Cheese: If you’ve ever spoken about cheese with me IRL, Jasper Hill’s Harbison has probably come up. It’s a top 3 all-time favorite; I recently had a really fab, ripe wheel of it that reminded me just how good it can be. It’s a luscious (ugh, sorry, sort of terrible word but also the most specific I can think of for this cheese) bloomy rind that must must must be eaten at room temp so that the cheese is spoonable. Harbison is wrapped in bark (don’t eat that), so lop off the top and then scoop the gooey paste onto your cheese vehicle of choice. I recommend mild crackers, cooked mushrooms, or good bread. Cheese expert Christine Clark swears by Harbison + potato chips. Harbison tastes like mustard meets mushrooms meets the forest (if you could eat the forest?) and is a really, really special cheese both in taste and texture.
Book: If you’ve ever spoken about books with me IRL, I’ve probably launched into a monologue about how much I love the public library. Which is why parts of Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library by Amanda Oliver were so disheartening to stomach. While the book itself had some significant structural issues, its central point that libraries are important cultural institutions that are built upon a system of inequality and somewhat doomed to fail, remained loud and clear. Reading Overdue doesn’t make me love libraries any less, but it does make me think deeply of how much we are asking of our librarians. They are not just book experts but also key resources for the unhoused, mediators for violent outbursts, caregivers for people with mental health challenges, emergency responders, and more. How can we better support a system that should stand for so much good but often falls short of its promises because it simply cannot be a safe space for everyone, when it isn’t fundamentally resourced or structured to be?
Restaurants: Incheon is the kind of restaurant that would be impossible to get a reservation at if it was located in Petworth or Logan Circle. But its location in a strip mall (ample parking!) in Annandale, VA makes it a bit more out-of-the-way for DC restaurant goers, though what a boon for Annandale locals! The six-course, $65 Korean-inspired but definitely not traditional meal has slight Atoboy vibes in both flavors and minimalist-yet-warm ambiance. The meal starts off strong with especially crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside dukbokki (rice cakes) served with a subtly spicy green curry sauce. The textures only get better from there, with Hawaiian-inspired lomi lomi salmon served with rice balls that were eerily reminiscent of tater tots. The duck ssam is another stand-out: perfectly cooked duck breast with a walnut-based ssamjang (a spicy paste-like sauce) that I typed on my phone that night was a “banger.” Maybe not the most evocative food descriptor, but hey, there you are.
Silver & Sons BBQ recently launched a semi-roving food truck, in which it’s parked in a different but set Maryland location each day. Luckily, one of those locations is a short drive from our house because I’ll need to be returning for the short rib pastrami, brined for seven days and made with coriander and a five-peppercorn blend. It’s as if the Jewish deli of my childhood joined forces with the braised short rib dishes of my adulthood. Pre-order online, but be patient when you arrive—this is still barbecue, and that means it’s never rapid speed.
Speaking of Jewish deli, as a kid, I had a fondness for the thinly sliced beef tongue my parents would purchase at the kosher supermarket fairly regularly. While that store closed years ago, I’ve found a noble replacement in the form of thicker slices at Yekta, an Iranian market in Rockville, MD. The Zaban sandwich is probably my favorite sandwich in the DMV region, purchased whenever we find ourselves doing Rockville Pike-esque errands (car things! appointment things! other random things!). It’s very simple: the aforementioned tongue, an out-of-season tomato, a not-too-sour pickle, and parsley. Plus, the market itself is full of great frozen food items, grape leaves, and labneh and feta galore.
Thing: For all my people who also like to go to sleep early and don’t like feeling stressed after watching TV, season 2 of Starstruck on HBO is for you. Each episode is 20 minutes long, and there are only six of them. The just-trying-to-get-my-life-together female lead meets famous actor male lead schtick very much works, even if it sounds hokey. This is thanks to creator Rose Matafeo’s deadpan humor and her choice to focus on the small moments: the let-it-go-to-voicemail call, the yell-y arguments during board game night, the exceedingly awkward laser tag bachelor-bachelorette party. It’s a charming story of a couple with a slow burn and rather hilarious will-they-or-won’t-they storyline that doesn’t feel overdone.