A Summer Tryout: Friends Gather to Taste a New Menu for Calico

Chef Nate Beauchamp Brings a Party to an Urban Oasis

By Nathan Beauchamp | Photography by Ashley Hafstead | Styling by Tinsel Events

People often ask how we develop the concept for a new restaurant from the menu to the design. It really starts with a tiny idea that just grows until it becomes reality. And truly it is one of the most collaborative processes you can imagine.

One of the great inspirations for a new restaurant is travel. Whether a European café or Asian airport is our muse, e distill those experiences down to what we loved most and what the most important elements that need to be replicated to capture our concept. The vibe and character of the place are what we hold on to and try to recreate, even the colors and the smells. It also helps to work with very creative designers who can express our vision through the restaurant’s design. A good example of this idea-to-concept process is Tiger Fork, our new place in Blagden Alley where the design and feel are as important as the food, because we want to share what we loved with our guests about our travels in Asia and give them the best of what we experienced.

The other inspiration is good memories. My business partners all spent time on the Jersey shore, and we decided that we needed to develop a casual restaurant where we could serve up the food that we craved from the summers of our childhoods. Space was available in Blagden Alley where we felt could recreate the backyard vibe of our memories, with patio lights, trees and flowers. We built the menu around the Eastern seaboard summer picnic and the food we ate as kids. We tested some concepts with a picnic series at The Fainting Goat last year and we’ve continued to try things like we did in this meal. Simple food that is fun to share with a lot of flavor. I liked the idea of Jersey tomato pie, some delicious sides, and the hickory smoked brisket—keep it simple.

So stay tuned, we plan to open in September with a casual menu focused BBQ, crab feasts, steamed shrimp, local beers and cocktails on tap and special punches. The name? You can come find us at Calico at 50 South Blagden Alley this fall.

Watermelon Salad

• 1 medium, very ripe, round watermelon
• 10 ounces ricotta salata
• Saba or vin cotto*
• Mint leaves, roughly chopped

Slice watermelon in half width-wise, then make thin slices down toward the end, making sure that you don’t go completely through. Pull the chunks apart, creating a loose middle. Add cheese, sprinkle saba and cut mint and place on watermelon. Use forks and dive in!

* Saba—also known as sapa, vin cotto or mosco cotto—is an Italian syrup made from cooking down grape must.

Zesty Cucumber Salad

• ½ cup crème fraiche
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons dill
• 1 small red onion
• 6 cucumbers
• Salt and pepper to taste

Peel cucumbers and slice thinly. Thinly slice the red onion. Combine all the other ingredients and toss with cucumber and red onions.

Nate’s Grilled Corn on the Cob

• 6 ears shucked sweet corn
• 5 ounces beef jerky
• 1 garlic clove
• Zest and juice of 1 lime
• ½ pound chilled butter
• 2 tablespoons chopped basil
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 tablespoons espelette* or paprika

Combine the beef jerky, garlic, lime zest and basil and pulse in the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter until fully incorporated. Grill the corn for 5–7 minutes, until blistered. Brush with jerky butter. Toss with the espelette and serve.

* A Basque red pepper; paprika can substitute.

True Blue Maryland Crab Dip

• 1 pound Maryland lump crab*
• 1 cup Kewpie mayo**
• 1 tablespoon dry mustard
• 1 cup Gouda, grated
• 2 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce
• Salt to taste
• 1 cup panko-style breadcrumbs
• 2 tablespoons melted butter

Mix together all the ingredients but the breadcrumbs, and place in a shallow pan. Melt the butter and mix the breadcrumbs in, then place the buttered breadcrumbs on top of the crab mixture and bake for 30 minutes.

* True Blue is a labeling initiative for identifying real Maryland crab meat.

** Kewpie mayo is addictively umami and can be found at Japanese food stores.

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Eastern Shore native and RAMMY Award–winning Rising Star Chef Nathan Beauchamp, who won props for his work at Georgetown’s 1789, returned to Washington, DC, in 2014 after a stint in Minnesota to take on the executive chef position at U Street favorite The Fainting Goat. Since then, Beauchamp and his business partner, Greg Algie, have expanded to Shaw’s Blagden Alley with Tiger Fork, a restaurant that combines Hong Kong cool and global influences.

A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, NY, Beauchamp has also worked in acclaimed kitchens such as Park Avenue Café in NYC with David Burke, and in the DC area at Restaurant Eve, Vidalia and Bistro Bis. 

News from DMV Farmer Market News

By Arielle Weg

It’s finally the time of year where you can pick up sweet-as-candy tomatoes and juicy peaches at your local farm market. What’s new this season?

