Triglycerides, part 2 -- what I did next

After the appointment with the doctor, I alternated between being mad at the world and generally feeling sorry for myself.  Why did it have to be ME, the foodie, the person who has loved food all her life and made a passion out of cooking, to be the one with heart-attack level triglycerides?  (Well, DUH.)
I knew of course that this approach wasn't helping.  But I felt stuck.  Three days later, on the airplane on the way to Miami with my younger son to visit my mother, a very heavyset woman came down the aisle during boarding and sat down next to me.  She even needed an extra seat belt.  "The universe is mocking me", I thought bitterly. "I bet her triglycerides are lower than mine."  (See, even another person's obesity is all about me.  I am the consummate narcissist.)

Truth is, I was scared to care again about my food intake, weight, and health. I didn't really know how to stop eating the way I had been. In a bid to support me, my mother helped me out by making low- carb meals during our entire visit. Not typical of our family pattern.  Only for us could she make changes that she is unwilling to make for herself.  Still, old habits remained:  With a gleam in her eye, she would shove an entire veggie loaf at me and say, "eat as much as you want! It is low-calorie."  But better with a veggie loaf than a cheesecake, right?  And I was grateful for the jump-start.

Then when I returned home, I decided to go ahead and do the diet program from the doctor's clinic, because I needed help with this. The program is called Ideal Protein.  

The first week was a bit of a shock to my system. I spiked a slight fever, which the coach told me can happen, because the pancreas is used to high amounts of carbs and it is thrown off when that changes suddenly.  The weekly weigh-ins with the coach and her support and encouragement have been crucial in keeping me on track. 
Then, two weeks into it, the Carb Dreams started.  I would fall asleep at night and dream about huge portions of cake, fries, doughnuts, you name it, and me gorging and then feeling scared that I had done it.  I would wake up feeling chills and dread, then a disoriented relief at realizing that these were only dreams, and I had not just stuffed my face, acting out the simultaneous horror and craving that is addiction.  Maybe this was a natural stage of dieting, but it didn't feel good.  It was primitive fear, the remnants of old bulimia brain pushing through.  I needed to change my outlook to change my eating, and I needed some guidance on doing it.  So I bought the book by Dr. Tran, the originator of Ideal Protein, "Because It's Your Life".  He discusses the entire mindset and imbalance, psychological and physical, that occurs with overeating, and how this is brought back into balance with mindful eating and awareness, as well as a good diet.  He understands the struggles of his patients, especially with women.  He gets it.  This made me trust the process.  So I stuck to it.


Within a few weeks, my body started responding to the weight loss and diet.  The sharp pain I felt in my left heel when walking, especially in the morning, disappeared after I lost 10 pounds.
Back and headache after wearing high heels:  Gone after 15 pounds off.
After 20 pounds: inflammation in my fingers down. I could wear my rings from high school and college days again.

And now, 5 months later, I have lost almost 60 pounds.  My triglycerides went from 463 to 55.  You can see the before and after results here:  

Before:
Cholesterol: 228Triglycerides: 463HDL Cholesterol: 28 LDL Cholesterol (not calculated;  triglyceride levels greater than 400 mg/dL invalidate calculated LDL results.)*
* I am not sure what this means, but it seems to underscore how my numbers sucked!

After (end of weight loss):

Cholesterol: 164Triglycerides: 55HDL Cholesterol: 58LDL Cholesterol: 95

Looking back I can see that the conversation with the doctor, the working relationship I have had with my coach, and the connection I felt with what Dr. Tran states in his book, all helped to motivate me to stay on course with the diet.  Our relationships to others will always influence our relationship to food. 

This week, I entered Phase 4 of the diet:  Maintenance.  Eating with enjoyment, but mindful portions and choices. Then one " fun day" per week, planned in advance, where I can eat what I want within reasonable portions.   And back to cooking, but tweaking the recipes to these principles.  
I bought Chef Verati's book of Phase 4 (maintenance phase) recipes, "Taste the Freedom".  I look forward to trying them.  I still love cooking and now I can keep my passion going.And fun day -- can I eat my carbs but not to the point of stuffing myself? Then going back to healthy eating?  That is the challenge now. I want to make it a good one, because my health and life literally depend on it.

As the Buddhists say:  Simple, but not easy.

