Beating the Swine Flu blues...with bacon!

It’s no secret that our beloved piggy has gotten a bad rap over the past two months. Sure, the swine flu (sorry, the "H1N1 Virus") gave a handful of Americans a nasty tummy ache, scared the bajeezus out of the entire country, and may or may not be the first sign of the apocalypse—but cheer up! According to the WHO, the virus cannot be transmitted through eating pork, so we’re all free to nosh on as much bacon as we desire before we’re wiped off the planet by the imminent pandemic.

OK, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Either way, now is a better time than ever to take advantage of the many creative ways D.C. restaurants are utilizing America’s favorite meat: crispy, savory bacon. But we’re not talking about the typical artery-clogging side order that accompanies your tall stack of pancakes at the local greasy-spoon diner (booooooring). These restaurants are looking beyond the breakfast table and incorporating bacon into all kinds of culinary masterpieces—cocktails, entrees, desserts, the possibilities are limitless!

As fair warning, readers with a heart condition or a tendency to drool uncontrollably should not click the following link.

Bloody Swine Bloody Mary at Nage
It’s science - nothing kills a hangover like a pile of greasy bacon and a tall Bloody Mary. And Nage in Scott Circle is perfectly aware of this fact. That’s why they created the Bloody Swine Bloody Mary – an intriguing blend of house-infused garden vodka, guajillo pepper Bloody Mary mix, and chopped bacon, served with celery and an Old Bay rim.

Sounds a tad indulgent, no? That’s kind of the point. The cocktail isn’t meant to be sipped on a Friday night – it’s only purpose is to give your hangover a stiff slap in the face. And believe it or not, it’s surprisingly palatable. Each sip sends tiny bits of bacon through the straw, which mingles well with Nage’s extra-spicy Mary mix.

Damage: $15 for a bottomless glass (only available for Sunday brunch).

BLT Cocktail at PX
Leave it up to a faux speakeasy to develop a bacon-infused evening cocktail. The quirky drink menu at Alexandria’s PX features a BLT Cocktail, a zesty mix of bacon-infused vodka, tomato water and iceberg lettuce ice.

Don’t be ashamed if you have no idea what any of those ingredients mean. Here’s a quick translation: For “bacon-infused vodka,” PX adds bacon fat to vodka, freezes it, and when the fat rises to the top of the bottle, skims it off. The “tomato water” is relatively self-explanatory (mostly clear with a faint reddish tinge), but “lettuce ice?” The bartender literally juices iceberg lettuce and freezes it for the ice cube.

Admit it, you’re a little curious.

Damage: $13 (available starting in June, when tomatoes are back in season)

Grilled Double-Cut Bacon Appetizer at BLT Steak
As the name implies, BLT Steak’s Double-Cut Bacon Appetizer is for true bacon lovers only. Slab bacon is cut into impossibly thick slices (1/4-1/2 inches), grilled to a light char, and served with chopped parsley, garlic and olive oil and finished with Spanish sherry vinegar.

This is the perfect opener to a hearty American steakhouse meal. Each slice of bacon is remarkably tender and flavorful, as the sweetness of the sherry mingles perfectly with the garlic and olive oil.

Damage: $9

Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwich at BLT Steak
Bacon purists will be quick to distinguish pulled pork from bacon. True, the two dishes are usually completely different, albeit delicious in their own right – but not at BLT Steak. The downtown steakhouse prepares the pork for their BBQ sandwich with 100% slab bacon. The slab is simmered in duck fat for ten hours, then prepared in a confit of its own fat until it begins to fall apart into small, shredded pieces. The bacon is served in a tangy house barbecue sauce with pickled scallions on a sweet potato bun.

(Insert long, exaggerated slobbering sound here).

Damage: $16

Bacon Mac & Cheese at Co Co Sala
An upscale dessert and chocolate lounge may not be the first stop on a quest for bacon, but downtown’s Co Co Sala happens to be home to one of the most savory uses of the meat in the District. Their Bacon Mac & Cheese is one of the most popular items on the restaurant’s small plates menu, featuring chopped applewood smoked bacon, orichette pasta, parmesan, yellow cheddar, asiago, gruyere, onion, chives, garlic and Cajun seasoning.

Staying true to the lounge's theme, the Bacon Mac and Cheese is served with an extra crispy chocolate-covered strip of bacon. You can kid yourself and try to keep the little guy for a mini-dessert, but we both know it doesn't stand a chance of lasting that long.

Damage: $7

Fried Green Tomato BLT at Saint Ex

There aren’t many dishes that can be enjoyed at any time of day. That’s likely the reason why Cafe Saint Ex has continued to offer its Fried Green Tomato BLT for over four years, despite weekly updates to the brunch and dinner menus.

