Tag: Food & Drink

I’ve eaten tacos from propane-fired griddles outside my apartment near downtown Los Angeles, and from the street grills off Garibaldi Square while mingling with mariachis between sets in Mexico City. I’ve partaken of the ubiquitous taco stands of Texas and the cozy Mexican diners on the north side of Chicago. It doesn’t make me an expert, but it does establish some frame of reference within which to evaluate well-prepared al pastor wrapped in a perfectly pressed and grilled corn tortilla.

If I am qualified at all, it may be because I have for years subsisted, in more cities than I can recall, on a budget that would make a college freshman struggle with the choice between a month’s supply of Ramen noodles or Xeroxing the pertinent chapters of an essential textbook from the school library’s reserve copy. But I’ve always tried to get the most panang for what was often my last buck, so to speak.

At the Saturday City Market, Mexican Tacos serves impeccably prepared steak (spiced with the guajillo chili), pork, chicken, chorizo, and vegetarian tacos at the corner of Water and First streets, for $2.75 a pop. There’s a lady deftly hand-flattening and grilling corn tortillas one by one, staying only a few tortillas ahead of the incoming orders. The chorizo—the spicy, loose-meat, Mexican pork sausage—they blend and grind at home. Someone is steadily pan-searing chicken on site. They top these beauties off with pico de gallo, and lettuce with a sprinkling of queso fresco, a soft, moist cheese. Then there’s perfectly mild but tasty green sauce on each one, if you choose. The City Market’s last day is the Saturday before Christmas, but it returns in early April.

Over on East High Street is La Michoacana. Edgar Gaona, eldest son of the family operation, reckons they have been at the present location for four or five years, but started out in a food truck more than 10 years ago, back when he was a lad of 10 or 12.

“The health inspector said we were the first taco truck in town,” he said. Gaona’s mother, whose family recipes fuel the operation, is a native of Michoacán, a province west of Mexico City. Similar in style to Mexican Tacos, La Michoacana makes its own tortillas as needed and makes the chorizo from scratch. It offers a broader range of options for $2.25, including tongue, tripe, and barbecue tacos. The kicker here is the restaurant’s three sauces. The milder red and green sauces are jalapeño-based, but the hot green sauce packs its punch with the chili de arbol. There’s also a very spicy, stoutly-pickled carrot, onion and jalapeno garnish, which is not for the faint of tongue.

As good as those tacos are, I would still opt for La Tako Nako, a neon-belighted trailer parked alongside Hydraulic Road near Commonwealth Drive. The tortillas may be store-bought, but you don’t pick your burger joint because it bakes its own buns. Plus, it’s good to double up the corn wraps to absorb the savory grease from the carne asada and pork tacos. Hey, where there’s fat, there’s usually flavor. Tako Nako lays grilled onions you might expect to come on an Italian sausage over each $2 serving, along with cilantro and some solid homemade salsas. You can feel the tangy, meaty juice hit the back of your throat before you even chew the first couple bites. It’s the kind of savory you just want to drink down in shots, not wanting it to end as the last bits of meat are making their way down your gullet. Plus, there’s a certain charm about eating two or three of these succulent masterpieces among the banter of the almost exclusively Spanish-speaking clientele in the neon glow of a damp chilly night.

Fresh apple cider is the quintessential autumn drink in Central Virginia, and has a long and relevant history here that predates even Mr. Jefferson. When European colonists arrived in the 1600s, they invested in survival by planting apple orchards. Because apples don’t bear true to seed (due in part to their survivalist tactic of mixing genetic material through pollination), seed-bearing colonists had a lot of waiting and tasting to do; their counterparts armed with Old World apple tree trimmings got right to work as well, searching for native fruit trees on which to graft their hometown favorites.

The combination of cultivating wildcards and cloning known varieties gave the apple the ability to survive in a world that it had never known before; in turn, apples gave the colonists a greater likelihood of survival by providing food, fuel, and animal fodder. And booze.

