Travel Talk: Off to Peru

This massive, carved and terraced block of Peruvian chocolate, displayed at last year’s Opera Ball reception, led me to where I am right now. As you read this, I am between Arequipa and Puno, almost 6,000 miles from Washington.

The tower is a replica of Machu Picchu. For me, the sacred “lost city of the Incas” had long been a some-when destination, although I had never done anything about it. I said so aloud at the ball. Peruvian Ambassador Felipe Ortiz de Zevallos, who was hosting the black-tie reception, answered that Machu Picchu had been there for centuries, but there was no time like the present. He added, “Whenever you go to Peru, you will have a warm welcome.”

He was right. Even in bustling Lima, the capital city--and capitals are often impressive but impersonal--I’ve been charmed by the warmth of strangers, and these not just service personnel, with an eye out for tips.

Ever since growing up as a California beach bunny, I felt the tug of travel; I’ve covered a lot of territory since. Having two traveler husbands--sequentially--helped.

With one I traveled from the hanging gardens of Xoximilco to Picasso’s studio in Vallauris, spending almost two decades in Europe with him, crisscrossing the continent and living in five countries. A writer, he traveled hard, with a take-no-prisoners determination to see whatever there was to see, from dawn to long after dusk; I do that too.

The other was for many years an explorer, before he settled down as an editor. He had already seen most of the world anyway, so traveling with him was leisurely.

They are gone, and I travel alone now, by choice. People get tired, they need to rest, or are hungry at inopportune times, so then you miss the boat or plane or pony cart--or whatever gets you around.

I found recently, when reading the ghoulishly titled 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, that I had already seen over 300 of them. I didn’t know I had a bucket list, but Machu Picchu, voted one of the new seven wonders of the world, isn’t a bad place to start one.

At the Table: Guest Chef Barry Glassman

When Barry Glassman reaches for a ladle, everybody’s happy: Barry (at right), who loves to cook; his friends, who flock to try out his skillfully prepared dishes; and the charity that benefits from his hobby.

For Barry’s seventh annual Chef Night at Teatro Goldoni, he again devised the menu and manned the casseroles, aided by Teatro’s chef, Enzo Fargione, at left. (Enzo has been named a “chef to watch” by Esquire, which called Teatro Goldoni “D.C.’s best Italian restaurant.”)

Barry, a high-end financial consultant at Cassaday & Company, and his wife, Caren, took over the restaurant for the night, and donated the proceeds to the National Brain Tumor Society.

The dinner was stunning, opening with burrata mozzarella (a now-trendy special “buttered” version: brioche-shaped mozzarella pockets containing heavy cream melded with scraps of the cheese). Then, in succession, he presented stuffed quail risotto with artichokes, Chilean sea bass with fennel saffron broth, roasted filet of beef with gorgonzola sauce, and cocoa nib baskets filled with creamy chocolate orange truffle.

See why Barry has a following?

Capital Diary: Celebrating Marianne Means

How do you mark the retirement of a newswoman who has soldiered through nine presidential campaigns, filing three columns a week for almost 40 years? You take over the National Press Club, bring down the top brass from New York, and do a lavish buffet, all to hoist a glass to star Hearst journalist Marianne Means.

Down from Manhattan’s Hearst Tower came Frank A. Bennack, chief executive of the communications giant, with scores of newspapers and magazines, plus cable, TV, and Internet. (During a brief retirement, from which Hearst called him back, Bennack also became chairman of New York’s Lincoln Center.) He spoke, pointing out Marianne’s many accomplishments, as did George Irish, president of Hearst newspapers, also from New York, and Charles Lewis, Hearst’s Washington bureau chief.

By Marianne’s side was her husband, the syndicated columnist and essayist James J. Kilpatrick (Kilpo, who was a regular on 60 Minutes). Kilpo is known as an ultraconservative, she an ultraliberal. How does that work out? “We’ve both mellowed,” they chorus.

Seen in the crowd was longtime friend and tireless investigative reporter Kitty Kelley. She’s working on a bio of Oprah Winfrey. The book is the target of coast-to-coast rumors. “It won’t be a hatchet job,” says the doll-faced but tough-minded Kitty, whose other painstakingly researched bios have portrayed Frank Sinatra as a mobster’s pal and Nancy Reagan as a domineering woman. (Jackie O and Liz Taylor did not come off too well, either.)

