The Gastronomical Jess

Consider Clemntines

2011-02-16T17:26:00.005-05:00

I love clementines. I love that they are cute and tiny and you can eat three in a single sitting. I love that they are so much easier to peel than oranges, so you can snarf them down at your desk or wherever you may be without squishing the fruit in the peeling process and making a big ol' mess. I love that they are sweet, never sour, as can sometimes happen with oranges, and you don't have to worry about seeds, either. And lastly, as pointed out in New York Magazine, they are in season now, in February, a bit of citrus-y sunshine in what has been an otherwise beastly cold winter.

Clementines are the tiniest of the mandarin orange family, aw, and are said to originate in the Canton province of China. As they are in season in the winter, as I mentioned above, they are also commonly referred to as "Christmas Oranges," and those funny wooden crates they always come in seem to imply that they would be a perfect present for a vitamin C-deprived friend or someone who is suffering from the winter flu or just the winter blues. While I enjoy clementines as they are, freshly peeled, and sometimes will sprinkle them over a salad, in addition to the neat recipe linked in New York Magazine above, I came across this great recipe from Bon Appetite, and plan on trying it this week! Instead of Chicken Broth, you can sub-out for vegetable stock instead if you want to make it vegetarian (Lent starts this week and a common thing to try is being vegetarian, or so I have found, and this will be a nice thing to try as you explore vegetarian options in lieu of meat for 40 days!)

2 cups low-salt chicken broth (or vegetable stock)
1 10-ounce package plain couscous (about 1 2/3 cups)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 clementines
1 15-ounce can chickpeas
12 large green olives, pitted, quartered lengthwise
6 dates, pitted, diced
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped

Bring broth to boil in small saucepan. Mix couscous, 1 teaspoon salt, and olive oil in medium bowl. Pour boiling broth over couscous mixture. Stir, then cover with plastic wrap. Let stand 15 minutes.

Peel your clementines; chop peel. It should be easy to peel it with your hand in one nice strip but you can always try with a vegetable peeler if need be, although I feel like then you run the risk of squishing the fruit inside. Cut flesh into 1/4-inch pieces. Combine chopped peel and flesh in small bowl and set aside. You can also just grate the peel if cutting it into mini pieces is too tedious.

Bring chickpeas with liquid to boil in saucepan. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until chickpeas are heated through, about 3 minutes. Drain chickpeas. Gently fluff couscous with fork. Add chickpeas, olives, dates, mint, and clementines. Stir to incorporate evenly. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Bon Appetite also includes a mini-tutorial as to how to remove the "pith" or white stuff that sometimes remains attached to the fruit after peeling, but I like to eat it. It doesn't seem to taste like anything to me, and Chinese folklore says it is an anti-carcinogen, so if you're into that sort of thing, go nuts!

Yummy! And the fact that this also includes dates, so much the better. It would be interesting to try this recipe with straight up figs as well, but dates are perhaps a bit easier to use/not quite so squishy.

Tastes like Balsamic-Pomegranate Glazed Chicken

2011-02-06T11:37:00.004-05:00

I have a tried-and-true chicken recipe that I use over and over again at home. It's simple and I almost always have the ingredients on hand so I can make it on the fly (sugar, soy sauce, garlic and olive oil). But it can't hurt to mix it up every now and again, and a friend of mine passed this delicious recipe onto me. It's almost as quick and easy as mine, and she has just welcomed the sweetest, most beautiful little boy into her and her husband's life, so the fact that she has time to cook something so yummy is a testament to its ease and practicality! Plus, it is healthy, too, and we all know how I feel about pomegranates...

Take equal parts balsamic vinegar and pomegranate juice (POM or some other equivalent) and coat however many chicken piece you like, along with fresh thyme, pomegranate seeds and a bit of olive oil to help coat.

Bake in oven at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until done. That's it! The glaze coats the chicken nicely and whatever is left over in the baking dish you can pour over the chicken upon serving.

In bounds the rabbit: Chinese New Year Yummies

2011-02-02T00:02:00.005-05:00

My Chinese mother is a self-proclaimed banana, which I suppose is a kinder term than "twinkie." Vronsky is a self-proclaimed "egg," so I suppose everything evens out in the end. If you can't figure out what I am referring to here, think colors and pejorative terms for race.

Slang aside, I think there are a lot of "eggs" out there when it comes to food. My favorite part of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential was where he decreed that, in all honesty, his favorite, quintessential New York meal was Chinese take-out, Sriracha sauce, a joint and a classic movie. Illegal drugs aside, a part of me truly does think that Chinese food really is the "world's cuisine." I am not kidding. You could find a "Lucky Noodle" in Nairobi and in St. Louis. And while the level of taste at these places could vary widely, from fake Chinese food like orange chicken, to wonderfully authentic, I always smile at the ubiquity of the cheesy fortune cookie and lo mein.

Since Chinese New Year's Eve is this Wednesday and Thursday ushers in the Year of the Rabbit, now's a good time to partake in the omnipresence of Chinese food and try some traditional Chinese New Year treats. Food has such a high standing in Chinese culture itself, the food served on the New Year is filled with tradition and some superstition.

For example, a whole roasted chicken symbolizes family togetherness, while noodles represent long life, so eat them whole and don't break them if you can! And my po-po made sure to remind me to eat some oranges or tangerines tomorrow night and Thursday, which symbolize good luck and Cantonese families will give the fruit to each other as gifts. Too bad I don't have any oranges from her orchard out in Sacramento. Those are the best...always sweet, never sour, and she always peels them for me in a single long peel, like she's done since I was little, because it still impresses me.

Fish also served whole, on the bone, is another traditional treat and done well (nice and thin and crispy) it is absolutely delicious and de-bones very easily. In fact, whole proteins are the M.O. for New Year meals as the act of cleaving meat could be perceived as cleaving family togetherness and unity, a big no-no. As far as your whole fish goes, don't be intimidated by the fact that it comes with the eyes still intact. My grandfather would always tell us to eat it because it would make us wise (all-seeing perhaps) but we never believed him. The fact that he never ate the eye either tipped us off...

Steamed rice cakes are the classic desert. Rice is life, the sweetness symbolizes richness, and the circular shape of the cake itself represents unity. Pomelo fruit is also a classic, but I actually don't care for the taste, but I'll eat plenty of leafy greens and gai lan (Chinese Broccoli), which are also "lucky," to counteract that.

In the moving book Mao's Last Dancer, Li, the protagonist fondly recalls making "jiaozi," or special New Year dumplings with his mother when he was a boy. He grew up in abject poverty in a collective farm in northern China, where "jiaozi" are tradition, and the family would scrimp and save for months to be able to afford enough meat, oil and dough to make the dumplings.

To balance out the excessive feasting that occurs on the eve of the new year, the first meal New Year's Day is traditionally vegetarian. This meat-free meal is also thought to generate good will on that first day as nothing was killed to make it.

The New Year feasting lasts for almost two weeks and you can learn more about each day and what food coincides with it here, but for a half-banana and an indulgent egg, one night of feasting is enough. I plan on making Vronsky's favorite "at home" meal: fresh white rice, steamed lapchong, some sauteed veggies (broccoli, water-chestnuts, snow-peas, ginger and carrots with soy sauce and garlic), and oranges for dessert. And then we will leave all the cleaning for the next day, since it is also bad luck to clean on the New Year, lest you sweep bad luck away. I am convinced that tradition was started by fed-up wives, who themselves were exhausted after the feast and the preparations the night before and needed a DAY OFF before tackling all that mess....

As Always, Julia

2011-01-26T23:03:00.004-05:00

Vronsky is a very thoughtful fellow. The other day, he was walking by Book Court in Brooklyn, a marvelous independent bookstore I recommend you visit next you are in Cobble Hill, and saw As Always, Julia in the window, which is the entire collection of letters between Julia Child and Avis De Voto, who was a critic, gastronome, and member of the "literati" in Boston/Cambridge, as her husband was a prominent columnist for Harper's and she herself was a well known writer and critic for the Boston Globe among other things at a time when women, as a rule, did not engage in such intellectual pursuits and circles once they were married.

Julia and Avis were wonderful friends, but it would be many years before they first met face to face. The started off as pen pals. It all began when Child, then living in France with her husband, responded to one of Avis' husband's columns in Harper's, in which he bemoaned the fact that he could not find a decent knife in all of the United States. He had to order knives from abroad in order to get the sharpness and strength he needed to be even half-adept in the kitchen. Most of the knives available at the time were simple stainless steel which, although very easy to clean, did not hold an edge to the point where he said they couldn't even slice an apple, and if they were serrated, then you might as well go out and buy a new one. Plus, if he applied any sort of pressure to the handle, like when boning meat or cutting through something tough, like say, a carrot, the knife would actually break off in his hand at the handle.

Contrary to what maybe people believe at the time, dull knives are actually more dangerous. By pushing harder to make a cut, you exert more force and have less control, often resulting in slippage or breakage which could really do some damage. It is just like a fresh versus a dull razor when you're shaving, to use a silly simile, but it is true. When you have to force the knife, the loss of control is when accidents happen.

Anyway, Julia Child responded to this column with a nice note and a new knife straight from France. Avis wrote her a letter in return, thanking her for the knife and inquiring just exactly what she was up to in France, and so the friendship was born.

Reading these letters, it first and foremost causes a pain in my heart knowing that nobody writes beautiful, eloquent, well-though-out letters any more. Sort of like how I wish everybody still wore hats. My friend Sarah and I, still actually write eachother letters from time to time. Real letters, in pen, to bring back the days when we were pen pals from camp. Except we were not at the levels of Julia and Avis, talking about saffron or McCarthyism. Instead, we talked about boys, boys, clothes, and then boys again.

But I digress. Another thing that struck me reading these letters is just how far the American culinary scene has evolved in a generation and a half. There were no fancy pot and pan kits (and certainly no teflon), and clearly there was a dearth of proper knives for the home cook. People probably had a skillet, a stock pot, and a sauce pot or two and that was it. There wasn't a microwave and certainly no George Foreman's. Check out the cover of the book...look at that TINY little oven! And I bet you that the Beef Bourginon coming out of there is absolutely perfect. Even my mom has cribbed off Child's recipe.

And it wasn't even the tools in the kitchen that would seem spare by today's standards. The American palate was so limited. Just imagine: no Chinese food. No sushi or Korean BBQ. No pad thai, tacos, fajitas or Latin food of any kind. Even French food was anathema in the home. Shallots or green beans? Anathema. My dad even drove this point home the other day. His own father worked at the local auto shop in high school growing up, and the shop was owned by an Italian family. Since his own father (my great-grandfather) died very young, my grandpa had no father figure, so the shop owner would frequently invite him home for dinner, where they ate traditional Italian food like spaghetti, meatballs, perhaps some cannellini beans and of course, tomato sauce. Pretty standard right?

For my grandpa, and for others in the town, it was literally the most exotic food they had ever heard of. Sure, it was quite common amongst the immigrant population, but as far as main stream diet? No way. Something outside of steak and potatoes? Madness! I always joke with Vronsky that Chinese food is actually the world's cuisine, but it is hard to imagine a world without Chinese take out, or just a world where no one you know has ever had a dumpling or white rice. Or even heard of such a thing. Forget the fact that pizza is a made-up word and what on earth is an artichoke? I believe that was part of Julia Child's appeal--she opened up a whole new world of food that people could prepare and enjoy on their own, something that is still true today. Sure, most people don't make their own pad thai (although it is easy to make your own peanut sauce), but lots of people use tarragon in their cooking, or eat tofu at home, and cook with soy sauce or garlic or shallots, something that was nearly unheard of before Child. It is no wonder people rarely eat Beet Wellington anymore except at badly catered conferences--as Avis said in one of here letters, "Just the phrase 'Wellington Casserole' sounds unpleasant...at it is!'"

Terrifying Teflon

2011-01-20T18:36:00.003-05:00

I have always taken the "____ Will Give You Cancer" posts that pop up on news-y sites across the internet with a grain of salt, because if you listened to everything that they said (including "turning on the bathroom light in the middle of the night") you would be forced to come to the unpleasant conclusion that life in general is chockablock full of carcinogens.

That said, we live in a toxin-filled world, where harmful things come from even the most benign places. Children's toys, the clothes we wear, beauty products, and food. I don't like it when celebrities get all preachy about the virtues of buying all organic food because let's face it, it is usually more expensive and more difficult to obtain, and not everyone has the financial means to do it, even if they wanted to. And while I try to buy organic/free-range/hormone and cruelty free meat and eggs and diary when possible, I try not to drive myself crazy over it. It is good to remember Michael Pollan's pithy words of wisdom. Eat food. Not to much. Mostly plants.

And yet, what good is organic meat when you're cooking it in a teflon-coating pan? Teflon is scary. I don't think I have ever come right out and said "DON'T DO THIS" but seriously, folks, stay away from teflon. My mom always told me not to buy those "non-stick" teflon pans and stick with all-clad or something similar because if and when something sticks to the teflon, which it always does, when you try and clean it off, the sponge/brush and soap you use will scratch the teflon, leading to little abrasions where food will get stuck and never come out, and it will also flake off into your next meal.

The unsavory and futility of that aside, teflon is highly toxic. How it is still allowed to be used in cooking tools is beyond me. A friend of mine will be writing a more in-depth article on this in an upcoming issue of Health magazine, but this little anecdote she told me last night is truly frightening. If you heat a teflon coated pan on your stove without enough oil to hold in the fume of the burning/heated teflon, and you have a bird anywhere in the house (parakeet, parrot, canary, whatever), within five minutes the bird will be dead. Dead! How do you think people discovered this? Pretty obvious...there were DEAD BIRDS all over people's houses across the country from breathing in noxious fumes!!

If that is not frightening I don't know what is, especially considering the fact that these same people, prior to realizing their beloved pet just died what I can only imagine was a highly unpleasant death, were probably happily making their stir fry or seared fish or whatever and then chowing down on the meal cooked with that very same toxic fume!

I maintain that for most things in life, the ol' ancient Greek mantra of moderation will work for almost anything, but as far as teflon goes, I think I gotta just say no.

Snow day treats part II: Consider Sriracha Sauce

2010-12-29T19:04:00.003-05:00

While I am on the subject of yummy snow-day treats, I think that a great way to get warm is to eat something hot. And I don't just mean temperature hot, but a burn-your-mouth-and-your-gut-additively-spicy hot, courtesy of Sriracha sauce.

My family has been eating Sriracha sauce since I was in elementary school, and it finally seems to be trickling out into the mainstream. Sriracha has been popular amongst the Asian-American community since the 1980's, and you can now find it in suburban grocery stores and even Applebees serves some sort of shrimp with a Sriracha-infused dipping sauce. When Sam Sifton of The New York Times asked several prominent chefs what they always had in their fridge, Sriracha sauce was right in there, along with eggs, dijon mustard, and full-fat Coca-Cola, in case of hangovers (best cure on the record!). And Sriracha was in this week's New York Magazine's Approval Matrix, which I always find hilarious, yet charmingly astute.

I just snarfed down a delicious bánh mi sandwich at Hinco's in Cobble Hill (Bergen Street & Smith), covered in Sriracha of course, to beat the chill that comes with tromping through slush and snow. Vronsky became addicted to Sriracha after having it every day with my grandparents out in California last spring. It is currently the only thing he has in his fridge, minus a few stray packets of ketchup and soy-sauce. My Po-Pop and Gung-Gung always put it on lo-mein and anything that is leftover. It really will make anything taste better! They say that at their age, nothing has taste like it once did, so the sauce gives it some zip. Po-po also says this is why she only likes to drink scotch versus beer, wine or another sort of liqour, ha. Me too, Po-po. Me, too.

But Sriracha has an interesting back story that helps explain some of its mass appeal. Sriracha is manufactured by Huy Fong Foods and was "invented" in 1984 by David Tran, the founder of Huy Fong, who admits he is both proud of the products popularity and slightly bemused. Hung Foy gets fan mail and fan calls everyday, from people who are suggesting new ways to use the sauce (on multigrain snack chips in lieu of salsa), or a drunk guy who can't even pronounce Sriracha in his current state and just yells "I LOVE ROOSTER SAUCE." (Sriracha's packaging has almost remained unchanged in its 30+ years: clear red bottle, several different languages printed on it, from English and French to Chinese and Vietnamese, all setting off a giant rooster).

Many chefs regularly admit to using it as a "sleeve trick," and Sriracha is now even carried in Wal-Mart after hiding in Asian grocery stores and metropolitan "ethnic food aisles" for years. It is now part of chain restaurants like PF Chang's, and is in food/street meat carts from New York to LA. Yet Tran never had such a broad fan base in his sights when he created Sriracha.

He maintains that he created the sauce with the Asian-American community, especially the Vietnamese community, in mind. He felt that even in America, they would be yearning for hot sauce to put in their pho, the beef-broth and noodle soup that I, too, adore. And yet he did not want to make an exact copy, and drew on many different Asian flavors and techniques. The name "Sriracha" comes from the Thai town, Sriracha, which is know for its home-made chili pastes. And the Sriracha bottle includes serving suggestions for everything from pho to hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, pasta and sauces to give it a nice bite.

Tran had always toyed with chili and pepper sauces, and when he finally struck on the winning combo of chili, sugar, salt, garlic and vinegar, a world-wide phenomenon was born. People dress up as Sriracha bottles for halloween and their are fan clubs that are hundreds of thousands strong.

I should qualify all of this and say that I am not a huge spicy food fan. I have never really taken to tobasco or jalapeno peppers, yet this is exactly the right kind of "heat" for me. Pick up a bottle today and see if you too will be converted!

Savory snow day treats

2010-12-27T16:08:00.006-05:00

For all of you living in California, Florida or more temperate climes, you may have read in the news about the intense snow storms up and down the east coast the past few days. From Charlotte to Boston, there are several inches to almost several feet of snow, leaving many people stranded, hopefully at home at not on a train or subway or airport.

Me? My flight back to NYC was canceled so I have two more glorious days at home, lazing about in my fuzzy pj's, drinking hot tea or a nice malbec (depending on the time of day), reading, and getting creative in the kitchen since no one wants to bother with going to the store.

If you have been a follower of this blog, you already know that my family makes pizza for Christmas instead of a more "traditional" meal. My mom and I favor lots of veggies and tomato sauce with minimal cheese and perhaps just a sprinkling of ground beef sauteed with onions, garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. My dad on the other hand, piles his so thick with peperoni, ground beef and cheese that it takes twice as long to cook and is almost 3 inches high after cooking, when supposedly everything has settled.

Well, there is always an interesting smorgasbord of leftovers once the pizzas have been finished. There's always a plethora of the beef and onions left over, as well as diced peppers and mushrooms and hopefully a tomato or two that hasn't been sliced. Unfortunately, sliced veggies never seem to stay crisp the next day, so we'll either put them in an omelet or make a modified frisee salad. Here is an excellent recipe, courtesy of Saveur. It reminds me so much of what Vronsky and I would eat when we were in Paris. We'd have that salad or haricot vert for lunch each day to make up for the fact that we had had champagne, eggs and lovely rich coffee for breakfast.

