May, I have become a huge fan of their hospitality… and especially of their food and drink. I visited the Jameson Distillery (a bit of a jolt to sip whiskey at 11am) and had a private tour of the spectacular Guinness Storehouse with lunch in the Executive Dining Room where the Queen of England, clearly following my lead, enjoyed lunch the following month. The country has achieved extraordinary culinary successes over the past ten years. So let’s cheer them on from our shores by toasting to the Emerald Isle.
 Early poster art from the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin - photo credit Jordan Wright  Jordan learning to pull the perfect Guinness Drop in for a dram at the Irish-owned and brand new The Dupont Circle Hotel where they’ll celebrate their Irish lineage by literally going green – from LED lighting to the staff sporting leprechaun-green shirts. Specialty cocktails and dishes that recollect the Emerald Isle will delight St. Patrick’s Day revelers at the hotel’s Bar Dupont staying open till 2:30am.
Get jiggy with these inspired cocktails: The Peppermint Patrick – made with Jim Beam Bourbon, Caramel Baileys, Crème de Menthe, Cream; Sweet Shamrock – Bushmills Irish Whiskey, Drambuie, Lemon Juice, Honey; The Irish 350 – Bacardi Limon, Southern Comfort, Smirnoff, Grand Marnier, Cream de Cacao, Orange Juice, Sprite [a 350 proof combination cocktail to honor the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the U.S. 350 years ago] and the Baby Guinness Shot: Kahlua, Baileys.
For two days only, March 17th and 18th, Café Dupont will offer two special brunches featuring these yummy Irish comfort dishes. Bangers & mash: pork sausage served atop mashed potatoes with onion gravy; traditional Irish stew served with Irish soda bread; authentic shepherd’s pie; a full Irish breakfast with pork sausage, a rasher of Irish bacon, sautéed mushrooms, breakfast potatoes, baked beans and herb tomato. That’s precisely how I remember it. Sweeten it up with Bailey’s cheesecake or bread & butter pudding with vanilla custard. www.thedoylecollection.com/dupont
Close by Signature Theatre in Shirlington is Samuel Beckett’s Irish Gastro Pub. For rugby fans who don’t want to miss the 2012 Six Nations Championship games, the pub will be running them all day on St. Paddy’s Day. For a bit of good “craick” (it means fun in Irish slang) the 19th Street Band and Oren Polak are on hand and Guinness, as always, is on tap. The pub’s traditional hearty brown bread served with Kerrygold butter go great with their meltingly tender lamb stew. www.samuelbecketts.com
Party at the House of Sweden
 Jordan and Lauren DeSantis at the launch party at the House of Sweden  Watching DeSantis's new TV series at the House of Sweden - photo credit Jordan Wright Lauren DeSantis launched her new travel and food series show in style at the House of Sweden Wednesday night. Sweden plays host to the first three episodes of the series that will air Fridays at 7pm and again on Saturdays at 1pm and 4pm on WETA. Attorney by day chef by night, DeSantis is the lovely host of Capital Cooking where she showcases her talent and that of chefs in our area on her site www.capitalcookingshow.blogspot.com.
Ambassador and Mrs. Jonas Hafström lent their private chef, Frida Johansson, who created a delicious smorgasbord for the party showcasing Sweden’s delicacies including elk kabobs, crayfish skewers, shrimp and dill hors d’oeuvres and, for the sweet tooth, a sea buckthorn cooler, cloudberry cupcakes, and two kinds of macarons – lingonberry and licorice. Skal!
 Crayfish skewers at the House of Sweden - photo credit Jordan Wright  Swedish sweets display is irresistible - photo credit Jordan Wright
Very Cherry Celebrations Continued…
 National Mall Cherry Blossoms It’s the centennial anniversary of Japan’s gift of 3,000 cherry trees to our nation’s capitol and the gorgeous blossoms have opened early this year. Personally I prefer to see them at the end of their bloom time when they are cascading to the ground like pink snow, but there’s no reason not to start the celebrations now. Here’s what’s going on around town.
The National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries will present Japan Spring on the National Mall. These concurrent exhibitions—Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings by Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800), at the National Gallery of Art (March 30–April 29, 2012), and Masters of Mercy: Buddha’s Amazing Disciples (March 10–July 8, 2012) and Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji (March 24–June 17, 2012) at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery arrive in the nation’s capital this spring. www.nga.gov
Legal Sea Foods tempts with dishes available exclusively at their Chinatown spot. Highlights include the red salad with radicchio, crumbled Gorgonzola, candied pecans, dried cherries and balsamic vinaigrette; cherry glazed Atlantic salmon with watercress salad and potato gaufrettes; and a surf-and-turf with grilled hanger steak with a cherry demi glaze and crab stuffed potato and haricot verte. A decadent cherries jubilee with vanilla ice cream completes the theme. Cocktail enthusiasts will appreciate the Cherry Blossom made with Cherry Heering, lemon juice, Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters and topped with Cava. www.legalseafoods.com/restaurants/washington-dc-7th-street
 Sakura cherry blossom cocktail Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar hops on the bandwagon with several entrees to cherry-charm you Latin style. Try Salmón con Salsa de Guindas, Cherry BBQ Glazed Grilled Salmon Fillet with Roasted Sweet Potato Mash and Fennel-Cherry Blossom Salad. In the dessert department get your fix with the Pastel Rustico de Cerezas, Warm Cherry Clafouti with White Chocolate Ice Cream. Instead of sipping one of the restaurant’s signature mojitos welcome the spring with vanilla-cherry Coke, a drink made from aged rum infused with cherry brandy and topped with Classic Coke. www.cubalibrerestaurant.com
At Urbana Restaurant and Wine Bar lead bartender, Obinna Emenyonu, will serve the Tuscan Flor made with cherry and apple purée, vodka, yuzu and prosecco and served with a brandied cherry garnish. www.urbanadc.com
At the 1789 Restaurant in Georgetown Executive Chef Anthony Lombardo is planning a dish of pan roasted duck breast with cherry quinoa, crispy duck confit and duck consommé and for dessert Pastry Chef Mallory Staley will create fried cherry pie. Love that they have free valet parking! www.1789Restaurant.com.
The Park Hyatt Washington wants you to try a special Sakura cocktail that will be available in the Park Hyatt Lounge and Blue Duck Tavern during the festival. The Sakura is made from a combination of Prairie Organic Vodka, Cherry Puree, Cherry Syrup, Cherry Bitters, Va de Vi Sparking Wine and garnished with a Cherry. www.blueducktavern.com.
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