LISTEN, D.C., we know you love your jumbo slices, Big Macs and Subway sandwiches. But for the safety of your arteries and the sake of your palates, try adding another fast food option into the mix: the almighty empanada. This tasty Latin American treat is a healthy, affordable meal that can really spice up your diet — literally and figuratively.
We know the first thing some of you are probably wondering — and it's pronounced "em-pah-nah-dah." Moving on to your second question, the word usually refers to a mix of veggies, spices and often meat (or sometimes desserty fillings), all stuffed neatly into a pastry pocket.
This turnover-type food likely originated in Spain, but as settlers and colonists spread it throughout the Spanish-speaking world, it morphed into a host of regional variations. Empanadas might be fried or baked, sweeter or more savory, a carnivore's dream or a vegetarian's delight.
Continue Reading "Put It in the Pocket: Discover Empanadas" »
GIVE THE HOLIDAYS a salty kick this season with this twist on traditional dressing. That turkey — and possibly your taste buds — won't know what hit it when you stuff this inside.
Ingredients:
» 4 quarts cubed at least day-old bread or cornbread (a mix is fine)
» 1/2 cup sweet onion, finely diced
» 1/2 cup celery, finely diced
» 2 cloves garlic, minced
» 3 sprigs each sage and thyme, leaves only, finely chopped
» 1/2 bunch flat leaf Italian parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
» 1/4 lb unsalted butter
» 1/2 lb smoked sausage
» 1 pint shucked fresh oysters, liquor drained and reserved
» 2 to 3 cups chicken stock
» Salt and pepper to taste
Continue Reading "Recipe File: Oyster and Sausage Dressing" »
IF YOU'RE AN OYSTER-ORDERING NOVICE, flipping open a menu stocked with Blue Points, Wiannos, Kumamotos and an array of other confusing varieties can make you wish for a shell of your own to snap shut.
We're now in the thick of oyster season (they're edible all year but at their best when the water's cold, during months that have an "r" in them) but choosing a type can be as intimidating as ordering that first glass of wine.
The first step to picking the right one? Relax.
"In my opinion, they're all good," said Mallory Buford, executive chef at Kinkead's Restaurant in Foggy Bottom.
Buford said there's really only one key difference that diners have to keep in mind when ordering oysters: East Coast versus West Coast.
OVER THE PAST FOUR DECADES, painter Brice Marden has created monochromatic paintings, examined linear networks and found inspiration in Japanese and Chinese calligraphy. The abstractionist comes to the National Gallery of Art on Sunday to converse with Harry Cooper, curator and head of the department of modern and contemporary art. Marden has five paintings and two drawings on display in "The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection: Selected Works," on view until May.
The show contains 126 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints that the Meyerhoffs collected between 1958 and 2004, and includes works by Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg. Marden says he knew the Meyerhoffs, and they would visit his studio to purchase paintings.
Of his works in the show, Marden says, "there's a very strong unifying vein that runs through the whole group, even though in a certain superficial way they all look very different from each other."
Continue Reading "The Collector's Art: Painter Brice Marden at the National Gallery of Art" »
THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY'S "Portraiture Now: Communities" is not laid out to indicate a starting and ending point. That makes sense, because the show is is as conceptually open-ended and accessible as it is physically.
"Communities" features the works of three painters, all thematically bound by a blending of old techniques and new, democratically rendering American subjects from almost every walk of life.
A leveling of the social playing field in the age of online dating, social networking and virtual identity, Jim Torok's 23-piece "A Colorado Family," for instance, maps underlying features that unite its three generations, broaching a profound question: What indelible human traits bind us as a people? An inversion of Chuck Close's photo-enlargement techniques, it's no quaint irony that his 5-by-4-inch oil-on-panel portraits, each of which can take a year to complete, are little larger than Polaroids.
Continue Reading "A Picture of a Nation: 'Portraiture Now: Communities'" »
A PAINFUL INHERITANCE
The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture takes over the National Museum of American History's Carmichael Auditorium on Saturday to present a screening of "Traces of the Trade." For this documentary, filmmaker Katrina Browne and nine of her relatives delve into their family's painful history, tracing their ancestors, the DeWolfes, back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when they were active in the slave trade, possibly transporting as many as 10,000 West Africans across the Middle Passage in exchange for rum. The film screens for educators only on Saturday (reserve at Nmaahceducation@si.edu) and for the public on Nov. 28.
» National Museum of American History, 14th Street & Constitution Avenue NW; Sat., Nov. 21, 2-5 p.m.; Nov. 28, 1-3 p.m., free; 202-633-1000.
FILM WITH A CHARMING LILT
Solas Nua branches out from mounting some of the most compelling Irish plays around to showing some of the most compelling Irish-themed films around. As part of its Monday-night "Irish Popcorn" series, the arts organization screens Martin Duffy's family drama "The Boy From Mercury."
» Flashpoint, 916 G St. NW; Mon., Nov. 23, 7 p.m., free. (Gallery Place-Chinatown/Metro Center)
Photo courtesy NMAAHC
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED what might happen if you mixed the first-person action of "Call of Duty" with the action/role-playing elements of "Diablo" in a blender and threw in a dash of "Mad Max"? Well, developer Gearbox Software certainly did when it started work on "Borderlands" (2k Games).
Having plenty of experience with the FPS in the "Brothers in Arms" series, it's no surprise that those aspects of the game are rock solid. That the incorporation of several RPG elements works so well is the real surprise.
Taking place on a desolate alien world, the game tells a tale involving a lost vault, some treasure and corporate espionage. Being paper thin, the story essentially serves to get you from point to point so you can shoot bandits, mutants and other fauna while collecting vast amounts of loot and building your skills to customize your character.
IN ITS STAGING of Charles L. Mee's "Full Circle," the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company not only breaks down the "fourth wall" — it builds entirely new rooms. Throughout the course of the play, the cast guides audience members throughout Woolly's facility, performing scenes in every nook of the venue including the theater lobby.
Set in Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall, the principal plotline of "Full Circle" follows an American socialite (Naomi Jacobson) and a young German protester (Jessica Frances Dukes) who set out to save an abandoned baby amid the turmoil.
"Rather than sit in the theater and watch this voyage, we're staging the production throughout the Woolly building, inviting audiences to navigate the story with us and have their own experience of changing rules and shifting perspectives," said director Michael Rohd.
WITH HER FIRST major project, "The Hijabi Monologues," writer and performer Sahar Ullah has created a space in which Muslim women can share their lived experiences. She invites others into that space on Sunday at the Kennedy Center, where she'll perform the work and lead a post-performance discussion.
The South Florida native says such a forum is needed to help a post-9/11 American public see the humanity behind the hijab, or headscarf, worn by many U.S. Muslim women.
An episodic play styled after Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," "The Hijabi Monologues" uses 12 true-to-life stories.
"The project's purpose is to humanize one of the most viably noticeable minorities in America — women who wear the hijab," said Ullah.
IN SEPTEMBER, the Jesus Lizard played its first show in a decade, and David Yow was so nervous he was throwing up. It seems like an incongruous idea — one of rock's most dynamic frontmen suffering stage fright — but as soon as the music started, Yow "was more on autopilot than ever.
"I had planned on not taking my shirt off, but 15 seconds into the set, my shirt was off and I was in the audience. Swear to God, I didn't do that. It just took me."
Formed in 1987, the Jesus Lizard developed a reputation for extreme and energetic live shows, with Yow prowling the stage shirtless as the band — drummer Mac McNeilly, guitarist Duane Denison and bass player David Sims — pounded out the sludgiest punk-metal riffs imaginable.
Addison Road