Free daily cupcake at Georgetown Cupcake

For those of you on Twitter, may I suggest that you follow Georgetown Cupcake? Every day they give away 100 free cupcakes at each location, and each morning they tweet the flavor to ask for. Today's flavor was salted caramel, which I just snagged, and is delicious.

Follow Georgetown Cupcake here.

Sorry for the Snowstorm, DC

Greetings from Texas! I'm still traveling and my trip has just been extended due to the fact that you can't fly into BWI — Southwest says that "our ability to resume scheduled service [Monday afternoon] is contingent upon the conditions of the runways, taxiways, and other airport services." I can't believe I've missed the two giant storms to rock DC this year, but I can't say I'm too sorry about it.

I've been in Texas the last couple of days with my brother. We ate delicious sliders from Little Bigs in Houston and then went to Austin where we ate bbq and pecan pie at Iron Works BBQ and drank Austin Amber at the Blind Pig.

Tomorrow morning it's back up to Chicago, where I will wait until I can fly into BWI. But with more snow forecasted for next week, it may be March before I'm back in DC.

Brainfood and Bordeaux: A Cooking Demonstration and Wine Auction

Brainfood, an organization that teaches life skills to D.C. high school students through cooking, is holding Brainfood and Bordeaux: A Cooking Demonstration and Wine Auction on February 22 at 7 p.m. at Zola Wine & Kitchen, 505 9th Street, NW.

Brainfood has two kitchens, one in Penn Quarter and one in Columbia Heights, where kids take part in after school and summer school classes. At the event, Brainfood students and Bryan Moscatello, the executive chef of Zola, Zola Wine & Kitchen and Potenza, (above left) will be doing a cooking demo. There will also be a wine auction.

Tickets are $40, which includes food and wine, and to participate in the wine auction, you need an auction paddle for $10. Buy tickets here.

Buzz Bakery's New Energy Bars

Pastry chef Josh Short of Buzz Bakery in Alexandria recently start making energy bars to sell at the bakery. Go read a piece I wrote for Express' Fit section to learn more and see a recipe.

D.C. International Wine and Food Festival

I went to the D.C. International Wine and Food Festival last year with a couple friends and had a great time sampling wines. This year's main event is on February 13 and 14, and there are over 600 wines to try from 100 wineries from around the world. This year, there's a new international food pavilion, and you can watch cooking demos by chefs like Jose Andres.

The event runs from 2-6 p.m., and tickets are $85 for Saturday, $75 for Sunday, or $140 for both days. Visit the festival web site to buy tickets or for more information.

Labor Day weekend in the District, in photos

Lemon scone and lemon curd, Saturday morning, 8:30 a.m.

Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market, Saturday, 9:30 a.m.

 Faces in a church in Mt. Pleasant, Saturday, 10 a.m.

Taqueria Distrito Federal with Zack, Saturday, 2 p.m.

Lincoln's Summer Cottage, Sunday afternoon, 2 p.m.

Kayaking on the Potomac River, Monday, 11 a.m.

Big Papi En Fuego Hot Sauce

Great/interesting things often come across my desk. I've received beer, cupcakes, false eyelashes, a light up tiara, and a Proust comic book, all in the name of journalism. Last week I received four bottles of Big Papi En Fuego Hot Sauce made by Red Sox player David Ortiz, who apparently is a hot sauce enthusiast.

Longtime readers know that I love baseball, and I obviously love food, so this intersection, (much like the Cooperstown Cookie Company), is great. But it's even better because Papi is one of my favorite baseball players. I've only opened the mildest bottle (It's a single!) and haven't yet tried "Monster Double," "Off the Wall Triple" or "Grand Slam," but it's been useful to keep at my desk. So far I've swirled it into hummus and drizzled it on a burger, to excellent results.