Bloomingdale Farm Market and 14 & U Street farm market welcome new weekly vendor Little Wild Things, an urban farm specializing in microgreens, salad greens and edible flowers.

The 14 & U Street Farm Market vendor Pecan Meadow is now growing and selling oyster and lion’s mane mushrooms.

FRESHFARM Capitol Riverfront Market makes its debut this season! Operated in partnership with the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District (BID) and located in Canal Park, steps from the Yards and Nationals Park. Locally grown produce, baked goods, pasture-raised meat, charcuterie, fresh pasta, crab cakes and oysters, fermented foods and pickles, coffee, cold-pressed juice, boba tea, popcorn, a beer garden and more. Be sure to stop by before Sunday-afternoon Nats games this summer!

FRESHFARM Mount Vernon Triangle Market has relocated to the corner of 5th and I Streets NW and expanded to a full-fledged farmers market, after operating for several years as a farm stand. 

FRESHFARM Penn Quarter Market has a new location on F Street NW, in front of the National Portrait Gallery. New to the market this year are Bun’d Up, serving savory bao buns; Ruby Scoops Ice Cream & Sweets, with seasonally inspired ice creams and baked goods; and Red Zebra, baking wood-fired pizzas.

FRESHFARM Rosslyn Market is a new market in the FRESHFARM network, located on the newly developed Central Place Plaza near the Rosslyn Metro station. Products available include fruits and vegetables, meats, baked goods, ice cream, and smoothies.

The Bethesda Central Farm Market has four new vendors joining them this season. Purchase premium kosher beef and lamb from Amish farms, including many cuts of meat not often available in the U.S. at Atara Foods. Taste Banner Bee Company’s delicious raw honey, raw comb honey, bee pollen granules and propolis chunks and tinctures. Or pick up a pure beeswax candle or honey- and beeswax-based bath and body products. Purchase green leaf sprouts at Potomac Sprout Company or fresh-shelled beans and peas from Thomas McCarthy Farm.

The Pike Central Farm Market will now offer fresh cheeses and yogurts from Blue Ridge Dairy, including fresh mozzarella, applewood-smoked mozzarella, burrata, fresh ricotta and aged feta. You can also sip on organic cold-pressed juices from the new Juice Fresh.

Mosaic Central Farm Market welcomes Conklin Farms, selling year-round vegetables, pasture-raised chickens, eggs, turkey, beef and more. Mosaic market has partnered with Frontier Kitchen, an incubator kitchen that provides and outlet and real-world sales experience to students. Vendors will rotate weekly from the kitchen, and permanent space has been given to Muggarz BBQ, selling handcrafted slow-smoked barbecued meats, and Sweet on the Bubbly selling specialty jams and marmalades. Other new vendors include Savagely Good, selling handmade pies.

The Olney Farm Market will welcome Maryland Cheesecake, selling homemade cheesecakes, including to-go cupcake sizes. They’ve also added Milkhouse Brewery at Stillpoint Farm in Mount Airy, MD, and new farmer Chef Russ, selling organic produce and prepared dinners. Russ Testa, owner of Your Chef’s Table, is the newest farmer to join the market, and he will be selling organic meal kits from his Brookeville farm.

The Takoma Park Farm Market will now feature market lunch options from Cabin Creek Heritage Farm plus pop-ups by local breweries Wardeca Brewing Company and Milkhouse Brewery.

Back-to-School: Farmer Edition

By Whitney Pipkin

Our farmer workforce is shrinking as farmers are getting older—according to the census, the average age of a farmer was 58.3 years and a third of farmers were older than 65 in 2012. In our region, 20% of farmers are approaching retirement. New farmer training that focuses on financial, environmental and community sustainability is essential to raise the next crop of farmers and ensure our region’s future food security.—Sarah Sohn, Future Harvest CASA

Laura Beth Resnick and Jascha Owens at Butterbee Farm. (Photo by Stacy Bauer)

For Vincent Matanoski, raising sheep and goats alongside vegetables and cut flowers was a significant departure from his most recent gig as a Naval reservist deployed for nearly two years to Africa. He worked as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice before that so, when he and his wife, Carin Celebuski, decided to buy land in Monkton, Maryland, and become farmers, “I felt like a total neophyte,” he says.

So, at 57, he went back to school.

The Beginning Farmer Training Program, offered by the Future Harvest Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (CASA), is where many local greenhorns like Matanoski begin becoming farmers, says the program’s director, Sarah Sohn.

The 9-year-old program has churned out more than 100 graduates so far, and this year, expanded to offer three tiers of courses for farmers at various stages of their budding careers. Many of these farmers go on to sell their produce or animal products locally, growing and raising them with their environmental impact in mind.