Triglycerides

 

 

I haven't written in a very long while. Ok, in almost a year. In a nutshell, I have still been cooking for my family and my own interest, started my own (non-food related) business, and recently went in for my lipid panel, something I do twice a year due to my crappy genes.

Every time I go, my numbers are horrible, unless I had been on at least a month-long good cycle of exercise and eating, in which case, they drop to simply being bad.  And in the past 6  months I have gained weight, mostly due to bingeing and scavenging my kids' leftovers.  So I put this last lipid panel off till the very last week I could get it before my lab order expired. Ah, good old Avoidance and Denial! I figured I could diet for one week and hope for the best.  So last Friday I got ready for the cardiology appointment, where I was to meet with Dr. Perfect, M.D., to find out the results. Yes, he is fit, intelligent, etc.  In fact I think he is younger than me.  I am not yet old enough to be relieved by this.  But since he is a man, I thought perhaps I could distract him from my numbers if I made up my face and wore a nice outfit. So imagine my disappointment when it didn't work.

"Ok, so you know your triglycerides are very high?" He said.

"Really?" I asked. I thought the week of less food would do something, but no.

"Yes, they are over 400.  And you know you have gained 20 pounds since you first came in here?"

"Oh." Darn it, this place keeps records.

"Have you ever been this heavy?"  Somehow the conversation was veering away from the high numbers into the, excuse the pun, heavy territory of Gut and Butt. Of course, weight and triglycerides are related. But in my head, the doctor started morphing into a nagging version of my Dad in younger years, who also was a doctor and used to bug me about my weight. (Though my Dad used to tease and even name call, or slap my belly and exclaim, "Ample, like your Mother's!" which this doctor does not-- an important distinction.)  I entered a mini-fugue state and started snapping at him about all I have to do, and what did he know about my life, etc. Then I realized I was acting fifteen and a bit nuts, so I stopped myself and apologized. Then I talked about how hard it is to eat less, which he conceded to be true. Ok, some points for him on that. Because of my Daddy issues, Dr. Perfect is the only man on the planet with whom I can tolerate such a conversation.  He told me what he does for portion control in restaurants:  "I eat half, and take the rest home."

"You can stop yourself in the middle of eating it?"  He said yes. But to me, like many bingers, stopping in the middle of eating is like stopping mid-coitus.  Yes, it can be done, but only due to a tremendous amount of will power or external circumstances, like a bomb going off near you or your hyper-critical Grandmother walking in. (The latter would have scared me off both a binge and coitus.  Temporarily.) So that already puts him in a different camp from the Average American Overeater, of which I am a member.

He noted that once I am on a roll, I won't be so hungry.  Also he mentioned the protein diet his clinic runs. I proceeded to quote the statistics on weight-loss and asked how that was different.

"Well you don't have to do this program if you don't want to. You can do low-carb on your own. But I have to tell you..." He shook his head, reading my results.  "Your numbers SUCK. This is tough love I'm giving.  And you want to be around for your family in the years to come."  Do you see what a good doctor he is? Now I can't even use his bad behavior as a reason to be angry, because he is totally professional and even slightly empathic.

I hung my head, sighed and said, "You're right, I know you are right." Because I can go around the mulberry bush about all my points, but at the end of the day I do need to get my health and weight under control.  I guess I will always have a knee-jerk "screw this" reaction when it is called to my attention.  Yet, I would like to fit back into my regular clothes and not feel heel pain when I walk.  Not to mention, my triglyceride levels put me at high risk for a heart attack or worse. (What is worse? I don't know, and I don't want to find out.)   I can rage at myself and my genetics all I want, but that won't change anything.

Still, I do love food. Cooking it, eating it, reading about it. So how do I retain this aspect of myself, while talking care of my health? Any ideas out there? Please share, if so. Because this is a conundrum.

You know what would really suck? If my doctor gets high triglycerides, or something happens to him, God forbid. Then I am really screwed. Maybe I should focus on HIM staying healthy and fit, so at least the one with the know-how to do it has a chance to save my life. It's worth a shot. I'll mention this at my next appointment, when I remember to wear mascara and eyeshadow too. 

In Search of the Subcontinent: Indian Food!

This past Spring and Summer, I ventured into something new for me: Indian, or South Asian, cooking.

