The House of Marinara

While I have blogged for several years now. I have always felt like I was on the outside looking in when it came to the blogging community. I had my personal blog with the readership of 15 people and that was about it. My buddies at the Celtics Blog and the Jets Blog were building their empires. Other friends at Listening to the Sustain and Cinerant faded away. Of course, RoyaleRant always remained, but no one could compare to his greatness.

Last night, for a brief period of time, I felt like I was part of community. Graciously, Bookstore Piet invited me to a grill party/potluck that was comprised of other Richmond food bloggers. This is the kind of event that makes me a bit skiddish. I love to cook for other people. I love to cook for people who love food. I get nervous cooking for people who know food. So once I figured out what I was going to throw out there to serve, I began to enjoy the process.

For the evenings festivities, I decided to stay close to my roots. I prepared little meatball burgers, topped with basil and fresh mozzarella. I also brought a side dish of sauteed Swiss Chard with garlic, pine nuts, cheese and bread crumbs. Simple and hard to screw up.

The other food there was simply delightful. Bookstore Piet served up a simple Prime Rib with Au Jus and some Grava Lox. Sketchy made his legendary Dragonscale Fish and grown up Oreos. Both people provided me with way too much hard liquor. All this, made for a very pleasant evening.

So after I was good and mellow, I sat down to enjoy the rest of the evening. RVA foodie showed up and I was taught to ways of blogging in Richmond, VA. I learned about the RVA aggregate. I learned which bloggers were cool. I learned about some restaurateurs who do not appreciate the bloggers. It was a great crash course of what I can come to expect if I choose to continue to expand my blog readership. But the best part of the night was that I felt like I was part of something. I was the new guy, but that didn’t matter because I could drink Akvavit with the rest of them. I think I am going to continue on this blogging journey for a while. Worse case scenario, is that I meet a few friends along the way and eat some good food.

So I volunteered to help in the cooking line for a church breakfast on Saturday. I had been going back and forth with the organizer about when and where. Finally, I asked him the all important question about what is on the menu. I qualified the question by saying that I wanted to bring my own cooking tools. This surprised him a bit, and it made me very aware that I am in a small minority of people who are extremely picky about anything when it comes to food and food prep. I am not ashamed of this fact. Cooks and caterers do it all the time. Actually, it is fun to be an elitist in something.

I’ve had mixed feelings since Penzey’s came to town a few months back. On the positive side, it is 5 blocks away and it’s nice not having pay $6 for a spice when you only need $3 worth of it. On the negative side, the hours are a bit restrictive, the staff know the spices but don’t seem to be creative cooks, and my secret mail order place is now exposed to everyone.

I visited the Robin Inn last night with little Marinara. I must say that I have very fond memories of this place, but Mrs. Marinara was never a fan, so I could never go with her.

So I love the ambiance. It is a row house with drop ceilings and plenty of neon lights. While most people say that the renovation should have come years ago, I think it is cute.

I sit down and order a $4 pizza for the little man. When the waitress returns, I order the Pasta a la Manual Loupassi. This is a baked spaghetti with pepperoni, sausage, meatballs, mushrooms and whatever. I also upgrade my salad to the small Greek salad.

Little man’s pizza was pretty much a prefab thin crust (think Domino’s thin crust) with sauce, cheese, and pepperoni. He loves pizza any way you slice it. I think, well, it was $4. My pasta salad arrived and it has all the staples of a Greek Salad- feta, lettuce, onions, kalamata olives, pepperocini, and optional anchovies. It was OK, the Greek dressing was not up to par with some of the other Greek dressings I have had recently. It lacked the sweetness that i have come to expect over the years. Then the baked spaghetti arrived. And it was all that it was advertised. it had everything on it. the problem was that the sauce was…. ehhhhh. So basically, my food was just average.

As you, may or may not know, I love Joe’s Inn. I think it is the standard for Diners in the Richmond area. And really, the Robin Inn doesn’t seem to compete in the same ballpark. Will I go back? probably but at least with realistic expectations.

This is a series where I mention the crappy foods that I actually like.

Today’s installment- The Flip Pepperoni Pizza at CiCi’s Pizza

Here is what it is, if you don’t know. Cheap, crappy dough topped with pepperoni and processed cheese sauce (think cheap Velveeta). The pizza is the folded over and topped with some garlic and parmesean-like cheese. Then it is baked and there you have….. Bliss! I don’t get it, but I can’t help it.

So I have never been a huge fan of Star-lite as a drinking venue mostly because I don’t like large crowds. I tend to more often find myself hanging out in the Commercial Tap House or Chiocca’s. Anyway, last night I went to Commercial tap House and it was especially smoky and there was live music. It was not going to meet my needs for having good conversation.

I took a chance and walked the block to Star-lite. It seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Mind you it was about 78 degrees last night so it was a perfect night to sit on an open-aired porch. So we settled in and were happy to find out there were $6 pitchers and half-price appetizers.

Granted the beer was Miller Lite, but hey it was dirt cheap. What was a treat was the Crab-artichoke dip that we ordered. In typical fashion it was very rich and creamy. There were generous portions of crab and none of the ingredients seemed to overwhelm the spread. It had an especially nice kick to it. I couldn’t tell if was a generous helping of cayenne pepper or jalapenos. Nevertheless, it was a nice compliment to my water….err….. beer.

I wouldn’t mind making it a regular stop on future Sundays!

I love it when restaurants and cafes have wireless Internet. It’s a great benefit and I often choose these places because of access to the world wide web. That being said, I get pissy when the wireless is down or not working properly. If I make a decision to go somewhere because of something and that something is not there, then it just sucks.

So the other day, my buddy and I had a working lunch over at Cafe Gutenberg. It’s a great place. It’s quiet, it’s comfortable, good coffee, good wine, good beer and good menu. But, we made the decision to go there based on the wireless because we needed to reference some web pages during our discussion. As you can guess, the wireless was down and we were automatically frustrated. And in typical coffee shop fashion, there was no one there to fix the thing.

Thankfully we had food and it rocked. I had the Bella Panini with jumbo lump crab, tomato, mozzarella, sun dried tomato aioli on grilled artisan sourdough. It was almost the perfect sandwich. It was served with well seasoned hashed potatoes (they would have been only slightly better with a bit of a crust). Nevertheless, it settled my blood sugar and my frustration.

So I had a great meal and bad working lunch….. I’ll come back but maybe with an air card this time.

I have the joy of working in a cube next to Mike. Mike is a great guy, and he is one of those people who is filled with all sorts of facts and stories. The other day while discussing High Fructose Corn Syrup, he was telling me about how Coca Cola pulled a fast-one on the American public. As the story goes, Coca Cola removed its traditional product (made with cane sugar) from the shelves and replaced it with the now infamous New Coke. New Coke was disaster and was later replaced by what were told was the original recipe, Coca Cola Classic. The thing is that Coca Cola Classic was no longer made with cane sugar but instead with High Fructose Corn Syrup. Mike went on to say that this was due to tariffs imposed on cane sugar imports, and that there are places in the world, like Latin America, that still use cane sugar.

So I was asked to make a meal for a family that just brought in two teenaagers from Haiti. My thought process was as follows: