Now that Restaurant Week is Over...

Now that D.C.'s Restaurant Week is over, it's time to assess the financial damage we all incurred by being lured into some of the city's best restaurants by 3 course, fixed-price lunches and dinners for $20.10 and $35.10, respectively. I told myself I was only to do 1 dinner. And that's it. My roommate and I made reservations at Vidalia (the duck was very good, but this post isn't about the food), and decided that would be by $35.10 + $7 for tax Restaurant Week splurge. I ended up spending more than $60, but the cocktails were really good, so it was worth it, right?

Then, the inevitable happened. I was roped into going to Zentan (great calamari, but again this isn't about the food) with a group of friends. The next night, a friend and I made an impulsive choice to try Oya (the Salmon was amazing, but really we're not talking about the food). Finally, a bored Sunday afternoon led to a visit to Cafe Du Parc (the Chestnut soup was unlike anything I had ever tasted, but it doesn't matter).

I waited a week to check my Mint.com account to survey the disastrous state of my personal finances. Sort of like how you wait a few days to check your grade for that 1 class you may not have done very well in. The total was staggering. $268. On 4 meals. And maybe a few cocktails. This prompted an emergency phone call home to ask my younger brother to intercept my credit card bill that gets mailed to the house every month. I had him shred it. My parents can never know how much money I spent that week. If they ask why my textbooks for the semester seemed to cost $300 more than they usually do, I'll just tell them it's because I'm taking this really intense Politics and the Internet class that I needed to buy lots of expensive textbooks for.

How much did you spend during Restaurant Week?

GW Getting a Vegetable Garden?

With all of the excitement surrounding Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden, it was only time before some of that enthusiasm trickled down to GW.

The Food Justice Alliance is a GW student org working to get a community garden on campus by this fall.

Their goal is to:

Create a community garden that will allow students and the larger DC community to connect with food production through service-learning.

In order to meet their goal, FJA is working with a variety of GW and community partners, including Sodexho, the GW Office of Sustainability, the GW Grounds and Maintenance department, the GW Landscape Design Graduate Program, the Foggy Bottom Garden Club, St. Mary’s Court, Common Good City Farm, and students from AU and GU.

Tentatively planned for the patch of land behind Ross Hall on H St, the garden will feature local fruits and veggies, including produce that was grown on the Mount Vernon Estate.

The garden is to be managed by a variety of community partners, including students, faculty, and Foggy Bottom residents, including elderly and homeless citizens

Overhead costs will be met by selling fruits and vegetables at the Foggy Bottom Farmers Market, while excess produce will be donate to Miriam’s Kitchen and the Foggy Bottom Food Pantry.