[Note:  I say "Indian", but perhaps I should say South Asian food.  I realize the regions and countries are diverse in their cuisine, so forgive my laziness in using this blanket term.  Madhur Jaffrey has a lot to say on this subject if you read her book.]

I love Indian food!  I first tried it when I was 12, in the home of some doctor friends of my mother who served koftas, spicy chicken, and jack fruit.  I remember lots of yellow color in the vegetables...probably turmeric. And I remember my eyeballs felt like they were bleeding from the spices, which were totally unfamiliar. 
A few years later, a Pakistani colleague of my mother's often brought a sweet, milk-based dessert called "Ras malai', made by his wife, to parties.  I was crazy about it.
Then one of my best friends in High School, Huma, had parents from Pakistan, and sometimes I would get to eat the South Asian cooking at her house when we hung out. They were Muslims, so the dishes had no pork.  I slowly grew accustomed to the 'heat' of the food.
And in college my friend Anita, who was Rajasthani (North Indian) and vegetarian, would often bring the Daals and Roti's that her mother made at home, and share  with us, her dorm friends.
So Subcontinent food grew on me, till I even convinced my parents to try a new Tandoori restaurant in Downtown Chicago called, The Klay Oven.  They liked it.  I loved it.
   Over the years, as the United States has embraced more and more international food, many South Asian mixes and frozen variety foods have been available in grocery stores, I have taken advantage and bought frozen Naan or bottled Chicken Korma sauce. But these things still felt incomplete somehow, and I balked at eating the sauce when I saw the amount of fat and sodium in each prepared bottle. How hard can it be to make this from scratch? I wondered. I wanted to learn.

So early this year, I played with the idea. One of my previous supervisors had given me Madhur Jaffrey's famous cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking. But upon opening the book and seeing the numerous, unfamiliar ingredients like fenugreek, asafetida and garam masala, I felt bewildered. What were these things? Plus, even the "easier" recipes required an average of five to seven ingredients, most of which were utterly unknown to me. So I put the book aside, feeling overwhelmed and confused.
But a few months later, I revisited this book and the notion of Indian cooking, because one day, after picking up something at the regional referral veterinary center for our dog, I noticed there was an Indian grocery across the street, called, "Krishna Grocery". Intrigued, I walked in and wandered the narrow aisles for awhile. The pungent, fragrant scents! I wanted to buy nearly everything, but I realized that without the specific recipes to guide me, I was flying blind. So back at home I once again picked up Madhur Jaffrey's book and scrutinized the recipes more carefully, calling my Rajasthani friend Anita for some guidance on selecting and buying ingredients.
  "Deep and Laxshmi are among the best brands", she said.
"Hold the garam masala to your nose and buy the one that smells the most to your liking", was another piece of advice.  (As someone new to Indian cooking, I really didn't know which would be the best, so I just picked up the only ground garam masala they had available.  I was too scared to buy and grind up the whole spices, because I have heard that dry bay leaves can get stuck in the throat.)
 On my next trip, I brought a list of the spices that appeared the most frequently in Jaffrey's book, and bought those. I also bought cauliflower, fresh ginger, and fresh cilantro, or "Chinese parsley", as she described it, because I wanted to make a cauliflower recipe from the book. And finally, I bought moong dal, or green lentils.
Slowly I got the hang of these Indian recipes, most of which are from Delhi, in the North, according to Jaffrey.

A Westerner's Findings

 1.  The cooking part itself was not so difficult; the most time-consuming part of the process was assembling and prepping the ingredients. Some chicken dishes, for example, only required broiling the chicken for 10 minutes, but the marinade included 10 ingredients that had to be gathered and blended, then poured over the chicken, and the entire dish would need to marinate for at least 4 hours. To make lentils, they had to be soaked in water overnight before being made into a stew. This food is not made on the fly, or "instant". I could really see that it requires someone who is home for long periods of time, who plans ahead, and who can tend to various stages of prep work. I imagine homes with grandmothers and mothers who spend much of their time preparing food for their families. I imagine maternal types, as is usually the case in traditional homes worldwide.
But interestingly, the more I cooked these dishes, the more it became second nature to prep everything. I developed systems. For vegetable dishes, I would first wash, peel and cut the vegetables themselves, then I would arrange the spices on a plate, side-by-side along the edges, in the order in which they were to be added to the pan or dish. "Mise en place", the French call it. (Everything in its place.) Then I would heat up the pans and add the prepped ingredients in order.
I discovered that I could cheat a little bit on the chicken dishes if necessary. This past Tuesday I started cooking at 6pm and I did not therefore have time to marinate the chicken for a minimum of 4 hours. So prepared the marinade in the blender, per the instructions, then poured it over the chicken for 30 minutes instead. It still tasted quite good, in my opinion.

