Localize It

Posted on by Sacha Cohen

Back in the day, you had your “local”–the restaurant or bar right around the corner where you were a regular and everyone knew your name. The Daily Dish in Silver Spring is just such a place.

Housed in the same space as the former Red Dog Cafe, the Daily Dish combines comfort food (think addictive mac & cheese, fresh home-made bread, wood-oven fired pizza) with a commitment to using local ingredients.

“The Daily Dish reflects our passion for food,” says co-owner Zena Polin. “As a neighborhood restaurant, we really believe in serving delicious food made with quality ingredients. We like to serve comfort food with a twist — food that is seasonally inspired and locally sourced, whenever possible.”

Starters include baked local goat cheese with roasted tomato sauce and focaccia, homemade soups, and salads. For dinner, you can tuck into a tender brined organic roast chicken served with green beans and mashed sweet potatoes or salmon made to order and served with creamy polenta and vegetables.

Owners Polin and Jerry Hollinger bring many years of restaurant and catering experience to the venture and have tapped Chef Michael Chretien, formerly of Rock Creek Mazza restaurant, to head up the kitchen. The Daily Dish sources produce from local farmers and the Takoma Park Farmer’s Market, grains from the Silver Spring Co-Op, fair trade coffee from Silver Spring-based Clear Mountain Coffee, ice-cream from Moorenko’s, and sausages from Let’s Meat on the Avenue in Del Ray. They are also looking into getting meat and poultry from Polyface Farms.

The wine list, carefully selected by Polin for both affordability and quality, includes three organic wines (Torrontes, Malbec, and Tempranillo) from the Santa Julia vineyard in Argentina as well as several offerings from Charlottesville’s Kluge Estate.

On Sundays, don’t miss the “Make Your Own” Bloody Mary Bar, house-cured gravalax, or challah French toast. To kick the recession blues, try three-course $30 Thursdays or half-price wine Tuesdays. Who knows–with great food and deals like these, you, too, may become a regular.

The Daily Dish is located at 8301 A Grubb Road, 301.588.6300, and is open seven days a week.

Brave Food World

Posted on by Sacha Cohen
Joel Palentin of Polyface Farms courtesy of Food, Inc.
Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms courtesy of Food, Inc.

Eat something organic before you head to see Food, Inc., the provocative new documentary from filmmaker Robert Kenner, featuring authors Michael Pollan (An Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) because you surely won’t want to eat after watching it.

The film serves up a stomach-churning look inside the highly mechanized world of food production, from chickens that never see daylight to cows forced to stand all day in their own feces. Even seemingly innocent soybeans are revealed to be “patented” by chemical giant Monsanto in their effort to control seed production and independent farmers.

Perhaps even more disturbing than the shocking reality of modern food production gone awry is that the agencies (FDA, USDA) that are supposedly there to protect us are in cahoots with the handful of corporations that put profit ahead of our health, the livelihood of the American farmer, and the safety of workers and our own environment.

Interspersed among the food borne illnesses and soul-less, window-less factories are interviews with colorful social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin. Says local hero Salatin,“Imagine what it would be if, as a national policy, we said we would be only successful if we had fewer people going to the hospital next year than last year? The idea then would be to have such nutritionally dense, unadulterated food that people who ate it actually felt better, had more energy and weren’t sick as much…  now, see, that’s a noble goal.”

Besides strengthening my resolve to not eat processed food and to support local producers whenever possible, the take-away for me was that we must pay even closer attention to what we are eating and why. Vote with your wallet by choosing locally grown food and organics, eschew mass-produced meats, corn syrup laden snacks and genetically modified produce. We can’t afford not to.

Ellwood Thompson’s is Coming to Columbia Heights

Posted on by Sacha Cohen

Columbia Heights has gone through many dramatic changes over the last few years, not the least of which is the development of the DC USA complex at 14th and U. And while Target is all fine and good, I am far more excited by the recent news that Ellwood Thompson’s, Virginia’s largest independent natural grocery, will soon be my neighbor. Well, soon is a slight exaggeration. They are scheduled to open in fall/winter 2009.

Ellwood Thompson sets itself apart from other large grocery stores by not allowing products with trans-fats, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, or GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Plus, during peak growing season, more than 1/3 of their produce is locally grown. ET Is also committed to stocking free-range and organic meat, fish, and poultry from nearby farms like Polyface, and its hotbar features fare from local ethnic restaurants.

There’s no guarantee that Ellwood Thompson’s will be any easier on the ‘ol wallet than Whole Paycheck, but one can hope.