(Yet another) great night at Ghibellina: needed

Yesterday was utterly pooey, y'all. Just sucky to the nth for a whole host of reasons. I felt blue and sad and tired and busy and found that I have early-stage frozen shoulder and need to go gangbusters at physical therapy for a while. Three times a week: who, pray tell, has time for that? And I have to abstain from raking which is not only one of my favorite activities but also exceedingly necessary as our Sugar Maple has just commenced its annual arboreal depilation. Observe.

It also rained all day, and I felt as if the Earth and I were so soggy we might slither through a storm drain to some nether-abyss. As is perhaps obvious, this is not an optimal mood to be mired in when you have plans to head out on the town with girlfriends you've been trying to see for a long while. But often, a night out laughing is just what's needed. So I gussied myself up, Ubered myself out and met my pals - as I did Shawn several weeks back - at Ghibellina where we quickly made ourselves at home at one of the bars.

I am coming to believe that no bad mood can persist when sitting at a great bar in a great pair of heels laughing and nursing a glass of great wine (last night, the Lucente, a merlot-heavy Super Tuscan-style that was at once smooth, spicy and warm).

Plus, can I just make your mouth water by telling you about what we ate? I arrived first and a cursory glance at the menu illumined the word burrata. I don't believe I've ever not ordered a dish that included burrata, and if I have, I should sue myself for idiocy. Last night was no exception as I placed an executive decision order immediately for the burrata with marinated rapini, calabrian chilies and toasted bread. Not a mistake.

We then received two additional, wonderful dishes: stewed lentils with root veggies and Tuscan kale; and the spectacular, stuff-of-my-dreams fagioli e zucca al forno, or oven-roasted pumpkin with white beans. For this dish you should run, not walk, to Ghibellina as soon as possible so that you can indulge before it leaves the menu.

The pumpkin was perfectly cooked: easily cut with the slightest pressure applied to the side of a fork, but not mushy. The consistency of the beans was equally pleasing, expertly treading the line between too-firm and overdone. Dressed with balsamic, olive oil, toasted almonds and a bit of allspice, each bite caused me to shut my eyes, slow my chewing and savor the marriage of flavors for as long as possible. It's a steal at $8. I did not get a photo. I have pretty-please asked for the recipe.

We ordered the chocolate-hazelnut tart but also got to taste the sublime Meyer lemon sorbet and the delicate panna cotta with saba, a balsamic like nectar. The sorbet shocked with its exact-replica taste. We were eating sugar-coated Meyers, yes?

As always, the service was wonderful: friendly, generous, unobtrusive. The bluster outside subsided, but no one seemed in any sort of hurry to leave Ghibellina's warmth.

I realized, as we finally all hugged and parted ways, how truly restorative friendship and laughter are. That they are some of the last things that should be sacrificed on the altar of busyness. That sometimes Tired is really just a need for fun and light escape masked as fatigue.

My cab coasted up to my house, and as I opened the car door, I saw a beautiful doe standing peacefully on the sidewalk not ten feet away. She was really in the wrong neck of her woods, and I tried to woo her towards me, but she declined. At 3am, Oliver woke up and I got in bed with him and told him about the deer. "She was gawding [guarding] the house until you got home, Mom." I think my heart melted a bit then.

Today the sun came out, and I went to PT for the first time and thought how absolutely lovely it was to be tended to, and to have to lay down for fifteen minutes with a warm pack wrapped around my shoulder, the electrical currents running under it easy enough to tune 0ut as I read my magazine and just was. Three times a week will be great!

Market recap, Ghib review (#3; I'm a bit obsessed)

I'm writing from my couch because I'm stiff as a board and utterly exhausted today; as such I'm fully prostrate and gratefully so. All for good reasons and in good ways, but daaammmnn! I love this couch; it's leather, old now (one of the first purchases T and I made before moving into our first real home), the perfect combo of firm-squishy. It has all manner of child-based crumb in its crevices, the pets have left their own marks too. Presently, I'm cozy under a soft, bamboo blanket that is the perfect shade of blue; Percy's head is resting on my thigh, and he's snoring contentedly; my left triceps caught on the pillow on my way down so is kinda hung up there but I'm too tired to deal with it; T made me a coffee; my hair is crying out for a washing but maybe later.

Yesterday's market was a good one. Not the most hoppin' of years passed, but I was beyond flattered by the number of folks who came to find my table. Many were repeat customers from last year, some are devoted blog readers who I'd never been lucky enough to meet in person until yesterday, some were friends I don't see nearly enough in regular life, one was a high school friend I've not seen since graduation, two were new clients who -until yesterday- I'd only spoken to via phone and email. What joys, all of these moments and meetings.