The tag line — "Not just a hot sauce, it's a lifestyle!!! En Fuego goes with everything, from food to drinks to cooking ingredient - it's a way of life" — is kind of inexplicable, but who cares. Sales benefit the David Ortiz Children’s Fund, and you can find bottles at stores in New England and online here.

Penn Quarter Market — Thursday Afternoon

Brainfood Grill-Off on Thursday

This Thursday is the Brainfood Grill-Off, the third annual fundraiser for Brainfood, an organization that teaches life skills to D.C. high school students through cooking. Brainfood has two kitchens, one in Penn Quarter and one in Columbia Heights, where kids take part in after school and summer school classes.

The event, which is on Thursday from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at Decatur House on Lafayette Square, 1610 H St., NW, will pair top local chefs with amateur cooks to see who can grill up the best dishes.

Participating chefs are Glenn Babcock, Nage; Anthony Chittum, Vermilion; Daniel Giusti, 1789 Restaurant; Teddy Folkman, Granville Moore’s; Jonathan Krinn, Inox Restaurant; Jon Mathieson, Inox Restaurant; Cedric Maupillier, Central Michel Richard; Bryan Moscatello, Zola and Shannon Overmiller, The Majestic.

I chatted with Folkman recently about his participation in the event, as well as his participation on The Next Food Network Star (which launched on Sunday) and his new role as executive chef at Capitol Lounge.

Folkman says he’s been volunteering for Brainfood for seven or eight years, and he got involved “by default.”

“I was working at the Reef in Adams Morgan and the executive chef had volunteered to teach a class, but he had gotten sick the day before,” he says. “I was the sous chef, so I went and taught the class and had so much fun that I started volunteering regularly. It was by default but I'm so glad I've gotten involved.”

Folkman, who participated in the Grill-Off last year, said that it’s an “Iron Chef-style” competition.

“We’re held in a room and at the last minute we go look at the table of ingredients, where there's everything from salmon to filet to scallops, and it kind of runs the gamut and there's so many cool ingredients,” he says. “Then you cook the dishes. What's supposed to happen is that the chef doesn't do anything but direct the teams and stuff, but sometimes you get involved.”

Folkman says that last year his team whipped up grilled pork chops with mango salsa and grilled potato salad, and the one rule is that everything has to be cooked on the grill.

“You can bring a sauté pan, but you have to use the heat from the grill,” he says. “You can boil a pot of water for lobster, but good luck getting that going in time because it’s going to take forever.”

While the chefs are doing their thing, audience members will be sampling dishes, cocktails and wine. Tickets, which are $75, help fund Brainfood programs. Visit their web site for tickets.

Besides working with Brainfood, Folkman has been busy, and took the helm at Capitol Lounge as executive chef this week.

“We’re going to have two menus, one classical with all the food people come here for and have loved for years, and on the next page will be more upscale pub food, like crispy fried oysters and house made Reubens, but I’ll put a little twist them. It's gourmet bar food.”

He also consulted on the menu at the newly opened H Street Country Club.

“I have a couple more ideas now from talking to contestants [on The Next Food Network Star] and getting their take on cooking,” Folkman says. “Jeff was really big into Spanish ingredients and cuisine, and that, along with working on the H Street Country Club menu, influenced me to put Mexican twist on the menu at Capitol Lounge.”

Photo of 2008 Grill-Off from brain-food.org.

Strawberry Pecan Bread

I rarely post recipes on here, but this bread is just too amazing not to share. The recipe is a hybrid of several I found online. I used a bag of pecans from Texas and a pint of strawberries I picked up three hours earlier at the 14th & U St. farmers market.

Ingredients:
• 1 pint strawberries, sliced
• 2 eggs
• ¾ c. vegetable oil
• 1½ c. all-purpose flour
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 heaping tsp. cinnamon
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¾ cup chopped pecans

Directions:
• Preheat oven to 350°.
• Grease and flour 9x5 inch loaf pan.
• In a mixing bowl, combine strawberries, eggs and oil; stir to mix well.
• In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and pecans.
• Add strawberry mixture to dry ingredients and stir until blended.
• Pour into loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

This Weekend: Food & Wine Festival at National Harbor

The Food & Wine Festival at National Harbor is today and tomorrow, and there's a great line-up of events scheduled.

