Radio Africa Kitchen
Jess, now Simon’s fiancé, was in town and so a Rains 205 apartment reunion was in order. Luke and his fiancé, Dora, offered to drive us up and so I caught up with them after the Social E-Challenge event. We chatted for a while then drove up to the City. Our destination: Radio Africa Kitchen. Simon and Jess found this place, which describes itself as a ‘nomadic’ restaurant. The chef, Ethiopian native Chef Eskender Aseged comes to what normally is a daytime coffee house and turns it into a restaurant for just two nights a week. The menu changes each time, depending on what Chef Aseged found at the local farmers’ markets that morning. The cuisine has inspirations from all over, and the quality of the food very high.
It was nice to get the old apartment back together. We talked about the Red Sox, Jess’s on-going fight to convince the US pharmacy board to allow her to take the competency exam (they are refusing to let her practice pharmacy here despite having more years of overall science schooling AND years of actual practice in Australia all because her college transcript says 3 years, not 4), what’s going on at YouTube, photography, and food. Ah yes, food.
For some reason, my end of the table with Dora and Simon turned to the topic of heirloom tomatoes. These tomatoes were extraordinarily popular last summer, and were the best tomatoes I’ve ever had. The kind even Greg would like – raw. Dora recounted the time that she and Luke went to go pick vegetables with their community garden group, and they got 30 lbs of these tomatoes. Simon told us why he loved them: his grandfather (back in Ukraine, I believe) had a farm where he grew all kinds of vegetables, but his pride and joy were these tomatoes called ‘bull’s heart’. They were pink, with one half larger than the other to resemble a heart, and were more fleshy than juicy. Simon loved those tomatoes, and biting into a heirloom tomato reminds him of his grandfather’s prized tomatoes.
It may sound silly to wax eloquent about tomatoes, but isn’t that the level that fine food strives to attain? That’s why Simon is such a strong force in the kitchen.