I was also situated across from Liz Chabra of Ms Curry; she's a yoga instructor, ayurvedic chef, and an UTTER delight. She and her sous chef, a wonderful man whose name I'm sadly blanking on right now, couldn't have been more fun to hang out with. I bought a jar of Liz's wonderful Tamarind Chutney, they consumed great quantities of my red beans and rice. Our proximity to each other was one of the most fortuitous parts of yesterday, and I hope to see them again.

Most of the collard handpies were bought, a single slice of plum tart left (just what I was hoping because I really wanted it), half my jam stash cleared out and so forth and so on. Dear T helped me pack everything up, and after we got home, put what needed to go in the fridge there as quickly as possible, and rested a tad, we took ourselves out for an early dinner at Ghibellina.

Oh.my.dio. Though I've never been disappointed in Ghib, last night's meal was my best ever. It was perfection in every bite. I felt blissed out the whole time; a happy drug equal parts food, drink and ambiance. My favorite spot, at the horn of the U-bar, were taken so we sat down at a real table (imagine that, coming from us!), a cozy two-top nestled in a romantic alcove. I love banquettes so immediately took that seat; also, that allowed me to look out over the seemingly endless bar and the laughing cadre of patrons packing it to the brim.

It was possible the waitress was surprised by the speed with which I ordered a glass of the Feudi Fiano d'Avellino but hey, it'd been a day. I love fiano, an Italian white wine grape that yields, in its well-done iterations, an enchantingly crisp, just-round-enough vino. It's refreshing and interesting but never detracts from what you're eating*.

To start, we ordered plates of patate lesse and fagiole umido. Both were simple Italian food at its best; the kind of dishes you taste, reel in the confluence of flavor, freshness and perfectly-cooked'ness, and sadly suspect you could never recreate at home despite the fact that each utilizes oh, maybe 5 ingredients.

The patate was, in essence, a plate of perfectly steamed rounds of perfectly white potatoes drizzled in best-quality olive oil (I think Ghib uses one from Frantoia), sprinkled with Maldon salt, and served alongside an Italian salsa verde. Chervil, capers, parsley, other green herbs, lemon and egg. I loved, loved this dish and could bathe in the salsa verde, so delightful did I find it. (Please excuse my photos from last night; I had absolutely no interest in trying to take great ones; just wanted to capture and then eat!)

The fagiole umido was equally wonderful. You just don't understand how Italians coax such flavor and perfection from humble beans, in this case green and wax beans. The beans are definitely cooked -read: not al dente- but are NEVER mushy or soggy. Last night, the beans were enrobed in a glorious tomato-marjoram sauce that not only perfectly attended to them but also made a great dipping sauce for the pizza crusts we were soon to have.

Having not eaten much since breakfast, I wasn't shy about ordering both pasta and pizza for dinner. In a perfectly timed dance, they waltzed to our table just as we we'd almost laid complete waste to our primis. I'd spied the gnocchetti con pesto di cavolo immediately upon glancing at my menu and knew it had to be mine. Lighter-than-air pillows of baby gnocchi (hence gnocchetti versus gnocchi) tossed with the smoothest of kale-walnuts pestos, drizzled with gooey Taleggio (a marvelous soft'ish Italian cheese that melts beautifully) and topped with honeyed walnuts. It was divine. Really divine.

I let T choose the pizza, and he wisely opted for the Olive e Carciofi pie (olives and artichokes). If you served a good artichoke atop a slug, T would consider eating it, so strenuously does he love the unassuming thistles. And if Italians make a star of any vegetable (well, truth be told they make stars of ALL vegetables but I'm making a point here), it's the artichoke. Good god on Italian carciofi.

But I digress. Topped with nostraliana olives, artichokes, sundried tomatoes, smoked mozzarella, basil, garlic, peperoncino, I admit that I was slightly concerned that this pie would have too much going on, that it would lack focus. Happily, I was dead wrong, and in fact, this is possibly my favorite of Ghibellina's pizzas. The olives provide salt, the artichokes heft, the tomatoes just that extra flair, the smoked mozz a unifying earthiness, and the basil- amen!

We managed to devour all but one slice of pizza, had a truly fabulous time, and really, I can't urge you strongly enough to go to Ghibellina ASAP if you've not already. If I lived in the Logan Circle/Dupont area, I'd be a regular fixture there. I'll do my best anyway!

*Have you ever had a vin jaune, for example? Translating as "yellow wine," it's a French vin from the Jura region, and has a decidedly unique taste. Sort of dry sherry meets white wine in flavor, it's very yellow, matured under a film of yeast, and if you're indulging in vin jaune (usually, these are on the pricey end), it's more a main event rather than a supporting actor.

Great evening at Ghibellina

Last night, Tom, my sister and I went out to Ghibellina, a newly-opened (by the team behind Acqua al Due) Italian bistro, for lack of a much better word, in Logan Circle. It's to the left of the Pearl Dive oyster bar and on a definitely hip, rapidly expanding part of 14th St, NW (Le Diplomate is on the corner). The owners lived in Florence for a while, and Ghibellina is named after the street they lived on and is full of Florentine fleur-de-lis. Ghibellina is a typical DC store-front joint (which I love), with a big plate-glass window looking out onto 14th. If you get there early enough, you can snag some of the few bar stools nestled there, and enjoy a drink before heading to a table towards the rear of the restaurant. There are two bars; the first is a narrow oval with an interior space resonant of a gang-plank. Customers can sit all around while a bartender mans the plank inside, serving up drinks but no food. The second bar is one at which you can both drink and eat and is a more traditional one-sided strip. We started our night at the smaller, oblong bar and loved it. Also, critically, purse hooks are installed underneath so that women can hang their bags rather than sit them awkwardly in their laps or worry about them on the floor. After a first round, we sat, and in doing so I discovered what would be my only complaint about Ghibellina. The chairs are low, so low that I almost asked for a booster seat or phone book because I felt like a tiny tot at the big table. Like Lily Tomlin in the old SNL skit in which she plays the little girl in the enormous chair. Though this seat inspired my best posture, it was odd to feel so low in relation to the table and my dining companions who were happily enjoying their banquette.

Our waitress, Maria, was wonderful, and we went to town ordering everything that struck our fancy: Pici Carrettiera (hand-rolled pici pasta with a tomato/basil/peperoncino sauce; very traditional); Cavolo Verde Saltato Con Peperoncino, Aglio e Parmigiano (kale with peperoncino, garlic and Parm); Carciofi Al Forno Con Aglio e Prezzemolo (wood-oven cooked artichokes with garlic, lemon and mint); Germogli Di Piselli (pizza with pea shoots, culatello, lemon, mozz and grana); Salsicce e Cipolla (pizza with boar sausage, provolone, onions, grana); a plate of Accasciato (a semi-soft buff- and cow-milk cheese); and a slice of olive oil cake with pistachios and amarena cherries for dessert.

My sister the Florentine was definitely bothered by the mint addition to the Carrettiera sauce, but despite that update on what is a very traditional sauce, I am a complete sucker for fresh pici and so devoured my portion happily. The Accasciato cheese was terrifically good; it was about the consistency of provolone but had a wonderful complexity and a bit of sharpness. Buffalo milk is just of the gods. Mon dieu.

The pizzas were fantastic though I liked the Germogli best. I love pea shoots because unlike other vegetables' greenery, they taste just like their offspring. In leafy form, we were eating peas on pizza and with the lemon, mozz, grana and culatello (a superior prosciutto), well, suffice it to say we were quite happy. The Salsicce was quite good too -we got it primarily because Tom and Elia love sausage, and I've never(!) seen El turn down anything with boar in it- with a definite kick and a good char that nicely complemented the sausage and onions. Grana padano is an underrated cheese and should be used more often by everyone. It's considered a lesser step-sibling of Parm but I like it a lot.

The kale dish was perfect. You know how inadequately rendered greens can be chewy and fibrous, like leather? But well done greens are the opposite. Full-of-flavor silk ribbons that you just can't stop gorging on. Aah!

During this feast we drank and very much enjoyed a bottle of Benotto nebbiolo, and for dessert (though everyone swore complete fullness) the olive oil cake with pistachios and cherries was divine. I love olive oil cake anyway, but the crust of candied pistachios on top was sublime and with the Amarena cherries, well, all the better.

It poured brickbats throughout our meal which made our being ensconced in Ghibellina all the cozier. It's a really attractive restaurant with a great energy and vibe, marrying well a refreshing casualness and a serious commitment to good food and good service. I felt that a number of small details had been attended to- the bathrooms for example were cool but well-lit and the faucets (cool and with a cool sink underneath) did not splash water on you as you cleaned up. Amen because too often "cool" ends up being disappointingly idiotic in actual performance.

Can't wait to go back!