Obviously because of the Sabbath I couldn't take pix of the storm during the day but ti's still coming down and looks just wonderful. We haven't confronted the shoveling yet; walked through it this morning – silent and lovely. Enjoy these two; if I get outside to take more I'll add them.
Since I married a doctor while he was still a med student rotating from specialty to specialty, I’ve been in plenty of hospitals. Among them, VA hospitals. Most of those are enormously sad; dark, often smelly and grim, especially compared to private institutions. And we all read those terrible stories about Walter Reed Medical Center.
So, much as I love our friend, (we’ll call him Fred here) I dreaded my visit to him yesterday; dreaded entering the kind of public hospital environment I knew from our years in New York. Boy was I wrong. The DC VA seems to be sunny, with lots of windows, very nice people, well-informed volunteers and committed and apparently knowledgeable medical staff. Even the guards were nice. Granted, Fred is so lovable, well into his 70s, that it would be tough to be mean, or even impatient, with him, but believe me, harried hospital staff can be, well, brusque. Not here.
I didn’t do an expose, go examine day rooms or rehab floors, food services or ICUs but from my limited exploration, and the karma in the lobby and the halls, reception by volunteers, charge nurses, orderlies, other patients and even the doctors, it was, for a hospital, a pretty good place to be. No big news bulletins, but when there’s so much bad news out there about how our veterans are treated, this is just a little bit of the better.
Today is January 20th. Just one year – one year — from today we will Inaugurate a new president. So if we care what happens we better get busy if we’re not already I guess. What happens that day is going to matter plenty.
So Foodmomiac, whose writing, recipes and self I hold in high regard, asks for five top restaurants in one’s hometown. I have to do 10 — 5 PRE-kosher life and 5 SINCE Kosher life.
Since Kosher is easiest since there are only around 10 in DC anyway
JCC Cafe – more nicely appointed than the others and nice, regular food.
Pita Plus – Shwarma and lots of other Middle Eastern meat stuff
Max’s – Great matzo ball soup, schwarma, so-so fried chicken, good fries (according to my husband) etc.
Eli’s – a NY coffee shop type menu – salads with sliced steak, burgers (zillions of types) plus some real "entrees."
Ben Yehuda Pizza – Great pizza w/spinach and tomato and lots more.
NOW – before we began our Kosher life – there were several we loved. Here are 5 of them:
Bistro Bis – cool, beautiful and delicious — American/French cuisine – light.
Neyla – Spectacular Middle Eastern food in an elegant setting (expensive)
Cafe Milano – The Clintons eat here and so do a lot of other "cool folks" on the patio and inside… but celebrity haven or not it’s great Italian food (expensive)
Bombay Club – A fabulous Indian restaurant with a great outdoor area for dinner near the White House at dusk.