Sohn says the program added additional tiers for farmers who have been at it for three to five years, recognizing that they are still learning the ropes as they go.

“Even though these people are all categorized as ‘beginning farmers,’ their needs are very different,” she says.

After nearly a decade of training farmers in the area, the chances of running into a graduate or farmer-mentor at a local farmers market “are pretty good,” says Sohn. “It takes a village to do this type of farming.”

Gary Palmer

Holiday Memories Farm

Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Former firefighter, Gary Palmer, rides his vintage tractor at Holiday memories Farm. (Photo by Susan Able)

Gary Palmer jokes that he’s the beginning farmer program’s token senior citizen. But, at 57, he’s far from the only one finding a second career in the field.

After retiring from nearly 30 years as a DC firefighter, Palmer began a year-long search for the right piece of farmland, “kissing a lot of toads” and eventually landing on almost 23 acres in Maryland’s Anne Arundel County. The land seemed to lend itself to Christmas trees, which is how Palmer got started and how the business got its name: Holiday Memories Farm.

Palmer, who also owns a picture-framing business in Annapolis, has since added vegetables, free-range laying chickens, flowers and high tunnels for extended growing seasons to the farm operation. And he credits the beginning farmer program, as a third-year participant, with showing him the ropes.

“Not only was I learning how to farm, but I got exposure to a lot of vegetables and things that, to be perfectly frank, had never crossed my plate before,” he says.

His son-in-law, Zeke Pearson, a disabled veteran, works on the farm, and Palmer’s grandkids are often on site as well. The produce is sold at a farm stand along a major artery, and Palmer’s gone out of his way to get the attention of passersby. He painted an American flag on the top of the barn for the Fourth of July and added a Maryland flag across the front this past year.

“People pretty much know when they drive up and down that we’re the farm with the flag,” Palmer says.

But, just in case, he planted 6,000 sunflowers across the farm’s façade this past season “to attract both bees and customers.”

Laura Beth Resnick & Jascha Owens

Butterbee Farm

Baltimore County, Maryland

Laura Beth Resnick was going to school in New York City and hating it when her roommate went to work on a farm—and met a boy.

“I was, like, ‘I want to meet a boy,’” Resnick chortles. “So I went to work on a farm but did not meet any boys. That summer, I fell in love with farming.”

For Resnick, 28, the love part would come later, when she met her now-husband Jascha Owens, 31, who was an artist at the time, and turned him into a farmer, too.

When Resnick started the Beginning Farmer Training Program, she was interested in growing vegetables but quickly saw that the market near Baltimore was becoming saturated. After helping with her sister’s wedding (and still dreaming of her own), “I decided I should grow flowers.”

Now, she says, “I really think I would not have been as happy doing vegetables. I love the collaborations I get to do with florists, with these people who appreciate beauty.”

Resnick was 23 and just setting up her farm business when she was connected to mentors Jack and Beckie Gurley of Calvert’s Gift Farm through the program. If she was hunting for a particular piece of farm equipment or curious about growing in hoop houses, she now had someone to ask. Resnick already had a few farm internships under her belt by then, but the training program was particularly helpful to her husband, who participated the same year they got married, in 2016.

“For Jascha, just having an overview of what a farming season is like was crucial,” for both business and marriage, says Resnick. “It was nice that I didn’t have to teach him to farm but that he got his own education in farming somewhere else first.”

Carin Celebuski & Vince Matanoski

Ladybrook Farm

Monkton, Maryland

Farmers Vince Matanoski and Carin Celebuski at Ladybrook Farm. (Photo by Stacy Bauer.)

Carin Celebuski had already been back to school at the University of Maryland for a degree in horticulture when she signed up for the beginning farmer program in 2016. She and her husband, Vince Matanoski, had recently bought an 80-acre farm in Monkton, Maryland, and, the couple says, they needed all the help they could get launching a diversified business.

The program, Celebuski adds, “gives you a place to think about your business and demands that you think these things: What’s your business plan? How are you going to pay for things? What’s your farm philosophy?”

That’s why Celebuski, 58, insisted her husband do the program as well. Her interest in horticulture has segued into a budding career growing cut flowers, raising chickens for eggs and keeping bees for honey, and she knew her husband would need to carve out his own niche.

Matanoski, 57, had just gotten back from almost a year-long deployment in Africa when he hit the ground running at the farm, working to fence in pastures, plant trees and build barns to accommodate animal husbandry as part of the business. He’s learned the most from his mentor through the program, a former extension agent who raises sheep in Baltimore County.