2. Jaffrey's book is a great launching pad; then you can move to other South Asian recipes.

I got a little braver and branched out to some websites for more recipes.  I made a South Asian version of brussels sprouts, Brussel Sprouts Subzi, from a recipe I found on the website, Show Me The Curry.

3. Have some Zantac or other heartburn preventive on hand.
If you are not used to the array of spices, South Asian food can be a bit heavy on your system.  I can't eat it more than 1-2 times weekly because the spices tend to give me heartburn.  So I take a Zantac or Pepcid about 1 hour before dinner.

4. Kids may take some convincing.  Good luck.
Our kids refused to touch any of the food except the naan bread.  But hey, slow steps.  At least they like the naan!  Our younger son even orders mango lassis (yogurt-based fruit "shakes") when we eat out.  If your children are more adventurous, I am impressed.

5. My family and I gravitate toward Northern Indian food.
This is because the dishes are often meat- and bread-based, so they are more familiar to a "Westerner's" palate.  Or so I think.  But the southern dishes are delicious too.

6. When you are ready, try the instant spice mixes.
We did buy a packet of Channa Daal (spicy chick pea) mix, on the advice of my friend Anita.  I'll probably make it one night when I have a "plain" meal that needs jazzing up and am too tired or hurried for a more laborious meal.

7. If you want to buy anything ready-made, buy the bread and sweets.
Frozen and fresh naan are sold in many Indian groceries, and both are delicious with a bit of butter or plain. Making and baking bread tends to be a long involved process, in my opinion, and that is one area to go for efficiency.  Same with sweets -- unless I one day have tons of time to melt down sweetened milk, I prefer to buy my desserts.

So the Indian cooking I have done still requires more prep and planning than, say, dry pasta. But it is not quite so daunting as it seemed to be when I first tried to learn about it. Really, it is like travel to a foreign country. The unknown can scare you, but just step back and learn about it piece by piece. Allow friends in the know to guide you.  Rely on a few basic known ingredients at first, and have patience and an open mind. You might end up experiencing something complex and delicious. 

Forgetfulness and Fish Pie: The Empanada Gallega

 It's been far too long since I've written. This past autumn was eventful. My father, about whom I've written previously, has Alzheimer's Disease. With ruthless rapidity the disease took over his functioning last year until he stopped working, differentiating between night and day, and being able to speak in more than short sentences. Through all of this, though, what is remarkable is how his preferences regarding food have changed. Like his cognitive abilities, his food preferences seem to have reverted to a childhood state.

My father was born in Argentina to parents with origins in Galicia, Spain. This is a Celtic, rainy, green, Northwestern province of Spain along the Atlantic Ocean, whose inhabitants have historically been small-plot farmers and seafarers.  I was surprised to learn that, according to William Least-Heat Moon's book, Columbus in the Americas, Christopher Columbus's flagship, The Santa Maria, carried the moniker La Gallega ("The Galician woman"), for the region where she was built. For centuries, Galicia has lived off land and sea. Not surprisingly, its cuisine is often seafood-based.

One signature Galician dish that my Father's sister, Maria Carmen, prepares regularly is the Empanada Gallega, a savory pie made with dough and filled with tuna, onions, sweet peppers, spices, and eggs. (The fillings can vary, from tuna to shredded chicken, beef, or even spinach, like the Greek Spanakopita.)   Maria Carmen visited last year from Buenos Aires and prepared this dish, and my Dad gobbled it up.  This shocked us all because for most of his adult life, he had spurned seafood. I do not recall his ever choosing fish at a restaurant, given a choice. Ever. Sometimes he would choose octopus, another popular dish in Galician cuisine, but even that was rare. More often he preferred the red meat and pasta dishes more typical of Argentina, where he was born and grew up.  (He liked the Argentine empanada, a slightly different type, a turnover usually filled with some variation of ground meat, spices, olives and raisins.) But now he could not get enough of the Empanada Gallega, and his lack of short-term memory only aggravated his binges. On one recent visit, I witnessed him devour two full meals and 10 minutes later ask, "When will dinner be ready?" So on many occasions, he has eaten two or even three consecutive huge slices with gusto. This from a man who had maintained an average weight and modest appetite for decades.

