The Washington Post - USA (2022-01-19)

time.” He noted that he had done so multiple times in the past month,

and that the end result was not any dangerous, promiscuous, suicidal or

violent behavior: “I just had a great time and then went to sleep.”

Over the years, I’d see Brown out and about — pouring drinks,

drinking drinks, educating people on drinks, always at the center of the

action. Between his work running his bars and writing and organizing a

National Archives lecture series on the history of the American cocktail,

I’m not sure when he slept. I might have envied him a little, as someone

who had found a career that mixed his rowdy side with his ambition

and intellect, who had truly found his element.

This was not, perhaps, a wholly incorrect impression. But, as I discovered

in reading Brown’s new book, “Mindful Mixology: A Comprehensive Guide

to No- and Low-Alcohol Cocktails,” and speaking to him about the work he

SEE SPIRITS ON E6

RECIPES

Don’t be afraid to apply

summer technique to your

winter salad. E2

WINE

Wine options that forgo

alcohol have been getting

much better. E7

MORE AT WASHINGTONPOST.COM

Sheet Pan Chow Mein E2

Coconut Black Bean Soup

With Mango-Avocado Salsa E3

Roasted Cod With Parsley-Shallot

Sauce and Broccolini E3

Chat At noon: l ive.washingtonpost.com

KLMNO

Food

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19 , 2022. SECTION E EZ EE

BY BECKY KRYSTAL

The question on our weekly

live chat a few months ago was

simply titled “Broccoli.”

Can you recommend ways to

prepare this that make it taste

good?

It’s a common conundrum and

a cultural trope, with President

George H.W. Bush famously ex-

pressing his disdain for the green

vegetable, an equal source of

disgust for the little girl in the

Pixar film “Inside Out” (interest-

ingly, it was changed to bell

peppers for Japanese audiences).

We’ve been told time and time

again how good broccoli and its

fellow cruciferous vegetables —

cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts

and cauliflower among them —

are for us. Plenty of us need no

admonishment to eat them, but I

admire any skeptics who are

willing to be open-minded and

give them a try.

If you find the smell off-put-

ting, it’s not just your imagina-

tion. As Harold McGee explains

in “On Food and Cooking: The

Science and Lore of the Kitchen,”

these types of vegetables, like

onions, have “defensive chemi-

cals in their tissues.” When the

plant cells are damaged, most

notably by extended cooking, the

chemicals interact and start “a

chain of reactions that generates

bitter, pungent, and strong-

smelling compounds.”

But that’s not inevitable.

Whether through cooking strate-

gies or flavors, there are ways to

ease yourself into enjoying cruci-

ferous vegetables. Here are a few

of them.

Eat them raw

“Don’t overcook broccoli or

any of its relatives,” Deborah

Madison writes in “The New

Vegetarian Cooking for Every-

one.” “When people dislike these

vegetables, it’s usually because of

SEE CRUCIFEROUS ON E4

HOW TO

Crucial knowledge about

cruciferous vegetables

BY NANDITA GODBOLE

Special to The Washington P ost

After a long shift of making
pasta and pizzas at the University
of Illinois dining hall, I was
e xhausted — and deserved a treat.
It was the 1990s, I was an inter-
national graduate student, and as
I made my way back to my apart-
ment in Champaign, I saw a small
new Indian restaurant at the edge
of campus and s keptically s tepped
inside. Familiar aromas greeted
me. My latent homesickness from
several months away from family
in Mumbai finally registered,
b ecause it seemed to lift.
I felt like I was stepping into an
aunt’s kitchen. B ehind the counter
was a matronly woman ladling
generous portions of steaming
r ajma over mounds of fragrant
basmati rice into large white
c eramic bowls. I don’t recollect
anything else on the menu, but I
remember paying for my bowl by
weight. It was a quarter-pound of
rajma and rice, some of its sauce
trailing down the outside of the
bowl. Every flavorful morsel
hugged my insides, which had
been starved for the comfort of all

things f amiliar. I held back t ears of

relief. A s I dug in, I k new: I f I could

find this in the Midwest on a cold

winter day, home would never be

too far away.

Rajma has been part of Indian

cuisine only since the late 18th

century, b ut e very Indian k itchen’s

rajma is laden with family his-

tories of migration. Red kidney

beans simmered with onions and

SEE RAJMA ON E8

When kidney beans touch the heart

RECIPES ON E8

Makhani Rajma (North Indian Style Creamy Red Beans) l Rajma

Poriyal (Kidney Beans With Curry Leaves), pictured

LAURA CHASE DE FORMIGNY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

FOOD STYLING BY LISA CHERKASKY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

I met Derek Brown as many have, when he was holding

court behind the bar — specifically, the old iteration of

the Columbia Room, back when it was just a room, a

temple of mixology hidden away inside the rowdier

Passenger bar in Washington. T hat evening, he took our

little entourage through a roster of diverse cocktails,

teaching us about the drinks, including one of his signature cocktails,

the G etaway, a daiquiri enhanced with the bitter liqueur Cynar.

As I g ot more into cocktails, I enjoyed Brown’s pieces for the Atlantic,

which were smart and un-snooty, providing an education on spirits and

cocktails along with the occasional contrarian hot take, such as 2012’s

“Confessions of a Binge Drinker,” in which he gently mocked the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s finger-wagging about the

dangers of having more than five alcoholic drinks in “a short period of

Spirits

M. CARRIE

ALLAN

Pouring up a new approach

D.C.’s premier mixologist is making a splash with his no- and low-alcohol take on cocktails

SCOTT SUCHMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

RECIPE ON E6: NA Getaway Cocktail

Derek Brown makes a Getaway nonalcoholic cocktail at his bar, the Columbia Room, in Washington. The cocktail pioneer, whose new

book is a guide to low-alcohol and nonalcoholic drinks, says, “I want to normalize drinking sophisticated adult drinks without alcohol.”