Ray's the Steaks

People were constantly raving to us about this show called "Mad Men". It was on basic cable. We'd never seen it. We weren't especially interested in finding a new show. And then WHAM! We were monster "Mad Men" fans. Holy God how could a show that good be airing every week while we were putzing around trying to find something other than that home building makeover show on a Sunday night. And of course, Mad Men is about all the drinkin' and smokin' and general overindulgence and well a blog is just no place to try to break it all down except to say that walking into Ray's the Steaks was just like that first experience with "Mad Men".

Ray's the Steaks had been getting raves for years. We'd heard of it. Heck, even our friends in Md were raving about the outpost Ray's the Classics there. For Heaven's sake, even the President had been to it's sister restaurant Ray's Hell Burger. The reviews I read were certainly stellar - but there was this offputting vibe in them - "you're certainly not paying for the decor" is actually on the menu, and is repeated in the reviews. The old space, they said, was a bit tight and throughly unadorned. The new space has a minimally-posher reserved area and a casual walk-in dining area. We hadn't gone. We'd kinda meant to but we weren't going out of our way for it or anything.

Then my beloved husband got a well-deserved promotion. I made a 5 p.m. reservation. Yes, I said FIVE P.M.. We are nuts. Actually we are fortunate that Jac gets out of work early and we can beat the rush at good restaurants. Also we are practicing to be elderly. We started with a salad and scallops. I was devouring my salad in such a manner that half way through I pushed it aside determined that it would make a terrific lunch the next day. Jac liked his scallops but is yearning for the crisp caramelized contortions of the bacon-wrapped dates we got at Founding Farmers recently.

When that freaking steak showed up at our table. O-M-G. Let me just say this. I am a former quasi-vegetarian with strong veg-leanings. I am perfectly happy being meatless for whatever period of time. I also bristle about ordering steak in a restaurant because I am not a med-rare/medium gal. I need the thing dead and cooked, not just warmed up a bit. This is a belief deeply frowned upon in fine dining establishments. You SHOULD want your meat mooing at you they think. You are clearly an idiot if you want your food, you know, cooked. So I bowed to peer pressure and went with Medium. It was a calculated guess. Anyway, my marriage brought meat with it and this steak was amazing.

Jac's steak came with a port wine sauce that I would like to bathe in. I would like to cover bread with it. If I put something with nutritional value in it I would eat it as soup. The waiter added a gratis suggestion - a brandy mushroom sauce. Mushrooms are not my favorite vegetable, but again I trusted my instincts and took the two mushrooms he gave me with a single bite of steak. If those had been the first mushrooms I'd ever been given I would have insisted on mushrooms every day of my life. Jac brought the sauce and steak home to make into a sandwich for tomorrow.

Our waiter was a delight. I tipped him either 30 or 50% depending how tipsy I was when I tallied the cash on the table and the part of the tip I put on the credit card. We both had a couple of drinks. The steaks came with heavenly mashed potatoes and creamed spinach to share. Our dinner was $103 (before tipping incident). A frigging bargain for a nice meal in Arlington. We will be back. We will SO be back.

Squash Gratin Another Way

Eggy has been working on Year Two of his garden and it's starting to yield some tasty rewards. I had my pick of three enormous squash for my take on 100 Cookbooks' Summer Squash Gratin. Hers looked absolutely superb and I was totally game for it, except I ended up having to work long hours and didn't get a start on it until late in the day so when she wanted me to create an herb sauce and dress the squash with it, that was a little beyond my ability at that moment. My version is probably far cheesier and a little differently spiced than hers. I will go back and try 100 Cookbooks' recipe since at dinner Eggy mused, "I wonder what this would taste like without the cheese." Blasphemous if you ask me, but I have a feeling we're going to have an abundance of veggies around here so whatever I can do - even if it means a gratin without cheese, then so be it!

Actually, for me the breadcrumbs were the hit of this dish. I processed two slices of country white bread and half a sleeve of Ritz crackers. She called for lemon zest mixed in the squash but I only had lemon peel in the spice cabinet. I processed that into the bread crumbs as well. She called for oregano, but it's not my favorite spice (I dunno sometimes I get a sour note from it?) so I used rosemary and parsley. I forgot to add the red pepper flakes which is usually irrelevant in our house since my husband adds them to everything. Also, I this 12 oz. block of Gruyere cheese that was "use by" just a few days later, so I put the whole thing in, you know, instead of the 3/4 cup Gruyere she called for. Salt, pepper. 400 degree oven for 50 minutes. It was the leftover I went back to for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I can't wait to make it again.

A Lovely Lunch in Old Town

When the sun came out on a Saturday morning we knew we had to do something with that remarkable fluke. Jac and I headed to Old Town, Alexandria for a little trip to the markets - crafts and then farmer's. We brought the dogs. Lexi was thrilled at all the attention. Kirby wanted to fold himself into an invisible clump of fur. Still, sitting outside at a restaurant with the dogs is such a wonderful thing. I wish they could go everywhere.

