Cold from hell, food for comfort
Monday, November 10th, 2008
I’ve had the cold from hell for a week, so I’ve only eaten comfort food like Dynamic Dish’s stew of great northern beans and heirloom peas from Whippoorwill Hollow Organic Farm. I drank a glass of freshly made carrot-ginger-Fuji apple juice with it.
We ate at the restaurant’s new bar counter. It has five seats and, at least to me, is more comfortable than sharing the end of a table whose other end is occupied by complete strangers. Here, you can eat with strangers, but stare at the cookies and dates stuffed with chocolate and almonds between intervals of conversation.
David Sweeney, the restaurant’s chef/owner, says he’s not going to open for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Bummer.
Brad Lapin and I made our weekly trip to La Pietra Cucina where I ate short ribs over mashed potatoes. Brad ordered this (more photogenic) fish stew. Being sick, I figured I deserved the dessert, a chocolate-mousse-like concoction with hazelnuts. We’re returning for dinner this week with a visiting foodie friend from Rome.
I ran into Jennifer Zyman, CL’s cheap-eats writer, at Pietra. She reports on her own meal on her blog. Jennifer and her dining companion find certain flavors — salty and bitter — too strong in two dishes. Bitterness is a flavor I can’t get enough of, generally. (No comment necessary from the sweet peeps.) But I’m hypersensitive to saltiness and don’t recall getting an over-salted dish at Pietra.
I gave Jennifer a hug. I hope she didn’t wake up with my cold.
My final comfort food was pizza at Stella. The fall specials menu includes this white one topped with smoked prosciutto and streaked with balsamic reduction. I mainly enjoyed it, although too much of the prosciutto was stringy.
Wayne ordered another special pizza, featuring cherry tomatoes, anchovies and capers — similar to Fritti’s Napoli, but with a crispy crust instead of the billowy, melt-in-the-mouth one at Fritti.
I also sipped a good bit of juice from Arden’s Garden. During the sore-throat phase, the straight-up ginger- root juice was almost anesthetic. Of course, the price, over $10 for 10 oz. or so, is kind of numbing too.
Friday was a good day for eating. I met my friends Brad and Todd for lunch at 
Lunch at JCT was good. I had sauteed shrimp over creamy grits (above). Brad had iceberg lettuce with shrimp and Todd ordered a roasted-pork sandwich. Portions were on the small side, so Todd and I ordered dessert — chocolate fried pies for him and gingerbread pudding with lemon curd for me.
It was Wayne’s idea. After eating veal recently, I had my usual attack of guilt. As I told him, I didn’t eat veal for ethical reasons for more than 10 years. He said he doesn’t feel right about eating meat of any type much of the time.
Among my favorite summer tastes is figs and the dish above, which I ordered Thursday night at Dynamic Dish, made superb use of them.
I live in Grant Park. Ever since the tornado came through Cabbagetown, Boulevard has been closed. Hill Street has also been blocked for many months. So getting over to Edgewood and Dynamic Dish has been a pain.
Via Elisa, our city’s incomparable source for hand-made pastas, is now marketing its sauces. I want several jars of Sofia Sicilian Caper sauce. Elisa Gambino 
Eating. It’s all in a day’s work. My partner Wayne and I call days when we don’t have to eat somewhere new for a review “freedom from food days.” Saturday was such a day. Indeed, my diet that day ranged from healthy fare to junk food.
Granted, the persimmons are sharing space with a poinsettia and some green candles, but the place is otherwise mercifully free of the usual Christmas kitsch. It’s unusual to find a chef/owner who projects such personal style. Most these days are trying to out-Johnson Studio one another, which usually means a frenetic interior. Dynamic Dish is as restful to the eye as its food is comforting.
At dinner, I told Wayne that someone had pulled me aside at the gym earlier Saturday to tell me, “You seem to have led a very strange life.” I told Wayne I couldn’t protest because, for example, here I was at Eats with my partner, who had brought along the Bible to read while he ate jerk chicken and swilled a PBR.
After dinner, I couldn’t help stopping at Zesto, up the road, to order a toffee-coffee arctic swirl — soft-serve ice cream blended with something like Heath bars and coffee syrup. Very addictive.
Meet David Sweeney, proprietor of the new Dynamic Dish (427 Edgewood Ave., 404-688-4344) in the Sweet Auburn District. Sweeney, an Army brat, has spent most of his life in Germany, returning to the United States just three months ago. “Yes, I feel like a foreigner,” he says. “I know nothing.”