Central Virginia is enjoying something of a grassroots alcohol revolution. First came wine, and wine was fine, or not fine, depending upon the time, the vine, and the winemaker’s design. Then beer appeared, and the people cheered, and started using words like growler, firkin, esters, and hopyard. Now that the lights have been dimmed and the seats are full, apple cider steps onto the stage as if wine and beer were simply the opening act.

Yes, cider is a common thread running through the history of Virginia and the United States. Yes, cider has always been the booze of the common man, the wages of the laborer, and the breakfast of champions (John Adams and his daily tankard, but you’ve heard that before). And yes, apple cider represents the confluence of agricultural heritage, contemporary craft beverages, and good old fashioned tippling.

Apple cider on the booze continuum
Sweet apple cider consists of freshly pressed apple juice. Oftentimes it has not been filtered or pasteurized, and so contains a fair amount of apple fiber and wild yeasts. The juice can be strained or filtered to produce a more stable product, but true stabilization occurs only through heat pasteurization. This sweet cider is a great beverage for children and adults alike, and can be “dressed up” a bit with other juices, with sparkling soda, or even with ginger ale. Serve it warm on a cold night, or over ice during Indian summer. It can be your secret weapon on Thanksgiving day, providing the key to hydration and the solution to listless Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, or whipped cream.

If apple juice is not pasteurized, yeast will consume the sugar and produce alcohol, emitting carbon dioxide as a sparkling side effect. It’s a beautiful thing. Once a cider has “cleared” and is finished fermenting, it can keep (protected from oxygen and light, of course) for several years.

Suggesting and serving cider
A single-serve cider can be held on ice in a cooler, alongside beer and soda. Bold Rock is the best choice for drinkers of American lagers like Budweiser—it goes down cold and easy, and your guests can decide for themselves whether to reach for it.

For a more formal occasion, cider may be served in nearly any glass—it presents a great opportunity to bring out the champagne flutes, or to use white wine or stemmed beer glasses. In terms of alcohol content, cider falls between beer and wine, so a pour should be smaller than a pint but can be larger than a glass of wine.

If you plan to serve cider when a red wine would usually be the choice, let it warm up an hour or so before the meal so that its flavors and aromas can stand up alongside the meal. Castle Hill’s “Levity” and Albemarle CiderWorks’ “Royal Pippin” are both crafted from the famed Albemarle Pippin apple; a side by side tasting with dinner would certainly spark some lively debate. Potter’s Craft Cider’s “Farmhouse Dry” is great for toasting the host (before, during and after the meal), and the Foggy Ridge “Pippin Black” would be a fortifying finish alongside fruit, cheese, or even dessert.

What about leftovers? Most apple cider has bubbles, so leftovers require some creativity. It’s always easy and fun to incorporate apple cider into cooking—deglaze a pan with it, or spill it into a meat marinade or sauce, and of course using it to cook cabbage or Brussels sprouts makes sense. As a last resort, put the cider on the stove and reduce its volume by about half; it should be getting noticeably thicker and more syrupy by the time you call it cider reduction and drizzle it over your ice cream, on your pancakes, or into your next cocktail.

Our kitchen columnist, Lisa Reeder, is an educator and advocate for local and regional food production in Central Virginia. She received chef’s training in New York and currently works in Farm Services and Distribution at the Local Food Hub.

Cider may be indelibly written into American history, but no matter how many pints John Adams drank with breakfast, it’s a beverage that confuses us. Cider, to everyone but Americans, implies the presence of alcohol; here, unless we preface it with “hard,” we picture the hot, spiced variety that warms us up after a romp through fallen leaves. Even then, the hard ciders sold on American shelves differ vastly from sweet and mass-produced to bracingly dry and hand-crafted.

So, the drink requires a bit of education. Luckily, Virginia lays claim to eight cider makers that not only make complex, artisanal cider, but that also dedicate themselves to preaching its colonial-turned-modern word. And from November 9 through the 17, they’ll get a stage to do so. Virginia’s first Cider Week, an event made possible by grant money from the Virginia Wine Board and the colossal organizational efforts of board member and Foggy Ridge Cider owner Diane Flynt, is only the second in the nation to exist.