As a former lawyer, “the interesting thing about farmers is they are extremely willing to share their knowledge and experience with all comers,” says Matanoski, who’s currently in the training program. “You have this shared passion and there’s an immediate bond.”

For more information on the Future Harvest CASA Beginning Farmer Training Program, or to apply for next year’s training classes, go to futureharvestcasa.org.

Brunch is a Serious Work of Art at the National Gallery

Bottomless and Buffet-Style, The Garden Café Wins on the Weekend

Charcuterie and cheese at the National Gallery of Art Garden Cafe brunch. (Photo compliments the National Gallery of Art)

By AJ Dronkers, EdibleDC

Weekend brunch is serious sport in Washington, D.C. Most restaurants, including those that feature our top local chefs, offer insane brunch specials to include the ubiquitous bottomless brunch. While you were fighting for a reservation on 14th street, the National Gallery of Art just launched what might be the best bottomless brunch experience, category: Buffet Edition.

No surprises here. Team EdibleDC loves brunch and has sampled our way through a fair share of DC's brunch options. As a rule of thumb, buffet-style anything is oft avoided, but we recently made an exception to try the new brunch at the Garden Café inside the National Gallery of Art. Surrounded by awe-inspiring art as you walk through the marbled gallery, we snagged a table next to a fountain centered with a female statue that in my imagination is saying, “Oh yasssss.” What the Garden Café might lack in a party vibe, it more than makes up for in ambiance and people watching.

The Garden Cafe at the National Gallery of Art West Building. (Photo compliments the National Gallery of Art)

Buffet brunch at the Garden Cafe. (Photo compliments of the National Gallery of Art)

For $30, you get an all-access ticket to the brunch buffet which includes traditional items like buttermilk pancakes, baked frittata, pork sausage and seasonal fruit. We opted to start with a heaping tray of imported charcuterie and cheese because, well, shouldn't everything in life start with cheese and champagne? Our group quickly decided to add on the $10 bottomless feature.

As we sipped on our second mimosa, we discovered roasted butternut squash, baby kale, and a Greek couscous salad. A pleasant addition, as we people watched gallery goers. 

Just as I began to realize how tipsy I’ll be for Game of Thrones, our waitress reminded us to try the roasted free range chicken and the short ribs. Seriously, cancel all your plans and get yourself to the National Gallery for brunch available now through September. You’ll thank us later.

The National Gallery of Art. (Photo compliments of the National Gallery of Art)

Full menu available here.    

National Gallery of Art

West Building 

6th & Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20565

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AJ Dronkers is the Associate Publisher and Digital Editor for EdibleDC Magazine. When he's not eating and drinking he's usually making up for it at spin. @aj_dc

Tiki Tsunami

DC rides the wave of island inspired cocktails

By Tim Ebner, Photographs by Rey Lopez

The rising tide of tiki-themed bars is washing ashore in Washington, DC, and bartenders are using local and seasonal ingredients, as well as far-away places, for tiki inspiration.

Say “tiki” to bartender Sarah Rosner, and she’ll immediately start talking about her tropical paradise: Hawaii. As a kid she grew up on the Big Island with passionfruit and mango trees in her backyard.

“We would run around the jungle and eat fresh mangos for lunch,” she says. “Those local and fresh ingredients continue to influence me, which is why I’m making tiki. It’s my love for island life.”

For a slice of Hawaii in DC, head to Radiator, where Rosner mixes inventive tiki cocktails amid poolside loungers, rooftop views and somewhat-tacky offbeat-tropical decor. The vibe here is definitively summer. And if that, combined with summer heat, doesn’t get you thinking South Pacific, the “Eddie Would Go” should do the trick.

It’s Rosner’s favorite tiki drink on the menu and reminds her of home. The drink’s name is in tribute to Hawaiian surf legend Eddie Aikau, and it contains a unique Hawaiian spirit—Okolehao, made from fermented ti root and sugar cane. The spirit is commonly known as Hawaiian moonshine and packs a punch when sipped straight.

Her “Eddie Would Go” adds to the booziness with green Chartreuse and a refreshing mix of grapefruit juice, cinnamon and local honey. To make the cocktail more local, Rosner recommends substituting a blend of Cotton & Reed white and dry spiced rum in place of Okolehao, which is hard to find outside Honolulu.

Part of the allure for tiki is that, for better or worse, you probably don’t know what you’re drinking—and you probably don’t care, says bartender Owen Thomson, co-founder of the tiki-themed bar Archipelago on U Street. There’s a lot of mysticism and mystery to the method of making tiki drinks, Thomson says. And many patrons, he says, are simply happy to drink from a flaming bowl of rum punch served in a cored out pineapple.