We usually don't have any bacon on hand in our house at home, although we always have eggs. If we had bacon, it would be eaten by my dad in one sitting. One year, I got him a "bacon of the month" club membership from Zingerman's, and my mom yelled at me. (Are you trying to kill him or what?!). Fortunately, the ground beef makes a nice substitute, and and the egg and always crisp frisee makes up for the fact that the peppers and tomatoes are getting a bit limp.

I often try to perk the peppers up by soaking them in some cold water for a bit, but the tomatoes tend to be beyond salvaging. If you have any hints, let me know! Otherwise, I just cover them in some balsamic glaze and eat them with a glass of red wine.

I also love making my own hot chocolate, heating some milk, semi-sweet cocoa powder, cinnamon and sugar in a saucepan. I have contemplated melting-down a Hershey bar in the past when we ran out of cocoa powder due to my sister baking enough chocolate cookies with white-chocolate chips and macadamia nuts to feed an army, but my mom said that if I ruined her pan she'd kill me, so I desisted. After all, we're trapped in the house all together, so it is probably best to keep the peace at all cost.

Rice is always in plentiful supply, and we've made a nice dent in our 15 lb sack to eat with my mom's delicious brisket, which takes 2 days to make and keeps for nearly twice as long.

There's also tons of charcuterie lying about, courtesy of several gift-baskets our family had been sent for Christmas, and while we've run out of proper toast points, baguettes and farmhouse bread, I admit that they are not half-bad with a Triscuit! Plus, my mom bought a huge wedge of Manchego cheese and some delicious gouda from the Netherland's to go with it while she bought a dozen bottles of wine as Christmas gifts for various acquaintances.

The one thing missing is a steady supply of fresh fruit. We've worked our way through bananas, our stash of apples, the cantaloupes and the Edible Arrangement Vronsky set to my parents. I suppose we should make plans to venture out at some point though, if only to cash in on the gift cards and take advantage of some sales!

Simply the Holidays

2010-12-22T23:20:00.006-05:00

A few years ago, Pegasus published a marvelous little book entitled Provençal Cooking: Savoring the Simple Life in France by Mary Ann Caws. I absolutely loved working with Caws on this charming combination of memoir, cook book, mini-travelogue, and philosophical treatise on the joy of living simply.

Complex does not necessarily mean better, whether it is food, prose, art or music. Sometimes the most pleasing meal is one that is the simplest to prepare and maybe only has a few ingredients. When Caws lived in Provence, she lived without electricity in half her house and no plumbing. Needless to say, she had to completely revamp her approach to cooking. It's much easier to make do without a modern kitchen when you are in the middle of the French country side and you can walk right outside your door and partake of the fruits of the earth (and perhaps your neighbors vineyard), versus in, say, a budget NYC apartment, which might have plumbing an electricity, but the stove and oven are patchy at best and your closest thing to local produce is a pack of Marlboros and a bag of Fritos from the vermin festooned mini-market around the corner.

But what I found the most appealing in Provençal Cooking was Caws' call for simplicity. In today's world, almost any one at some point will bemoan the fact that their life is too complicated. They are trying to be too many things to too many people. I have certainly felt that way from time to time, and it usually rears up in instances of feeling inferior because someone else has managed to start a non-profit that is about to spear-head a cure for AIDS, published a collection of poetry, qualified for the Boston Marathon, is a classically trained oboist, a volunteer at the ASPCA, and has managed to bake a pie from scratch and bring it to the church pot-luck. Meanwhile, I'm standing there with a plate full of uneven slice-and-bake cookies because I could not get my sh*t together in time to make anything better.

Perhaps I am the only one who feels this way, yet I have a feeling that I am not alone. It seems like the holidays bring out this feeling more than any other time of year. There is the stress of giving gifts and perhaps preparing the holiday meal. Family can certainly make this worse more often than they make this better, and while there are always pithy little sayings like "Christ is the Reason for the Season" or Linus' monologue that are bandied about to try and calm us down, I find that the best way to savor a bit of simplicity can be through food.

Whether you celebrate Hanukkah or Ramadan or Christmas, if you look back to the basic rituals of these faiths' social foundations, you find an extremely simple meal. Whether it is Jesus breaking the bread and sharing it with his disciples over some wine, fish and challah bread on shabbat, or bread, fruit and stew after a day of fasting, these meals are completely no frills but nourishing in every sense. And they are all meant to be shared with people, as holiday meals are today. Communion is always meant to be taken with your spiritual community, the sabbath meal is traditionally the family's main gathering point for the week, and the sunset meal iftar is an incredibly social occasion, with people meeting at family homes or mosques. There was no prize for who could make the best bread or bring the most exotic fruit. It simply was not the point. You were there to share the food with those you cared about and reflect on what mattered most to you--the simple, often blessed, things that should be remembered but often get lost in the complexity of day to day life.

Remembering the roots of this whole crazy season, no matter what faith, helped me keep my sanity this year more than ever before. Between work, family and social obligations, I had been sleeping on top of my laundry for several days because I literally could not find an hour to put it away. But what made me feel even better than an extra hour of sleep (or even putting my clothes away), was the twenty minutes I spent making icing last week.

Every year my roommates and I host a cookie decorating party, and while my designs are probably the worst of the bunch and I spent most of my time this year trying to keep my new puppy out of trouble, there was something really lovely about standing there, idly chatting over some B-grade white wine, mixing sugar and water. I had not spent any real time with them for weeks, and I had had this nagging feeling for months that my friendships, more than anything else, were being neglected at this point in my life. Wedding planning can do that, but it doesn't mean it should. But finally, here we were, playing with sprinkles and candy cane crumbles, slathering icing onto sugar cookies. It was simple, it was delicious, and it finally felt like Christmas.

The Early Bird Special at Maialino

2010-12-06T20:53:00.004-05:00

It is a running joke between Vronsky and me that I like my men like I like my wine: full-bodied and furry. While he's actually on the side of quite slim and really not that hairy, I really do like spicy, tannin-laden wines, and the wine I had tonight at Maialino, the restaurant that is a part of the Gramercy Park Hotel, was just that. It was a Sicilian wine, "Fastaia," and the perfect complement to the Roman cuisine we stuffed our face on at 5:30pm, because we could not get a reservation at any other time.

I was actually alright with that, as my day was so crazy that I literally did not have a moment to eat lunch, so by 5:00 I was starving and the fact that suckling pig was the house specialty was music to my ears. But first, I had to gorge myself on the delicious sampling of bread and olive oil that graced the table. The oil was a bit too salty for my own personal preference, but the bread was so perfect that I actually preferred it alone.

Then came the salumi mista, along with a generous sampling of olives, which Vronsky does not like, so I got to relish them all myself. The salumi station is actually next to the bar, so you could see the meat being sliced with loving care. After reading how salumi was made in Bill Buford's Heat, I appreciate the explosion of taste in each bite even more.

Next, I had the agnolotti di zucca, which was essentially pumpkin ravioli with balsamic and pine nuts. It was delicious, but not not original, and I had a better version of that same dish at another Danny Meyer restaurant, Union Square Cafe. Vronsky's dish however, the bucatini all'Amatriciana, was excellent. The spicy tomato sauce was just that: spicy and tomato-y, and the bucatini was perfectly al dente. There was just a bit of Guanciale to give it some richness that cut the brightness of the sauce a wee bit.

Then came the suckling pig, which is not for the faint of heart or stomach. It is incredibly rich and the fat is almost as thick as the meat. As someone who is used to the Cantonese style of pig or duck in this manner, where the fat is almost completely rendered, seeing that snowy layer of fat just under the crackling was a bit surprising, although it does make everything delicious. In the end, however, I separated the fat from the meat and crackling and went to town. It is rich and flavorful and the roasted brussel sprouts were the palate cleanser.

For desert, we managed to make room for the torta sbrisolona, an almond and apple crumb cake with caramel gelato. Pure heaven for someone who loves anything pie-like, fruity or nutty. Round that off with a bit of espresso, and I can't wait to come back for the early bird special again!

Do not be intimidated by the location of the restaurant. While it certainly is not cheap, it is not necessarily expensive for a night out, as the portions are Continental-sized and served family style, so go with someone who is willing to share and you'll be able to try lots of things within a fair price range.

Next time, I would like to try a different secondi (I can only take suckling pig once every year, if that) and I would also like to try a more authentically Roman past dish, which tend to not be as saucy as the country Italian fare and more egg-based, like the bombolotti alla Cricia, which is pasta, egg, some Guanciale (unsmoked Italian bacon), and pepper. I would also love to try a cheese selection as well...I could scare enjoy my espresso because I was eyeballing the cheese tray of the people next to us, but my stomach was simply too full!

Girl crush: Christina Hendricks

2010-12-01T13:19:00.003-05:00

Christina Hendricks rules. Not just because she's a great actress, super sexy, and comes off as funny, warm and witty, but she's quite the foodie too! I won't spoil this great interview with New York Magazine's Grub Sreet, but I will pre-empt this and say that I should have a girl-date with her. She likes scotch neat, I like scotch neat. She likes goat cheese, I like goat cheese. She can cook a New Years dinner for 40-50 people, I cannot do that, but would like to hear all about it! Her hubby bakes delicious bread, and Vronsky can make a mean bowl of cereal. See! We're totally destined to be besties.....

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2010/12/christina_hendricks_drinks_her.html

Bountiful Bolivia (and Venezuela too)

2010-11-30T22:10:00.003-05:00

I do not know very much about South America or South American cuisine. There is an Argentine place Vronsky and I used to visit in Tribeca, but ever since he moved, we have not had the chance to visit as frequently, although they had the best rosemary lamb chops I have ever tasted, and a killer wine list to boot. I love Chilean wines as well and we have toyed with going to Buenos Aires and then to Chile for our honeymoon (a little culture, a little skiing, a little viewing-of-Penguins), but that is as far as my knowledge of that vast and vibrant continent goes, unless you count the tales of life in Rio that my Brazilian literary sub-agents tell me, in which case, I am packing my bags!

But a literary life on a Brazilian beach in a thong aside, over Thanksgiving, my parents took Vronsky and I to the most charming restaurant in Falls Church, VA, La Caraquena, which features authentic Bolivian and Venezuelan food. My mom and dad love trying new food and La Caraquena had received rave reviews in the Washingtonian and Washington Post and so as a nice pre-Thanksgiving meal on Wednesday night, squeezed into a booth in the petite, but homey, restaurant, and boy, were we in for a treat.

The head chef, Raul A. Claros, based the menu around traditional Bolivian and Venezuelan food, as he he was born in Venezuela to restauranteur parents, and then moved to Bolivia as a young man. The highlight of the entire meal was the Salteñas, which is essentially an empanada on steroids. They are tennis-ball sized "turnovers," and the crust is flavored with a mildly bitter seed called the achiote, but it sets off the flavor of the filling to a tee: robustly flavored beef with diced potatoes, carrots, peas, an olive or two and a chapped egg. I think I could have easily ordered 4 of those as a meal with a nice red wine and been perfectly satisfied.

But then I would have missed out on the arepas, which are the Venezuelan staples on the menu. Arepas are flat, white ground-corn cakes amendable for stuffing, and stuffed they were, as there are close to a dozen fillings to choose from on the menu, from black beans and grated white cheese to "Sifrina" (chicken salad with mayonnaise and avocado, and the "Perico," which is egg with chopped tomatoes and bell peppers. Then there is "JP's Favorite," which was my favorite too: thin slices of garlicky steak with onions and cilantro.

My sister had the peanut soup, which was quite delicious although I don't know if I could have taken an entire bowl of it. I loved their black bean soup, mopped up with some of their yuca fries, and while we were busy stuffing our faces we were also angering our livers with some of their delicious passion fruit or mango margaritas.

After we waddled off home, Vronsky and I were fairly dead set on honeymoon-ing in Bolivia just so we could stuff ourselves with salteñas. While that might not eventually come to fruition (Greece might still call my name), we'd like to keep exploring Latin American, if only on our dinner plates!

There is Boca Chica on 1st Ave near Houston that I have heard is quite tasty, and then there is El Cocotera for traditional Venezuelan food in Chelsea. Industria Argentina is that place in Tribeca that I now have a yen to return to, and if any one has any other recommendations for places in Manhattan or Brooklyn, let me know in the comments! Till then, I'll be pining for those La Caraquena salteñas until I am home again for Christmas.

D is for Dominate

2010-11-11T21:07:00.006-05:00

If you have ever toyed with the idea of running a marathon, please do so! I had such an incredible time last Sunday, I have still not come down from the endorphin rush. It was an experience beyond compare. When Vronsky saw me come up 4th Street around mile 10 in Brooklyn, I had this big dopey grin on my face, one that I held all the way to the finish, fatigue and the fact that I really had to go to the bathroom be damned! If there was any doubt in my mind that New York was NOT the greatest city in the world, then it has surely been eradicated by this point. The way the entire city turns out for the marathon is incredible. From the tip of Brooklyn to the Bronx and everywhere in between, the marathon shows what makes NYC one of a kind. The diversity and spunk is evident for all 26.2 miles. From the elderly deli owner yelling "run faster, my friend!" to the fire fighters and cops, to the little kids holding out their hands for high-fives, flags being waved from every conceivable country, a little Dominican grandma handing out paper towels, hipsters handing out lollipops, gospel choirs, random folks handing out orange slices, and the sheer fact that people are tailgating this thing, complete with cook-outs and bands, never ceased to amaze me over the entirety of the course.

And don't even get me started on the racers! A lot of people were just like me based on outward appearance, relatively fit and looking to go a solid time and challenge themselves. Others were running for a cause, be it the Robin Hood Program, cancer, MS, in memory of someone, injured or fallen soldiers, the causes are endless, each and every one unique and admirable. And then there was Team Achilles, who guided along disabled athletes, from those who were blind or deaf, missing limbs or were pushing through some another, less visible disability. The sheer joy on their faces was enough to bring tears to my eyes, and really made me savor just that much more the cheer of the crowd, the perfectly sunny day, the friends that came out to support me, the feel of the ground beneath my feet. I was even savoring the mushy bananas that the race volunteers were handing off as we turned the final corner into the Park.

But what brought a real smile to my face, besides a triumphant finish in a better than expected time, was a random voice in the crowd shouting out that they couldn't wait to "dominate a pizza." I knew exactly what he meant! I was starving and have remained ravenously hungry for the past 5 days.

Immediately after finishing, I inhaled the two apples that came in our goody bag along with the complimentary Gatorade and water. I then shuffled 10 blocks downtown to Josephina's near Lincoln Center to meet Vronsky and inhaled a fruit bowl and their "tangle of angel hair pasta" that came with a wonderfully tomato-y sauce, covered in Parmesan cheese. To put it succinctly, I dominated it.

A few hours later, after Vronsky and I had finally made it back home, I dominated some Indian food. I was craving some naan and some nice and spicy chicken, lamb and veggie kebabs.

And in the morning? I dominated 3 bowls of Kashi's Autumn Wheat cereal and a banana and barely made it the three hours that stood between me and lunch, which was Building on Bond's amazing "Black Friday" sandwich, which is a delicious Thanksgiving medley of shaved turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. Mmm, mmm, good.

Tuesday I dominated some Korean BBQ and then last night it was the fillet Mignon at 21. Usually I find 21's food much to rich, but I guess when you are inhaling everything in sight and buying candy from those kids that come on the subway and sell you bags of M&M's and candy bars for $1 a pop, a little extra bacon grease on that burger isn't going to thwart you. Today I dominated a bowl of turkey chili for lunch (as well as the leftover pickle from the author I was having lunch with...classy) and a burrito from Chipotle along with a bag of chips and spicy salsa.

I suppose dominating that pizza or a sandwich or the entire contents of one's fridge is just reward after dominating your own fears and your prior notion of what the body can achieve. Even Shalane Flanagan, the American woman who finished second in her marathon debut, said that the first thing she planned to do was have a burger and a beer. I think it is refreshing sometimes to revert back to our most carnal and base attitudes about food. Not all the time, of course, as I think it is equally fun and rewarding to really think about what your eating, from ingredients and taste to how it is prepared (or how you plan to prepare it), and savor every morsel, but there is something about the sensation of stuffing warm pasta into your face like there's no tomorrow that knows no equal.

Food is fuel!

2010-11-04T21:38:00.003-04:00

That is something that I have had hammered into me since I was probably about 12 years old. I was so incredibly skinny that my nickname at home was "Jangle Bones" (J-Bones or just Bones for short) and my swim coach put me on a "milkshake-a-day-plus-instant-breakfast-mix diet" in addition to what I regularly ate, lest my body start to "eat itself." Needless to say, all this turned me off strawberry milkshakes for years to come and don't even get my started on Carnation Instant Breakfast. Yech.

When I get pregnant I'll have to bump up my calorie count some other way. Perhaps I will just sit down and eat an entire roast chicken right out of the pan, a la one of my favorite professors at Princeton who stated this proudly (yet another tick on the very long list of why she is amazing).

But this whole J-Bones era raises an interesting point. In a culture where we are so obsessed with dieting and being thin, I think we forget that food is fuel. I know I wax on and on about it fueling the soul and the psyche, but let's not forget--it's gotta fuel the body first and foremost!

Why talk about this now? Well, after a mad three weeks (Vronsky and I lost a house we were trying to buy, scrambled to find someplace else to live, all with our new puppy in tow, plus the fact that work has been cah-RAY-zay), yours truly is running the New York City Marathon on Sunday! I am more worked up about this than any of the triathlons I've done, perhaps because this marathon will easily take at least four hours, whereas an Olympic distance triathlon, not so much (that's a pic of me from this fall's Nation's Triathlon). But I have wanted to run one for some time now and the day is fast approaching!

I've become more cognizant of the fuel aspect of food in recent months, especially once my runs started getting longer. To complicate things, running is a bit different from swimming in terms of how my body handles food. At the height of swim training back in college, or even high school, I would just stuff myself with anything and everything I could get my hands on, from delicious fajitas to stale cereal right out of the box. It is a fairly common thing for swimmers to do. Andy Potts, now a pro triathlete but former captain of the University of Michigan swim team, stated in Triathlete magazine that he still eats like a college swimmer. In fact, the other day he just sat down an ate a Costco-sized back of peanut M&M's just because he was bored!

For me, my eating habits have had to change a bit leading into Sunday. I'll tend to get a bit of an upset stomach if I eat too close to my long runs, so loading up on the heavier carbs and proteins means must be done the night before, and then I will eat a solid breakfast and a blander lunch than I'd usually have just to be safe, with a cup hot water with ginger, lemon and honey just before I hit the road. It calms the tummy and gives me a last little burst of glucose.

The past week I've made sure that I am getting enough fruits and veggies along with the more obvious carbs and protein. I'll be sticking with variations on my mom's spaghetti sauce and chicken fried rice as Sunday approaches. It is not a time to experiment, but to go with the tried and true.