A gubernatorial proclamation, made at a launch party at Brookville Restaurant two weeks ago, came from Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Todd Haymore, who impressed us with the fact that our state’s 20,000 acres of apple trees make it the sixth largest producer in the country, generating $33 million in sales. And that’s even before the apples get pressed and fermented into drinkable form.

If Flynt, the first of the bushel to market her cider in 2006, is the movement’s grande dame, the guys behind Potter’s Craft Cider, Tim Edmond and Dan Potter, are its newest poster children. The 27-year-old friends from Princeton quit conventional careers to make livings as cider makers in 2011, and now have bottles and kegs of their Farmhouse Dry Cider in more than 50 retailers and restaurants across the state. And with a young, moving-and-shaking network around them, the duo has added the stamp of cool to this local libation that’s as akin to fine wine as it is to craft beer.

Cider Week’s your chance to meet the cider makers behind Albemarle Ciderworks, Bold Rock Cider, Castle Hill Cider, Foggy Ridge Cider, and Potter’s Craft Cider, to taste their cider, and to discover just how versatile a partner it is with both dinners out (from MAS Tapas to Keswick Hall) and dinners at home (from macaroni and cheese to Thanksgiving meal). So, get out there and taste the history. You’re bound to like dem apples quite a bit.

Drink up!
Here are our picks for Virginia Cider Week. Visit ciderweekva.com for a full schedule and for a list of where to find your favorite ciders:

Friday, November 9, 4:30-6:30pm at Feast! ($15)
Get the party started with a cider and artisan food tasting and a welcome from scholar in residence Gary Nabhan. Purchase tickets in advance at Feast!, or or by calling 244-7800.

Saturday, November 10, noon-2pm at Fifth Season (Free)
Fancy making cider at home? Learn how-tos straight from the experts, buy your own kit, and put all those apples you picked to good use.

Sunday, November 11, 5-8pm at Albermarle Ciderworks ($65)
Dine on delights from chefs Jason Alley of Richmond’s Pasture and Comfort restaurants, Lee Gregory from The Roosevelt, and Angelo Vangelopoulos from the Ivy Inn while sipping cider, listening to apple experts Tom Buford and Gary Nabhan, and supporting event beneficiary Southern Foodways Alliance. Purchase tickets at hill.holler @gmail.com.

Monday, November 12, 7pm at The Whiskey Jar ($55)
Savor the season with a fall menu that includes quail in cider glaze, wild rice, housemade sausage dressing, Hoppin’ John-stuffed pumpkins, and, of course, cider to wash it all down. Call 202-1549 for reservations.

Tuesday, November 13, 6-8pm at Market Street Wineshop Downtown (Free)
Taste them all, pick a favorite, and stock up for the holidays.

Wednesday, November 14, 5-7pm at The Local (Free)
Enjoy cider while you meet and mingle with the people who make it.

Saturday, November 17, 2pm to 6pm at Castle Hill Cider ($20)
Usher Cider Week out with a bang at the final hoorah, where there’ll be cider makers, edible treats, live music, and plenty of cider. Limited reservations available. Purchase tickets at info@castlehillcider.com or by calling 296-0047.

An apple cocktail a day…
While cider’s delicious straight-up, it also makes a perfect cocktail component. Belly up to one of these bars during Cider Week for one (or all) of these special cider-based cocktails. Visit Cider Week’s Facebook page for latecomers’ concoctions and to vote on your favorite!

Beer Run’s “Eve’s Black Heart”
Albemarle Ciderworks Royal Pippin, Victory Donnybrook Dry Irish Stout, Laird’s Applejack Brandy

Horse & Hound’s “The Hound”
Bold Rock Virginia Draft Hard Cider, Crabbie’s Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer, Maker’s Mark, lime

MAS Tapas’ “ChichicapaBangBang”
Single Village Mezcal, Potter’s Craft Farmhouse Dry Cider, salted apple, prickly pear purée

Whiskey Jar’s “Cider Press”
Foggy Ridge Handmade Cider, Buffalo Trace Bourbon, St-Germain, brown sugar simple syrup, fresh apple

Zinc’s “The Sandy Potter” (above)
Potter’s Craft Farmhouse Dry Cider, Jack Daniels, Cointreau, Fee Brothers Bitters, lime, orange, housemade non-fermented apple cider, orange twist

Merlot is making a comeback. Or so the prediction has gone for the past three years. According to retailers though, sales haven’t even begun to rebound, yet we keep reading that they have. So, has this grape that went from golden child to outcast in the span of 20 years really risen from the depths of our drains, or is it just an industry agenda to aid in its climb to cool again?

