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What is dirt candy? Vegetables, of course. When you eat a vegetable you’re eating little more than dirt that’s been transformed by plenty of sunshine and rain into something that’s full of flavor: Dirt Candy. It’s also the name of my restaurant, which opened in October, 2008.

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Last week’s family meals, served up hot and online, the way you like them.

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Tuesday: mushroom curry with noodles.

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Wednesday: broccoli, egg and mushroom stir fry with a vegan version in the tiny pan on the side for one of my interns.

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Thursday: William the dishwasher’s birthday family meal! Veggie burgers from Kate’s Joint, Kristen brought in a cake and chocolates.

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Friday: broccoli, mushrooms hearts, lots of onions and noodles with cheddar cheese on the side.

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Saturday: avocado salad with warm avocado and chick peas on the side.

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From two weeks ago, here are the family meals, in all their paltry glory.

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Tuesday: yellow squash, haricot verts and mushroom hearts all in a bowl, and a salad.

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Wednesday: fried eggs and tomatoes with french fries on top.

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Thursday: summer noodle soup with fried tofu on the side.

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Friday: haricot verts and mushroom hearts fried up in a bowl, bread and cornmeal crusted tofu.

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Saturday is to come tomorrow, because it was the third, and last, guest family meal.

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Last week’s family meals in all their glory. This was Jesus’s first week back making family meals after he got August off from making them as his birthday wish. See his comeback family meals after the break.

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Jesus’s month of birthday family meals is coming to an end. First, three meals from the last days before I left for Italy.

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Tuesday: Swasti the intern made today’s family meal. Garlic broccoli, spicy potatoes with tofu, and a banana jam for the potatoes (lurking in the background).

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Wednesday: we’re obviously all desperate to go away on vacation. A salad and fried tofu.

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Thursday: broccoli, eggplant curry, jicama, mango banana smoothie and a salad.

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After the jump, the last of the non-Jesus family meals, plus treats from a regular customer.

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So what do you do after you get a big, fat $10,000 check from PETA? I had plans. Oh, I had plans. By the time that check found its way into my hot little hands I had spent it a dozen times over. It arrived already dissected, apportioned, cut into wedges and ready to be disbursed.

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And then I realized that my air conditioner was failing.

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It’s no secret that the original contractors who built Dirt Candy were incompetent at best and criminal at worst, and I’ve gone through four HVAC companies since I opened trying to have someone explain to me why this restaurant is cold in the winter and hot in the summer – the exact opposite of what I’d initially requested. If you’ve eaten here you’ve seen the space heaters, you’ve witnessed the fans.

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A Dirt Candy human customer

six weeks ago.

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A Dirt Candy bunny customer

six weeks ago.

(Our carrot buns are very popular!)

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Finally, Astoria Mechanical came in, recommended by John Fraser from Dovetail. The first thing they discovered was that most of my heating system wasn’t actually installed. Ducts weren’t taped, pipes were capped rather than being connected, and the whole thing was working at about 50%.

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They fixed that and then I asked them about the air conditioning. They wound up installing a new unit, the only option available since the original unit wasn’t big enough for the space. I trusted them so much that they did the work while I was in Italy, and when I came back, Dirt Candy was finally cool on the inside.

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Price for the work? $10,000 exactly.

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*sigh*

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A Dirt Candy customer now.

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(PS – I recommend Astoria Mechanical very highly. If you want their contact number, let me know. They are the first contractors to work here that I didn’t subsequently wish would be crushed in a wildebeest stampede.)

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Recently I was asked to donate my time to a charity that will remain nameless. They wanted one famous chef to cook for each of their tables at a big fundraising dinner, and for some reason I guess they ran out of famous chefs and they asked me. Even though it meant closing the restaurant for a night, I said “Sure!” and asked them to give me some more details.

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Yesterday they called  and here’s how the conversation went:

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Charity: We’re wondering if you’d just do dessert.

Me: Dirt Candy isn’t really famous for its desserts. I’d rather do something savory.

Charity: You could do an hor’s d’oeuvre.

Me: I thought I was cooking for a table?

Charity: You could do two hor’s d’oeuvres.

Me: I’d like to do a table. I thought we agreed to that already?

Charity: Well, we have a lot of big donors coming and we think that if they’re assigned to your table they’ll be disappointed.

Me: But why?

Charity: Because you won’t be serving meat.

Me: But I’m a vegetarian restaurant.

Charity: Yes.

Me: And you’re saying I’ll disappoint your donors?

Charity: Yes.

Me: But you invited me.

Charity: Oh, right.

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As of now, I’m not sure if I’m still invited to participate or not, but I thought that this was the funniest thing that’s happened to me since my sister-in-law was chased by wild boars.

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Finally, I found the missing photos from last week’s family meals. I’m sure all of you were sitting on the edges of your seats, gnawing your fingernails and waking up in the middle of the night screaming, “Did she find them? Did she find them?”

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After the jump, don’t worry. I found them.

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After Barbara Kwon set the bar high cooking family meal for the Dirt Candy crew, we really didn’t think anyone could ever impress us again. Were we wrong! Roopa Kalyanaraman and her husband Matt are two of my regular customers, and they produced the second guest family meal at Dirt Candy. Barbara blew us away, but Roopa literally took the cake. Also, +2 bonus because she and Matt are scientists and +4 against damage because Roopa is one of the people who were lobbying to get the soda tax passed. She wrote up the meal on her own blog, Raspberry Eggplant, but here’s how it looked in the wild:

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Censored to protect you from seeing the most

awesome thing in the world before you’re ready.

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Here’s her menu:

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Tofu, long bean, and cucumber salad
Green curry with Thai eggplant, long beans, snow peas, and edamame
Black and basmati rice
Drunken noodles with seitan
Coconut milk mini cupcakes with kaffir lime cream cheese frosting
Thai chocolate chili-lime coconut ice cream
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I’m a sucker for the multi-dessert attack, but Roopa won a place in my heart forever with the main dessert. After the jump…marvel at the wonder of…

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I finally got my replacement phone and so not only are the family meal pictures looking better, but last week the family meals themselves started looking prettier and more photogenic.

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After the jump, pretty pretty family meals.

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Jesus’ birthday was last month and his one wish was that he wouldn’t have to make family meals in August. His wish was my command, but because I’m lazy I invited anyone who wanted to do so to come on down and make family meal for us here at the restaurant. The first person to take me up on my offer: Barbara Kwon, my lawyer. Barbara is the person who guided Dirt Candy through the tangled process of getting a liquor license and who sat through that 6 hour community board meeting with me. She’s a hell of a cook, as well, and here’s what she made:

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Bow down before this family meal!

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The menu?

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Sauteed Ferns with Shittakes and Soy Garlic Sauce
Sesame Spinach
Sauteed Lotus Roots with Pine Nuts and Soy Garlic Ginger Sauce
Kimchi Pancakes
Sweet Tofu Skin stuffed with Sesame Spinach Rice
Sweet Tofu Skin Stuffed with Ume and Nori
Japanese Mountain Yams with Ume and Shiso
Veggie Got Dog Banh Mi
Pear Juice

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The aerial view!

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Freshly picked veggie dogs!

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But this amazing meal deserves more, so after the jump, we use super-science to show you what it really looked like when it arrived….

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