And while I am a big believe that real food is always the best thing, gels and drink powders do have their place. I've heard veteran Iron Men wistfully recall the days when Gatorade didn't exist and they accomplished miraculous feats in Kona with orange slices, water, and peanut butter M&M's (perhaps Potts was onto something after all!), but I fully admit that I am no Iron Woman. A few well-timed energy "bloks" from Clif (which are just jacked-up gummie squares) and some GU packets will never go amiss in my book. And I'm quite loyal to my Lemon-Lime Accelerade as a drink mix. I find Gatorade and other sports drinks too sweet and when you look at the labels, it's mostly sugar and salt. Conversely, the powders tend to have a lot more vitamins and whatnot, even though I know a lot of people have trouble with the slightly thicker constancy, but I don't mind it, nor the fact that Accelerade is an unearthly bright green color.

I say all this, but I will share one little anecdote in closing that basically negates everything I've just said in the last paragraph. While I was on a long bike ride earlier this summer, I shakily reach into my jersey pocket and pull out a shot block or two, pleased with myself that my cycling skills seem to be improving. I've managed to suck down these little gummies without crashing after all! Just then, a man whizzes by me, and what is he eating to fuel up for a long ride ahead? No goos or gummies for him. He is deftly eating what I perceive to be a turkey sandwich. On wheat bread. With lettuce. I swear I even saw a bit of Dijon mustard.

So the question now is: who will hand me a turkey sandwich (or perhaps a nice piece of pizza) on Sunday??

Consider figs in Frankfurt

2010-10-21T00:14:00.006-04:00

Ah, it is lovely to be back in New York again....

Don't get me wrong, I love to travel and would never forsake a trip to a new place for anything, but I have heard that one of the pluses of traveling is that it makes you appreciate home that much more.

The past two weeks have been quite the whirlwind. I think I've slept in my bed 3 times in the past three weeks. Granted, it has been almost entirely of my own making, and while my Sleepy Bear is probably a bit mad a me, it's been completely worth it.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is always an intellectual rush. To be at the center of the international publishing scene and hear what's happening in countries all over the world is such a thrilling sensation--it always serves to remind me why I am doing this. Unfortunately, it is not a huge gastronomical rush. Not to say that I didn't eat well--I stuffed myself each morning with the buffet breakfast and then with heavy schnitzel and beer each evening--but I never found myself trying something new and exciting.

While I was a bit tired of meat and starch by the end of the trip (I always feel like I come down with scurvy a little bit during the fair, between the heavy party food and the pre-packaged convention center food), the buffet breakfast each morning was superb. And it was not as if we were staying in some wildly plush hotel. I have found that breakfasts at most European hotels are excellent. Whereas in the States you'd have some watery coffee, generic brand OJ and some most Eggo waffles served with egg beaters, European continental breakfasts are first rate, even at the hostels.

Cured meats and a variety of egg preparations (soft boiled, hard boiled, scrambled or fried), pastries and bread for toast, seasonal fruit, yogurt and various dried fruits and nuts, muesli, a bevy of cheeses, and my favorite of all, figs.

I am crazy about figs. One time I bough my roommate a fig-scented candle for her birthday just so she'd light it and then the entire apartment would smell like figs. Then she decided to keep it at home in Connecticut. Blast!

But seriously, I think figs are tremendously under utilized and appreciated here in America. It takes a trip overseas or mingling with someone from say, Turkey, to bring out the figs and dates. They're so sticky, delicious and integral to human history.

There is the old biblical story of Jesus himself reviving a fig tree (aka a ficus) and Adam and Eve clothed themselves in fig leaves after eating from the Tree, but the relationship between mankind and figs predates Him by a could thousand years. The fig was one of the first plants that were cultivated by humans. Apparently nine fossilized figs from about 9,400 BC were found in a Neolithic village just outside Jericho, predating the domestication of wheat, barley and legumes, and thus fig cultivation might be the first known sign of agriculture.

So, basically, figs and there awesomeness was what brought us down from the trees...and yet they themselves don't travel very well and are rarely served fresh if not grown locally. They are usually dried (as I had in Frankfurt) or candied and turned into dates. That's ok though, and as my primary fruit source in Germany, I was served quite well nutritionally.

Figs are one of the highest plant sources of calcium and fiber. According to USDA data for the Mission variety, dried figs are richest in fiber, copper, manganese, magnesium, potassium, calcium, and vitamin K, relative to human needs. They have smaller amounts of many other nutrients. Figs hare also a good source of flavonoids and antioxidants.

So what to do about figs gastronomically? You can make fig jam and there are ways to make fig reductions and even cocktails that I can only dream about. Ducks are fed figs to prepare them (and their liver) to be made into foie gras. Yet I have only ever enjoyed figs of my own devices dried or fresh, and even in the early jet lagged mornings of Frankfurt, I don't think I'd have it any other way. After all, 10,000 years+ of perfection is hard to mess with....

Excuses are like assholes...

2010-10-03T18:12:00.004-04:00

...Everyone has one, and they all stink. That's a bit of wisdom from the Gastronomical Dad, via the Marine Corps. It's funny, a bit crass, and quite true. It's my dad's birthday, and he himself is quite the food fiend. He introduced me to the wonders that are Coney Island hotdogs, which are not from Coney Island, as one might think, but from Detroit. Go to Athen's Coney in Southfield for a decadent treat: a wiener with all beef chili, spicy mustard and onion served in a hot dog bun. Eat with a fork. It's as awesome as it sounds and recently an editor at Saveur, my favorite magazine, caught onto this too.

My dad is the person who made me wait for blueberry pies after swim practice(so I could enjoy them properly). He has his own personal stash of artisan bread, has been known to bring home a box of cup cakes only to eat off all the tops before anyone else gets to them, and has an epic knowledge of place to get the best anti-pasta and other gourmet goodies. When he made us lunch, PB & J's were anathema--we all got salami sandwiches, sliced extra thick. If we were lucky, we also got a Ho-Ho tossed in alongside our apple.

My mom has waged a 25+ year war against him to eat more fruits and veggies--battle of the Asian diet versus American midwest, and while she's succeeded in part (he now craves edamame), his preferences still run towards kielbasa's and pastrami sandwiches given the opportunity. He's snuck away from business dinners while in NYC for work to go to the Astro diner so he could get a real sandwich and a proper Greek salad. He once gave our dogs rye bread for treats because he thought they might like the taste (he was right....they are now completely obsessed with it and go nuts the minute they here the distinct crinkle of the bag opening).

And despite his affinity for food of the Germanic-Polish-WASP persuasion going back to his childhood, we were eating sushi long before it became trendy in the 90's, he snarfs down Chinese food and was the one who discovered Pho soup, something that has been a staple of our family diet since I was in middle school. Afraid to try new things he is not, and there is another thing I share with my dad when it comes to food: a distrust and dislike of anything even resembling mayonnaise.

While his usual mantra has been cribbed from Garrison Keillor (Be well, do good work, and stay in touch) and other pithy Marine sayings aside, when I first moved to New York, he told me that there was simply no excuse not to eat well in the city. And he is right. There really isn't.

Delicious Denmark

2010-09-25T22:16:00.004-04:00

I had a lovely lunch on Friday with Denmark's reigning "crime queen," Sara Blædel, to celebrate the acquisition of her books for the American market. I decided to take her to the 21 Club in midtown, very "Americana" and a New York classical, although I will come right out and say it: the food is WAY to rich and buttery. It is a favorite of Vronsky's family, so I eat there a fair amount, usually around the holiday season, but lord did I forget about that little tidbit. Everything there has butter, and too much of it at that. The Dover sole was swimming in it. My vegetable risotto was so oily with it it wasn't even clumping up. The burger is literally marinated in it. It's a shame, but I always walk away from there feeling slightly nauseous, although my plum-almond tart was a shining gastronomical delight on the whole affair.

To top off the fact that Sara is an incredibly delightful, charming woman (she and her husband, Lars, could charm the fur off a dog), she brought me a huge bag full of traditional Danish food after hearing through her agent that I ran this here little blog. It was the sweetest gift I'd ever gotten and I dove into this veritable bag of goodies the minute I got home and my meal of butter had subsided.

This bag was like Mary Poppin's carpet bag. Lovely things just kept coming out! A box of chocolates from a Copenhagen chocolatire, some Danish gummy candies, two huge jars of delicious pickled herring (which you MUST eat with slices of raw onion), lovely smoked salmon, and a loaf of thinly sliced black rye bread on which to eat said herring and salmon, and some Akvavit (a strong liquor drink served EXTRA cold).

Pickled herring has been a traditional Danish staple since the Middle Ages, and to this day, it is traditional to have some pickled herring (with onions atop Danish-style rye) for Christmas lunch before any hot dish is served. Herring is referred to as the "gold of the sea" and is also very popular when smoked (but doesn't travel as well as the smoked salmon).

And a note about this Danish rye bread: it is the only thing with which the traditional Danish open faced sandwich (smørrebrød) can be served. It is incredibly dense and sliced very thin and takes more than 24 to prepare and bake. It has a strong smell but it sets of the saltiness and "slimy" texture of the fish to perfection. Don't get me wrong...I love smoked salmon and pickled herring, but it definitely has its own "unique" texture.

Vronsky and I already worked our way through one packet of smoked salmon and half a jar of the pickled herring the next day (I ran out to Trader Joe's and got a giant onion) during the Bowling Green-Michigan game (21-65 Michigan, whee!!). Nothing like a super salty, omega-3 laden brunch to off set Vronsky's birthday party festivities from the night before...I think a trip to Copenhagen is now in order!

But where to find such yummy things in NYC when I've depleted Sara's generous stash? I did some mosey-ing around Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and found some smoked salmon, although I don't know how it will compare to Sara's yet. Pickled herring might be a bit trickier, but there is a shop on 7th Ave. just south of 58th street connected to the restaurant Petrossian that sells caviar and herring and other gastronomical sundries. It is Russian in style, so it will be a bit different from the Danish version, but I have yet to find a place that is more Nordic in focused. Regardless, always eat your herring with raw onion!

Cheese, cheese and more cheese!

2010-09-16T22:04:00.004-04:00

I love cheese and crave it on a regular basis. Hard or soft, creamy or stinky, I have rarely met a cheese I didn't like. Blue cheese on my salad or on a cracker with some walnuts. Camembert. Manchego. I'll eat feta straight up. I just finished munching on a bit of hard, crumbly asiago. There is always something new to try and I never tire of browsing the cheese aisle at Murray's Cheese down in the Village (whenever I rally and get down there from my apartment, otherwise it is Trader Joe's) or thumbing through my monthly Zingerman's catalog. There is an entire UNIVERSE of cheese out there, people. British, Italian, French, Spanish, American...goat, sheep, cow...chesire, blue, gruyére, zamorano, cheddar, stilton...the list goes on! I insisted on trying ever cheese I came across when Vronsky and I were in France, gladly forgoing dessert for the fromage plate. (OK, sometimes I just ordered both...)

People become "cheesemongers" I suppose the same way that people become "wine-o" or oenophiles, if you want to get technical. Cheese, like wine, is alive. And great cheese, like great wine, should be variable. It changes over time. It ages and matures. No wheel should be the same, just as no bottle should be exactly the same. You can get so much from just smelling it and it can evoke anything from freshly mowed grass to nuts and fruit.

In her brilliant and informative The Cheese Chronicles, Liz Thorpe takes the "aliveness" of cheese to an entirely new level. She anthropomorphizes the cheeses that sit in Murrays's case--sitting there like little people--and agonizes that some of the fresh cheese might spoil before someone takes them home. But I can't blame her. She knows who makes these cheeses, from quirky and spunky women in Oregon to accidental goatherds in Vermont, and the intense labor and love that goes into ever wheel.

There are several families of cheese, no matter what kind of milk they are made from (cow, sheep or goat).

Fresh: a high moisture style usually eaten within days of its production. They have a creamy texture, no rind, and a milk, neutral smell.

Bloomy: Classic examples are brie and camembert but include all exterior-mold-ripened cheese. As the cheese is ripening/aging, the spores actually bloom like microscopic dandelions on the outside of the cheese, hence the name "bloomy," although you'd rarely see this by the time the cheese reaches you in the store.

Washed Rind: These are the stinky cheeses. They get their smell from the regular washings in brine (salt water) that can be fortified with booze, yeasts, even butter milk.

Then you have your true rind cheeses: uncooked pressed, cooked pressed, and blue. Uncooked press cheese are aged for two to eight months and are semisoft to firm in texture. Spanish manchego, Italian pecornios and English cheddar are examples of this kind of cheese.

Cooked pressed cheese means that while the curd is being stirred it is cut into tiny pieces and cooked in a vat making it smooth and elastic in texture so that it can age for the long haul. Swiss cheese, gruyére, and Parmigiano-Reggiano are made this way.

Blue cheese is a whole family of cheese, not just the kind that goes on your salad. Like bloomy cheese, the family of cheeses has mold introduced in powder form duringcheesemaking, and it needs oxygen to grow. It is only after the cheese is pierced after it ages that the mold starts to grow and the cheese gets its taste. There are so many "blues" out there outside of mass produced Maytag, so feel free to sniff and experience!

And this is only scratching the surface! I can't even begin to tell you all that I learned reading Liz' book, so go on amazon and get it for yourself! Maybe you'll be inspired and sign up for Zingerman's Cheese of the Month Club. Or buy it for me as a gift....either way, explore cheese that isn't mass produced. We left boxed wine behind in college (at least until New Years, anyway), now it is time to explore the wide, wonderful world of cheese!

Peanut Butter Noodles

2010-09-14T22:51:00.005-04:00

I admit, whenever I eat pad Thai, I am really just using the noodles, lime and mungbeans as a vehicle for the peanut sauce. And yet a lot of pad Thai just isn't peanut-y enough to satisfy my craving (and often, it is a very strong, irrational craving) and so finally, my dear friend Kathleen provided me with a delicious recipe for peanut butter noodles that I can easily make in my own kitchen whenever the mood strikes.

Take half of a box of thin noodles and bring to boil/cook in pot as usual.

For the peanut sauce, you'll need:

2 tbs of soy sauce (the real stuff...not that low sodium imitator)

1 tbs rice vinegar

1 heaping table spoon of peanut butter (make it the delicious Cream Nut brand...you don't need the extra sugar/preservatives for this)

1 tbl Hoisin sauce (this is pretty standard fare now in most grocery stores, but if not, google the nearest Chinese/Asian supermarket!)

1 tsp sesame oil

a drop of chili oil (a little goes a long way otherwise it will get very hot)

1 garlic clove (minced)

Mix all by hand or in a food processor.

Add on chopped ginger, sesame seeds, and chopped scallion to taste.

Then take the whole sauce mix and add to pasta, which by now should be cooked in your pot. Strain, put back in pot, and add this peanut sauce to the hot pot of pasta. The heat will help it coat the noodles evenly. Yummy and quite nutritious.

Serve with some crisp veggies (snow peas is a good choice with shaved carrots and water chestnut) and enjoy!

Pre-Tri meal

2010-09-11T22:08:00.003-04:00

Time to carb-load and fuel up for my triathlon tomorrow! And what better way to do it than a trip to Wegmans, which has taken the DC area (or at least my house) by storm. My mom, dad, sister and I came back with freshly made hummus, French-style salami, lo-mein, bourbon chicken, sauteed green beans, fresh broccoli, cherry tomatoes and cauliflower (for dipping in the hummus, duh), beautiful crisp local apples, marcona almonds and so much more to nosh on as I fuel up for tomorrow morning.

Why stuff my face now? Well, I sometimes tend to get this little thing called "G.I. Distress" before/during long runs and lordy forbid I get one during a race, because G.I. Distress is a very sterile term for a very nasty thing. Anyway, having it tomorrow would really put a crimp in my spandex so to speak, and half the fun of triathlons are swimming/biking/running in a all-purpose spandex uni, so I tend to keep it very simple and fairly light the morning of.

That means a piece of whole-wheat toast with a bit of butter, a glass of OJ and a banana when I leave the house and then nothing but my Accelerade (the most effective sports drink powder that doesn't taste like chalk...I like the Lemon Line and drink it all through my training as well as on race day) and those gummy chews "Blocs" that are organic and made with brown rice syrup for a bit of last minute carbohydrates right before. And water. Lots and lots of water. The Accelerade makes it a bit easier to gulp down so much water during transitions without feeling nauseous, and all the electrolytes, etc. it has in it helps too.

But for tonight, we feast! I'm busy eating matzoh bread with the delicious Cream Nut peanut butter I love so much, plus a bit of honey. It's making the pugs crazy but they are getting fat so my mom says they are not allowed to have any more treats....I might let them lick my peanut butter spoon later though when she isn't looking!

Roger Ebert: Courageous Soul with a Rice Cooker

2010-09-01T14:26:00.005-04:00

Many of us probably best remember Roger Ebert for his film reviews in the Chicago Sun Times and when he retired, probably never thought anything of him ever again. Well, regardless of what you may have thought of his media personality or his criticism, you cannot help but feel a tremendous amount of respect for his courage and joie de vive in how he has handled his battle with jaw cancer as portrayed in this New York Times article last week.

You see, Ebert had to have his entire lower-jaw removed due to a malignant tumor, and while he is no longer able to speak or eat despite several attempts to rebuild his jaw, he has now turned to food writing and is an avid cook in his Michigan home. "Food for me is in the present tense," while "eating" is in the past. He says he has a "voluptuous food memory" that is growing ever day, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that he can now no longer taste anything. Shortly after he was no longer able to eat for good, he found that his taste memory of certain things were surprisingly strong and peculiar. He had an intense "root beer" period, followed by candy cravings, and every meal he ever at at the "Steak N' Shake" of his childhood.

Ebert did not have the proverbial "last meal," because he didn't know at the time that the doctors would not be able to restore his ability to taste and eat, but for me personally, I don't know how he (or I) could ever choose the "last meal" you could ever taste. And would it really matter? I would probably choose my mom's spaghetti with green peas and fresh watermelon and blueberry pie , all things I have had countless times before and already have extremely vivid memories of, both in terms of taste and broader nostalgia.

And that is what Ebert actually really misses. The wider context of eating. Laughter, jokes, earnest conversation. The camaraderie of eating. Because food as an experience is so much more than taste, it's who you're with, where you are you, perhaps even the peripheral smells. Crisp pink lady apples on an equally crisp fall day? Your memory of that moment will be forever intertwined with that specific autumn smell of burning fires, fallen leaves and whatever else gives that time of year that wonderful aroma. If I could bottle it I would! And of course, perhaps your tromping through the crunchy leaves munching your apple with someone special. Or a furry friend.