I was in the mood to spoil my husband, so we went to the Fish Market restaurant. He had oysters and a shrimp po' boy. My lunch was completely forgettable I just wanted to get to the post-lunch Ben & Jerry's cone.

Moronblogging: My Very Secret Private Cell Call

It's Thursday night in the Walmart produce department. The place where I like to make all of my most important calls. Afterall, what's emptier than the fresh food section of a freaking Walmart? I am rambling around trying to talk in my high secret voice about secret and important things. Like the ball in Pong I keep bouncing off the edges of the department and crossing paths with danger - Stranger danger! Strangers trying to listen in to the calls that I am CLEARLY making in the PRIVACY section of my local big box electronics/grocery/automotive/housewares/clothing store! Sheesh, don't people respect peoples' privacy any more?!?!? When I set out a clear semi-diagonal pattern with rhythmic distortions I expect people to stay out of my way dammit. Wait, are you listening to me again? I am talking quieter than Billy Mays! That's eavesdropping!

If you wanted to get corn, onions, peppers, and squash you should have planned better - or brushed up on your Pong before you came in here, because I'm at an advanced level of crazy.

Sibling Symmetry

This is truly a case where an image is worth well over a thousand words. It may take more than that to explain what's brought Lexi and Kirby to choose to sit together in the foot space behind one seat in the back seat of our compact car. The drive is 3 to 4 hours on a summer Friday.

See, Lexi did have a fear of cars when we first got her. She was a bit scared of the motion. She would try to crawl into the front seat or onto the floor in the back. But she grew up, she became our Big Girl. She learned that usually when in the car she was going somewhere awesome! So she kind of chilled.

Then came Kirby. Kirby reminded us that dogs don't come pre-programmed for car travel. Every trip for months he got car sick. This was a bit tedious considering we were going to the river pretty much every weekend. Drive down. Puke. Drive back. Puke. It was quite a vicious cycle. Plus he didn't like the idea of getting in the car. Afterall, as a rescue, not all of his car trips had turned out so great. But even Kirby, finally settled down.

Suddenly, everyone was in the groove. We'd look back and one would be peering out the window while the other was sleeping. Harmony.

Now, just as suddenly. Everybody wants to sit on the floor, behind the driver, together. As I try to mentally do the insurance underwriting on sitting on the floor versus sitting unbuckled on the back seat, I wonder what's so cool about cramming in on the floor. I'm like way too old and human to know.

Swine Flu or Possibly You

I know I'm always claiming things are busy chez magniferous, but sometimes there really are two to three things happening nearly simultaneously. And yet I manage to be cool as a cucumber. Part of that coolness can be attributed to the fact that we turned our air conditioner on for the season on January 9th and we have been trying to keep the house at a chill temp ever since.

We live in a 1930's bungalow (yes, that's it above). The first two summers here we were plagued by heat of the highest order. We'd run the AC and get a whopper bill and still be mopping our brows. The contractors said we have an undersized unit mismatched with an exterior unit. It's fairly hysterical to me because that is the very same thing they said in our last house - only there the mismatch worked and our AC was great. Some discussions went on about how to fix the air problem. All of them involved a lot of dollars we didn't have at the time.

Then, one day, on a whim, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought six pairs of curtains for our enclosed front porch. The impact of small (obvious) things cannot be overlooked. The house is quite livable now (as in it is possible to tell that cool air is being generated and circulated), but we always have to stay two steps ahead of the heat or it'll be 87 degrees in here until October.

Anyway, for a while we had my double second cousin as a houseguest. It was kind of fun having a roommate besides the beloved Jac. But he tells me at some point we might want to use our spare room for some other purpose. So off to greener digs she went. We're looking forward to serious R&R this weekend at the river. There are just a bunch of little annoyances piling up that can only be cured with the appropriate amount of sloth and beauty. Oh, and I'm going to take the Robitussin because there may be something to that "science & medicine" stuff. Oh right, I'm sick, like nasty cold sick. I have always been a "never get sick person" then my body decided to contract a superbug and mint kidney stones at an alarming rate and now the whole kit & kaboodle ain't worth what I paid for it. Or something.

Mobile Moronblogging

Moronblogging on the road. Just another idiot turning left from a side street into the right lane where he wanted to go 15 MPH and then got huffy when I tooted at him.

I Love My Retarded Dog

We are at the dog park. It is the most radiant not-too-hot spring day imaginable. We've walked the length of the park and that went well. Now I am sitting at a park bench and Lexi is begging me to take them to meet more people while Kirby is cowering under the table watching everything around him with excitement and anxiety. He clearly wants to go play buy doesn't want to leave the safety of his park bench cocoon. I want him to go out and play and have given him all the encouragement that it's gonna be okay. This might just be one of those love the dog under the bench kind of days. Lexi is barking mad with jealousy.