FOOD ABCDE E wednesday, september 1, 2010


WINE Weather


or not? A hot summer causes early ripening on the East Coast, while the West Coast has the opposite problem. E5


Howoften does your family eat a home-cooked dinner?”


VOTENOW And come to our live chat today at its new time of NOON: washingtonpost.com/liveonline


BLOG Check out our daily postings at washingtonpost.com/allwecaneat MORERECIPES Pork and Chard Hash E2 Cloudy Sky E5


FIRSTBITE Fun, until


the food comes Biergarten Haus brings the atmosphere, but unfortunately not the flavors, of Germany to H Street Northeast. E3


MG PG VA BY JANE BLACK In 1995, Jason Schayot set the world record


for spitting awatermelon seedwhenhe shot his tiny black bullet a whopping 75 feet, 2 inches, almost a quarter of a football field. It’s a record that would be hard to beat. But Schayot might not have much competition anyway. Within a generation, most Americans won’t even know that watermelons have seeds, let alone how to spit them. According to the NationalWatermelon Pro-


e


Modern growers are breeding


some say, taste.


watermelons without seeds — or,


Dinner, the way Mom did it One way to deal with


the busy present is to take a page from the past


BY STEPHANIEWITT SEDGWICK Special to The Washington Post


Carolyn Balch’s mother had to shake


some sense into her. Balch, 49, a part-time teacher in Vien-


na, had been complaining about her frustrated attempts to manage the eve- ning meal for a busy family. Dinners were one of two extremes: “I would try to do something impossible, or I’d serve noo- dles with cheese.” The former didn’t work, and the latter didn’t meet her nutritional standards. During a phone call to her mother in


Florida, “she was exasperated with me,” Balch said. Mom had simple, direct ad- vice: “Cook more like I did.” In other words, let go of attempts to make unfa- miliar, sometimes complicated global food and return to more basic meals of grilled or roasted meats with steamed vegetables and a simple starch. As the school year begins and busy


family schedules get even busier, it’s worth asking: Why do Balch and many others lose theirway in theattemptto put dinner on table? It’s a matter of time, no doubt. Balch’s


MICHAEL TEMCHINE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


RECIPESlBaked PastaWith Chicken and Pepper Jack E6 l Quick- Braised PorkWith Sweet Peppers and Onions (pictured above) E8 l Herbed Mustard-Rubbed Chicken Thighs ONLINElMom’s Beef and Potato StewE8


mother, Marilyn Schmidt, was a stay-at- home mom, and her daughter works part-time. But Schmidt also didn’t at- tempt to re-create restaurant-quality dishes. Even though she doesn’t consider herself a natural cook, Balch wants inter- esting food for her husband and two children (she even taught herself to cook Thai food), but ambition has outstripped her skill. Perhaps most important, she didn’t


family dinner continued on E6


motion Board, only 16 percent of watermelons sold in grocery stores have seeds,downfrom 42 percent in 2003. In California and the mid- South, home to the country’s biggest watermel- onfarms, the latest figures are 8and13 percent, respectively. The numbers seem destined to tumble. Recently developed hybrids do not need seeded melons for pollination—more on that later — which liberates farmers from growing melons with spit-worthy seeds. The iconic, black-studded watermelon


wedge appears destined to become a slice of vanished Americana. If that sounds alarmist, try to remember the last time you had to spit out a grape seed. The sea change is all in the service of


l BY DAVIDHAGEDORN Special to The Washington Post What images come to mind when you


planamenuforLaborDay? Hotdogsand juicy, fist-size burgers dressed in condi- mental finery? Lightly charred pieces of poultry shellacked with barbecue sauce? Two- inch-thick rib-eye


steaks


crusty andburnedonthe outside,purple- rare on the inside? Thatmight be howthingswill play out


at your house, but not atmine. This year, the chuck wagon will be replaced by a bandwagon pulling a load of vegetables. Therewon’t be amorsel ofmeat on it. While Iwas strolling one recent Satur-


day through theMount Pleasant Farmers Market, thepanoplyof late summer fruits and vegetables inspiredme:Why not use Labor Day as a kickoff forMeatlessMon-


convenience. “People don’t eat watermelon out of hand like they used to. They like to eat it in fruit salads,” said Robert Schueller, the public


watermelon continued on E4


Aseedless watermelon, top,may contain small white seed coats, which are seeds that did not mature.Aseeded watermelon, bottom, is the traditional fruit.


PHOTOS BY DEB LINDSEY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST Let’s not meat. RSVP.


days? Huh?Where did that come from? I’mone of those people who just don’t


REAL ENTERTAINING


think a meal is a meal without meat (breakfast excluded). Introducing fish se- lections totheweeklymenuwasalreadya tremendous concession; going the full DelMonte, even for a day,was a Promethean challenge. The nonprofit group Healthy Monday and Johns


Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health launched the Meatless Monday campaign in 2003 as an awareness pro- gram designed to reduce the amount of saturated fat in our diets.Material on its Web sitemakes the link, albeit in a ham- handed way (pardon the expression), be- tweenmeat consumption and:Heart dis- ease! Strokes!Diabetes! Cancer! Obesity! Not to mention depletion of the water


real entertaining continued on E7


KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST


RECIPESl Almond-Streusel NectarinesWith Apricot Sauce E7lGuacapacho ONLINE lPortobellos StuffedWith Caramelized Onions and Manchego (pictured above) E8 lStuffed PeppersWith Ancho Sauce E8


? C


r o . c


n


v


i


f


na


e r


o n


.


e


.


.


.


.


o


v


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58