Saturday highlights:

1:30 p.m.
2009 RAMMY Finalists for Hottest Restaurant Bar Scene: RAMMY Finalists Mix Rum Cocktails. Four of the Hottest Restaurant Bars share recipes for delicious Puerto Rican Rum cocktails.

2:30 p.m.
Top Chef Trio: Join Bravo’s Top Chef contestants Carla Hall (Alchemy Caterers), Spike
Mendelsohn (Good Stuff Eatery) and Ariane Duarte (CulinAriane) as they demonstrate some of their favorite summer recipes and talk about cooking on reality TV.

6 p.m.
"Savouring Perfection — A Celebration of Belgian Beer and Food": Join Stella Artois' Brand Ambassador Bart Vandaele for a one hour celebration of Belgian beer and food culture. Learn about different Belgian beer styles, the importance of using the right glassware for each variety, and how to pair different beers with different dishes for the perfect culinary experience.

Sunday highlights:

1 p.m.
Hand-Stretched Apple Strudel: Join Matt Weingarten, Executive Chef and Miran Shim, Pastry Chef of Inside Park at St. Bart’s in New York City as they demonstrate this classic pastry. (I'm sure this will in no way compare to the apple strudel show I went to at a palace in Vienna, but still.)

1:45 p.m.
Panel: “What We Eat Now”: Join Barbara Fairchild, Editor-in-Chief of Bon Appétit as she leads a discussion with Walter Scheib, Former White House Chef; Rene Catacalos, Edible Chesapeake; Nycci Nellis, The List You Are On It; Jeff Tunks, Passion Food LLC; and Bonnie Benwick, Washington Post.

3 p.m.
Summer Picnic Favorites: Join Suvir Saran of Dévi in New York City as he demonstrates his Slaw with Mint, Lime Juice, Chiles and Peanuts, Strawberry Lemonade, and Spicy-Sweet Chicken
Wings.

Chef's Best

Food & Friends will be throwing its 19th annual Chef's Best fundraiser on Monday, June 1. To read more about the event and Scott Palmer, the bar man at Dino who will be whipping up a cocktail for the night, click over here, for a piece I wrote for the Blade.

9:30 Club Cupcake

At this weekend's Cake shows, the 9:30 Club will be debuting a new treat — cupcakes made by Josh Short of Buzz Bakery. I tried the cupcake this week, and it's fabulous — a devil's food cake filled with vanilla buttercream, topped with chocolate frosting and dipped in ganache.

If you're going to the shows, you get a free cupcake, but if not, the cake is the special flavor in June at Buzz, and it will be available at the 9:30 indefinitely.

Metrocurean has photos, which is a good thing, because I can never seem to be able to wait long enough before eating cupcakes to take photos.

Softshell Crab Season

I recently met with Equinox and Chef & Co-Owner Todd Gray, and I learned how to cook soft shell crabs and sampled a number of really delicious dishes using them.

Soft shells are blue crabs caught in their molted state, and the natural molting process creates the soft shell crab season, which runs from late spring to early fall. I don't have very much experience eating them, and usually just like crabs when they're steamed and coated in Old Bay, but Gray made them seem really easy to work with.

While I don't think I could clean them myself, since I get squeamish about them, you can order them at Whole Foods, where they will clean them for you. You can also find them at Black Salt and River Falls Seafood Company in Potomac. And you can find them on the menu at Equinox as well.

One of my favorite dishes of the night was the soft shell crab with Vidalia onion puree, Rappahannock spinach and Equinox bacon. Recipe is below.