Online magazine Slate has defined Kitty as the “colonoscopist to the stars,” so it’s amusing to speculate about what she and Frank Bennack might have had to say to each other at the party, because Hearst publishes O, The Oprah Magazine. Oops!

Plan Ahead: Reza and Sebastian Junger

The distinguished and intrepid Iranian photojournalist Reza Deghati, known as Reza, has covered some of the most dangerous places in the world. A warmhearted realist, he is a humanitarian who has seen it all, and has shown it to us, vividly, in the pages of the National Geographic. He will discuss his new book, Reza War + Peace, on Tuesday, December 2, at 7:30 p.m. at the Geographic’s Grosvenor Auditorium, ticket information. Sharing the stage will be author Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm), who wrote the introduction.

In addition to magnificent photographs from many lands, the book gives Reza’s insights into the lives of those pictured, as he spoke with them and learned of their problems, fears, and occasional joys.

Here’s a preview from the Geographic, with a video of Reza and pictures from his book. Living in exile from Iran, he makes his home base in Paris with his French wife, Rachel.

May I be allowed a bit of parental pride here? My daughter, Donnali Fifield, worked on the translation and editing of the text, which is in French. A couple of years ago, she translated the companion book for March of the Penguins and adapted it with the American version of the film, also for the Geographic. A writer who lives in San Francisco, she’s the designer and editor of this blog. I invite you to look at her Web site, Times Two Publishing Company.

Plan Ahead: Forbidden Loves

In Forbidden Loves: Paris Between the Wars, author Patricia Daly-Lipe tells the often-steamy story of a young Washington socialite who leaves for a Paris honeymoon, concerned about the man she has just married, never suspecting what lies ahead.

Daly-Lipe’s book takes you to the Paris of that time: Lindbergh’s arrival at Le Bourget after his historic flight, the Surrealist movement, and writers such as Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and others, quoted in their actual words thanks to her painstaking research.

The tale, which has won two awards for excellence, cites the mores of that period, and the scorn awaiting those who dared to break the rules for love. The story takes many unexpected turns. But probably the greatest surprise is that the heroine is Daly-Lipe’s own mother. Daly-Lipe based this account on old family records and travels to near-forgotten sites.

Rita Mae Brown, herself a best-selling author, sums the book up best: “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all--well, yes and no. Read Forbidden Loves’ view of this age-old dilemma.”

On December 7, 2:30-4 p.m., Daly-Lipe will speak at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., contrasting the District and Paris of that time with how they are today.

The next day, December 8, at 8 p.m., she’ll be interviewed on Blog Talk Radio about another of her great passions, horses. Daly-Lipe raises thoroughbreds in Northern Virginia, racing winners at Santa Anita, Del Mar and other tracks. Both events are listed on her site, literarylady.com.

Quick Notes 11/16

“What was it like to cook for Oprah?” I asked. “She was the best boss in the world,” answered Art Smith at the opening of his restaurant Art and Soul in the new hotel Liaison (the former New Jersey Avenue Holiday Inn on the Hill). The hotel has been handsomely remodeled, but who wouldn’t look good with a $12 million face-lift? It’s a stylish gray and black, with red accents, chain mail curtains and red faux ostrich-leather banquettes in the restaurant.

Art Smith, a renowned author/chef in Chicago, is a two-time James Beard Award winner, and will oversee the restaurant with local Ryan Morgan as the executive chef. The regional cuisine has a Southern twist.

Check out the Shadow Room, an intriguing addition to the K Street bar scene. On K at 21st, it has interesting lighting, good music and high-tech action, thanks to electronic-savvy Swaptak Das, who with two college pals, Stephen Acott and Pat Khunachak, started it all.

Without leaving your seat, you can work the controls to order your drink (with variations!), get bar snacks, summon your coat, get your bill, and have your car at the door when you want it, all without having to vie for the waiter’s attention.

The bar’s concept is to give you a personal servant at your elbow, but you’re on your own for happy talk with a partner, and you have to swallow your own drinks.