One of the bistro’s most popular dishes, the Fried Green Tomato BLT fits thick slices of tender applewood smoked bacon, lightly breaded and fried slabs of green tomato, and zesty tomato mayonaise between slices of soft ciabatta. The sandwich usually comes with a salad, but don’t be shy to subsitute in a side of sweet potato fries. After all, when you’re brunch order already includes a pile of bacon, you might as well go all out.

Damage: $10 (available for both brunch and dinner)

Mo's Chocolate Bar from Vosges at Biagio Fine Chocolates
Ever bite into a chocolate bar and think to yourself, “man, this could really use a little more saturated fat.” No? Well then, maybe you wouldn’t fully appreciate Mo’s Bacon Bar from Chicago-based chocolatier, Vosges.

The simultaneously sweet and savory concoction blends applewood smoked bacon, alder wood smoked salt, and 41% cacao deep milk chocolate. Each bite of the Mo’s bar contains finely chopped bits of bacon and an unexpectedly smooth aftertaste.

Can’t wait for the bar to be shipped from the Midwest? Luckily, you can also purchase the Mo’s bar in half-ounce and three-ounce portions at Adams Morgan’s Biagio Fine Chocolates.

Damage: $6.50 for the three-ounce bar, $2.50 for the half-ounce sample size.

Bacon Salt
Let’s recap: Bacon in a sandwich? Been there, done that. In a chocolate bar? A bit more unique, but still not blown away. Bacon in a cocktail? OK, that might be stretching it.

But we haven’t even gotten started. Of all the bizarre bacon medleys you can market in a fancy-schmancy restaurant, think of all the half-brained concoctions you can conjure up in your kitchen. Ever wonder how bacon-flavored popcorn or tomato soup would taste? Or heck, why not bacon-infused yogurt in the morning?

All of that and more is now available, thanks to Bacon Salt. That’s right, one small plastic container opens up a whole new culinary world – a new “baconation,” if you will. And as if that’s not enough to send you sprinting to the grocery store, all three of Bacon Salt’s flagship flavors (Original, Peppered and Hickory) are 100% Vegetarian and Kosher.

Damage: Just under $6 at your friendly neighborhood Giant

http://dc.metromix.com/restaurants/article/beating-the-swine-flu/1200932/content

Recap: Jukebox The Ghost at The Rock And Roll Hotel

Philadelphia-by-way-of-D.C. outfit Jukebox The Ghost has to be getting sick of all the comparisons to Ben Folds. Sure, it’s hard to talk about the trio’s addictively bubbly, light-hearted piano pop without mentioning Folds’ name—and it doesn’t help that the group opened for the iconic piano man on a nationwide tour earlier this year. But if there’s one thing that the band proved during last Saturday night’s show at The Rock And Roll Hotel, it’s that Jukebox The Ghost is not just another saccharine pop band.

Navigating a set list that included ditties about nervous childhood crushes; an angry, vengeful God; urges toward self-immolation; and a three-part account of the apocalypse, Jukebox The Ghost definitely kept the crowd engaged for more than an hour. Perhaps as a result of the band’s D.C. roots (all three members graduated from George Washington University in 2007), each song from its debut LP, Let Live And Let Ghosts, prompted cheers and subsequent sing-alongs. But the true highlight of the night was the band’s unrecorded new work, most notably the synth-infused “Schizophrenia,” reminiscent of a Disney-fied Joy Division (or, say, The Killers).

Jukebox has been accused of being overly chatty, and that was certainly the case on Saturday night. But to his credit, frontman Ben Thornewill was sufficiently charming throughout the set, at one point even exchanging shirts with a fan in order to sing the last few songs in a Jukebox The Ghost T-shirt.

Opening for Jukebox was Chicago’s The Winter Sounds and Brooklyn sweetheart Jenny Owen Youngs. Youngs’ set was especially well-received and similar to the work of Jenny Lewis or an toned-down version of Metric. Near the end of the Jukebox set, Youngs and her band contributed to a few collaborations, including an inspired cover of New Order’s “Temptation.”

As Jukebox The Ghost came out for its encore, the show assumed a tone of sentimental farewell. After two and a half years of incessant touring, with occasional stops in the District, Thornewill said the band will soon take a break and begin working on a second album. In an attempt to lighten the mood before their last song, Thornewill joked that even he had “been sick of [the band] for about four months now.”

http://www.avclub.com/dc/articles/jukebox-the-ghost-at-the-rock-and-roll-hotel%2C28425/

Filmmaking on the fly: The best of the 48 Hour Film Project

In 2001, a group of D.C. filmmakers conducted a casual artistic experiment: randomly select a genre, a prop, a line of dialogue, and a central character, and attempt to shoot and edit a finished short film in a weekend. Two days and one film noir-inspired private eye flick later, the 48 Hour Film Project was born.