First, a look at Merlot’s day in the sun. In the early 1980s, several California and Washington producers were using Merlot as a blending varietal (just as in its native Bordeaux, where it’s the most widely planted varietal) to soften the fiercely tannic Cabernet Sauvignon. It didn’t take long for enterprising Americans to realize that the varietal could easily stand on its own. Single-varietal Merlot started popping up in the mid-’80s, with producers like California’s Shafer and Duckhorn and Washington’s Leonetti Cellar and Hogue leading the charge.

Fast forward a couple of years and Merlot, with its one-word, easy to pronounce name and uncomplicated palate, had become a sensation like Madonna and Prince and parachute pants. Grab your best pair and pour some Merlot on me.

Everyone wanted a piece of this Pac-Man-era pie, so producers started planting it in spades on marginal sites and bottling juice from underripe fruit. They assumed that as long as the label read Merlot, we’d lap it up. And we did, until its wimpy structure and taste of green bell peppers led producers to vamp it up into an ocean of alcoholic black cherry vanilla Coke. Wine-flavored wine to go with cheese-flavored cheese. Merlot had become a joke.

The 2004 movie Sideways issued the ba-dum-ch when fictional, frumpy, Pinot Noir-lovin’ Miles threw a temper tantrum at the prospect of having to drink any bleeping Merlot. It was a below the belt (albeit unintended, according to the movie’s writers) blow that deflated Merlot sales by 2 percent in the 12 weeks after the film was released, by 12 percent come 2006, and by 10 percent for the last three years running.

Something good came from Merlot’s denigration though. Faced with a glut of unwanted swill, producers started growing and making less, thus focusing on a return to quality, which, in its best examples, is a lush, plummy mochaccino of a wine. Merlot’s primed for a rally, but is anyone buying it?

Neither Market Street Wineshop’s Robert Harllee nor Rio Hill Wine & Gourmet’s Doug Hotz are seeing a resurgence of sales. “Cab is still king. But something like 85 percent of affordable Bordeaux (under $15) are mostly Merlot. In fact, it’s hard to find a majority Cab in that category,” said Harllee. Even in California, where cult Cabs often require deep pockets and a waiting list, you can get fantastic Merlot at a reasonable price. Hotz sells a Merlot from Annabella (Napa) and St. Francis (Sonoma) for under $20. “Both offer serious bang for the buck,” he said. There are exceptions, of course, like Château Pétrus, which is almost entirely Merlot and costs, by the caseful, as much as a new car. However, generally speaking, Merlot’s glass ceiling is about 50 percent lower than Cabernet’s.

Sommeliers love Merlot because it can be enjoyed at a younger age and with a wide range of foods. Keswick Hall sommelier Richard Hewitt says he’s selling more Merlot these days and that it seems to have regained the face it lost after Sideways. A great deal of his Merlot sales are from Virginia wineries, where just about everyone agrees the grape does really well.

Six of the 12 wines in this year’s Governor’s Case contained Merlot, and Keswick Vineyards earned one of those spots for its 2010 Merlot, a 100 percent single varietal. Keswick winemaker Stephen Barnard praises the grape for its predictability and consistency in a climate that’s anything but. “It ripens early, so most years you can get good, clean, ripe fruit which allows you to make a consistently high quality wine,” said Barnard. He tends to favor a European, fruit-forward style of Merlot that’s more elegant and supple than its harsher, boozier West Coast counterparts, but it’s still a wine with some vigor to it. The Octagon wines from Barboursville are blends driven by Merlot and have at least eight to 10 years of cellar life in them.

So what’s an overexposed and underappreciated grape to do? Wait for its white knight to grant it the respect it deserves? Virginia might be just the place for that movie.