Ebert might not be able to enjoy this camaraderie in the traditional sense, but forever undeterred, he's persevered in the most incredibly inspiring way possible. He has written a book (always an A+ move in my mind) about his rice cooker. That's right, people. He has not just written an ode to his write cooker on some blog, he has written an entire book called The Pot and How to Use it: The Mystery and Romance of The Rice Cooker. You see, when Ebert was on the road writing in his early days as a critic and journalist, he got sick of eating crappy room service food and/or the same old diner food every week, so he got creative and started hauling his "pot," or rice cooker, along with him, and learned to cook a myriad of meals in his room while he worked. Plus, it's a hell of a lot healthier, too.

It's a wonderful machine and even I am shocked as to how many different things you can prepare in "the pot." Ebert has a devoted following on Twitter and Facebook and has learned even more recipes from his readers and fans, giving him back a bit of that camaraderie he misses. He still cooks meals for his friends and family in his pot because he's made so many meals in it over the years, he knows the recipes by heart and does not need to depend on tasting and smelling as he goes, something all of us home cooks surely take for granted. He makes everything from sauces to soup, stews and full scale entrees.

At the close of the article, he's preparing some sort of pork dish while his wife, Chaz, a lawyer who also loves to cook, prepares Ebert's Isosource, the nutrient mix that keeps him alive via his feeding tube.

While he’s in the chair "eating," she tends to the pot. After about 15 minutes he walks out and scribbles her a note asking if the pork was cooked properly, followed quickly by an apology.

“I come across as a tyrannical chef because I never speak and am in a hurry because of my shoulder.”

No worries, chef, she says, and lifts the lid from the pot. He pours a little spicy Saigon Sizzle sauce from a bottle and stirs it in. He gives the thumbs up, and it is time to eat.

I could not have said this better myself

2010-09-01T11:26:00.002-04:00

I read a wonderful article on Svelt Gourmand this morning that completely echos my own sentiments with regards to sustainable eating/ethical meat/humane/organic/grass-fed...all those terms that are bandied about these days. What exactly does it mean for the rest of us, who enjoy food but are not necessarily made of money and live in an urban environment?

This wonderful post on Svelt sums it up perfectly:

http://sveltegourmand.com/4351_how-to-eat-meat-healthily-safely-and-responsibly

Basically, eat less meat day to day but buy better quality when you do, be it for your own cooking or in a restaurant. It is healthier for you and for the earth and it sure as heck is better for the animal, not to mention the fact that it is tastier too. In essence, take a minute to think before putting those eggs in your shopping cart. Cage free or not? Murry's versus Purdue? Am I short on cash? Maybe just skip buying chicken this week and make something with beans instead. A lot cheaper and a nice batch of refried beans are delicious and gives your body more of what it needs than a piece of factory chicken. Eating meat less frequently is a great way to explore other options, from beans and veggies to fruit and mushrooms, and expand gastronomic horizons.

And we're not all perfect. I will certainly order a sloppy BLT from the deli that is neither organic nor humanely raised at some point in the near future. But it always begins with "a day of small things" and the more I think about where my meat and eggs are coming from, the more likely I am to make different decisions when I sit down to the table or enter the kitchen. Silly pun aside, it really is "food for thought!"

За ваше здоровье!

2010-08-30T00:26:00.004-04:00

To your health! That's the classic Russian toast and one I plan to be using frequently now that I have finally gotten off my butt and ventured out to Brighton Beach. While За любовь! (to love!) has a bit of a more poetic ring, "to your health" is the real McCoy and I think my journey out to Brighton did much for my health indeed.

I have always know Brighton Beach was a very Russian neighborhood, and I knew it had a beach to match, but it was just one of those things I had always wanted to do, but never got around to, since moving to the city. This Friday though, Vronsky and I decided to play hooky and hopped on the Q train. The beach is fantastic! I can't believe you can take the subway there, lickity split. Easiest trip to the beach I've ever taken. Yeah, there is a bit of trash and the seagulls are uber aggressive, but the beach is wide, the water calm and there's random guys and one babuska (Russian for grandmother) walking by and selling ice cold beers. The fact that they yelled out "beer!" in both Russian and English just thrilled me even more. It truly is "Little Russia," as our waiter, Sasha, can attest. He said that though he's lived here ten years, but when his friends back home ask him what it is like to live in America, he says "I wouldn't know...I live in Brighton Beach!"

People watching on the boardwalk, or any boardwalk, for that matter, is always a funendeavor, but it is ten times better when you are drinking an ice cold glass of Baltika (sorry, lush that I am, having vodka at high noon too much even for me) and stuffing your face with smoked herring marinated in vinegar and oil with sliced onions on the side, dark bread, and all the pelmeni you can eat (that's dumplings for you non-Russophiles, vareniki if you're eating someplace Ukrainian). Vronsky got the meet pelmeni but I prefer the potato, which is more typical of Ukrainian cooking. It was too hot for any soup, but shchi, cabbage soup is classic, although I don't particularly care for the big dab of smetana (essentially sour cream) that is added in, preferring borscht.

And then there is glorious shashlyk, meat skewers, where the meat is marinated in a combination of spices I have yet to find anyplace else. The combination of the slight heat from the shashlyk and the salty herring just make you want to suck down as many Baltika's as possible in preparation for a quick "sober-up" dip in the water. There were also blinis and pirogis, and an amalgam of side dishes, but by that point Vronsky and I were way to stuffed to eat another bite.

We waddled our way back to the beach and from there on to the subway, thrilled with our new discovery. Until the weather turns, you can find me in my crazy creek out on the sand within a stone's throw of Tatiana's, the Ocean View Cafe, and Primorski's, which is a must-hit on my next trip.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of "traditional" Russian food because to be perfectly frank, there is no such thing! Russia is so huge and filled with so many different cultures, from Siberian to Crimean to the "urbanites" in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Preparation of even the most basic foods like kasha or borscht or blini will vary region by region, and if you'd like some recipes, http://www.traditional-russian-food.com/ is a great place to start. Vronsky and I are contemplating going to Russia for our honeymoon, and getting out into the countryside to get a glimpse (and a taste!) of Russia outside the cities is a must. Until then, до свидания!

Lobster and salty sea air

2010-08-23T22:20:00.004-04:00

Vronsky and I went to Sag Harbor this weekend for a quick mini break to cure the end-of-summer blues and it was the first time either of us had the pleasure of enjoying that part of Long Island. Vronsky and I usually high-tail it down to Figure Eight Island in North Carolina, where is family has a house, when we are craving sand and surf, and as you already know, I am a devotee of the Great Lakes, but Sag Harbor has its own unique pleasures and is easy to get to from NYC without the chaos and "cheese" factor of the Hamptons.

It has a nautical, austere, rocky-beach kind of beauty, and the air has this wonderful salty smell that only made me crave beer and then more salt, which I tried to cure with some delicious fresh sea food. And this is a different sort of sea smell than what I smelled in say, the Caribbean or when I am down in Palm Beach. It is something I have only experienced along the sea-scape of the northeast, be it Nantucket, Main or, now, Sag Harbor.

It is amazing how connected our sense of smell and taste are. In fact, "retronasal tasting," or tasting with your nose is of utmost importance. If you read Liz Thorpe's (Vice President of the amazing Murray's Cheese) incredibly charming and wildly informative The Cheese Chronicles, she spells out the relationship between taste and smell with particular regard to cheese. When you eat cheese (or any food for that matter), there are very specific phsyical sensations associated with taste: sweet, salty, sour/acidic, bitter...but the mouth is actually quite limited outside of those taste sensations. Most of the romance of food, Thorpe maintains, comes after it's been swallowed. You exhale and the breath rushes up the back of your nasal passages and out your nose, and suddenly there are a million sensory impressions, most of which have to do with smell: grass, hay, stone soil, leather, soap perfume, swimming pool, chalk, pencil eraser, on and on. Smell is so tremendously linked to memory, and it is the smell of the harbor that colored all the meals I ate while I was in Sag. I wanted to taste the sea, but really, I wanted to eat food that capture that some amalgam of feelings that come with smelling the sea.

What food best capture that for me? There was the incredible lobster bisque Vronsky ordered from B. Smith's, but it was my own steamed lobster with corn on the cob and sauteed vegetables that really tasted like sea to me. I am usually not a huge fan of steamed lobster, if only because I am an idiot and can never seem to get it out of the shell without making a huge mess and almost loosing a finger in the process. The same goes with crabs, but at least I can suck off the old bay in the process. However, with Vronsky there to lend a helping hand, I was able to suck out every last bit of succulent meat and enjoy that briney, salty, unique flavor of whole lobster that is impossible to enjoy in any other preparation, be it bisqued, fried, or on a roll (especially on a roll...all you can taste is mayonnaise!). And while I did not learn of any specific dish or culinary tradition that was unique to Sag Harbor, I certainly look forward to coming back to B. Smith's on another weekend hiatus, hungry for another taste of that crisp, salty air.

Consider saffron

2010-08-16T21:53:00.005-04:00

One of the neatest "thank you" gifts I have ever received from one of my authors was a tiny jar of greek saffron. I had never used the spice before in my own cooking, and for good reason. It is without question, the world's most expensive spice by weight and it is so rare and precious that it is seriously being touted as an alternative to opium crop in drug cultivating regions, especially Afghanistan.

Actual saffron comes from the thin and delicate red stigmas of the crocus flower, which must be manually extracted. Just a pound of dry saffron requires some 50,000 flowers! That is an entire football field of crocuses. The largest saffron cultivator today is Iran, but it is native to Southeast Asia and was first commercially cultivated by the Greeks. Spain is also a significant cultivator of the spice today, and there is a bit of cultivation in the United States and New Zealand. It has been used as a seasoning, fragrance, fabric dye, even medicine over the centuries, and today (unless you a practitioner of ancient medicine), the best quality saffron is saved for cooking.

Because of its preciousness, I feel that recipes that really immerse the dish in the flavor of this rare spice is the best. No sprinkling on top or using as a garnish in this instance. It has an earthy, slightly sweet, almost grass/hay-like flavor, but in deliciously unexpected way. Perhaps it is because saffron is still a relatively rare treat for my palate, but it truly does taste exotic to me in a way few things do, allowing me to picture myself in some exotic suq or bazaar, or soaking up some sunshine on the Mediterranean.

Since my saffron was specifically Greek saffron, and I have been on a huge Greek kick as of lately (both as a possible honeymoon destination and also because the latest issue of Saveur features Greek cuisine), I specifically sought out Greek recipes that incorporated saffron. The most popular one was for saffron rice, variations of which are also present in southeast Asian, Chinese, Indiana, Iranian and other middle Eastern dishes. This is one of the few times I made rice without my trusty cooker, so truly a momentous event! I was extremely pleased with this dish. It is simple, very easy to make and intensely flavorful. I think next time, I will add even more saffron to really give it color and kick!

Ingredients

About 25 saffron strands
1/2 cup of hot water
2 tbsp of olive oil
1 1/2 cups of basmati rice
2 1/2 cups of water
salt to taste

Soak the saffron in the hot water for 10-15 minutes until completely plump and waterlogged. Rinse (and re-rinse) your rice in a bowl under warm water until it runs clear. Rinse again under a shot of cold water and drain. Heat your olive oil in a saucepan and add the rice. Sautee rice slowly until it becomes translucent. And the remaining 2 1/2 cups of water and salt and bring to a boil and then add in the saffron infusion.

Stir and cover tightly and then leave to simmer on a VERY low heat for about 20 minutes. Too hot and you will burn your rice. After about 20 minutes, craters will form on the surface. Place a piece of cheesecloth or a thin (clean) dishtowel over the top of the pot and then cover again with the pot lid and leave in a corner of the stove to rest for another 10-15 minutes. The cloth will absorb the steam from the rice and allow the grains to separate while also allowing them to absorb every last bit of flavor.

I think next time I might sprinkle some green peas and maybe even some sliced cashews on top...

Sound tasty? Here are two other saffron recipes to try when you get your hands on this incredible spice. Saffron Butternut Squash Soup from scratch and if you are feeling really ambitious, this recipe I saw on Guardian UK, saffron cous-cous, chickpea and lentil salad.

Is this love that I'm feelin'?

2010-08-16T17:42:00.004-04:00

Love is a funny thing. It certainly did not take a whole lot of love on my part to follow Vronsky down to Nassau in the Bahamas for a few days while he fed his own insane love of UNC basketball by watching them play two Bahamian teams on a pre-season training trip. I enjoy watching the games with him almost as much as I enjoy watching that vein in his forehead throb with every missed shot or un-called foul, but that is a whole other post for another time.

I have only been to the Caribbean one other time, and that was two years ago when Vronsky and I rented a house in Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands with 3 other couples. I feel that is a bit unusual, given that it is so easy to get down there, it's damn gorgeous, and my mom actually spent her high school years in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Nonetheless, this trip to the Bahamas was only my second time, and unfortunately, it did little to change my admittedly preconceived notions about the region.

While I have no doubt that Nassau is rich in its own unique culture and traditions, I found myself a bit hungry for even a hint of something below the otherwise glossy "resort-town" surface. I am completely aware that us Americans/Europeans have done absolutely nothing to encourage the growth of Caribbean/Bahamian culture over the centuries, and perhaps it was a lingering bit of guilt that made me so cognizant of the fact that the primary industry there is by far and away tourism, that local restaurants make way for McDonalds and Wendy's, and that people rarely leave the mega-resorts that are akin to war compounds--the only time you really ever need to leave is to get to and from the airport, stifling perhaps any urge to seek out something beyond the walls of your respective hotel. And don't even get me started on resort food. It is just plain old depressing from a gastronomical perspective, akin to airport food: limp fries, overdone mass-produced steaks and burgers. In keeping with every bad stereotype of the American tourist, I saw one girl at our hotel order a Domino's pizza delivered to her room. The food at the Angus Beef restaurant in the hotel was apparently too exotic.

Hanging out at the basketball arena with a smattering of obsessed UNC fans and Bahamian basketball fans was one of the highlights of our trip for me, and our short time on the island did not allow for much exploring, especially as the gorgeous beaches were enough to keep me occupied for several hours everyday. But no trip for me is ever complete without at least a valiant effort to find great local cuisine, and there were two places that did not disappoint.

The first one was a little haunt called The Fish Fry that served fresh-caught seafood right on the beach. Fried conch and fried lobster were personal favorites of mine--the lobster is specific to the Bahamas and has a richer, albeit chewier, taste and texture than New England lobsters and is smaller in size. I was already in love with conch from my trip to the Turks and Caicos Island, and was beyond thrilled to enjoy it again.

The other place was the restaurant and the Marley hotel. I know, I know, I just went on a mini-rant about getting away from these resorts, but the Marley doesn't quite fit the mold of an Atlantis or a Sandals.

The Marley is owned and run by the Marley family, of one the great Bob Marley acclaim. I have always loved Marley's music, along with millions of others, and even though I've heard his songs a billion and one times, they never get old and I enjoy them tremendously. Some, of course, find an even deeper spiritual meaning in his music, and one of the managers of Marley's told Vronsky and me a bit about what it really means to be a Rastafarian, and it isn't just about smoking pot and wearing dred-locks, although he himself did both.

Marley's is nestled on a cliff side in Cable Beach, overlooking the water and surrounded by rich tropical foliage. Only 16 rooms are available, giving it a very intimate vibe, and the strong scent of patchouli put me in a groovy mood the minute I set foot on the premises. The menu is small but every dish I ate (and we ate there three days in row) was absolutely incredible.

My personal favorites were the Marley salad, the spicy grilled shrimp, and the "catch of the day," which was red snapper for us. The lobster duo was also spectacular, if pricey. For starters, everything, even the salad, capture what I always imaged to be "island flavor," that indelible mix of fruity yet spicy that is somehow exactly what you are craving on a muggy night. Wash it down with a super-chilled white wine or Kakalik, the Bahamian beer, and I am in sheer heaven!

I usually don't care much for coconut, but when it is toasted and shaved on my salad, it is the perfect touch of sweetness to counteract the ginger in the dressing and tang of the citrus wedges in the salad. The same can go for the sweet corn that came with the chili-glazed shrimp, or the polenta under my snapper (with the most amazing vegetable garnish on the side). It was the first time that I was really aware of the different flavor pairings and profiles and how it all matched together to complement the other elements of the dish: acid, sweetness, texture, heat...all those terms that are bandied about so frequently in "food speak" came through clear as a bell.

I've eaten a lot of great meals and when I cook, I always try and make sure different flavor profiles are represented and what have you, but the chef at Marley's, Mama Lur, and her team, put a tremendous amount of thought into each element of the dish and Vronsky and I were completely blown away. Plus, the relaxed vibe actually lent itself to people actually talking with one another and just "feelin' the vibe." I actually learned a few things about the history of the island and even about Marley's music in the process. I don't know if I will ever be back in Nassau, but if I do, I know where to find an excellent meal and original, exciting, company.

A nice use for those over-ripe bananas

2010-08-08T17:41:00.002-04:00

I am one of those weird people that like their bananas super under-ripe. Not completely green, but I definitely like hints of green on the banana and definitely no spots. It is just too sweet for me once the fruit gets to that point, and yet usually the last one or two bananas in the bunch is always past the point that I like to eat it by the time I get to them, especially if it has been warm in my kitchen, which has been everyday this week.

Luckily for me, however, I stumbled across this great and easy recipe for banana bread in Triathlete magazine that specifically asks for overly-ripe bananas, lots and lots of spots a plus, and is incredibly healthy to boot. As I near the date of the triathlon and marathon I have done a pretty scattered job training for, the new few weeks promises to be filled with lots of long runs and bikes to make up for all the mileage I failed to put in earlier this summer.

This recipe is a favorite of Australia pro-triathlete Kate Major:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I like Trader Joe’s organic, but there's also nothing like classic Nestle!)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs

If you'd like, you can always add some walnuts or raisins for additional variety.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Mix all ingredients together well.

Pour into a greased loaf pan.

Bake for 30 to 45 minutes. Let it cool before serving.

Perfect for breakfast or a pre-workout snack!

C is for Camp Food

2010-08-01T12:50:00.005-04:00

I have just returned from my annual trip to "camp." And yes, I mean that I am an actual grown-up and I still go to summer camp. But this is not just any summer camp. It is this fabulous oasis on the shore of Lake Walloon in northern Michigan that is owned and run by the University of Michigan for alumni and their families. My parents (both Michigan grads) started taking me there when I was six years old, and twenty years later, I still love it. The funny thing is, I am far from the only one. Most people who "camp" there have also been going for 10+ summers, and everyone tries to camp the same "week" so that you can see your friends again year after year. I have become incredibly close with my "camp friends," to the point that one of them is a bridesmaid in my wedding.

Us camp friends think nothing of visiting each other cross country (duh, we're friends from camp is how we explain this to others who look at us like we are insane) and rehashing old memories is half the fun of every reunion (Paul, do you remember that time when I beat you in the "Teen Regatta" when we were 13? Oh yes.) And that's only half the fun. There's windsurfing and sailing and horses. Archery and rock polishing. Booze and campfires. Everything you could expect from a summer camp that caters to people of all ages, and that includes delicious, nostalgia-laden camp food.

