My great-aunt Flora loved good food. She grew up in Center City Philadelphia, in a household that kept a Chinese cook. Both her parents were physicians and when Flora was old enough, she too went to medical school (she would have preferred to be an anthropologist). Though she did learn to cook, she preferred restaurants to her home kitchen.

By the time I was old enough to dine with Flora, she’d been married three times, was retired from her psychiatry practice and no longer went out in the evenings. However, that didn’t stop her from eating good food. It just meant that she frequented any fine dining establishment that served lunch.

Thanks to this early conditioning, I see nothing wrong with taking the time to eat well at lunch. And so, when I got an offer to come and try the new lunch time “Plates” menu at The Capital Grille, I was thrilled to accept.

The idea behind the “Plates” menu is that busy working folks want to occasionally have a nice lunch, but are nearly always pressed for time. With this three-item fixed price menu, you can easily have a lovely lunch and still get back to the office within an hour.

You choose between three soups/salads, three sandwiches and three sides that change seasonally. While we were there, the first course options were a green salad (that’s what I ordered) a roasted red pepper soup (Scott picked that one) and clam chowder.

For the second course, we chose between a tenderloin sandwich (that was my pick), a Wagyu cheeseburger with a drippy fried egg (Scott got that) and a lobster roll (it was hard to decide!). Sides were truffled fries (Scott), crisp green beans (mine) and roasted root vegetables (they sounded good, but I was going for green).

We ended up also getting dessert, though that was not included in the $18 fixed price. We got the creme brulee and the cheesecake and both were dreamy. Other extras we tried were the housemade fruit sodas (grapefruit! mint lemonade!), fresh mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto and nibbles from the bread basket. Delicious, all of them.

I was entirely impressed by the meal at The Capital Grille. It’s a chain and in a city so full of wonderful independent restaurants, I rarely consider the chains when looking for a place to eat. However, from service to food, this experience was so pleasant. Both Scott and I would be happy to go back again in the future.

Disclosure: The Capital Grille comped our meal from beginning to end. However, my opinions remain entirely my own.  

If you read the other blog, you well know that I have something of an obsession going with mason jars. I use them for everything, including my daily liquid intake. I was delighted to learn that two guys in Somerville, MA (so close to the town my dad lived in during his high school years) designed a plastic drinking lid that fits on top of a wide-mouth jar. I bought one and am entirely smitten. There’s a giveaway happening at FiJ right now, should you want a chance to win one for yourself.

Back in October, Scott got us a pair of Fitbits. They’re high tech activity counter that monitors how many steps you take a day, how many flights of stairs you’ve climbed, approximately how many calories you’ve burned and how much ground you’ve covered in miles. You can even use it to track your sleep.

I find it incredibly motivating, because it forces me to be honest with myself about how much I actually move during the day. Working at home means that some days I can easily stay parked within our 1,100 square feet. However, thanks to the Fitbit, I know how much I’ve moved and so there’s no way to fool myself into thinking that standing in the kitchen all day has provided me with enough cardiovascular stimulation for a 24 hour period.

I’ve been running errands on foot more and have been hitting the gym with increasing regularity. My running mileage has ticked up considerably (I can do 3 miles without dying, which is the best I’ve achieved in nearly 6 years) and I’m sleeping better. I highly recommend it.

Just a few days after swearing off marmalade, I found myself slicing up a pound of blood oranges for a small batch.

Scott and I spent most of today rediscovering the many joys of playing with the Wii. We raced in Mario Kart (he won every time) and went head to head in Jeopardy. It was ridiculously fun.

My favorite bit of kitchen workspace, mid-project.

It might look like a basic silicone trivet, but really, it’s my new favorite canning rack.

I finished a project today that I’ve been working on for weeks now. I made an assortment of marmalades for a book my publisher is working on. It was an incredible amount of work and I’m so glad to be done with it. I learned a whole lot about the different techniques employed to make marmalade. It will inform my approach to marmalade for years to come. Still, I’m happy to be taking a short break from chopping citrus.

A long-cooked pork shoulder, cooling in the dining room. This was incredible.

The odds and ends leftover from pickling a pound of kumquats for my Serious Eats column. I’m so enjoying kumquats this year.