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FOOD

wednesday, may 5, 2010

SPIRITS

New to shochu

Jason Wilson is introduced to a world of subtle Japanese white spirits; of course, a cocktail was part of the plan. E5

GOOD TO GO

The unexpected

Lentils make the veggie sandwiches sing at Sidamo Coffee and Tea in Fulton. E3

Tom Sietsema spots a Turkish food trend in between First Bites of muhammara and kebabs at Ezme in Dupont Circle. E3

BLOG Check out our daily postings at washingtonpost.com/allwecaneat CHAT We answer questions at 1 p.m. today at washingtonpost.com/liveonline

MORE RECIPES Stir-Fried Cucumber and Pork With Golden Garlic, E2 Angel Food ’Shortcakes’ With Grilled Peaches and Strawberries, E6

Whole new ballgame for whole grains

Baking for flavor brings out the natural goodness

by Samuel Fromartz

Special to The Washington Post

If you’ve ever baked with whole-wheat flour and ended up with something near- ly inedible, take heart. That is not unusu- al, even for professional bakers. Kim Boyce, a talented Los Angeles pas-

try chef with a new cookbook on whole- grain baking, remembers the first time she tried making whole-grain muffins at home for her kids. “It was just dreadful. They were heavy, almost leaden,” Boyce says.

When Peter Reinhart, a well-known

baker, author and teacher, baked his first whole-grain bread, the effort yielded “a thick, dark, leathery crust surrounding an inedible wad of spongy, glutinous paste. It was awful,” he wrote in “Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads,” which is devoted to rectifying such problems. Granted, Reinhart’s initial whole-grain

foray was circa 1970, and the bread in- cluded no yeast. Still, for decades, bakers have been tugged between the mounting knowledge that whole grains are nutri- tious, even essential to good health, and the age-old notion that they taste like dull, earnest bricks. Thankfully, he and Boyce did not give

up. They attacked a common problem: How do you temper the weight of whole grains while letting the full range of fla- vors and textures shine through? If you can manage that, you can win over the most jaded cookie lover. “It’s a genuinely exciting palate of in- gredients,” says Heidi Swanson, the au- thor of “Super Natural Cooking” and the

whole-grain baking on E6

E

MG

Does Jay Scott hold the future of decent store-bought tomatoes in his hands?

by Barry Estabrook

Special to The Washington Post

In supermarket tomatodom, this is the

Holy Grail: a fruit thick-skinned enough to shrug off the insults of modern agri- business, but still tender at heart and tasting like, well, a tomato. And John “Jay” Scott might have discovered it. Scott is a horticulture professor and

JAMES M. THRESHER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

RECIPES

• Carrot Muffins E6 • Strawberry Barley Scones E6 • Whole-Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

(pictured above) E6

• Molasses Bran Muffins ONLINE

tomato breeder at the University of Flori- da’s Gulf Coast Research and Education

on washingtonpost.com/allwecaneat

Q&A Arthur Allen, author of “Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato,” on the good, the bad and the UglyRipes.

Center outside Tampa. For more than a decade, he has worked to perfect a toma- to variety called Tasti-Lee. This spring, Tasti-Lee left the rarefied confines of aca- demic test plots and rigorously mon- itored consumer-tasting panels to make its way in the competitive hurly-burly of Florida’s $619million tomato industry. The state produces about half of the fresh tomatoes grown in the United States; between October and June, virtu- ally all fresh, field-grown tomatoes come from Florida. The high-stakes business is littered with once-promising but now- forgotten tomato varieties. If Tasti-Lee lives up to its early prom- ise, Scott, who has bred between 30 and 40 new tomato varieties (“I haven’t gone back and counted in a while”) over nearly four decades, will achieve a plant breed- er’s version of immortality. And the rest of us finally will be able to head to the lo- cal supermarket any day of the year and

tomato continued on E4

thing

Thenextbest

Tomato breeder John “Jay” Scott has high hopes for Tasti-Lee, a hybrid designed to be tender and flavorful. It’s being test-marketed in a handful of Florida supermarkets.

Band of brothers

The Hiltons build a destination dynasty

by Melissa McCart

Special to The Washington Post

Soon after Ian Hilton breezes into the

PHOTOS BY EVY MAGES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Members of the Hiltons’ team at the site of the future Blackbird Warehouse: executive chef Jimmy Claudio, from left, chef de cuisine Brendan L’Etoile, co-owner Ian Hilton, assistant Liz Szatkowski, manager Sheldon Scott and co-owner Eric Hilton.

Gibson on a sunny afternoon, he issues a gentle warning: “It’s going to be next to impossible to get an interview with Eric.” He means his brother, with whom he co- owns this 14th Street speak-easy, the res- taurant Marvin next door and four other District nightspots. That’s because Eric has another gig, one for which he is best known: as half of Thievery Corporation, the Grammy-win- ning duo that weaves reggae and world music into loungey electronica. And just as the band is a loose collective (guest musicians and vocalists gravitate in and out depending on the album, song and tour), the Hilton brothers involve various family members and business partners in their efforts to build a mini empire of restaurants with the same laid-back vibe as the band’s music.

Eric is the idea guy and Ian the busi-

nessman; both have an easygoing man- ner that belies the fact that they have been busier than ever. They plan to open three restaurants by the end of this year: the Brixton, at the corner of Ninth and U streets Northwest; another in what was formerly Billy Simpson’s House of Sea- food and Steaks on Georgia Avenue; and a spot that’s coming along next to Marvin (working name: Blackbird Warehouse). It will make for quite a year, one in which they also have opened Patty Boom Boom,

brothers continued on E4

on the plate.

on washingtonpost.com/food

Photo gallery. Check out the Hilton brothers’ empire, in clubs and

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