What says camp more than s'mores? Whether you are 5 years old, making them for the first time, or trying to impress the boy next to you with your mad s'more making skillz at fourteen, eating the ingredients right out of the bag at 3am while trying not to fall in the fire when you're nineteen, and then back to eating them like a normal human when you're an adult, s'mores are delicious.

There's also crispy bacon and slightly soggy scrambled eggs in the morning. Yeah, they are probably egg beaters, but so what? They are fuel for the big day of activities ahead, and just squirt a little ketchup and sriracha sauce on those bad boys, serve with a side of corn flakes and some spotty banana and you are good to go!

And let's not forget baked beans and corn on the cob and slightly undercooked hotdogs. Nor should we forget burgers that are grilled to hockey pucks alongside veggie burger pucks, for any vegetarians that are missing their daily dose of carcinogens.

There's also the salad bar where the grandmas always take an hour to move through the line, picking out any and all cherry tomatoes, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower florets and lettuce pieces that are not bruised or browned as they go before you have a chance to get any.

And then there is "bug juice!" My dad always told me it was made of bug juices (duh) and for a while I believed him, although what it really means is that those drinks are so sugary that the bugs are drawn to it like a bright red (or yellow or purple) drug.

And of course, there is "Fun Dip" and Pix Stix, Ice Cream Sandwiches and freeze pops of course. Plus those bizarre little ice-cream cups you eat with that wooden stick that is your "spoon." Deserts so blissfully sugary and filled with food coloring, the highlight of the entire experience was not the taste, or even the sugar high, but the fact that it turned your tongue, lips, fingers and teeth a very unnatural color.

It is worth saying that camp food has improved from a gastronomical perspective over the past twenty years. We now have a frozen yogurt machine and taco night, an omelet station and even Mongolian barbecue. And yet I still look forward to "cook out" night, where I don't care if I get baked bean residue on my watermelon, and while I would never eat a burger that was black on the outside, still moo-ing on the inside, ANYWHERE else in the world, when it is on the shores of Lake Walloon, I can simply can't wait to bite in. A glass of over-sugared, sandy lemonade while catching the perfect breeze is just a bonus.

Phab Pho

2010-07-15T23:15:00.003-04:00

I have been searching for a good place to eat pho (Vietnamese beef soup) for my entire four years in New York. I am positive that there are authentic, hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese places dotting the city that haven't discovered and quite frankly, don't have the balls to seek out, seeing as I speak zero Vietnamese and authentic in NYC, for almost any "ethnic" cuisine, usually presents some sort of a language barrier. Chinese food is a good example of this. Just go to a non-tourist trap place in Chinatown and you'll see what I mean. Luckily I know the names of all my favorite foods in Chinese, but as far as Vietnamese food goes, all I can articulate is "pho! pho!"

So, that being said, I've tried a few places in search of the perfect pho, but until last night I have been disappointed. In one place, the broth was actually chicken stock (probably right out of a Swanson box), not beef broth. In another place, the beef was over boiled and sinewy, dare I say, old. At yet another place, the noodles were not the delicate, hair-thin kind that slurp down so perfectly. Rather, they were udon noodles. Lovely in Japanese soup, but no for pho.

I grew quite discouraged. My good friend Mike, who is half Vietnamese, half Chinese, has been trying to organize a pho-hunting trip for quite some time, and I am happy to say that I think our search might finally be over.

Vronsky and I went to Nam last night, a chic but not trendy Vietnamese place down in Tribeca that is run by a trio of Vietnamese cooks. There is plenty of other delicious food on the menu, but I only had eyes for pho. It came out of the kitchen, nearly overflowing, hot and delicious, the beef lean and fresh and sliced thin, slightly pink in the middle, which is how pho should be served. You then bury it under your thin rice noodles and allow it to finish cooking, steeping in the broth, which also contains scallions, cilantro, a bit of lime juice, onions and an assortment of herbs and spices. Some people like to put mint leaves in, like my mom. Or dab the beef with a bit of plum sauce (me) or spicy sriracha (Vronsky). Some like to sprinkle it liberally with mung beans (my sister).

In Vietnamese cooking culture, every restaurant/chef/home cook prepares their own pho broth a bit different to have its own "signature" subtle flavors and so the pho I ate at Nam was different from the pho I grew up with at Pho 75, this tiny little place in northern Virginia that is so tiny, all they serve IS pho! You walk in and there are rows and rows of cafeteria-style tables filled with families diving into huge steaming bowls of pho. How my parents discovered it I have no idea, but we've been going there religiously for over ten years, and I am just pleased as punch that I have finally found a pho place of my own here in NYC.

Back when I was growing up, we had pho almost every Sunday night. We would all be too crazed with all the last minute things that pop Sunday night before the school/work week, and there would be nothing like a steaming hot, nourishing bowl of delicious pho to calm us down and give you a great warm and fuzzy food coma to stave off the Sunday night blues, or insomnia if you are me or my father. [It's truly a curse. We would both would go over all the things we had bearing down on us in the week ahead, be it a big deposition for him or, in my case, the inevitable torture of double swim practices on Monday, with the afternoon being "Monday night races," which still makes me cringe (any other Curl Burke-ers out there with me?).] My mom swears it gave her the life-force to deal with a full house of surly teen-agers, and I think it is a great pre-race/pre sporting event food. Protein and carbs galore in the beef and rice noodles. The broth hydrates you and helps settle your stomach. Viola. Pho truly cures all ills and for the blues, insomnia, a sore throat, or even an unusually long hangover, Nam might just be the right place to search for a cure.

A month! Stress and eating sure has a way of filling the days

2010-07-12T18:03:00.004-04:00

A month since I last posted! Crazy! It is certainly a new record of which I am not proud, but lordy lizard, the last month has been crazy, krazy, crazeeeee....

I like to think that I am fairly good at managing my time, but boy, was I really put to the test these past few weeks. First, I had jury duty. WTF? Not only can you get NOTHING accomplished why you are in there, it of course comes right before sales conference and the arrival of the great Camilla Läckberg from Sweden for her NYC tour, of which there was endless prep for. You'd think the fact that I myself was involved in a lawsuit after getting hit by that damn car and that my father was a prosecutor for the Marine Corps would have disqualified me ASAP, but no.

So, while I am observing the fascinating sociological phenomenon of what happens when you throw a cross section of NYC into a big room for 8 hours, the phone is ringing off the hook back at the office, my interns are frantically trying to run things in my absence, and there are a zillion friendly emails asking why I haven't responded to the note they just sent me an alarming twenty minutes ago. What's a girl to do?

Besides scream SERENITY NOW at the top of my lungs, the only thing I could think of was eat. You see, at this time, my apartment was also 500 degrees since I don't have air conditioning in my room, so sleeping was neigh impossible, and working out was a pipe dream, since once I was released from the courthouse, I then began my workday, and it is hard to answer irate emails from the bike saddle. The only available to relive a modicum of stress was to eat as well and as much as I possibly could.

Thankfully, the Union Square farmer's market provided me with delicious fresh fruit (perfect peaches, some glorious blueberries, and even a mango or two), the vitamins in which helped stave off any pathogens I might have breathed in while a woman two rows away spent 4 hours hacking her lungs out.

The 24-hour Sushi Samba on Park Ave. was my go-to. Sushi is easy to eat while ticking away at the keyboard and miso soup will always make time stand still for at least a few minutes.

Girl Scout cookies straight out of the box (Thin Mints! Samoas!) are delicious, if not nutritious. But then, that's what the fruit is for, no?

There is also scotch. Which is not really a food but seemed to do the trick. Anything from the Oban distillery or Bowmore Islay is magic medicine.

But what really made the stress all melt away was a decadent dinner at Craft with Camilla upon her arrival. Not only is she excellent and hilarious company, she's a huge foodie and between the two of us and the rest of our publishing all-star team, with the help of the great Tom Colicchio I put the insanity of this whole crazy month behind me.

To wit, how could one be stressed when the most deliciously prepared short ribs, scallops, roast chicken, garlic risotto, hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, beets, turnips, spinach, and artichokes are laid out before you? It was one of the most excellent, decadent meals I have ever had, and if I had all the money in the world, I'd be eating there every night. Yes, I'd be 400lbs no matter how many triathlons or marathons I did, but it would be well worth it, if only for my own peace of mind...

Chocolate Chip & Walnut Cookies

2010-06-19T22:42:00.003-04:00

Sorry the posting has been non-existent lately! Crazy times with the launch of The Ice Princess (check me out in the New York Times talking about Camilla Läckberg) and lots and lots of wedding-related balls to juggle. And since it is too hot for soup, my usual comfort food when there is too much going on, I have had to turn to something else: cookies!

I know, I know, I've said over and over again throughout this blog that I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but lately I've been craving cookies like nothing else. Perhaps it has been because I've really made an effort to amp up my training for this triathlon and the marathon I've signed up for. Plus, it has been good for me to take a second and slow down and bake for a bit, getting in my miles or publicity follow-up be damned.

My favorite cookie to make recently has been the chocolate chip and walnut cookies my Po-po makes. It is a bit of an odd thing for a Chinese grandma to bake such "Americana" cookies so well, but there is a funny back-story to this recipe. My mom was in high school in Puerto Rico (after the family had left China via the Philippines and were now splitting their time between Michigan and San Juan, where the new Parke-Davis facility had opened) and her friend gave her these delicious cookies. She loved them so much that she brought some home to share and Po-po loved them so much that she insisted that my mom go back and finagle the recipe out of her friend. She succeeded, and to this day Po-po still makes these cookies to the letter of the original recipe! When she showed it to me, it was THE original recipe my mom wrote down in pencil on the notebook paper more than forty years ago.

2/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups Gold Medal flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped walnuts
2 6 oz. packages of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Heat the over to 375 degrees.
Thoroughly mix the shortening, butter, egg, sugars, and vanilla.
Blend in remaining ingredients (for a softer, rounder cookie, add 1/2 cup extra flour)
Drop dough by rounded teaspoonful, about 2 inches apart onto UNgreased baking sheet
Bake 8-18 minutes or until light brown
Cool slightly before removing from baking sheet

Makes about 7 dozen cookies, so go to town!!

Consider the bean. It's magical fruit.

2010-06-03T22:39:00.006-04:00

And I don't just mean with regards to the sophomoric little rhyme, heh. Beans are magically delicious and nutritious and one of my favorite foods, especially in the summer, as they don't require as much cooking (if at all) and therefore relieve me from having to turn on the stove when it is already a billion degrees in my apartment. You see, beans in any form (canned, dried, frozen, or fresh) provide tons of health benefits and can be integrated into every meal or even made the center protein of your meal.

I already know that without hummus I would starve to death (see here for an avocado hummus recipe that's a personal favorite). I wolf through bags of baby carrots and celery so long as I have some fresh hummus, which, as you should already know, is made from chick peas, which are a delicious addition to salads and an integral part of any bean salad. I rinse canned kidney beans and add them to any red pasta sauce I am making, and a great chilly treat that can serve as the bulk of a meal is bean salad, which is easy to make in large batches and keeps for quite a while. I like to make it as follows:

One can each of chick peas, kidney beans, black beans. Rinse.

Slice up at least two stalks of celery (I am a big celery fan, so I might even do 3 stalks), and dice up half a red onion. Set aside.

This is lazy, but it's still good: Trader Joe's Frozen sweet white corn. Pour half a bag into a colander and rinse under hot water until defrosted and essentially cooked, and then blast with a cold shot of water (blanching for the lazy).

Tear up cilantro to taste.

Put beans, celery, onions, and corn into a big bowl and mix in some olive oil, red wine vinegar, cracked sea salt, and the cilantro. Set in fridge to chill for a bit and you're done!

I also love refried beans. Eat that with some of the guac and you'll have some nice Mexicali flavor goin' on. You could make your own vegitarian quesadillas with this quite easily (I like tomatoes, grilled onions and sweet peppers) or you could just be a freak and eat it straight out of the bowl with some chips.

I've known a few folks who make their refried beans in a pressure cooker, but I don't have one so I have to do it the old fashioned way. It takes a while but totally worth it. Plus, you can make a big batch and it doesn't require a lot of active cooking time, so go do your laundry or read a book.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of dry pinto beans (about 1 lb or 450gm) NOT canned
3 quarts of water
1/2 cup chopped onion (use the rest of that onion from the bean salad!)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup water
Salt to taste
Cheddar cheese (optional)

Rinse the beans thoroughly.

Put beans into a pot and cover beans with at least 3 inches of water - about 3 quarts for 2 1/2 cups of dry beans. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer, covered, for about 2 1/2 hours. The cooking time will vary a bit from pot to pot. The beans are done when they are soft and the skin is just beginning to break open.

Strain the beans.

Now, cook your onions in a frying pan with your olive oil until clear. Add the cooked beans to the pan along with about 1/4 cup of water. Careful now. Take a potato masher and mash the beans while still in the frying pan, along with all the onions, until it is a rough puree. Add more water if you need. Add a bit of salt to taste as you mash. Once it is to your preferred consistency, you're ready to go! Some people like to melt a bit of cheddar cheese on top along with some scallions, as seen in the photo above.

Learn more about the health benefits of beans here. It really does everything from build muscle to lower cholesterol. It is no wonder that "red beans and rice" is the traditional "peasant diet." It gives you everything the body needs! Plus, they are cheap as all hell...take the money you saved and buy a pressure cooker. Then, it will take you half the time to cook those pinto beans...

B is for Beer

2010-06-01T19:04:00.004-04:00

I miss Princeton. It is not as if I sit at home alone, in the dark, gazing wistfully through old photos and sighing softly to myself as I reminisce on those blissful four years, now already four years gone. And yet, after reunions this year, I realize that there is always been a bit of a dull ache and reminder of my time there, and it isn't just the scars on my bum leg from getting run over in that damn crosswalk all those years ago.

What is it exactly that I miss so much? I am not unhappy in my career nor have I failed to find fulfillment in "the real world." In fact, I am happier at this moment deep down in my core than I ever thought I could be. Yet I think that, for me, Princeton (aka college in general), represents a time when literally anything was possible. I dodged death, if not a car, met people who were truly capable of changing the world, was at the peak of my physical prowress both in and out of the pool, and had the fantastic opportunity to learn for the sake of learning, from some of the most amazing minds of our time at that. I hold to this day that my thesis adviser is The Most Brilliant Woman Alive, and I still recall certain lectures and discussions and instances of profound intellectual fulfillment the minute my mind begins to wander.

So what's the point of it all, gastronomically speaking? Upon heavy reflection, the one single taste that embodies my college experience is....beer. That's right. Beer. Cheap beer. Bud Light Beast. Natty Light. Milwaukee's Best. You name it, I drank it religiously and without a second thought for four years and then some. The minute I left Princeton? HELL no. But the minute I set foot back on campus? Girl, it never tasted so good.

You would think that my gastronomical memory would be mooched late night pizza or a heart-stop from Hoagie Haven, or even my most beloved cheesy-eggs from my eating club, Cloister. Nope. It is beer all the way, much as it ever was.

You see, it was the incomparable (for better or worse) taste of beer that was there when I had my first love and my first heartbreak. It was there during my first real hangover and the day that I showed up at swim practice still wearing my Halloween costume (as a leprechaun, if you must know). Beer was in the background when I turned in my thesis, when I met the friends I would have for life, when we won conference championships, and when we lost them, too. There was always a six-pack or two during late night movies or spring-time bands, and when the "Old Guard" marches each year during the "P-Rade," some of whom are back for their 70th reunion, they clutch an ice-cold brew in their hand, a brew no doubt handed to them by someone young enough to be their great-grandchild. And that can was pulled from a class beer jacket. It may be sentimental, but that is what beer means for me.

It doesn't taste very good, and lord knows there is no nutritional value, but in its own nasty, smelly, calorie-riddled way, it sure does a body good.

Sweet Sweden

2010-05-23T21:36:00.003-04:00

Vronsky and I ventured to Stockholm this weekend to see one of my author's for Pegasus, Camilla Läckberg, who is the best-selling author in Swedish history. She's sold 3 million copies of her book, in a country of only 9 million people, and that includes babies and children and people who can't read. She was the sixth-bestselling writer in all of Europe this past year, and besides being super talented, she's a lot of fun and quite a foodie herself. She's written one cookbook and has another in the works that covers Swedish "coastal" cuisine.

I don't think Nordic cuisine as a rule gets too much love outside of Scandinavia, and at first glance, it is easy to see why, as much of the traditional Nordic diet is not in sync with the American palate, which borrows more from France, Italian, and in general, the more lighter "Mediterranean style" of cuisine, combined with the gamut of Asian and Hispanic flavors and style of cooking that now is part of many people's everyday culinary lexicon. Like Russian food, cold-water fish is a large part of the diet...think herring and cold-water shrimp, which are teeny-tiny, and smoked salmon, along with beets, kale, cabbage, lingon berries, cloudberries, carrots, potatoes, lots of pickled goodies, and of course lamb and steak with a wide range of diary products. Swedish meatballs, are of course, the trademark "Swedish" cuisine, and they are far from kosher. What makes them so delicious and different from say, Italian meatballs, is that the meat (usually a blend of game and steak) is mixed with cream before people made into meatballs. These meatballs are traditionally served with potatoes and lingon berries on the side.

But what really stood out to me during my short stay there was coffee and sweets. A huge basket of every type of toffee, chocolate, and sweet goodie was passed around during our flight over, and Camilla herself has told me that no one drinks more coffee than Swedes. It is a standard sign of hospitality to offer someone a cup of coffee as soon as they come into your home, whether it is in the heart of Stockholm or out in the countryside. And what gets served with said coffee? Something sweet. It can be chocolate or cake or some sort of biscuit or cookie, or, as prominently featured in The Ice Princess, some sort of pastry or cinnamon bun. The coffee I had in Sweden was thick and stronger than the usual garden variety here in the States (except what I brew from my french press each morning, which is up there with sludge, mmm), but compared to what I drank in France, Swedish coffee had a slight sweetness to it that came without even adding sugar. Perhaps it was just that the taste was already in my mouth from a zillion little toffees, but it was quite lovely and I can see how it perfectly matches icy winters and midnight summer "sun."

For a taste of Scandinavia here in NYC, Smogas Chef is a go-to favorite, or check out Camilla's book, out in June, with a cup of coffee and a cinnamon cake to much on while you become absorbed in the tiny coastal town of Fjällbacka and its secrets.

Gaga for Guac

2010-05-17T23:46:00.005-04:00

Come summer time, light, slightly spicy food that does not require too much "cooking" (aka standing over a hot stove in my apartment, which is already so hot that I could probably sear some meat right on my mattress), really hits the spot. It is a well-known mantra in hotter climes that in order to cool down, eat hot. Something about the mouth-watering burn is paradoxically just what you want on a hot day. And nowhere is this more apparent than with guacamole, which has the added boon of being slightly "hot" while simultaneously, deliciously cool. Now if only the weather here in NYC would stop being nasty and rainy and cold....