With its hard skin, seed-filled cavities, and often unruly size, winter squash can intimidate even the savviest cooks. It’s absolutely worth tackling though—not only is squash inexpensive and packed with vitamins, but it’s also one of the only relics from the garden that can feed you through the winter. Fortunately, even if you don’t get up the courage to wield a large knife against the gargantuan gourds, you can still get your fix with these dishes that require nothing more than a fork and an appetite.

At Camino (above), fennel pollen-rubbed pork tenderloin joins a hash of serrano ham and local apples, roasted delicata squash, and broccoli rabe in a dish that’s a beautiful balance of sweet, savory, and bitter.

It’s roasted kuri squash (which looks like a pumpkin without ridges), chèvre, and sage that go into the flaky empanadas at MAS Tapas, where a dollop of cream and a drizzle of chestnut honey finish the dish.

After reading the description of Feast!’s (2) fall salad—roasted butternut squash, sliced local apples, aged gouda, spicy pecans, crispy bacon, arugula, and a sherry vinaigrette—you’d be crazy not to order it.

Get a megadose of Vitamin A at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar with the ginger-laced harvest pumpkin soup that will keep you happy and healthy.

Butternut squash ends the meal at Duner’s (3), where it becomes a silky, spiced pot de crème with buttery pecan shortbread cookies on the side.

Squash school
With more than 100 varieties, squash comes in every color and every shape. All considered fruits from the genus Cucurbita, they’re divided into three different species:

C. maxima: Winter squash with round, thick stems that include blue banana, hubbard, red kuri, and turban. Can be eaten through the winter when stored in a cool, dark place.

C. moschata: Winter squash with round stems that include butternut and musky winter squash. Can be eaten through the winter when stored in a cool, dark place.

C. pepo: Summer squash with pentagonal, prickly stems that include zucchini, crookneck, spaghetti squash, delicata, acorn, and most pumpkins. Should be eaten soon after harvest.

The case of the great missing pumpkin lattes
Starbucks began hyping its beloved Pumpkin Spice Latte as early as Labor Day and was, a month later, already experiencing shortages across the country. It has nothing to do with the great pumpkin shortage of 2011 though (there’s no actual pumpkin in the syrup), but rather a supply chain glitch. Now it seems that the distribution channels have all been restocked. Pumpkin latte crisis averted.

Good gourd!
The ways that competitive pumpkin farmers pamper their orbs (grow lights, warming blankets, manure, maple leaf, and molasses-rich compost, etc.) means that they can gain up to 50 pounds in one day. And with a $25,000 prize at stake in California, the race is on to be the first to break the one ton barrier.

Keep the doctor away
Celebrate “dem” apples with Vintage Virginia Apples/Albemarle Ciderworks on Saturday, November 3 from 10am-5pm at the 12th Annual Apple Harvest Festival. Take a hayride, taste the orchard’s diverse bounty of apples, and learn about our area’s history of apple growing and the old-fashioned methods of turning them into tasty treats like cider and apple butter. Entry to the event is free, but bring your wallets to buy some local eats and, of course, a bottle of cider to go with them.

Second time’s a charm
Caffe Bocce, the Italian spot that fed patrons in downtown Scottsville for a decade before it closed at the end of 2004, is giving it another go—this time in Charlottesville. Glasses and dishware line the windows of the old Carlton’s spot on Market Street and owners Chris Long and Joy Kuhar are shooting for a November 5 opening, pending an ABC license. Long’s in charge of the kitchen, with the help of Terry Col, and will cook up rustic Italian favorites for guests to enjoy at the bar, the dining room, or the charming garden patio.

A kitchen in the haus
The X-Lounge, which closed in mid-October, is making a quick turnaround to Glass Haus Kitchen under the same ownership, but with a new chef. Ian Boden, who won over palates at Staunton Grocery for five years and then at Blue Light Grill for a shorter stint, is hard at work creating a menu of “inspired American cuisine” that will take full advantage of our local best. The bar will be a focus—not in the way it was at X-Lounge, but as a place to drink artisanal cocktails and eat delicacies like pickled oysters over goat milk panna cotta with sea beans and finger limes for $14 and under. At tables on the wood-enclosed patio and in the water-themed dining room, both à la carte and tasting offerings are bound to delight.