It was as though the sight, the smell and taste of Empanada Gallega triggered something deep-seated and powerful. Early childhood memories, perhaps, of his mother feeding him at a kitchen table for lunch on a Sunday afternoon.  I picture him at five or six years old, swinging his small legs and scrutinizing that pie with a child's typical ambivalence of savory foods with chunky vegetable stuff sticking out of the sides. Probably he would sniff it it before tasting, an automatic gesture that he never lost around "new" food, and which I inherited from him.  Then he would taste it, shrug, and finish most of it under his mother's urging.  Is that it?  Primal memories of his mother that he associates with Empanada Gallega?  Or perhaps, all along, he had liked it, but his cognitive filters told him to steer clear of fish, and when those filters eroded, so did his aversion?   Sadly, he cannot tell me what it is that drives this craving for the Galician fish pie, now that his senility has activated it. I can only bear witness to his eating it.  And in a way it is a comforting irony:  As his consciousness fades, a connection to his heritage remains and has even grown stronger.

So here is the recipe. Note: You can substitute spinach or chicken for the fish ingredients if you wish. This is a hardy, adaptable dish, probably like the Galician folk who invented or at least adapted it.

Empanada Gallega a la Tia Maria Carmen

Equipment:
1 long Pyrex pan (14x 9)
1 rolling pin
Lightly floured surface
Saute pan
Baker's spray
Pastry brush

Buy tapas de empanadas (dough), or phyllo dough, or 1 pkg of French Pastry dough (preferred) --(each pkg has 2 sheets).
Let thaw overnight. Keep it cool and work it last so it stays soft and moist, but not soggy.

Filling base (can be done ahead and refrigerated, or frozen for up to 4 months)
2 large yellow or sweet onions sliced thin
2 red peppers seeded, peeled, sliced thin
Olive or veg oil
2 tsp sweet paprika
Salt & pepper to taste
thyme (optional)
1 raw egg, beaten (for dough)

Filling*
3 to 4 7-ounce chunk light tuna in water, drained, forked slightly to even out texture
3-4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced (can throw out some yolks)

Saute peppers in oil. When a bit softened, add onions, salt, pepper, and sweet paprika. Saute all till onions are clear and cooked.

Spray baker's spray on Pyrex dish and lightly flour a surface. With rolling pin, stretch 1 dough sheet to the length of the Pyrex.

When mixture cools, prep dough on pyrex. Add veggie/spice mixture on top, add tuna on that, then eggs sliced on top, then dough crust on top and seal the sides. Brush dough with beaten egg to add shine.


*Filling can be substituted with 3 frozen chopped spinach packages. Add thyme, salt/pepper, and 2 beaten eggs. Mix all, then add any cheese (if Feta, buy at specialty store). Pour mixture onto dough, seal top layer of dough, and bake.
-or pulled turkey, pork, chicken, or codfish, according to tuna-based recipe.

What's Food Got To Do With It? Casa Havana Restaurant, Grand Cayman

On what basis do you choose a restaurant? I'd venture to guess for three main reasons: Type of food, atmosphere, and location, location, location. I am feeling like I won't post more long-winded restaurant reviews here. That type of detail belongs on a site like Yelp or TripAdvisor.

I decided this when I looked back on our big family vacation this Spring Break in Grand Cayman, The Carribbean. The location was gorgeous and has any number of beautiful restaurants with delicious food. But really, does that make for a good lunch or dinner out? What if the time you spend there is lousy, or you were having a proverbial "bad day"? Of course I want to know if a restaurant serves exceptional french onion soup, or desserts to die for. That is the rudimentary ingredient of a great time out. But if you ate that key lime pie while you were being fired, or your boyfriend started the "dumping you" conversation in the middle of your calamari appetizer, it would be a bitter experience indeed, no matter how amazingly prepared it was. Not fair to the restaurant, but it's the reality.