2 tbsp. finely chopped white onion
3 firmly packed tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
2 tsp. finely chopped jalapeño
1 tsp. salt
3 medium-ripe hass avocados
3 tbsp. diced tomato

1. Grind 1 tbsp. of the onions, 1 tbsp. of the cilantro, jalapeño, and salt together in a molcajete (one of those volcanic "rock" tripod bowels you see in Mexican restaurants) until all the ingredients are well ground. (Alternatively, use a fork to mash the ingredients to a paste in a wide bowl or a mortar and pestle).

2. Cut avocados in half. The flesh will most likely still be caught and "stuck" around the pit. Twist the halves to separate them and remove the pit with the tip of the knife. Place an avocado half, cut side up, in your palm and make 3 or 4 evenly spaced lengthwise cuts through its flesh down to the skin, without cutting through the skin. Make 4 crosswise cuts in the same fashion.

3. Scoop the diced avocado flesh into the molcajete or bowl you are using. Repeat with remaining avocado halves. Gently fold the avocado into the chili/onion/salt paste, keeping the avocado pieces fairly intact (DON'T make it a smooth mush...I like mine especially chunky).

4. Add tomatoes, remaining 2 tbsp. of the cilantro, and remaining 1 tbsp. of the onions.

5. Fold together all the ingredients. Taste and add a bit more salt, if necessary, and lime or lemon juice if you like, to taste.

6. Serve immediately, directly from the molcajete (or bowl), with tortilla chips.

This recipe is taken from Saveur (greatest food magazine out there) although I've tweaked it a bit to suit my own preferences, but once you have the basics down, go to town! Some people like more tomatoes, less tomatoes, no jalapenos at all (or more!)....go nuts and it's a great treat to bring to parties and buffets. I've even spread this on turkey sandwiches, mmm, or used with left over chicken (sautee up some of those leftover onions from above, chop some lettuce, and you have a nice fajita in the works). Delicious and nutritious, and healthy too! I've included another avocado based recipe in this blog before, for avocado hummus, but this definitely has a bit more zesty kick!

Happy Birthday to Me and Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-11T16:03:00.005-04:00

And what is birthday without some yummy food to go along with it? Vronsky and I had a lovely dinner last night at One if By Land, Two if By Sea (get the roast duck, mmm) and while One if By Land is very heavy on the Ye Olde New Englande decor, the place I am going to tonight with my lovely gals, Pipa, is decorated in the exact opposite pastiche. "Modern Ornate" is the best way I can describe it. The ceilings are dripping with chandelier after funky chandelier, all for sale at the ABC store next door. A fun, festive atmosphere for celebrating the fact that I am going to have to start lying about my age soon, and that these old bones probably shouldn't be having that extra plate of their delicious calamari, but what the hell.

My birthday always falls on or near Mother's Day, and I was lucky enough to go home to Washington DC to spend some quality time with my mom, which included chasing pugs, eating her yummy spaghetti, shopping for some new rugs, trying on her wedding dress (pretty! But way too small as she is in the running for World Tiniest Woman) and her veil (also pretty! And a win, since how could a veil not fit?). We also made sure we ordered a celebratory cake from the incredible Pastries by Randolph in Arlington. Yellow cake with butter cream frosting and chocolate flowers. Delicious! I tried to eat it all before I left but couldn't, so whatever is left over my mom is freezing for next time.

Hug your moms today or give them a call, as every day is mothers day! I mean this, too. If you were a bad child and forgot, send them an Edible Arrangement. I love these things and send them to family, friends, work people, and am tempted to even send one to myself. They're fun and tasty! What more could you want? And with the incredible rich meal I had last night and the one TK tonight, I think a nice cleansing pineapple/cantaloupe flower or two would be just thing.

Manuevering through the wedding buffett

2010-05-04T17:21:00.002-04:00

Because Vronsky and I both come from inordinately large families (I am one of four, he of nine, including his half-siblings, our mothers are both one of five....it spirals out from there), there is no way to avoid a grand, enormous "big fat" wedding short of eloping, which would just devastate my Po-po beyond repair, and so, royal wedding it is.

That said, seeing as our rehearsal dinner is already looking to top 100 people, and that is without one single non-relative attending. A sit-down dinner for 250+ people at the actual reception not only sounds like setting fire to a winning lotto ticket, but also a bit of a drag, because it will doubtless take a long time to move through the service no matter how awesome of a caterer you hire.

And since I do NOT want anyone bored on my wedding day (they should be awaiting the first dance and speeches with baited breath, getting good and drunk and ready to hit the dance floor), Vronsky and I have decided to forgo a sit-down dinner and have a buffet at the reception. Also, I think this is a bit better, gastronomically speaking, for the guests, as they have some options to choose from versus a sit-down, in which you usually only get two choices, if that. What our two families have in common in terms of size I do not think will reflect in terms of palate. Old world southern cuisine versus organic/California/Chinese. I have yet to tell Po-po that his idea of fresh fruit growing up was canned peaches...she would have a box of oranges from her orchard in the mail so quickly I fear for the postal system.

When choosing the menu for our grand buffet, there are a zillion different options and I don't want to get too fancy. First off, the food won't hold up as well sitting in those trays and secondly, we want to please the broadest amount of people.

We will start with a cheese display (mm cheese) and a crudite, and for hors d'oeuvers, I like the idea of smoked salmon carpaccio with dill on black bread, whipped white bean spread on tortilla toast, some beef negimaki with soy dipping sauce, and a peking duck roll. (You'll notice that there are no chicken skewers or egg rolls here...).

For the actual buffet, we will have a mixed green salad with balsamic vinaigrette, some roast vegetables, a caprese, filet mignon with a red wine sauce, filet of salmon with a tomato marinade, some roast breast of chicken, penne a 'la vodka for a vegetarian entreé option, roast potatoes, another veggie medley, and then dessert and cake. I can't choose a dessert option until I settle on a cake, but I am thinking something chocolate-y, as both Vronsky and I are yellow-cake fans, and so if we have a yellow-cake wedding cake, I think we should throw those chocolate lovers a bone.

I am most excited to meet with the pastry chef though when we come by the NYAC for the tasting later this summer. I've had enough penne a'la vodka to last me a lifetime, but wedding cake is not only tasty, but aesthetically pleasing! I am not one for big, flowery wedding cakes. I want something that actually looks edible (plus, I don't really like the taste of fondant). Something clean and elegant like the one pictured above. That way, we can find a funny cake-topper of V and me!

There are some weird wedding cake designs out there (and I won't even go into the ones that TRY to be funny...). Cakes like this are deliberately made to look this way with the idea that it is pretty/glamorous/whatever. What on EARTH would you have a river of BROWN running down your cake? It does not bring to mind chocolate...at least for me, and while I may have the mind of an 8-year-old, I guarantee that I am not the only one who thinks this....

Olive oil: An ancient food for today's world

2010-04-25T18:23:00.004-04:00

There is an ancient Greek myth that tells us why the city of Athens came to have that name, a tribute to Athena, the goddess of wisdom and justice. Long ago, the city itself had no name, but was still very beautiful and prosperous, and both Poseidon, god of the sea, and Athena, coveted it and wanted to make it their patron city. Zeus declared that the citizens of the metropolis could choose for themselves which divine being they preferred based on the merit of a single respective gift.

Poseidon struck down his trident and out sprung a spring. Unfortunately, the water was as salty and undrinkable as the ocean over which he ruled. Athena threw down her shield, and out of the divot it made in the earth planted an olive tree. From this tree, the people not only got the actual olive, which was very tasty, but the olive's wonderful oil, which could be used to cook and flavor all sorts of things, as well as light lamps in their home. Athena handily won, and to this day, the city retains is divinely attributed moniker.

Olive oil is, and has been for centuries, a staple of the Mediterranean diet. There is an excellent article in this month's Saveur by Nancy Harmon Jenkins about olive oil, from its history to its cultivation and of course, its myriad of uses in the kitchen. As the foundation of much of Greek and Italian cuisine, newborn's lips are often smeared with a little extra-virgin before the first taste of their mother's milk. Talk about a head start in your culinary education!

75% of the world's olives are used to make olive oil, and while the United States was quite late to pick up on its magic, it is now the cornerstone of many people's kitchen. I myself use olive oil constantly when I cook. For fish, for stir-fry, to cook eggs, for my salad, from satueéing vegetables, grilling meat, and braising chicken...basically anything and everything that involves a pan. It has so much more flavor and complexity than butter (while simultaneously enhancing the flavor of the original food that you are cooking). It has gotten to point that I can taste the chemical residue left on food by using PAM or other pan-greasers, including Crisco. Yuck.

Other uses? I like to pour a tablespoon over my pasta and toss after I strain it to keep it from sticking. True Mediterranean households even have family recipes for olive oil cake and cookies, yum. And nothing sets off the flavor of great bread like a little bit of olive oil for dipping.

In addition to all these lovely gastronomical traits, olive oil itself is also ridiculously good for you, perhaps an additional reason for its longevity and relative consistency over the centuries. It does wonders for your skin--so many skin and hair products out there claim to be infused with the olive's essence, and as it is a monounsaturated fat, it does wonders for your cholesterol. Lowering the bad kind while increasing the good. Additionally, it boasts antioxidants called polyphenols, which Jenkins says can boost protection against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, some types of cancer, and possibly even Alzheimer's! Not bad for something that I would eat anyway just for the taste.

How olive oil is made has remained relatively unchanged, but new presses are opening, and whereas oils from places like Spain and California were usually not much to write home about versus the oils from Italy, Greece and Lebanon, things are changing. Great olive oil for the every-day chef can be found in most grocery stores and specialty markets, but if you want to really sample some artisenal stuff, there is a listing of the Saveur team's 10 favorites in the magazine and Saveur.com, but I think an even better place to explore oils is my beloved Zingerman's.

Why Zingermans? Well, for one, they have the buying/shipping of whatever you'd like just a click away. Secondly, they've been doing this for decades and have quite a palate for it, and offer things in a wide variety of price ranges and styles. Rustic and fruity oils from Chile, light oils for baking fish from Italy, oils from Provence, Puglia, Tuscany, California, you name it. All hand-picked. Then, just turn the page or click the neighboring tab to order a lovely loaf of bread with which to eat it!

For the true olive oil aficionado, you can join their "tour de oil" for $95. I got this as a gift for one of my old teachers who loved to cook, and to this day, she professes that it is the best gift she ever got. Perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is a gift that keeps on giving: she still orders one of the oils she "discovered" on this little tour.

So, swap out the PAM and the butter and use olive oil in everything and anything that requires a skillet or grill, be it fish, chicken or vegetables. To enjoy a special oil "vintage," slice a baguette, toast it, and while it is still nice and hot, rub it with a clove of cut garlic, and dip or drizzle away!

Gastronomical Pet Peeves

2010-04-20T22:40:00.004-04:00

I could fill a whole book about things that annoy me, food-wise, starting with mayonnaise, but there has been one that keeps re-surfacing recently, and it simply must be addressed.

Pretend you are at a cocktail party. Something important enough that you dressed up, brought a bit of make-up to work for 5:00pm re-touching, and even made sure to carry a spare pair of flats in your purse so you can change in and out of your impractical (but very cute) high heels. Nonetheless, before said cocktail party, you were so busy sending last minute emails and returning phone calls that you put off that you didn't have time to get anything to eat before arriving.

I, for one, am a huge believer in having something to eat before attending ANY sort of professional event where alcohol will be served. I don't care if it is a seven-course meal cooked by Alain Ducasse. A PBJ from home, a quick granola bar, or something starchy will never go amiss. Unfortunately, I just could not get my sh*t together before a recent event, and scooted on up to midtown, hoping, praying, relying on the fact that there would be some sort of crudité or some hors d'oeuvres being passed around with which to line my stomach.

So, here we are, schmoozing and trying to seem as lively as possible while listening to my stomach grumble, angry with me that all it has encountered since lunch is some cheap vodka and three cubes of cheese. Trying to eat and mingle at these things is always very tricky for me--you can't NOT have a drink in your hand, otherwise everyone thinks your a stick in the mud, and so that only leaves one hand free to eat, meaning your limited to single cubes of cheese or carrots dipped in whatever nasty mayo-based concoction they have before you (what is wrong with hummus, people? It tastes so much better!). Thankfully, the passed hors d'oeuvres came out before things got too dire.

Passed hors d'oeuvres at these sorts of things must all come from the same catalog--mini quiches, pigs-in-a-blanket, chicken skewers, and some sort of cracker with lobster paste--but they all serve one purpose at these sorts of things: preventing me from getting black-out. It is gauche, but it is true.

And this is right about where things turn sour. Here I am, sipping my booze, discreetly trying to fill my stomach with something that doesn't require a lemon wedge, and out come the piece de resistance of passed hors d'oeuvres. The mini egg roll.

These things are always lukewarm to the touch, and seem like such a marvelous little thing, especially when they follow the "cracker with lobster paste." You pick it up by its whimsical little toothpick, bit into out, and out squirts boiling out egg roll oil.

Now, this never happens when your talking to someone in your same socio-professional "bracket." No. It happens when you're talking to "someone important," perhaps a Noble prize winner, or maybe someone whose won Pulitzer. Regardless, they are obviously smarter than you, because they knew better than to try and eat one of those damn mini egg rolls. Otherwise, they would look like me, standing there, eyes watering, doing my best not to try and spit out the offending piece of mini egg roll into my glass (gross), yet the boiling oil in my mouth is so hot that I simply cannot swallow, and so am just sort of standing there with my mouth half opened and a pained look on my face, all while trying to still look as interested as possible.

Damn you mini egg rolls is all I have to say. Where are those mini quiches when you need it?

That is one thing I will certainly NOT be having at the wedding.

That's MRS Gastronomical Jess to you...

2010-04-16T13:19:00.002-04:00

That's right, readers! Sir Vronsky, that riddle wrapped inside a puzzle, wrapped inside an enigma, foe of beets everywhere but lover of all other sort of cuisine, proposed to yours truly earlier this week.

While this will NOT become a wedding blog, I am sure as this engagement progresses, I will be inviting feedback on catering, meal selection, restaurant venues for various dinners, and of course, CAKE. Yes, even though I am firmly on Team Pie, I will be having a full-on, awesome cake, unless of course I discover wedding pie over the next few months, in which case all bets are off.

Yay!

Nourishing the Soul and the Body

2010-04-10T22:21:00.005-04:00

But isn't it the body and the soul? Yes, that is indeed the proper colloquial syntax, but a discussion I had with some friends and Vronsky the other night made me wonder that perhaps the reason for many American's schizophrenic relationship with food is that we are putting "soul" ahead of the "body."

Now, believe you me, dear readers, that I am all for an emotionally rewarding relationship with my meals, as was M.F.K. Food should be a sensuous experience, laden with memories and hopefully help create some new ones as well. Food should feed your soul, but its primary function, is and always should be, to give your body the fuel it needs, and I think part of the problem with modern diet is that people sacrifice giving the body the nourishment it needs for the more immediate emotional payoff. Eating for the sake of eating, which in the end, leaves both body and soul unsatisfied.

A friend of Vronsky's and mine, J, is opening a gourmet chicken and fish sandwich shop in Williamsburg (more on this to come!) and being so close to the ground in the food industry, J had some fascinating stories to share about how people impulsively buy bad fast food because of the emotional payoff, not stopping to consider what exactly they are putting in their mouths. Jamie Oliver tries to counter-act this by showing people a whole chicken, and then demonstrating exactly what goes into those chicken McNuggets. Needless to say, not a whole lot of chicken. Why not learn to roast or grill or stir-fry the actual chicken meat? Then, you will actually be nourishing your body, and hopefully your soul as well...cooking is rewarding, and it will open up doors to different kinds of cuisine, recipes, and styles of food, bringing back the same soulful reward that one used to get from the un-nourishing, but familiar, McNuggets.

I am all for eating what tastes good, what you are craving, but I also have always tried to keep a mind to what my body needs to be at its best. After all, the body and mind are intertwined...if my body feels crappy, I'm not in that great a mood, and if I'm in a bad mood, a don't feel so hot physically either.

So what exactly am I getting at? Besides the classic "mom" mantra of "eat your fruits and veggies," I really do believe that trying to get the four "food groups" in your diet each day is not only healthy and good for you, but I think forces one to explore different options. Get away from that weak little side salad, and try some asparagus or some kale or some beets (me and my beets). For a starch, try some fingerling potatoes. Boil them up until they are 9/10ths cooked with a bit of salt, and then remove from the water with a slotted spoon, coat with olive oil and an Italian seasoning blend, and stick in the oven for about 15-20 minutes on a baking sheet. The potato skin will develop a nice crisp, but the insides will stay soft and delicious.

Looking to integrate more fruit in your diet? Slice up some apples and serve it with spinach, walnuts and some goat cheese for a great salad, or toss in some blueberries and raisins with some plain granola (I like the Bear Naked brand) and greek yorgurt or Stonybrook organic plain yogurt, perhaps drizzle a bit of honey on there too, for a delicious and healthy breakfast.

Put sprouts on your turkey sandwich in addition to lettuce. Stir-fry your chicken with snow peas, onions and some sweet peppers. Maybe even add some water chestnuts! If you have had a long day at work and are reaching for that spaghetti sauce in a jar, toss in some whole tomatoes, quartered, and perhaps some sliced celery and onions, or even some kidney beans to give it a bit more flavor and heft. Explore mushrooms and different types of beans as protein options, or experiment with different ways to prepare chicken. Explore and have fun, and never loose sight of what exactly you are putting it your body. The closer food is to its natural form (whole pieces of meat, fresh produce, non-refined starches) the more fun it is to cook and the more fun for your body to absorb!

Beet the Blues

2010-04-05T17:12:00.005-04:00

Beets are as wonderful to eat as they are as fun a word to say. I feel that they are one of the most under-appreciated foods--they have a wonderful texture (firm, with a slight crunch), a tart-yet-sweet taste, and are wildly nutritious. There are few occasions when the beet is out of place, from a soup to a stew to braising and roasting for salads and sides, and yet so many people fear the beet like they do other root vegetables, from turnips to rutabagas. Perhaps it is the weird names? All I know is, these folks are missing out.

Vronsky is one of them. Even though I've probably eaten them in nearly every iteration in front of him, in at least three different countries (beets are a very cosmopolitan produce), he will never try my beets. I don't know what it is with him and other beet naysayers...to healthy? Too colorful? To tasty? It puzzles me and makes me sad, because something so simple as beets on my salad will make my day. Perhaps I need some more thrills in life...