Ingredients:
• 6 soft shell crabs, cleaned
•2 cups Wondra Flour
•1/2 cup clarified butter
•1 cup sweet onion puree
•1/2 lb spinach
•3 shallots, sliced
•1 tbsp olive oil
•1/4 cup bacon lardons
•1/2 cup white butter sauce
•1/4 cup chives, minced
•1 tsp preserved lemon

Directions:
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Heat a large sauté pan to medium and clarified butter to pan.
• Dredge crabs in flour and season with salt and pepper and lay them into pan back side down. Cook crabs for two minutes and turn over. Place pan in oven and cook additional 2-3 minutes.
• Heat up sweet onion puree in a small sauce pot. Keep warm.
• Heat another medium-sized sauté pan and add olive oil and shallots. Sweat for one minute. Add spinach, season with salt and pepper. Cook two minutes. Drain spinach onto paper towel-lined tray and keep warm.
• Heat up butter sauce. Add lardons, chives and lemon.
• Remove crabs from oven. Drain onto paper towels.
•Take six warm plates. Spoon onion puree into center of dish and place spinach on top of puree. Place one crab onto each dish and drizzle with bacon butter.

Top Chef Tour

On Saturday former Top Chef contestants and D.C. chefs Carla and Spike came to Adams Morgan on the Top Chef bus and cooked up really tasty Cuban pork with onion slaw on a tortilla. Carla, whose family was in the audience, is always lovely and energetic, and Spike talked about the pizza joint he's planning to open in the next three to four months right next to Good Stuff Eatery. I'm always for more pizza spots opening around here, though someone has to tell Spike it's Neapolitan pizza, not Napoleon.

Simply Indian

Go here to read about how an Indian chef came to my kitchen last week and I ate amazing leftovers for the rest of the week. For recipes, visit his web site.

Cupcakes Actually

Another cupcake spot is opening out in the 'burbs, and Fairfax Corner to be exact. My waist is cheering because it's not metro accessible, but my tastebuds are sobbing because their specialty cupcake is a buttercream frosted cake dipped in a topping of chocolate or caramel and chilled.

Cupcakes Actually (I hope the name is a play on Love Actually) will have an opening party on May 16 from 12 to 4 p.m. which will be a block party of sorts and includes a cupcake eating contest and a raffle for a cupcake-catered children's birthday party.

Cupcakes Actually is located in Fairfax Corner: 11944 Grand Commons Ave; Farifax, Virginia.

Chocolate and Zucchini Desktop Calendar

I love the blog Chocolate and Zucchini, and I use the author, Clotilde Dusoulier's books to plan imaginary epicurean tours of Paris. It's a little bit of Paris every month on my MacBook desktop, since she makes pretty desktop calendars with images of food. Click over here to get the May one.

Farmer's Markets Open This Weekend

To my great happiness (I have an extremely difficult time getting myself out the door to make it to the Dupont Market), the two farmer's markets closest to me open on Saturday. The market at 14th and U opens at 9 a.m. and runs till 1 p.m. To look forward to — Stefano Frigiero of The Copper Pot Food Company, will have a stand with pastas, sauces and jams.

The hours for the Mt. Pleasant Market, at the corner of 17th and Lamont Streets, are the same.

Spanish Vanguard Cuisine and its Influence in the United States and the World—with Chefs José Andrés and Wylie Dufresne

I'm wary of posting this event, since I don't want it to get so packed I can't get in, but José Andrés and Wylie Dufresne will be chatting on Tuesday at the Museum of American History about the emergence of Spanish Vanguard Cuisine and its influence in the United States and the world.

Andrés is the local guy behind Jaleo, Zaytinya, Oyamel and Cafe Atantico, as well as the TV show "Made in Spain." Dufresne is a proponent of molecular gastronomy and the chef at wd-50 in New York.

The discussion is part of a series Preview Spain: Arts & Culture, in which local institutions house various expressions of contemporary Spanish culture. It takes place at 7 p.m. and while free, it's first come, first served.