At the Table: Daube for Dinner

Last week, I praised the melt-in-your-mouth daube, the glorified beef dish that was served at the National Museum of Women in the Arts Fall Benefit cabaret evening. I tracked it down to Occasions Caterers, that excellent company, whose co-founder and CEO, Mark Michael, tells me it was beef cut from short ribs. That’s a bright idea for this dish, as it is best when the meat used has a gelatinous content. This is why French housewives make sure the butcher includes a cut from the shin or shank meat along with the rest of the stew meat.

Here’s the way this dish is made in Avignon. Daube doesn’t take much work, but it does take time to marinate and 4-6 hours to cook. Don’t worry that there is no step for browning the meat; it will come out of the oven nicely browned after the long cooking.

Put 4 lbs. stew meat, cut into one-and-a-half-inch lengths, into a bowl along with 2 medium-sized carrots sliced into coins, and 2 onions, sliced, 3 cloves of garlic, chopped, 1 tsp. herbes de Provence, half a bay leaf and an inch of orange rind, diced. Add one-half teaspoon salt and several grinds from the pepper mill. Add red wine to cover. Let marinate 2-3 hours or overnight.

Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Line a Dutch oven with either 1/4 lb. of salt pork, diced, or thick-cut bacon, with rind. Place the marinated meat on top, add a medium onion stuck with 3 cloves, pour on the marinade with the vegetables and add beef stock, from the grocer or homemade, to cover. (Optional: Lay a split-lengthwise calf’s foot, or pork trotter on top, to give extra succulence. Also optional addition: one-quarter cup cognac.) In France, the cooking is usually finished on top of a stove, but that requires several hours of careful attention, so use your stove’s oven.

Start the cooking on the stovetop, by bringing the uncovered stew just to a boil. Remove from the fire, cover, and put into the oven to bake. Check from time to time, adding more stock or water if needed. Bake for 4-5 hours or until completely tender. Salt and pepper to taste. Half an hour before the meat is done, add one-third of a pound of pitted black olives. Reduce the liquid in the pan if too thin. Daube is traditionally served with plain boiled noodles, with some of the juices from the meat poured over them.

Spotlight On: Coach Kemper

One of D.C.’s busiest women, Kathleen Kemper is a sports enthusiast and tennis mentor known to her fans and pupils (including top politicos and ambassadors) as “Coach Kemper.” Kathy runs a three-ring circus: her tennis life, her myriad activities as head of the Institute for Education, which she founded, and her role as wife to Jim Valentine and mother of their two daughters, Christina and Kelsey.

A non-profit, the IFE began sixteen years ago when Jim suggested some of his business pals and her diplomat and politician friends get together at a breakfast at their home. The mix led to a burst of influential joint activities. The IFE’s invitation-only INFO Roundtable breakfasts, so big they are now held at a hotel, bring together politicians, Supreme Court justices, the diplomatic community, and many of the major boldface names in town.

The IFE organizes programs to promote civility and leadership, and also encourages intercultural understanding among young people.

To find out what she’s up to next, check out “The Hill’s Pundits Blog.” Kathy is one of the bloggers, along with such newsmen as Bob Franken and Bill Press.

We don’t know when she sleeps.

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.

At the Table: Cassoulet

Election night nosh? Not exactly. This dish is as full of pork as a congressman’s earmark, but is easily kept warm for this night of erratic hungers--people glued to the TV, then suddenly starving.

In southwest France, cassoulet means controversy. Three competing towns claim supremacy: Castelnaudary, Toulouse and Carcassone. I tried ‘em all on the spot, loved every version. Pork and beans are the base. One faction adds lamb, another thinks duck a must-have, and purists insist on confit d’oie, goose preserved in its fat.

Actual prep time is not long, but you must start the soaking and simmering of the beans early. (Or cheat, I’ll never tell. Look for big cans of precooked beans, totaling about 5 pounds, and start with step 3, below.)

Here is a version so simplified you’re not even asked to tie up a bouquet garni. It’s delectable, serves 10-12, reheats better than ever, is easy to cut in half, and is great for this football season:

1. Place 3 lbs. great northern beans in a 5-6 qt. stockpot. Cover with water 3" above the beans. Boil 2 minutes. Set aside to soak 1 hour. Drain, return to pot, cover with water 3" above the beans.
   