Beets are a staple of many "northern" folk diets. Beet soup is a cornerstone of traditional Russian, Polish and many Nordic meals, and along with cabbage, are one of the few vegetables that will last and nourish one throughout the long Russian winter. Beets, cabbages, and onions will literally provide the body with all it needs, preventing nasty things like scurvy and vitamin deficiency in the winter months, and are much more enjoyable than sucking on lemon slices like they would do on those olden-day sailing ships to prevent those same ailments. There is also a very funny reference to beet soup in David Benioff's excellent book City of Thieves, which also involves a search for eggs, and is a fabulous, poignant, honest look at the infamous siege of Leningrad and partisan warfare. Plus, one of the main characters, Kolya, is one of the most charming literary figures I've come across in a long time. (If you can't tell, I've been on a huge Russophilic kick lately, beets included).

Beets have a very high level of anti-carcinogens and are loaded with antioxidants and help prevent certain types of cancer, especially colon, and may even help prevent birth defects due to their high level of folic acid. They also help increase the oxygen-carrying capability of your blood, something helpful to all you athletes out there, especially endurance athletes (cyclists, triathletes, runners, swimmers, etc.) This is because the iron found in beets, although not in huge quantities, is of the highest quality, and therefore, the most efficient for your body to put to good use. Learn more about how beets benefit your body here in addition to being delicious.

But enough about the health benefits. Beets are damn tasty too, hence the basis of their gastronomical appeal. As the beet is a very hardy food and has such a special flavor, they are a favorite of chefs around the world. I even remember Richard Blais on "Top Chef" using beets during the challenge where the little kids had to help them cook. His kid, who was initially intimidated by said beets, loved the taste from first bite and bragged to all her school chums during the actual meal service that she had chopped the beets all by herself after they were roasted. Richard Blais thought it was so cute how she acted like she had been eating beets all her life and was a true beet aficionado.

Beets are most popular when roasted. When you find beets on your salad (usually with some goat cheese and a vinaigrette), or as a side, they will be roasted. In Germany, they like to pickle them, but roasted is my personal favorite, and also the easiest to make at home (in my mind).

How to roast your beets (and use the greens too):

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Wash your beets thoroughly, leaving the skin on, and remove the greens on top. Rinse the greens and set aside.

Toss your beets with two tablespoons of olive oil, or enough to coat, depending on the size and quantity of beets. Then, place the beets in a small roasting pan or baking dish. The beets are easier to peel once they have been roasted, and it helps keep them moist.

Cove, and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until a knife slides easily through your largest beet.

When the beets are almost roasted, take some more olive oil, heat in a skillet over medium/low heat along with some garlic and onions and cook until onions are almost clear. Then, tear your beet greens into 2-3 inch pieces and add to skillet until they begin to wilt/go tender. Remove from heat, slice up your now perfectly roasted beets and enjoy with either a bit of red wine vinegar, or salt and fresh pepper, or even with a bit of rosemary or thyme.

For a slightly different variation, you can toss your beets with a bit of salt and pepper and garlic, along with the olive oil, prior to roasting and then drizzle with balsamic vinegar once done but prior to serving. I think this makes them a bit too garlicky, but it is up to you. Either way, a wonderful and unique spring side dish!

Overheard on an elevator....

2010-03-26T12:32:00.002-04:00

Instead of deciding to study a language that I could use on a daily basis (Spanish) or to find a job (Chinese or Arabic) or while traveling (French). Nope, I decided to study Russian, but since I first began in high school, it has come in handy in very convenient moments.

First, it was just so damn weird that it made for some great college admission essays. Secondly, it was a blast to minor in, as Russian literature is the best thing there is and easy to meld in with a history major. Thirdly, Russian humor is the most underrated thing on this earth. Olga, my thesis adviser, and one of the most brilliant people in the world, no hyperbole, is also one of the funniest. Her weird brand of dark humor had the entire class laughing to tears when she described growing up in a communal apartment, which is an impressive feat, considering that it is actually quite wretched. And finally, because it is such an "unusual" language for non-Russians to know, it is great for listening in on elevator/subway/otherwise private conversations in public places.

But what does this have to do with food? Well, I admit this is a bit of a stretch, as Russian food, minus borscht/beet soup, is not really much to write home about (at least what I ate in Russia). However, there was one gastronomical delight I discovered while in the motherland, no mean feat considering that my taste buds were probably all half-dead from late nights and vodka.

This gastronomical delight is called "Shaverma," and it is Russian street meat. The Slavic equivalent of those funny little silver meat carts on every corner of midtown that always smell so damn good but can be of dubious hygiene.

It does not compare to Shaverma. And lord knows what sort of meat is actually IN Shaverma. It could be cat for all I know, but when I was in Russia, I didn't care. The smell wafting off those carts was unreal and the taste, even better. This "meat" is shaved thin, served with grilled onions, lettuce and shredded cabbage, with a special sauce inside a pita. It is unlike anything I have ever tasted before or since, and is no doubt Mediterranean in origin, but something about the Russian interpretation takes it to a whole new greasy level.

Anyway, so here I am in the elevator leaving work for the day, and these three women get in and are talking in Russian. It starts off fairly innocuously, with some family gossip and statements of fatigue, and then one of them sighs and says, "You know what I would kill for right now? Some fucking Shaverma!"

I almost turned around and confronted them, but that would be violating urban elevator code, and also reveal the fact that I was evasdropping and so kept quiet. Plus, I was hoping that maybe they would secretly reveal where I could find some of my own Shaverma here in NYC.

No dice. The women all murmured in assent and the lamented the fact that you couldn't find any in this whole wretched city.

With that, the doors opened and out they went. Anyone up for a trip to St. Petersburg?

Consider the Persimmon: Fruit of the Gods

2010-03-23T18:02:00.004-04:00

I am back from Sacramento, California, the capital of the golden state and haven to amateur fruit growers extraordinaire like my Po-po. I am not kidding here, kids. Nearly everyone in my grandparents neighborhood, a sweet little clustering of single-story, single-family homes that looks like a sunnier, better landscaped version of what you see in Leave it to Beaver, has at the very LEAST, their own orange tree out back. How amazing is that?

However, these oranges, no matter how lovingly home-grown and organic they may be, cannot compare to what Po-po grows. This woman is a fruit fanatic. She says the fruit is the best thing about living in California and can't really understand why everyone else, including her wayward granddaughter, does not understand this. She has a point though. How lovely would it be to have your own little back yard (and their yard is little), with one of each kind of fruit tree: Asian Pear, Orange, Plum, Golden Apple, Apricot, and Persimmon.

She also keeps her own little vegetable garden off to the side, but that is another story for another day.

So here I am, with Vronsky in tow, and my grandparents, who are almost 90 and probably in better shape than most 30 year olds, immediately exclaim and extol the virtues of Vronsky's great height compared (it's all relative...these are two 88 year old Chinese people we are talking about), and then Po-po grabs him by the hand and immediately says, "come with me."

She leads him out to the backyard and puts on her gardening boots, which are standard wellies that reach up over her knees since she is so tiny. She points to the persimmon tree and explains to him that, even with the aid of her ladder and her fruit-picker pole, she can't quite reach the persimmons up top and by golly, she is convinced that those are the best ones. Could he please utilize that great WASP height of his and get them down?

It was quite a scene. Vronsky picking fruit, my grandfather and I looking on bemusedly while Po-po hurried around the base of the tree picking up all the new fruit. She already had more oranges than she could handle (much of it was squeezed into juice by this point, since you can only eat so many oranges, no mater how good they are), but persimmons are special. After all, their entire genus name, Diospyros, actually means "Fruit of the Gods."

The persimmon is native to China, where it has been cultivated for centuries, but has since spread to Korea, Japan, and California (as of the 1800's), and thrive in Sacramento's mild winters and long summers. They are not appreciated very much outside of the Asian community, which is a real shame, since they are wildly nutritious, chock-a-block full with every vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant you could want. I swear the fact that my grandparents are still so healthy and spry is partly due to a lifetime of persimmons.

Persimmons are delicious sliced up like an apple and extremely sweet, which might be too much for some. Po-po dries out bags and bags worth of them in the backyard via just pure sunlight, which cuts the sweetness a bit and provides a lovely chewy texture that is perfect for snacking. I brought back to gallon-sized bags worth on the plan and have been snacking since.

Dried persimmons have such a great sentimental value for me that I have never thought to explore other uses for this yummy fruit, but its unique flavor and easy to "pulp" texture makes it a favorite for cookies, puddings, chutney and even a "bundt cake." Plus, as the images show, they are quite beautiful to look at!

But don't take my word for it. Sample some "fruit of the gods" for yourself!

Slow and steady wins the race: Beef Bourguinon

2010-03-13T00:07:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed my incredibly lax posting frequency as of late. I apologize, but my schedule has just been insane these past two weeks and show no signs of slowing! But c'est la vie...I suppose it is better to be busy than not in this day and age, but now more than ever I savor the "slow' times, even the briefest moments of it, as they are seriously the only thing that is keeping me from going 'round the bend, as the Brits like to say.

As mentioned in my previous post, the French seem to enjoy drawing out their meals, and traditional French food reflects the leisurely pace of a Parisian meal. A welcome respite for a busy American! My Russian teacher in high school had a funny, but very true, pithy saying. "The most valuable thing Russians can give to one and other is money. In America, the most valuable thing we can give is our time." So true, and a good lesson for all. (Volunteering versus writing a check??) I feel that this sentiment is best embodied in the French dish that has become one of Julia Child's most famous: Beef Bourguinon.

Beef Bourguinon can take close to two hours to cook but is completely worth it. Alexander Lobrano, author of the excellent Hungry for Paris makes the bold claim that as far as a perfectly satisfying French meal, beef bourguinon has it all. It is warm, savory, quintessentially French, and can take on as many individual interpretations as there are cafes along the Seine. It was the one dish I simply had to have while in Paris, as my mother had always made beef bourguinon while we were growing up, although we called it "beef boogie-boogie," since we were weird children and someone was always young enough to not be able to pronounce "bourguinon" correctly.

Beef bourguinon is essentially a beef stew made with beef, mushrooms, red wine, and potatoes. The mushroom, wine and beef juice/stock is slowly reduced over time, and to me is the epitome of those rich sauces that define French cuisine. As with most good things in life, it takes prior planning and a bit of time to get just right, but still remains essentially simple and pure, hence it's rib-sticking goodness.

I finally got my beef bourguinon on a drizzly day after we had braved the crowds and Notre Dame and we had seen about a million other sights, all while fighting off our slight hangover and exhaustion from a night out on the town the night before (hearing Mozart, Verdi and Pachabell at the Saint-Germain cathedral the night before--magic! and the only way to continue the magic was to have ten more drinks apparently). We finally slumped into this little brasserie in the 5th arrondissement, damp and starving, and my lord, if the iteration of the bourginon we were served was not the perfect thing for our situation. Heavy on potatoes with beef so tender you hardly needed to chew it, we were in 7th heaven. Vronsky wolfed down his entire bowl despite having eaten his weight in foi gras just before. I myself would have preferred a bit more vegetables, but perhaps I am a bit biased.

Below is my mom's iteration. It is loosely based of Julia Child's recipe, and has been simplified over the years as you will see if you check out Julia's recipe. Try them both and then improvise to suit your needs!

3 pounds of lean beef cut into cubes
2 large white onions
salt and pepper
garlic powder
soy sauce
sugar
Worcestershire sauce
Italian seasoning blend
Beef broth
Olive Oil
3 cups of red wine (dry preferably)
Carrots, Mushrooms, and Potatoes to your preference
(I also like to add a bit of tomato paste...just a dollop)

1. Start heating large sauce pot and coat bottom with olive oil
2. put kettle on to boil water on separate burner
3. Wash and clean your beef, season with salt and pepper, and garlic powder
4. When pot is hot (olive oil is beading/steaming) put in beef and let it sear, then flip and move about until all sides are done
5. Put approx 1/4 cup of sugar all over the beef
6. Put in 1.5 teaspoons of salt
7. Stir, stir, stir to coat
8. Add 1/8-1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce to taste
9. Add 1/4 cup of soy sauce
10. Let simmer
11. Dice up onions while you are waiting
12. When meat is boiling briskly, add the onions
13. As the onions start to cook, but while they are still opaque (not quite to the clear stage yet) add the tomato paste if you would like and coat
14. Add the beef broth and a bit of water from your teapot until the liquid covers about 1 inch over the food mix
15. Add the wine
16. Turn down the heat and let simmer (NOT boil) for 30minutes to an hour. This is when you meld all the flavors together but the water/water in the broth slowly steams out (reduces) and renders that nice thick yummy stew-like sauce
17. After about 30 minutes, put in your cut (and peeled) potatoes and bring to a boil for about 5 minutes, depending on how many potatoes you put in
18. Add your carrots/mushrooms if you'dl ike
19. Keep boiling until potatoes are done
20. Thicken with cornstarch if you like it really thick, simmer/reduce to desired thickness, take off the stove, and you are done!

This freezes/keeps in the fridge quite nicely and makes wonderful leftovers. This is the sort of recipe that allows for improvisation (for example, Julia Child likes to put in bacon fat, but that is just too rich for me. I like to load up on the veggies and will sometimes even put in some celery when the onions go in). Try as many variations as you like until you find the one that works for you! The KEY component to all this is the SIMMERING for about an hour to let all those flavors meld together. The most valuable ingredient for the perfect beef boogie-boogie, is time.

Pastrami wars!

2010-03-04T19:09:00.003-05:00

I interrupt my French-themed postings with this incredibly important announcement:

The geniuses at New York Magazine's "Grub Street" posted about the upcoming episode of Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations, which includes a lot of fun things, like going to Kampuchea, Pat LaFrieda Meats, and even Bourdain butchering a pig, yikes, but what is actually the most important thing is that he and several other judges (including a rando off the street) will decide who has a better pastrami sandwich: Katz's or 2nd Ave. Deli.

I gotta go with Katz's here, but j'adore 2nd Ave. Deli as well. Plus the sad, sad, story of what happened to its previous own in the East Village (murdered during a mugging) makes me want them to win it, just because, but Katz's pastrami is a bit thicker and jucier and apparently sliced by hand (versus 2nd Ave.'s machine-cut) and that may put it over the edge.

Regardless, both are damn good. Purists will argue with me, but I gotta have my pastrami as follows: on toasted Jewish rye bread with oven-roasted onions and spicy brown mustard. Melted Swiss cheese optional. Pickle on the side a must.

Original NY Mag post
2nd Ave. Deli (in Murray Hill now)
Katz Deli

A post on Beef Bourgiunon TK, to round out my France trip musings, and all this talk of pastrami sandwiches makes me want to do an "Ode to the Deli," quite possibly the greatest thing about the NYC food scene.

Café, Bordeux, Aperitifs, oh my!

2010-02-25T13:48:00.005-05:00

Much fuss has been made about French food and the cultural differences between how Parisians approach their food versus their American counterparts. For one, Parisians are said to approach their meals as an experience, one to be savored, while sitting, not grabbed on the go and shoved down ones trap en route to a meeting. There is something to be said for this, as taking a bit of time to enjoy a meal, no matter what it happens to be (a warm soup, a crisp turkey sandwich, or just 15 minutes of peace on a park bench eating leftovers), is good for your stomach and your sanity.

However, I noticed on this trip that the Parisian practice of having a dining "experience" every time they sit down at the table has almost as much to do with the drinks as it does with the food.

I saw that most people usually only ordered one course, not two. Yet what drew out the entire meal was the fact that everyone first ordered an aperitif, which was usually coffee or else a sparkling water, champagne, kir, kir royale, or some other cocktail. All of these drinks are drunk only before the meal, never during, as the ensuing bubbles or palate crushing taste of coffee and/or liquor supposedly dulls the taste of the actual food.

Speaking of taste, French coffee makes regular "American coffee" taste like cat pee. Well, perhaps that is too strong a statement, but the look you would get if you ask for American coffee in a cafe is just about the look you would got if you ordered said urine de feline (just ask the two folks sitting next to us one day that did just this). And to be fair, I am inclined to agree. "Café," either au liat or noir, is so rich and delicious that I am going to be hard pressed to ever enjoy traditional drip coffee again, seeing as I never really enjoyed it all that much to begin with and make my own French-pressed coffee each morning like the dork that I am.

And so, if you are dragging a bit due to jet lag or a bit pooped from a day of art gazing, a lovely café before your quiche or crepe will be just the thing. If you simply need to rehydrate, Pierre or Badoit (which seems to be what most Parisians prefer) are great alternatives and a favorite of Vronsky's. Otherwise, the best aperitif to celebrate your days on the banks of the Seine is a champagne or kir.

Champagne is pretty straightforward, and lord knows I have had my fair share of glasses, both cheap and more sophisticated. But I will say that kir royales are a lovely alternative. A "kir" is traditionally made with white wine a creme de cassis (a black currant liqueur) but spif it up a bit with champagne instead of white wine (preferably dry) and you have the tasty, refreshing kir royale. Both kirs and kir royales have been popular aperitifs in France since the 1800's, and Vronsky and I enjoyed them prior to dinner each night, and sometimes prior to lunch too.

And of course, no meal is worth lingering over without a bottle of fabulous wine. V and I are both red fans, and while I have traditionally been a fan of "New World" wines, especially ones from Argentina, Bordeaux might have me changing my tune.

I am no wine expert, but feel I've at least drunk enough to at least discern differences between a Pinot Noir and a Malbec. I personally prefer spicy, earthy wines. Not heavy, mind you, but still with an almost pepper-y richness. Argentine, Chilean, Malbecs, even Rioja wines will do this for me. Pinot Noir tastes too watery to me--almost like church wine. Too light.

But back to Bordeaux. The Bordeaux region is seven times larger than Nappa Valley and it's primary grapes are Merlot, Cabernet Sauivnon, and Cabernet Franc, with Malbec, Carmenére and Petit Verdot rounding out the lot. The Bordeaux wines we drank during our trip tended to be a blend of two of these aforementioned grapes, and there was a "drinkability" and refinement to the wine that I had never appreciated before, while still retaining the bold flavor that I enjoy so much.

In fact, I appreciated it so much that we would have bottles of it with each meal and not think anything of it.

So what is the lesson here, kids? If you want to dine like a Parisian, neglect not the liquid portion of your meal!

You, sir, are a pack of matches! Paris Part I

2010-02-22T19:15:00.007-05:00

Ah, it is lovely to be back in the good ol' U.S.A. Well, sort of. First off, I've realized that there is a complete dearth of charming waiters here who say things like, "ah, monsieur, it is a classic blunder," in response to a poor ordering choice, like say, the Andouille AAAAA sausages featured on many French brasserie menu (pictured at left).

This is not a standard sausage in the America sense but rather a loosely encased collection of intestines that actually spill out you cut it open. I am not usually squeamish (I like sweetbreads and have even eaten chicken feet), but even this was a bit much. It was WAY to much for poor Vronsky, whom I still can't even get to try beets. Luckily, the waiter's charm and the amazing accompanying pomme frites made up for this aforementioned classic blunder. If you had made such a classic blunder here in New York, your waiter would most likely a) laugh in your face b) tell the rest of the staff, and c) laugh some more. Perhaps this fellow did indeed laugh behind our backs, but at least we didn't see it.