“We had no idea if you could even make a film in 48 hours—and, if so, whether anyone could stand to watch it,” says Mark Ruppert, co-founder and Executive Producer of the 48 Hour Film Project. Within a few months, tales of the experiment’s success spread throughout the region’s film community. Now in its eighth year, the 48 Hour Film Project covers nearly 80 cities and a record 35,000 filmmakers worldwide.

Despite stops in more prominent filmmaking hubs like Los Angeles, New York City, and London, the 48 Hour Film Project Tour's most popular site is the District, with more than 100 official entries this year. “[The project] has strong roots in D.C.,” Ruppert explains. “Most people don’t realize how large of a filmmaking community we have here.”

This year's D.C. project began at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 1, when Ruppert announced the submission requirements. By rule, every entry had to incorporate a predetermined character (a coach named Eve or Ivan Pagoda), prop (an ID card), and line of dialogue ("We're hoping things will change."). A representative from each team then randomly selected the genre for their film, with the option to invoke one “wild card” to replace an especially unfortunate style (say, musical). By 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, the team had to write, shoot, edit, and deliver an original four-to-seven-minute film. Beyond the required elements, all subjects, images, and language were fair game.

We know what some of you are thinking: a rigidly structured, timed amateur filmmaking competition? Sounds like fertile grounds for a shitstorm of self-indulgent, unwatchable movies. Well, that’s only partially accurate. In all sincerity, there are glimpses of true mastery of the craft in this year’s batch—enough for any D.C. native to be genuinely proud of our city’s understated cinematic prowess. To help save your eyes from, say, a five-minute mockumentary of an ambiguously gay pair of aliens sent to earth to harvest organs (a real submission this year), The AFI Silver Theater will be screening its “Best Of D.C.” collection this Thursday, May 21, at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

The city’s Best Film team will go on to compete for top honors at Filmapalooza 2010 at the National Association Of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas. Oh, and a handful of the year’s best films will be screened at the Short Film Corner of the MOTHERFUCKING CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. So yeah, no big deal.

The A.V. Club sifted through the rubbish ahead of time and picked out a few films to look out for at the Best Of D.C. screening:

“Rakirovka” (Foreign Film), WIT Films
Working with arguably the toughest pull in the genre pool, WIT turned in the most compelling and aesthetically beautiful piece in the group. “Rakirovka” is an intense abstract depiction of one Russian man’s chess match with his Valkyrie-inspired nemesis. In lieu of a steady narrative (the director intelligently opted to omit the ubiquitous Russian narrator from the subtitles), captivating imagery drives the film, as the camera weaves in and out of each player’s psyche.

“The Imperial” (Detective/Cop), Dead City Films
Probably the greatest achievement in the group for both cinematography and score, “The Imperial” documents the final moments of an FBI agent’s odyssey to bring a fugitive couple to justice. Though the film’s dialogue is scarce and, for the most part, uninspired, it’s rarely missed. Instead of rambling explanations of the criminal’s backstory, the Dead City Team builds suspense through masterful camera work and a swirling, impressively complex soundtrack.

“Stonking” (Mockumentary), The Quest
After watching “Stonking,” one has to wonder whether The Quest production team had already committed to a mockumentary before pulling the genre on Friday night—the writing and casting are simply too polished to be purely off-the-cuff. Without a doubt the funniest entry in this year’s competition, “Stonking” documents the shooting of a 30-second TV spot for a bumbling candidate for Ward 6 ANC Commissioner, Randall Stoneking. (Yes, the title’s spelling error is intentional.) Taking noticeable stylistic pages out of The Office’s book, the film features a series of mock interviews with local small-timers, each suffering from a familiar delusional sense of self-importance. Between satirical stabs at the film’s central figure and his incompetent campaign staff, the script weaves in a subtle tone of self-deprecation through the equally inane, bush-league film crew. “Stonking” also gets a shout-out for the most creative use of a prop, working in a shot of a dangling ID card effectively framed by a certificate reading “Best Use of Prop—48 Hour Film Project.” Well played.

“He Drove” (Comedy), Dobler’s Pen
In short, “He Drove” is the story of a hangover. An attractive woman wakes up in a strange man’s bed and gradually begins piecing together the previous night’s tequila-induced sexual exploits, while her host hides in the shower, frantically washing off whatever unholy STDs he may have acquired overnight. Yadda, yadda, yadda—we’ve all been there. Though the story isn’t exactly revolutionary for a comedy, the team’s approach to telling it is both noteworthy and wildly entertaining. Throughout the film, the characters are accompanied by a crowd that personifies their multi-faceted psyches: the hyper-critical mother figure, the overly dramatic prom queen, the courteous gentleman, and the horny frat boy. The result is a comedic depiction of the conflicting inner voices working behind the scenes of each awkward conversation, making the already uncomfortable situation even more excruciating. “He Drove” also takes the prize for the most inconspicuous use of both the required line and character—if you’re not actively searching, you’re likely to miss them both.

