Photo by Alejandro Pinzon

David Bernabo is hard to pin down. He has had published work and performances in multiple disciplines including dance, film, music and visual art. His latest project is a three-part documentary called Food Systems. The series is an in depth look at our local food ecosystem—from our restaurant history, to a look at farm dinners in our region to a dissection of what our local food cycle looks like.

The first part of that series, a feature-length film on the history of our restaurants will premiere at Row House Cinema on Wednesday, September 23rd at 7 pm.

His best meal last week? The best cheap date in town.

Last week, my wife and I celebrated our six-year wedding anniversary. Well, one of them. We got married four times over the course of five weeks, six years ago. (Me: wow).

 So we had a collective celebration for all of them and we went to Legume for Cheap Date Night, which is every first Wednesday of the month. 

 You can’t beat it. $50 for a three-course dinner for two.

 We ordered all different things for all the courses so we could taste everything.

 For starters, we had a watermelon gazpacho and a simple salad. The gazpacho was really terrific. I’ve been making watermelon soups all through summer and I was happy to find out that my soup is not too far off Legume’s!

 The salad we had was served with a nice vinaigrette and we also had a side of some house-pickled vegetables.

 For the mains, we had a polenta ratatouille and a halibut dish. The ratatouille was really good—it was served with ricotta, which broke it up nicely and topped with a soft boiled egg.

 The halibut was served over a terrific grain and had a little crisp crust.

 For dessert, we had cardamom pots de crème and a plum tart—which was neat to taste because we have been getting a lot of prune plums through our CSA. I think I’m going to make one.

 All that for $50. It was a great time.

Leah Lizarondo is a food advocate, writer and speaker. She is also the co-founder of 412 Food Rescue, an organization that seeks to eliminate food waste to make an impact on hunger and the environment. She is the Chief Veghacker, recipe creator and curator at The Brazen Kitchen, where she writes about food and food policy. She writes about the intersection of food, health, innovation and policy.