Cups of Joe

I rolled out of bed on Sat. morning with a familiar crisis from the past few weeks: no milk for my java. As I set off with the intent of picking up said dairy product, I found myself instead wandering in to a place called Jacob’s Coffeehouse between D and Maryland Ave. I couldn’t believe such a nice place existed so close to where I live! The menu is classic café with baked goods, breakfast sandwiches and soup, all freshly made instead of plastic wrapped. While outside they have a nice patio space, I loved the inside, too: the freshly painted walls (the place only opened last October) was decorated with very nice art work – not the usual paintings of scenes from a café – and some interesting black metal stuff. Also dotting the premises were some beautiful bonsai plants and a dark wooden bookcase with a pretty decent collection… think PD James jostling for shelf space with Margaret Atwood… however, at 1 pm what won me over was a nice cushy single seater next to a glass top table on which was spread the latest issues of Vanity Fair and US Weekly. Nothing better to kill an hour with.
The next best cup of joe this weekend came from Café Bonaparte. I had gone to see my pal K who recently got married and had come down for a visit with his wife. We had intended to go for Sunday brunch but the hour-long wait turned it into some sort of mid-afternoon starvation exercise. At the parking lot across the street, a few of us ended up singing to Tom Petty songs wafting from the Marvelous Market next door and taking goofy SLR pictures of each other. But the wait was worth it: the crepes were yumm and so was the mocha cappuccino. I just didn’t understand the pictures of Italy in a French bistro... or the Russian waitress, for that matter. But the food and company was excellent.
Later in the evening, we decided to cook dinner at A’s place in Foggy Bottom. First a pit stop for the groceries where it was shocking to see A picking up chicken curry paste as opposed to making the real deal from scratch. He promised it would turn out well and there wasn’t much time to protest as we were literally herded out by K… he wanted to catch “Planet Earth” on the Discovery Channel and there was no way a convoluted dinner menu would get in the way. But we managed to get back on time – not only to watch the sad polar bears swimming for survival in the Arctic but also to make that chicken curry, daal and aaloo gobi for the junta. And actually, that curry paste wasn’t too bad either!
Finally can I just recommend anyone reading this to see "Blades of Glory." Best Will Farrell movie ever. 'Nuff said.