“Gwendolyn Dangerous And The Great Space Rescue” (Film de Femme), Integral Arts
If it wasn’t for the competition’s time restraints, the intentionally campy “Gwendolyn Dangerous” would likely be a forgettable entry. The titular heroine sneaks aboard the spaceship of Hassan The Heinous (played by Wyatt Cenac look-alike Theodore M. Snead) to save her sister from a lifetime of sex slavery, only to find out that she has come down with a stiff case of Stockholm Syndrome. Nothing about the film is remarkable, but the primary cast turns in a fine comedic performance, and the script effectively embraces and satirizes the hokiness of a CGI-saturated SciFi channel hero flick. The production team’s unmatched use of 3D modeling and special effects is also worth noting, especially considering that it was patched together in just two days. Now there are certainly better films to come out of this year’s 48 Hour Film Project, but few, if any, leave the audience with such a feeling of innocent, uncomplicated enjoyment.

http://www.avclub.com/dc/articles/filmmaking-on-the-fly-the-best-of-the-48-hour-film,28189/

NewsBabes Bash for Breast Cancer

They make sure we avoid traffic jams in the morning. They give us a rundown of the bills that hit the floor of Congress, remind us when we need to bring an umbrella and let us know the final score of last night's game. And above all else, they look spectacular in a pink cocktail dress.

On May 13th, a group of the hottest women ever to read the news in the nation’s capital gathered at K Street’s Lotus Lounge to raise money for The Susan G. Komen Foundation. Anchors in attendance included Anita Biirkman (WUSA), Andrea Roane (WUSA), Angie Goff (WUSA), Eun Yang (NBC4), Laura Evans (FOX5), Alison Starling (WJLA) and Pamela Brown (WJLA).

The NewsBabe Bash raised over $4,000 for breast cancer research and awareness initiatives. All donors enjoyed $5 Absolut Cosmos, light hor d’oeuvres, Hello Cupcakes, door prizes, gift bags donated by The Full Cup, and a mesmerising display of dancing from the Washington National’s lovable goofball mascot, Teddy Roosevelt. He may not be much on the base path, but the man is a dancing machine!

http://dc.metromix.com/events/photogallery/newsbabes-bash-for-breast/1175609/content

Taking in the sights and tastes of Old Town

Did you know that George Washington and Robert E. Lee attended services at the same Old Town church? Or that the British Royal Family used to request Alexandria Jelly Cake whenever its representatives traveled to the region? How about the fact that you can stomach three full meals in as many hours and still have room for dessert?

Oh, the things you can learn on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

For the past two years, DC Metro Food Tours has offered walking tours of historic Old Town Alexandria with stops at some of the area’s most well-known restaurants. Each three-hour tour begins at scenic Market Square and sweeps through the neighborhood's picturesque cobbled streets, with stops at the Alexandria Waterfront, the Torpedo Factory Art Center and the Alexandria Lyceum. Though that might sound like a lot of exercise for a weekend afternoon, the trek is strategically spliced by sit-down tastings at Bilbo Baggins, Union Street Public House, The Pita House and The Carriage House Shop.

“There’s so much more to the city than the monuments,” said founder and regular tour guide of DC Metro Food Tours, Jeff Swedarsky. “And you can really get to know an area through its food.” Swedarsky’s goal was to design a tour that showcased the beauty, history and culinary prowess of his town.

“It’s not just history. It’s the people, the cultures that have moved into the area and influenced it – not just economically, but through cuisine as well,” Swedarsky said. “In a couple of hours, you can immerse yourself in a neighborhood you might not have known, and what better way to learn than through food?”

Starting May 16, DC Food Tours will expand to the District, offering dining tours of Capitol Hill. Though Swedarski is still finalizing the details of the Capitol Hill Food Tour, the tastings are likely to include a medley of soul food, El Salvadorean, Anglo-Indian, and Eastern European Jewish cuisine.

In addition to the daytime walking tours, DC Metro Food Tours offers more intimate evening dine-arounds, featuring starters and a several-dish tasting at two restaurants. The group also organizes custom tours for corporate events, birthdays, anniversaries and other celebrations. Most tours cost $50-58 per ticket.

http://dc.metromix.com/restaurants/article/taking-in-the-sights/1146730/content