And this really could have been the case a few times on our vacation. The vacation itself was bittersweet, like the Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate I used to love getting in my trick-or-treat bags as a child. Sweet because it was the first trip my immediate family (my husband, 2 kids and I) took with my parents and brother in years. Bitter, or at least sad, because my father has moderate stage Alzheimer's and he needed to be watched almost constantly so he wouldn't wander, break something, or worse. So yes, we enjoyed the brilliant colors and sights of the Carribbean Vacation, including a trip to Stingray City. How could a person be luckier than to go on such a trip with her family that she loves? And yet, we also observed my father in the body whose mind is steadily eroding.

One evening my husband and I did steal away for an evening out alone while my parents bonded with their grandkids. We wound up at Casa Havana Restaurant, part of the Westin Casuarina Resort and Hotel on the long stretch of Seven-Mile Beach. Guidebooks say the place looks like a 1950's Havana restaurant. (I'll take their word on this, since I was born in 1970 and have never been to Havana.) We sat at a table on the breezy, arched veranda, the length of which was lined by tiki torches. The modest number of patrons conversed in calm tones that seemed more British than American. About fifty feet away, the waves gently rushed up the beach. Amidst this backdrop the food was truly wonderful, and mostly I enjoyed the details of its preparation. The Caesar salads were prepared tableside by a tall, affable surfer-cum-waiter from the United States. He rubbed the bowls with fresh garlic, and he tossed the salads with a homemade dressing while chatting with us about The Cayman Islands. I ordered an appetizer of piquillo pepper panna cotta, which I found to be an intriguing taste of smooth mild cheese flavor with strands of hot dry chili pepper. Thumbs up for creativity on this one. But what really made this place stand out was what happened next.

While we waited for our main meals-- the pot-roasted chicken and the pork loin, respectively -- my husband and I began discussing what we observed in my dad. We observed when the changes began, how our relationship with him has been changing, and how all of this is affecting us and our relationships with each other. I wondered, if I could go back in time and insert myself into my teenage body via an "Our Town" method, what would I say to that earlier Dad? The intellectual, sardonic and at times vitriolic physician with dark hair and an intense expression? How do I go back, and tell him, "you know, even though you don't always believe it, your daughter loves you very much"? Through tears, I concluded that the important thing is not whether or not I could go back, but that that is what I would say if I could. And once the tears started, they just kept flowing for a while. On we talked, on they flowed. Then after about 10 minutes, I wiped my eyes and laughed at something funny my husband said, then looked up. Just then I saw the waitstaff, waiting discreetly by the door with dishes in hand. They had evidently been there for a few minutes, and only when they saw that I was in a state to receive the food did they make their way to us. Now that's tact, and it is a quality I don't often see, or at least notice in restaurants nowadays. But it was just what the evening called for, and it really pushed the place into the higher stratosphere of evenings to remember. So, touched and spent, I tucked into an incredibly tender dish of roast chicken. And this is a meal I will always, always remember, that stands out among the sea of amazing restaurants in Grand Cayman.

Cheff Geoff's Part 2

I did promise to tell you about my lunch at Cheff Geoff's in Fairfax, didn't I? In a nutshell, it was tasty and fun, and this time Ellen and I met up for our monthly lunch get-together. The place was once again very busy, which surprised me, given that it was a Friday afternoon. A bustling office and corporate crowd dominated the place and kept the waitstaff hopping. Despite this, the young gal who attended us was friendly and attentive, bringing us our salads as soon as she was able. Mine was a salmon salad with all the requisite ingredients: Tender fillet, crunchy romaine, light and tasty dressing. At the end I caved and ordered the miniature fried donuts with assorted dips: Chocolate and raspberry. To top this off I savored a pot of hot tea, an elegant touch on this windy Spring day.

I will note that the place was loud. The thrum of the crowds and clinking of glass evoked a power lunch in Manhattan. This is good for a lively lunch, but not a mellow, leisurely one. For that, Ellen and I decided to meet at San Vito's the following month. This is a low-key Italian eatery closer to our homes. Everything moves a bit slower at lunch there, though still with a touch of sophistication. Sometimes I need a dose of Big Apple-type energy like I did today. Next time around, it will be the comforting simplicity of a smaller, slower restaurant that moves more like, say, Eastern Long Island.