Artisanally made cocktails are the new post-work entertainment. They lubricate conversation on a blind date and have the power to rouse even the most worn-in relationships. Here’s a pair of his/hers cocktails from the bar at Zinc that will get your lashes batting and your tootsies footsie-ing in no time. Of course, in this modern day, traditional gender roles or couplings need not apply, so feel free to shake things up according to your taste and mood. Just don’t overdo it. Even James Bond would have the sense to leave his Aston Martin behind after a few too many.

His
Loretto Sling
1 oz. Maker’s Mark
1/2 oz. Heering Cherry Liqueur
Dash Fee Bros. orange bitters
Splash lemonade
Splash club soda

Serve over ice and garnish with a lemon wedge.

Hers
Fall’s Market Fresh
1 1/2 oz. 10 Cane Rum
3/4 oz. Jacques Cardin French Brandy
Dash Pernod
1 1/2 tbs. pear juice (Saunders Brothers Olympic Asian Pears, Nelson County)

Shake with ice, strain into a martini glass, and garnish with pear slice.

Every cork dork loves a wine battle, especially when it involves rubbing France’s les nez in how good our wine’s gotten in the past five years. At the third annual Thomas Jefferson Wine Event in Staunton on October 13, Virginia wine won over French in four out of seven blind pairings. But save one man who was wearing a beret, there were no French at the competition to which to gloat. So what are these tastings out to prove, and to whom?

Recreating the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris in which then fledgling California took top scores in both whites and reds against the industry’s grand fromage (France), this Virginia vs. France tasting was as much a tribute to our own burgeoning industry as it was to Thomas Jefferson. Even though his 30 years of grape growing never amounted to a single bottle, he prophesied our success.

Gabriele Rausse, the viticulturist who came to Virginia from Italy the same year as the Judgment of Paris, spoke to the group gathered at Staunton’s RR Smith Center on Saturday, recalling the day he sat for six hours listening to all the reasons why he would fail. Three years later, he successfully grafted 110,000 European grape vines onto American rootstock and Virginia wine was born. Event organizer Scott Ballin recognized Rausse’s efforts with a 1787 map of Italy made by the King of France’s cartographer, but it’s the growing quality of Virginia wine that serves as Rausse’s greatest acknowledgement.

Three of Virginia’s four victories in the competition were with red wines. Kyle Boatright, a wine distributor for The Country Vintner and a fellow judge, was surprised by how well Virginia’s reds showed. “Going into the event, I thought it would be easy to pick out the Virginia reds and that the whites would have more of an equal footing, but I found the opposite to be the case,” he said.

Ox-Eye Vineyards’ John Kiers attributes the shift in the quality of our red wines to longer hang times and other vineyard practices, like leaf-pulling, that lead to riper fruit. Barboursville Octagon 2008 and Barren Ridge Meritage 2008 won out over a right bank Bordeaux from 2009 and a left bank Bordeaux from 2006, respectively. Perhaps most surprising was a Pinot Noir from micro-winery Ankida Ridge beating a Premier Cru Burgundy. Not only is Virginia not known for success with Pinot Noir, a notoriously fickle grape, but 2011 was a lousy vintage (and only Ankida’s second year in production).

We started by tasting the reds (a first for me in a wine competition) in front of an audience (another first, which made me especially conscious of my spitting technique), followed by a pair of sparklers and then a trio of whites. With a better mousse (see Winespeak 101), Virginia’s Thibault-Jannison Cuvée D’Etat trumped a Blanc de Blancs Champagne, and while none of the competing Virginia whites (Keswick Viognier 2011, Jefferson Vineyards Chardonnay Reserve 2010, and Pollak Pinot Gris 2011) scored higher than their French counterparts, the spreads weren’t terribly wide. The French whites possessed a more seamless integration of oak and more complex aromatics, but as judge Richard Leahy pointed out, maybe 2011 wasn’t the fairest vintage to feature.

