Weekend in D.C.

Every time I go to Washington D.C., I wonder why I don't return more often.  The city is compact, beautifully European, and has great food.  I haven't been there since 2014 - when I was sent there last weekend for a writers conference, I jumped at the chance to go.  It was a tiring weekend, but a fun one, too.

It was a little hard to prep for the trip, though; the weather in D.C. has been insane!  It was 72 degrees the day I took the train down there, then the temp dropped to the low 30s for two days, then went back up to the 50s.  Packing became very difficult.  I ended up taking a rain coat, thinking I could layer and not have to carry my winter coat around on the warmer days.  It was not the right choice.  It didn't matter how many layers I had on, I could never make that rain coat warm enough.  Oh well, lesson learned.  Thankfully, my hotel was only four blocks away from the convention center, so I guess a brisk walk was good exercise.

I went down to D.C. the night before the conference started, since the first session was at 9am.  Happily, I rode with a former co-worker on the very convenient Acela, and we spent a fun evening hopping from here to there in the city.  We ended up at a restaurant I visited a long time ago (maybe ten years ago?) and where I have always wanted to return: Jaleo.  A tapas restaurant, Jaleo is one of Chef Jose Andres' first spots in the States.  It's been there for a while (since the early 90s, I think), but it has gone through some renovations since I've been there. It's now a trendy, buzzy-looking kind of place, but the food is still to die for.

I tried to make a reservation, but apparently we were there at the end of Restaurant Week D.C. (wait, WHAT?!), and so Jaleo was booked solid.  My friend and I decided to stop there anyway, to see if there was some room at the bar.  And there was - hurray!  We ordered a glass of sangria and three plates of tapas: the pan de cristal con tomate (bread with tomatoes), which is one of my very favorite things to eat anywhere ever; the croquetas de jamon iberico (fancy ham fritters); and the espinacas a la catalana (the most amazing spinach dish ever). The sangria was bright and fruity, with a depth of flavor from a little brandy, I think.  It was delicious and perfectly paired with all of our plates. The pan de cristal con tomate was wonderful - the bread was crispy yet light, and the tomatoes were sweet and tart at the same time. The ratio between the ingredients was perfect.  We could've just eaten ten or twelve orders of that and left happy.  But the croquetas were also SO good - tender and deep-fried, but also really filling with the dark, deep rich iberico ham.  We actually left one behind because they were so filling.  But the espinacas (spinach) may have been our favorite dish.  Again, it had everything - it had some sweetness from the sherry vinegar and the raisins, crunch from the pine nuts and raw apple, and bitterness from the sauteed spinach.  SOOOOOOO perfectly yummy, I feel like I should be able to make it myself, because it's deceptively simple.  But the proportions have to be perfect, so I think I'll just wait until I get back to Jaleo again.  And there's no way I will wait another ten years.  We also stopped at a gelato place on our way back to our respective hotels - I got a combination of cinnamon and caradmom gelatos - really really good together.  Fragrant, rich and a little bit sweet from the cinnamon, it was a perfect ending to a fun evening with a fun friend.

You know, we do a writers conference every other year at my job, and I thought a conference with 70 sessions and 600 attendees was big.  Clearly, I had no idea what I was talking about. The conference I just attended had 12,000 attendees and 550 sessions! It was insanely enormous!  It was hard to decide which sessions to attend, since there were so many happening at the same time.  As a newbie, I made the mistake the first day of going to a session in every time slot, without finding time to eat or regroup.  That made for a really long day, beginning at 9am and especially since the keynote address didn't end until 10:30pm.  But being in rooms with so many passionate smart people was pretty invigorating and I think I learned a lot.  I was so inspired by the keynote speaker, Azar Nafisi - she was charming, delightful and she gave a funny yet rousing and poignant speech.  I've purchased a couple of her books since I got back and am looking forward to reading them. You should Google her, she's amazing.

One of the best sessions I went to was actually a reading of work by trans and gender nonconforming writers.  The three writers - one poet and two essayists - were all terrific. They did the readings of their own work and they were so talented, as both writers and readers.  Each piece was beautifully rendered, all so moving and touching, yet also with humor.  The poem on bathrooms was a rallying call to arms, yet so sad and scary; the short story that basically told a skewed version of the movie Pretty in Pink, with the Molly Ringwald character as trans; and the other short story about a camping trip was also just beautiful and true.  I'm so glad I went to the readings and I wish I had gone to more readings while I was at the conference.  There really is nothing like hearing an author read their own work - the authenticity is always staggering to me.

I bought a lot of books while I was at the conference - not only are there sessions going on, but there is also a bookfair, filled with hundreds of tables of publishers, editors, journals and other programming interesting to writers.  I bought some books at publishers' tables, I got a new Jane Austen mug (score!), and I got some swag for a handsome work pal who loves the Paris Review. One of the sessions I attended the first day was by a not-for-profit called Voice of Witness, which (according to their website) "promotes human rights and dignity by amplifying the voices of people impacted by injustice. Through our oral history book series and education program, we foster a more nuanced, empathy-based understanding of human rights crises."  Their session was amazing and I immediately wanted to buy all of their books, which are anthologies of the transcriptions of the oral histories.  So I kept going back to the bookfair, hoping to find someone from Voice of Witness at their table, but every time I went, the table was empty.  I will definitely be buying some of their books from their website, but it was disappointing not to be able to talk to someone and share how excited their presentation made me.  Oh well. 

From the important to the not-so-important: I also skipped an evening sessions one night so I could have dinner with yet another former co-worker.  He and his wife treated me to an amazing dinner at Convivial.  This was another small plates restaurant, but the food was more of a Mediterranean mashup. We were told by the delightful server that we should order two plates per person, which seemed like a lot of food (and it was - by the time plates five and six came out, we were pretty stuffed), but it was so nice to be able to try so much of their food in one outing. They have an enormous menu, so it took us a few minutes to decide our food direction, but once we decided, we were really happy. We ended up with escargot in a blanket, which were tasty, of course - very garlicky little snails in wonton wrappers; latkes with celery root and cured lamb - AMAZING; leeks dijonnaise, which were deliciously soft and mild and yet tart from the dijon mustard; socca, which from my Italy trip I knew meant chickpea flour pancake, topped with beets, oranges, shaved fennel and green olives - delicious, especially on the crispy socca edges, though I did feel like the beets could've used the tiniest bit more salt; pickled rockfish with watermelon radish, passionfruit, green papaya and avocado - good heavens, this was one of the most delicious blasts of acidic yumminess I've ever had! Wow, is what I kept saying as I was eating this. We also had 'main' courses of grilled durade, fried chicken served 'coq au vin' and braised rabbit with spaetzle, which was my second favorite dish of the night.  But, really, everything was so delicious, as was the sticky toffee pudding and maple ice cream we got for dessert. We didn't need dessert, but hey, when in Rome.  Or D.C.

I had a great time in D.C. - wonderful food, interesting work, fabulous friends who I don't get to see enough of.  I need to make that train trip a more regular stop on my magical tour...