Dinner with friends at Cheff Geoff's

Dinner with friends at Cheff Geoff's

Dinner with friends is a rare event in our lives these days, so if Hubby and I make such plans, we love having great company and a delicious restaurant experience.  Thus was our plan this past Saturday, April 9th, 2011.  The first part we had covered.  We were dining with another couple we know, Ellen and Steve, whose company we love.  The second part, however, was an unknown:  Cheff Geoff's restaurant in Vienna near Tyson's Corner.*  And happily, it made the cut and then some. 

Cheff Geoff's is nestled in a cul-de-sac just off the Hermes and Tiffany Shops at Fairfax Square near Tyson's Corner. A simple red awning marks the restaurant, and if you drive up to it, valets will park your car.  Or park nearby on your own if you prefer, which is what we did.

We entered a moderately-sized space with Modern/Asian-inspired, minimalist decor, walked past the bar and were seated at a corner booth. Have I mentioned how tired I am of colonial decor with flowery wallpaper, waitstaff in bonnets, and fussy beribboned bouquets?  That atmosphere dominates a lot of "good" restaurants in Virginia, but lately I have craved the opposite.  So I liked this place already.

Our waiter "Joel" was a real sweetheart - funny, personable and knowledgeable about the menu.  We should be so lucky as to have him serve us the next time we come.  Thanks, Joel!

The menu at Cheff Geoff changes seasonally, my friend informed me.  
Here was the breakdown for my husband and myself this time:
Appetizers:
The food was presented artfully and whimsically.  We all shared a very mild and chunky guacamole with plantain chips - a yummy and creative combination underscored by the chips, which were stacked into playful vertical positions to mimic fries.
Also ordered to share were sliders - adorable mini-cheeseburgers, soft rose-toned ground meat (just like traditional meat loaf) with buttery buns.  
Fried calamari came with 3 dipping sauces and lemon, attentive little details that  made us curious to sample the squid dipped in each sauce.
Drinks:  Citrus Derby (did I really drink two?!) and an Apple Martini.  Not too sweet, but well-balanced on the tongue.  Our friends selected drinks from the extensive beer, wine and spirit list. 
Entrees:
I chose the mahi mahi fish tacos with a marinated salsa and soft corn tortillas.  Spiced just right, though by now I was fairly satiated by the appetizers.  So it says a lot the entrees that I savored them so thoroughly. 
A word:  If you come here, you MUST try the sweet potato fries--heavenly!  Even my husband, who usually only tolerates these tubers on Thanksgiving, ate them with gusto.  And our waiter brought them instead of the regular fries, at Steve's request, without fuss.  It is a real plus when the staff accommodates the  patrons this way.
I sampled Hubby's pork chops with blueberry butter, and they were full-flavored in a way that complemented my lighter "fish-dish".  Ellen ordered a dish with a different interpretation of pork, grilled, with the charcoal-edged flavor of meat cooked on open flame.
Dessert:  Our waiter, Joe, brought the platter and I joked that I would say, "Okay".  He explained each selection, and then left the platter and went away!
So there we were, with a tres leches cake slice, a chocolate souffle, dulce de leche ice cream and chocolate crunch, still-warm sugar and cinnamon donuts, and an overall feeling of indulgence as we sampled everything.  I am partial to the tres leches cake, so that is the most pleasurable "sweet" memory.  And oh, those donuts!

 Prices here range widely, from $7.99 appetizers to $45 entrees and everything in between.  In the words of my friend Ellen,  "It's anything you want it to be.  Budgeted appetizers or splurgy gourmet dinner.
Cheff Geoff is a lively place - it really fills up around 7pm, like most places in Northern Virginia, so book reservations or be prepared to wait if you go on Friday or Saturday.  Don't come here for a quiet dinner, because the atmosphere is too energetic for that.

I love its fun vibe. Cheff Geoff is cosmopolitan with fresh, fusion food, a nice splash of elegance with Joie de Vivre, and in my opinion this is the best combination for a good restaurant.  Chef Geoff takes food seriously enough to make it good, but has fun enough that it is not pretentious.  You get the sense that the chef and waitstaff work hard and enjoy what they do -- a welcome attitude in this time and place.

I'm having lunch here in a few weeks.  Will let you know about that too!

*There are three more Cheff Geoff's locations in the Washington, DC area.

Cheff Geoff's Tyson's
8045 Leesburg Pike
Vienna, VA 22182
800-659-2038
****