   
2. Meanwhile, drop 1/4 lb. thick-cut bacon into boiling water 5 minutes. Drain and dice. Add to the pre-soaked beans, with an onion studded with 5 or 6 cloves, two scraped carrots cut in 3/4" lengths, 3 cloves minced garlic and 1 bay leaf. Simmer 1.5 hrs, skimming froth. Don’t boil.
   
   
3. Heat oven to 475. Cut 2 lbs. boneless pork shoulder and 2 lbs. boneless lamb shoulder into 1.5" cubes. Slice 2 lb. garlic or kielbasa sausage into 1" pieces.
   
   
4. Put 2 tbsp. olive oil into oven roaster pan, straddling it over stove burners. Brown the meats quickly. Finish roasting in oven, checking occasionally.
   
   
5. Reduce heat to 350. When beans are tender, drain into a bowl through a colander, reserve liquid.
   
   
6. Remove excess fat from roaster, push cooked meat aside, pour in 1 cup white wine, and scrape up the browned bits. Add one 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes, with juice, 2 tsp. dried thyme, 1 tsp. black pepper and 1.5 tsp. salt.
   
   
7. Pour drained beans into roaster. (If using canned beans, at this point mix in 2 finely chopped carrots, 1 onion, finely chopped, 2 cloves garlic, minced and 1/4 tsp. ground cloves.)
   
   
8. Topping: mix well 2 cups coarse bread crumbs, 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaved spinach, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. pepper. Spread half the mix over beans and meats in roaster. Bake for 45 minutes.
   
   

After 20 minutes, when topping is toasted, press it down gently into beans, using a wooden spoon. Sprinkle with remaining topping. Finish baking. Taste for seasoning. Moisten with reserved bean liquid if needed. Enjoy!

Plan Ahead: Les Paladins

"The King’s Mistress" will be at the French Embassy Wednesday, November 12, so if you go for baroque, be there. The concert will echo the era of the Marquise de Pompadour, the favorite of Louis XV.

La Pompadour was so enamored of music and playacting that the king let her create a little theater at court, where she devised entertainments fit for her king.

You will hear the same music he heard when Les Paladins, an internationally known ensemble, perform compositions by a number of baroque composers, including Lully, Rameau and Mouret. Director is Jérôme Correas, with soprano Isabelle Poulenard (photo) and tenor Jean-François Lombard.

This rarely heard music is brought to us thanks to the eclectic taste of Roland Celette, the cultural attaché and director of La Maison Française at the embassy. He tells us that La Maison is now to be called the House of France DC. Ah well, this maison by any other name would be just as Gallic.

House of France DC, Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m. Concert followed by wine reception to meet the artists. Tickets: $20, instantseats.com.

After the successful New York premiere of Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On, Karren Alenier’s jazz opera with composer William Banfield, she chronicled its birth in her new book, The Steiny Road to Operadom: The Making of American Operas, which includes interviews with Placido Domingo, composers Ned Rorem and Libby Larsen, librettist J.D. McClatchy and critic Tim Page.

Alenier will read from her book at The Wordworks’ Café Muse Literary Series, Nov. 17, 7-9 p.m., Friendship Heights Village Center, Chevy Chase.

The free program includes a reading by poet Kevin Prufer, live classical music and refreshments.

Spotlight On: Mark Bisnow

He's had a half dozen careers--political wire puller, lawyer, technology yea-sayer, who lost M's and M's when Microstrategy took a nosedive (that's millions and millions lost, not chocolate candies). He's been an author, radio host, columnist, and each time, if all else fails or bores him, comes up undaunted with something new. He's been called "the unsinkable Mark Bisnow."

Even his name presages his latest venture: eight free online business newsletters available in your inbox under the Bisnow on Business, (Almost) Never Boring banner. The letters cover legal, medical, real estate, women, technology and other topics. "The tone's irreverent on all of them," says Bisnow, who labels them "Washington's most widely read business news."

Always dynamic, before he was 20 he had earned a B.A. and a master's from Stanford, did a year at Princeton, then went on to Harvard Law after he married helpmeet Margot Machol, another political worker who herself eventually wound up on the Federal Trade Commission.

Be forewarned. You'll get the third degree if he's given half a chance. Avidly interested in anything and everything, with an author's instinct for the story, he wants to KNOW, just as for his newsletters, he wants to TELL!