Short ribs and baby octopus may dominate many menus in the city, but that doesn’t mean local chefs can’t find love in an acorn squash. In our ongoing series, Chefs Veg Out, we’ll prove D.C.’s chefs can play with more than just meat.
- Name: Logan Cox
- Title: Executive Chef
- Restaurant: Ripple
- Twitter: @ChefLoganCox
- Cooking Since: I started cooking when I got my first job at Chesapeake Bagel and Bakery in Fairfax. I’d have to wake up at 5 in the morning and go bake bagels.
- Random Fact: I had a problem with sleep walking and sometimes I actually eat and sleep. I usually eat stuff that I shouldn’t be. Once I woke up with frozen ravioli in my hair.
- Favorite Vegetable: Ramps. They have a short season and they grow wild everywhere and that makes them interesting to me. They’re not quite onion-y, not quite garlicky. And you can eat them raw and pickled. I love pickled things.
- Least Favorite Vegetable: Tomatoes in December because they’re just mealy and gross and not what a tomato is supposed to be.
- Memorable Meatless Dish: A pasta dish in Rome, cacio e pepe, that is just cheese and black pepper and olive oil. You never thought that something with just three ingredients could taste that amazing.
- Best Vegetable Dish at Ripple: Composed seasonal salad. We get all of our stuff from local farms so basically it’s changing mid-week or weekly. It’s been on the menu since mid-July and it’s always, always changing. Now there’s shelling beans, calypso beans, acorn squash, pickled bok choy.
- Quick and Dirty Meatless Idea: Roasted root vegetables. Carrots, not peeled, in a hot pan and roast for 25 minutes. They get crispy on the outside and moltenly tender on the inside. When you leave the skin on (scrub really well) it forms a super crispy exterior. French chefs wouldn’t be happy about this. It goes against their technique.
Photo by Elizabeth Parker