RSS FeedHappy Halloween – Toil and Trouble
I hope you all survived Hurricane Sandy without too much trouble. Despite all of the toil to prepare, our neighborhood was relatively lucky compared to others in our region.
Help those impacted by the storm by donating some of the extra canned goods you bought before the storm, volunteering to serve meals at one of the local shelters or donating blood. On Halloween, it is only fitting that the Red Cross wants to “drink your blood.” Shortages due to storm closings have them eager to stock up on their supplies. You can check here for local blood drives.
After the Sandy scare, today is also a day to be grateful and celebrate the simple pleasures in life. I’m heading out to the suburbs to go trick-or-treating with my two nieces. Afterwards, we’re going to make one of my favorite Fall recipes, Ruth Reichl’s Roasted Pumpkin Fondue. It’s hearty, rich, gooey goodness and something fun to make together.
Roast Pumpkin With Cheese “Fondue”
Serves 8 (Main Course) Or 12 (Side Dish)
Active Time: 25 Min
Start To Finish: 2 Hr
As the pumpkin roasts, its skin becomes gorgeously burnished, while inside, slices of baguette, Gruyère, and Emmental coalesce into a rich, velvety concoction that is utterly fabulous served with a scoop of tender pumpkin flesh.
Ingredients:
- 1 (15-inch) piece of baguette, cut into 1/2-inch slices (7 oz total)
- 1 (7-lb) orange pumpkin
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup reduced-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
- 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 2 1/2 cups coarsely grated Gruyère (6 oz)
- 2 1/2 cups coarsely grated Emmental (6 oz)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in lower third.
Toast baguette slices in 1 layer on a baking sheet in oven until tops are crisp (bread will still be pale), about 7 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool.
Remove top of pumpkin by cutting a circle (3 inches in diameter) around stem with a small sharp knife. Scrape out seeds and any loose fibers from inside pumpkin with a spoon (including top of pumpkin; reserve seeds for another use if desired). Season inside of pumpkin with 1/2 tsp salt.
Whisk together cream, broth, nutmeg, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper in a bowl. Mix together cheeses in another bowl.
Put a layer of toasted bread in bottom of pumpkin, then cover with about 1 cup cheese and about 1/2 cup cream mixture. Continue layering bread, cheese, and cream mixture until pumpkin is filled to about 1/2 inch from top, using all of cream mixture. (You may have some bread and cheese left over.)
Cover pumpkin with top and put in an oiled small roasting pan. Brush outside of pumpkin all over with olive oil. Bake until pumpkin is tender and filling is puffed, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.
COOKS’ NOTE: Pumpkin can be filled 2 hours before baking and chilled.
Recipe from Gourmet magazine
Hurricane Sandy Comes To DC…Penn Quarter Closures
Hurricane Sandy is moving in to the DC area and much of the government and public transportation are shut down. Here in Penn Quarter a number of our neighborhood’s restaurants and businesses announced their plans on their Twitter feeds. The ones we saw so far are listed below and two of the hotel chains we saw are making special accommodations for those displaced.
Check out our PQ Living Twitter lists to monitor different types of businesses for their closing plans so you can make your own plans accordingly. One example is our restaurants list.
Announced closure plans: Bar Method, Jose Andres Think Food Group (Zaytinya, Oyamel), Protein Bar, E Street Cinema, Red Velvet Cupcakery, Luke’s Lobster, Madame Tussauds
Hotels with special accommodations: Kimpton (Hotel Monaco) and Willard Hotel
Storm updates from the Washington Post Live Updates blog page and the DC Government.
Stay safe!
“Help” Pop Up Store Coming To Old Waffle Shop Space (522 10th St NW)
The decal for the Help shop, a company specializing in simplified retail pharmaceuticals, went up in the old Waffle Shop space at 522 10th St NW across the street from Ford’s Theatre and PQ Living’s Columbo was on the scene to capture the newly decorated window (photo above). Help is a pop-up store that will open on Monday, October 29 and run for about a month through Sunday, November 25. The Washington CityPaper has a nice rundown on the store’s events that begin on the 29th. Help’s Facebook site has a pre-setup interior shot of the store.
What are simplified retail pharmaceuticals? Instead of having a headache, walking into a store, and saying “I have a headache therefore do I need…Bayer, Tylenol, or Advil…single or multi-symptom…red, green, or blue?” you walk into Help and look for the package that says “I have a headache” which contains pure acetaminophen. The name brands can bundle extra drugs into the same tab for multi-symptom relief which makes for lots of different boxes on a shelf but here you get a single box containing a single compound. The remedies offered by Help are advertised as having less drugs, less dyes, and less confusion and are simplified versions of what you might find in a big chain pharmacy. Is it a better way to buy remedies? We don’t know but we’ll check it out.
Help (pop-up) shop – 522 10th St NW – Website – Twitter – Facebook
Town Hall Meeting Tonight On Better Use Of DC’s Parks
Congresswoman Eleanor Norton will be hosting a town hall meeting this evening [PDF] to talk about our city’s parks with an array of stakeholders from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm at the Wilson Building (aka City Hall) in room 412 . Many of our city’s parks are actually owned and administered by the National Park Service, a Federal agency, and not by the DC city government.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D-DC) All-Parks Town Hall tomorrow, October 25, 2012, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the John A. Wilson Building (1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Room 412), will begin a community conversation on making National Park Service (NPS) parks in D.C. more neighborhood-friendly with a panel that has a diverse range of experiences and perspectives. The panel includes an NPS official (Steve Whitesell), a blog editor (David Alpert), a business improvement district executive director (Richard Bradley), a national urban parks non-profit executive director (Catherine Nagel), and a mother (Danielle Pierce). After opening the conversation, the panel will respond to questions and ideas from residents about enlivening their own green spaces to make them reflect the city’s diverse population.
“To cite a few examples, the District has some neighborhood parks full of children, others where single residents walk dogs and exercise, still others downtown and near downtown used by virtually every demographic, and some parks which simply offer peace, quiet, and nature,” Norton said. “We simply want to discuss how to make our neighborhood parks reflect us.”