📸 Day 3: Firelight, under which desert always looks better. This one was in The Grill from Ipanema almost a decade ago.

📸 December 15 is Day 1 of the micro.blog photoblogging challenge. I participated the last two years (September 2023 and April 2024) so it would truly be poor form not to continue.

Today’s theme is frost. I hope frosting (or is it icing?) on this Smith Island cake will suffice!

And now for the best part of Black Friday: the leftovers on top of freshly baked crusty bread sandwich.

And, of course, the star of the show. It’s apple pie time tomorrow.

A quick Ranking of DC restaurants I’ve eaten at within the past 6 months of so:

Moon Rabbit > Rumi’s Kitchen > Chloe > Blue Duck Tavern > Rasika > Albi > The Dabney

For all his good work, Jose Andres’s restaurants are lackluster. Oyamel was just OK. Jaleo and China Chilcano stank. Haven’t been to Zaytinya but I doubt it could be better than Rumi’s Kitchen and Chloe.

I’ve spent enough time in the US to occasionally call sparkling water “club soda”, but I will never ever be American enough to call it friggin' seltzer.

The last crusty bread of the year. I’ve only started last year so there is much to learn. One of the thing is: bread flour is called that for a reason and you’d do well to chose it over “all purpose”.

What can I say, it’s cheese heaven.

Fries the way they were meant to be made: golden brown and with a side of mayo. Why does the Netherlands have so much better fast food than America, my kid asked, and I didn’t know the answer.

You may not be able to tell, but there is a mound of (Waiola!) shaved ice under these red beans, and it is all delicious.