This victory in Staunton came just a week and a half after a similar triumph at the first annual Virginia Wine Summit in Richmond. The one-day trade seminar began with a blind tasting that pitted eight Virginia wines against wines from other regions. One of the four judges was Steven Spurrier, the very man who organized the Paris competition in 1976, and after voting six to two in favor of Virginia, he said, “It seems I really liked the Virginians!”

Another judge, Dave McIntyre from the Washington Post, felt that Virginia proved to be in the same class with France, Italy, and California. “I look forward to the day when ‘Virginia Beats France in Blind Tasting!’ is no longer news or a surprise, and the idea of a ‘winner’ comes down to individual preferences of the judges rather than a judgment about relative quality between entire wine regions,” he said.

At the time of the Judgment of Paris, California had about 350 vineyards. Thirty-six years later, they have more than 3,500. I don’t suspect that the number of Virginia wineries will ever again increase tenfold, but I do predict that soon, Virginia wines will help set the benchmark, rather than just be compared to it.

WINESPEAK 101
Mousse (n.): The strength and texture of the bubbles in a sparkling wine.

You can almost feel yourself getting healthier with every bite of the dark, leafy greens that flourish come fall. Nevermind if they’re braised with ham hocks, drenched in cream, or studded with bacon. From collards to bok choy and all the shades in between, these restaurant dishes make it a downright pleasure to eat your greens. Popeye never had it so good.

The pho at Moto Pho Co. warms you from the inside out (you’re in charge of the sriracha sauce) and the chay or vegetarian pho is packed with noodles, mushrooms, tofu, and baby bok choy with plenty of bite.

Double up on health at Ginkgo, the new Sichuan restaurant on the Corner, with the fish soup with pickled mustard greens. Actually, the pickled part makes it three times as healthy (though no less delicious).

At l’etoile, raw kale stars with toasted pine nuts, dried cranberries, pecorino romano, and an emulsified champagne-lemon dressing in a scrumptious salad that hits every taste bud and presses every yummy button you have.

Ace Biscuit & Barbecue serves up some killer Southern comfort, so it’s not surprising that pitmaster Brian Ashworth has aced his collards too. Try ’em piled up next to a pulled pork sammy and some mac-n-cheese.

The beets’ greens don’t go to waste at MAS Tapas where they join green chard in the acelgas—a light sauté with sherry, garlic, and olive oil that’s finished with a sprinkle of cow’s milk Mahon.

No doubt you go to Downtown Grille for steak, potatoes, and red wine, but don’t forget the creamed spinach that’ll add some color to your meal’s otherwise brown and red palette.

Double H Farms’ thick-cut pork chop deserves a spectacular partner on the plate and at The Ivy Inn, it gets to rest on a savory skillet cake of wilted greens (mustard, tat soi, kale, spinach, and collards) and sweet potatoes that cooks on a bacon fat-slicked griddle.

How to go green
Having clean, dry greens in the fridge ready to go is the best way to ensure that you’ll eat them up. Here’s how to prep your precious greens once you’ve brought them home.
1. Wash and dry your greens (if you have a salad spinner, now’s a great time to use it).
2. Line a plastic bag or tupperware container with paper towels and gently place the greens inside.
3. Remove any excess air from the bag as you close it, or, if using tupperware, place a piece of paper towel on top, close with a lid, and store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Juice it up
If you want to get your greens in early and then coast the rest of the day on brown food, try juicing your favorite leaves. Here’s a combo so good that you’ll chug it down and then bounce out the door with a vitamin-induced pep in your step. Just toss the ingredients in a blender until drinkable.

1 cup of greens (kale, spinach, or chard); 4 stalks of celery; 1 ½ pears, cut into large pieces; 1″ piece of ginger, peeled; Segments from half a lemon

All hail kale
At the moment, kale’s as overexposed as Kim Kardashian, but the reality starlet doesn’t hold a candle to the superstar crucifer. With more iron than beef, more calcium than milk, nearly 100 percent of our daily recommended Vitamin C intake, and two types of cancer-crushing antioxidants, kale is one badass superfood.