Quick Notes 11/9

At the National Museum of Women in the Arts Fall Benefit, the sold-out event had a lot going for it, under the chairmanship of Patti Sowalsky. After a stunning performance by actress and local resident Lynda Carter, who has a great voice and delivery to match, came an excellent dinner, with a shrimp and grilled pineapple salad, and a wildly rich chocolate dessert bracketing a magnificent daube. That Provençal peasant dish of gently braised beef reached new heights here. The museum’s melt-in-your-mouth daube was so tender, it was almost as if hanger steak--which the French call “the butcher’s cut”--were used. If so, it was an excellent innovation.

I’m going to try to sleuth out the museum’s version of this dish (which I cooked traditionally for almost a decade in Provence), and will tell you about it next week.

The timeworn virtue of Thrift has suddenly become fashionable among Washington’s elite. Even those who have never read a menu from right to left are getting the habit. We know it will take a while for our nation to climb out of the financial pit; we did it before, we’ll do it again.

With a slow Christmas season looming, people are buying gifts much more cautiously than usual. Now, on a white horse, along comes the National Geographic Society to the rescue.

Bearing their banner “We Bring You the World,” they’re offering a world-ranging array of happy gift choices at a smashing warehouse sale. From 25% to as much as 90% will be lopped off the price of National Geographic merchandise: books, apparel, and gift items. It all happens over a three-day span at the D.C. Armory, Nov. 14, 10-6, Nov. 15 & 16, 9-5.