Luckily there are tiki purists, like Thomson, who have studied up on historic recipes. He can easily rattle off bars, like Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s, that opened in the 1930s and served carefully guarded cocktails from unmarked liquor bottles. More recently, he says bars like Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco and Three Dots and a Dash in Chicago have come to set the standard for popular drinks like the Mai Tai, the Daiquiri and the Painkiller.

“Really, there are no rules because tiki is something that’s constantly evolving and changing,” Thomson says. “As more bars open—especially here in DC—the experimentation continues, and the notion of a tiki cocktail gets bigger.”

That’s good news for the at-home bartender looking to make tiki drinks at home. Thomson says there are two essential ingredients to a good tiki bar: a collection of quality rums and fresh fruit juices. Of course, the tiki mug, spices, bitters and garnishes matter too. At Archipelago, the Banana Daiquiri not only has fresh-ripened bananas in the drink, but also a banana dolphin that watches as you drink.

Garnishes can also serve a purpose. At barmini, bartenders Miguel Lancha and Al Thompson use fresh sprigs of rosemary to help heighten the senses. “Each time you take a sip, you also smell the freshness of the herb,” Thompson says.
Breathe deep as you down this fruit-filled punch, inspired by the far-off flavors of Peru. The cocktail—Mohan Travels to Peru and Gets a Haircut—is named for the drink’s mohawk shape and Peruvian ingredients.

To make this cocktail, grab a classic tiki glass and add aged Demerera Rum, Peruvian Pisco and a popular Peruvian juice—Chicha Morada—made from purple corn, pineapple, cinnamon, clove and sugar. While some might question whether a Peruvian-inspired drink can truly be tropical or tiki, Thomson says tiki has no real or defined boundaries.

“That’s part of the beauty,” Thomson says. “Tiki is a drink that’s from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.”

RECIPES

Drink: The Eddie Would Go

Drink: Banana Daiquiri Take No. 653

Drink: Mohan Travels to Peru and Gets a Haircut

Ingredient Trending: Activated Charcoals Fire Up District Menus

By Arielle Weg

Charcoal grills are a perfect way to cook up succulent steaks and juicy burgers, but would you ever consider adding the black powdery stuff to your food? With a slew of health benefits and a wicked color, more eateries around the District are getting behind this food trend and sprinkling activated charcoal powder over their dishes and drinks.

The Japanese-inspired restaurant Himitsu serves up The Black Out cocktail, balancing sweet, spice, sour and herbaceous agave-based booziness, says Carlie Steiner, owner and beverage director at Himitsu. The cocktail shakes up tequila, jalapeño, honey, pineapple and activated charcoal, strained over ice into a coupe glass. (Note: The Black Out just rotated off the cocktail list, but ask for it and you’ll get a chance to try it!)

The Black Out cocktail at Himitsu.

“The thought of curating a black cocktail and expecting harsh, dark flavors but then tasting that cocktail and recognizing the light, refreshing flavors and aromas was just fun and it gave our guests a bit more of an interactive experience,” says Steiner.

And she’s absolutely right. The cocktail uses only an eighth of one charcoal capsule, so it’s more for the fun element than flavor.

JRINK Juice also mixes up a charcoal treat. Their Black Magic juice incorporates activated charcoal, aloe vera, grape, apple and lemon juices into a grape-flavored lemonade. JRINK recommends this dark drink to relieve indigestion, increase energy and purify your insides after a day of eating or drinking not so well. Black Magic uses charcoal so fine that it is virtually tasteless in the drink but, according to the JRINK website, it contributes detoxifying properties like aiding in digestion, getting you over a hangover, lowering your cholesterol, soothing bile flow problems and trapping chemicals.

Can’t get enough of charcoal juice? Downtown DC juice bar Fruitive hopped on the charcoal wagon with their charcoal limeade. It’s made with lime, pineapple, activated charcoal, water and ginger. The bold beverage is described as citrusy and spicy and is also supposed to be great for cleansing. You can also pick up a charcoal lemonade at Greenheart Juice shop (made with lemon, coconut nectar, activated charcoal and bentonite clay) or stop by South Block Juice Co. for a Rehab Juice (coconut water, coconut meat, Madagascar vanilla and activated charcoal) or an Activate Juice (apple, aloe, lemon and activated charcoal) to help cure your hangover and prevent toxins from being absorbed.

Charcoal is more than just an addition to sippable concoctions. Try Bidwell’s charcoal pizza dough, described as a natural purifier with the ability to aid in digestion, or Capitol Kettle Corn’s acai and charcoal powder popcorn. What better way to celebrate the season of barbecues and beers than with fun charcoal-inspired sips and snacks?