Another thing lacking here in NYC? The easy availability of bread so delicious that the thought of marring it's perfect taste with something like butter is ungodly. Yes, there is some pretty awesome bread here in NYC, but you have to actively seek it out. In Paris, every piece of bread, from the littlest cafe to Michelin starred restaurants, provide perfect baguette slices and other starchy wonders.

Bordeaux wine is about an eighth of the price, and by golly, even the bums on the street sound more charming when speaking French.

However, I will say this: At least in NYC there are not gypsies hanging around every corner of the Lourve or the Museé d'Orsay trying to rob you/con you with this weird ring trick they have (more on this later). Also, the French seem to have an abnormally high tolerance for drunks in their restaurants. One loon in particular took extreme offense to my sweet Vronsky, who, although able to speak excellent French, certainly does not look French, being over six feet with curly reddish brown hair. Your classic WASP if you will. I sometimes joke that he stepped right out of Horse and Hound, and while he looks quite urbane most days when he puts on his suit, this little funny of mine is not necessarily far from the truth.

But at least he doesn't look like gypsy bait. Being small, wide-eyed with Parisian glee, wearing a bright orange coat and beret clearly means that you are easy prey for a little pick pocketing. Luckily my time in Russia has made me quite savvy to these tricks and I shooed them all away. But based on appearances alone? Hell, I'd try to rob me too.

Anyway, here we are at the Cafe de Beaux Arts, and this drunk guy next to us has clearly been irritating everyone the entire night, especially the poor girl who was the waitress. Yet no one ever asked him to leave, even though he is smashing the wall with his fists and slurping and smearing his creme bruleé all over his face like a four year old. He takes one look at us as we sit down, and immediately starts to antagonize Vronsky to no end, glaring at him and making weird comments. We tried to ignore him at first, but finally, V lit into him in very fast, extremely irate, French, and told him, among other things, to go F*** himself. I was so impressed! All he needed was a leather glove and the duel would have been ON, baby.

Anyway, after this verbal joust, the drunk was still undeterred, and was now circling around our table and the entire restaurant is watching and waiting with baited breath. The drunk leers over and says, "Ooohh, you, sir, are a macho Englishman." To which Vronsky consummately replies, "And you, sir, are a pack of matches."

Well, he actually meant to say crazy. Crazy in French = Fou. Yet it came out "feu" which literally means a pack of matches.

It must have cut this guy to the core though, as he left right away! We could then enjoy the remainder of our meal in peace, heroes of the bistro, with a complementary glass of champagne and some dessert to boot!

Au revoir and bon voyage!

2010-02-15T10:54:00.004-05:00

A happy belated Valentines day and Chinese New Year to all. I hope no one cleaned their home yesterday, as Chinese tradition (superstition?) has it that if you clean on the new year, you run the risk of sweeping out all the good luck. But wouldn't you also sweep out the bad luck in the process, and thus you should scrub like hell? Ah, no no, my po-po says. Bad luck will always be there no matter what you do (aka, shit happens), so best not to take your chances by accidentally sweeping out whatever good luck might come your way that year.

Wise words, especially coming from an otherwise extremely neat and tidy person! I actually think that this whole tradition is just a ruse some woman came up with centuries ago to actually get some peace and take a damn break from cleaning up after her no-doubt filthy and squalor loving husband and children.

And now to what is really important: I am going to PARIS tomorrow! I am beyond excited and have been irritatingly dropping silly and cliched French sayings into every day speech. Not only am I going to be a walking stereotype and drink lots of red wine and delicious coffee and stuff myself with crepes while going to the ballet and all the lovely museums and play chess in the park--I am going to take it one step further and wear this silly little beret that I bought.

But couldn't you do that all right here in NYC? Yes, I probably could, but Paris just has a romance and an inescapable allure that I cannot resist. As Adam Gopnik cites in his wonderful Paris to the Moon, it is true what Oscar Wilde said: When they die, all good American's go to Paris.

Vronsky, who fancies himself quite a Francophile (he had a French minor back in college), has already arranged for us to stay in Saint Germain at L'Hotel, where Oscar Wilde uttered his famous last words: "Either this wallpaper goes, or I do!" The hotel was kind of a dump back then, but it is beautiful now!

Stay tuned next week for a series of posts about my lovely visit. Bonne journée!!

V is for Veritas....Vronsky's new fav

2010-02-12T16:44:00.006-05:00

Veritas is very good. See how I try and use alliteration?

Actually, it is better than very good. It is great. Fabulous. We can't wait to return. The only thing I am upset about is that I have been living within two blocks of this marvelous place for almost three years now and have missed out on so many months of gastronomical delights.

Vertias is located right across from Gramercy Tavern on E. 20th Street, between Broadway and Park Ave. While Gramercy is big and showy, with a majestic facade, Veritas seems almost discreet by comparison and the sleek minimalist decor matches the relatively unobtrusive exterior.

Do not be fooled, though. The food inside is anything but. In fact, what finally spurred me to make a reservation and go was Anthony Bourdain's fawning raves over Vertias when it was headed up by Scott Bryan in Kitchen Confidential. I would venture to say it is his favorite restaurant to eat at when he's not on duty. The head chef at Veritas is now Grégory Pugin, formerly of the Four Seasons, and he seems to have assumed the mantel of his predecessor quite easily.

Adam Platt at New York Magazine touts Veritas at the city's original "wine geek club" and their wine list indeed feels like the telephone directory, except much cooler. And yet the staff at Veritas is equally at home discussing the wine selection with true connoisseurs who have a lot of money to spend, to the mildly wine savvy, to people like Vronsky and me, who, while we enjoy wine and have a loose idea of our likes and dislikes, are essentially wine yokels. They were neither condescending nor did they try and "sell up" when we asked them which of 3 possible wines they recommended. We went with a nice Chianti, Hannibal Lecter style.

Pet peeve: Vronsky and I were at the 21 Club for a work-related dinner, and when V asked the sommelier which of 2 wines he recommended, the sommelier immediately dismissed the two choices and pointed him towards a bottle that was easily twice as much. I highly doubt either of those two bottles V had in mind were crappy (nor were they cheap), and to blatantly up-sell like that, when we are clearly entertaining someone and already going to be dropping a fat wad, is consummately annoying, not to mention a bit insulting and rude. End rant.

This did not happen at Veritas, a HUGE signifier of their class and sensitivity to a wide range of palates and wallets. A big thing to consider these days.

Already impressed by the service, the only real thing we had to decide after that was whether we wanted the pre-fix, 3, 5, or 9 course tasting menu. (A la carté is available only at the bar) And to be perfectly frank, when I am at a place as incredible as this, I prefer to just bite the bullet and do the tasting menu, since that is what will most likely match and pair together the best and you get to see the full range of the chef's vision. V and I weren't there to save money, so the 5 course tasting menu it was.

It was absolutely divine, each course better than the next, and the portion size was perfect--you are not dreading dessert because you are worried are going to pop if you take one more bite. I won't rehash what we ate, because the tasting menus change with some frequency, and more importantly, I want you to go out and try it yourself! If you want to take me, I promise I won't embarrass you as I try and lick your plate just so I can savor every last drop of their delicious sauces.

See http://www.veritas-nyc.com/veritas.html for more details and reservation information.

Feasting on Life

2010-02-06T15:05:00.004-05:00

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you already know the premise on which I based it–M.F.K Fisher's collection of essays entitled The Gastronomical Me. If you are new to the blog, then hello there! And welcome to an exercise in fostering an obsession.

I am not the only one to be infatuated with M.F.K.'s style, grace, and intelligence when it comes to food, life and way with the written word. Joan Acocella, New Yorker critic and all around mighty mind when it comes to culture, put together a wonderful collection of her essays entitled Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, which covers exactly what it says. Aritists range from dancers and choreographers, writers, composers, musicians, to two saints: Joan of Arc and Mary Magdalene. She covers dance regularly for the New Yorker, and so many of the essays skew in that vein, which is a-ok with me, since I have become increasingly fascinated with ballet ever since reading Julie Kavanagh's incredible biography of Rudolph Nureyev. I have always thought Barishnikov is possibly one of the sexiest men alive, and like Patrick Stewart, he's only got better with age. Yum. And my wonderment when it comes to Vaslav Nijinsky, possibly The Greatest Dancer of All Time, is to the point where I would love to commission a book on it if only material on him, outside of scant photographs and an incredibly sad medical history is available (he was overcome with schizophrenia very young and he spent the remainder of his life scared, paranoid, and locked away under heartbreaking conditions in an asylum).

Acocella also includes an essay on M.F.K., written in response to the publication of a collection of her letters in 1998. Fisher's published writings are already so intensely personal, that to read her letters, a part of me almost felt voyeuristic, peering into the few parts of her left she had chosen to leave private. Nevertheless, I was not able to "look" away, and neither are countless others.

Much "fuss" has already been made over the moral beauty of Fisher's writing, and much more still has been made by the fact that most believe her to be the first to truly link food with the sensual and make it one and the same with other "pleasure's of the flesh." In her forward to The Gastronomical Me, she addresses the frequent question people posed towards her in those days–why a food writer? "Why didn't she write about the struggle for power and security and love, and about love, the way others do."

Her answer was: "It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write about hunger I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it...and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied...and it is all one."

Wise words, and while Fisher herself is so much more than these shamanesque sayings, and as seen by the experiences of her own sad life, food, security and love were not all one. Food was easier to get.

Fisher married a man named Al Fisher right out of college and moved with him to Paris in 1929. There is no doubt in my mind that she loved him, as there are instances in Gastronomical Me about Al that are extremely touching. Nevertheless, theirs was a love without passion. Al was a good man, a kind man, but something was missing, and Fisher left him after five years after falling in love with a friend, the painter Dillwyn Parrish, whom she refers to in her writings as Chexbres.

Theirs was one of those "great loves," and reading about it is enough to break your heart. It is what I believe everyone is searching for--that one person with whom you have a shared passion, but with whom you can also just be. To be in each other's company was as joyous as more heady romantic fare, which is what makes what happens next all the more wretched.

Dillwyn suffered an embolism in his leg after a year and had to have it amputated, but the pain did not go away. Soon he was diagnosed with Buerger's disease, a fatal circulatory disorder where your body basically "dies off" bit by bit as your circulatory fails, and it is excrutiatingly painful. Fisher knew she and Dillwyn did not have much time left, and so every moment, from ship trips to and from Switzerland, where he was seeking treatment, to evenings gazing out at the forest, she relished every moment where they could just be.

They would stay up nights laughing and talking, sipping cognac and red wine and savoring every bit of food, every concert they heard, having no choice but to live in the now. As his condition deteriorated, Dillwyn could not even walk unless she held him upright, so great was his pain.

I have this image of them, sitting in front of a fire on a trans-Atlantic voyage back to Switzerland, enjoying eachothers' company and talking, yet never talking about the future. That to me is the most poignant thing of all, as I personally derive so much pleasure from talking with Vronsky about all the weird trips we want to take, what we want to do next weekend, when are we going to plan a trip out west to see X, what new restaurants we want to try, the pair of impossible shoes I covet for spring. Most of it is silly and nonsensical, but to be without it is something I cannot imagine. Sure, we could all be blown away tomorrow, but for us there is always hope. Fisher and Dillwyn have no hope in these last months. They have no choice but to enjoy that croissant just as it is, like Brenin, with no expectations for what tomorrow might or might not bring.

One day, unable to bear the torment any longer, Dillwyn took his own life. Fisher, reeling from grief and unable to write, paced through the house they shared and dictated her famous "How To Cook A Wolf," which is one of Acocella's favorites, and mine. She certainly had her own "wolf" to cook, a wolf a lesser person might have never faced head on. After loosing Dillwyn, that ever present hunger for food, security and love now seemed harder to satisfy than ever. Yet she lived to the ripe old age of 84, and according to Acocella, was a fine, grouchy old lady, who never failed to tell it like it is and is how I too hope to age. Feisty and determined to "feast on life" until the end, creating, sharing and enjoying food, living in Nappa and Sonoma, writing and cooking wondrous meals for her friends and family. She relates in her final letters that she is very tired, and while she doesn't neccessarily feel any smarter ("I don't feel very wise"), she she certainly feels less alone. And so too, do we.

DBGB's: for those who aren't afraid of sausage jokes

2010-02-02T13:11:00.006-05:00

Sausage fest. Sausage Stuffer. You name it, sausages are funny. Just try and say the word three times without smiling--sausage, sausage, sausage! Beside being funny, sausages are also tasty. So tasty, in fact, that the great Daniel Boulud, he of the famed Daniel's restaurant on the UES and numerous other haute cuisine restaurants up town, has finally deigned to conquer us plebians below 14th street, and opened up what can only be termed a "gastro pub" on 1st and Bowery, called DBGB's, in an obvious play on the infamous CBGB punk club.

And the highlight of DBGB's? It's sausages. Believe you me when I say there is scant greenery to be found. You know how most restaurants have "small plates" for sharing? Well, DBGB's offers up the same thing, except nearly every plate is some sort of sausage.

They are divine. Links, bangers, "saucisses," every one to be savored. Come hungry and ready for some protein. Vronsky is obsessed with the "DBGB dog." He ordered 3 in a row. I quite enjoyed the Berliner and the Espagnole, and the Toscane. Wash one down with one of their many artisan beers to complete the true "gastro pub" experience.

But don't worry...if the thought of feasting on a wide array of phallic-looking foods alarms you, you can always get your fix via one of DBGB's three burger selections, of of which includes a burger patty TOPPED with pork, called "the Piggie." I can feel my heart straining from here, and it's worth it.

The decor is sleek but can get a bit cacophonous at times, as every loud talker's conversation echos off the mirrored walls and nouveau-steel furniture. However, there are these nifty little private enclaves for parties of six or more that look quite enjoyable should occasion arise. The kitchen is also in plain sight, which always fascinates me, watching the cooks in action, sausage makers churning a mile a minute. Heh.

But seriously, there is a convivial atmosphere at DBGB's that no doubt arises from the relatively unpretentious food and underlying humor of ordering 7 different sausages for the table. There are some great places to buy your own sausage in NYC, including Trader Joes, the market in Grand Central oddly enough, Hallo Berlin (wrusts galore!) and of course, Esposito's.

And now, for a good sausage joke:

There once was a nice man who owned a sausage factory, and he was showing his arrogant preppy son around his factory. Yet try as he might to impress his snobbish son, his son would just sneer.

As they approached the heart of the factory, where the father thought, "This should impress him!" He showed his son a machine and said "Son, this is the heart of the factory. With this machine here we can put in a pig, and out come sausages.

The prudish son, unimpressed, said "Yes, but do you have a machine where you can put in a sausage and out comes a pig?"

The father, furious, thought and said, "Yes son, we call it your mother."

Tell me your favorite sausage joke below!

Bread is life!

2010-01-29T22:19:00.006-05:00

If anyone has seen the great New York movie "Moonstruck," then you will know that Nicolas Cage plays Cher's love interest–Ronnie the baker–who, in a hissy fit about his brother, Johnny, yells out "What is life? They say bread is life! And I bake bread, bread, BREAD!"

Well, I don't know about the metaphysicality of bread, but I do know that while it is the seemingly simplest and most basic food, good bread is quite possibly one of the most satisfying things on this great earth. The smell of it alone is enough to drive me into a frenzy, and there is nothing like squishing your teeth into a perfect slice of challa bread or the crumble of a warm brioche.

Last Sunday, and a rainy one at that, I shuffled down to the nearest Le Pain Quotidien to finish up some editing. This book is a very moving history of the town of Trochenbord which was completely destroyed during the Holocaust, and while I knew exactly how things ended, I was moved to near tears all the same, and then went and bought the biggest baguette they had for sale to lift my spirits.

So there I was, scooting home in the drizzle, sans umbrella, trying to keep my baguette and my manuscript dry. Luckily, before I left, I bought a tub of their Noisella, a chocolate-hazelnut spread that makes Nutella taste like shoe scrapings. Smooth and velventy, without the slight processed after-taste of preservatives that I always experience with Nutella, Noisella was the perfect compliment to the simple slice of baguette on that rainy afternoon. I sat there on my sofa typing out my notes, trying in vain to keep the brown Noisella off of my pristine white laptop (and the sofa).

Why is it that bread and some sort of spread has this kind of comforting effect on us? Is it because it can meet so many different gastronomical needs? It clearly helped my mood the other day, and when I was growing up, I had two slices of whole wheat toast and butter each morning, washing down with an orange juice before swim practice at 4am. Carbs to give me energy, butter to stick it to my ribs, and a bit of orangy sunshine to make me forget that I was so tired I was actually worried I might drown.

And there is no better post-workout treat than a bagel. Period. Wheat or everything, raisin or salt, toast that bad boy up with a little butter or cream cheese or just eat it plain, and it's like those three hours of living hell never happened (almost). I once heard from a cabbie that as he was driving a man back to JFK (he was a former New Yorker now living in L.A.), he had the taxi stop in front of the Ess-A-Bagel on 1st Ave, and, with the meeter running, went in and bought 200 bagels, which he then put in a special suitcase to take back to California with him.

My father has a special bread box, filled with dark pumpernickel, tangy rye, soft sourdough, which he will tear into as soon as he gets home from work and enjoy with a bit of Italian vinaigrette. My mom prefers a thinly sliced baguette with brie. My brother and even the pugs are rye fanatics. Dogs love rye bread. I'm serious. It isn't just the pugs. We had a mastiff who would come barreling through the house, all 180lbs of her, the second she heard that distinctive crinkle of the wrapper being opened. It was like mania. The golden retriever next door couldn't get enough of it either, and her owner used rye bread to train her to stop running through the electric fence over to our house, where, presumably, there was even more rye bread to be found.

Anthony Bourdain kept rehiring a man who was certifiably insane (a drug addict who would show up to work with sperm on his shoe, and that was on a normal morning) despite repeated incidents of insubordination, quite simply because he made the most fantastic bread he had ever tasted. People were coming into the restaurant specifically for this bread. They even started a whole mail order system just so people could enjoy this magic bread in their own home. (For more stories like this, do read his Kitchen Confidential. It is laugh out loud funny and an unparalleled look into the NYC culinary underbelly).

Perhaps the deceptive simplicity of bread reminds us of being a kid, and childhood, in many ways, is deceptively simple. Not to get all Jungian, but this has got to be the case with Vronsky. Bread with jam and butter is his holy trinity. I will forever have this image of him in a London hotel room two years ago, rumpled with jet lag, sitting in pile of bread crumbs, empty jam jars strewn about, with a near beatific look on his face. I swear he had jam in hair. All he needed was a toy dinosaur in his hand. Ah, the answer to my hearts duet.

I suppose the magic of bead will remain one of life's little mysteries. There will be as many ways to enjoy it as there are days in the year, and making my own tartines, garlic bread, even biscuits, will still not be half as enjoyable as poking around bakeries, enjoy someone else perfect creation. All I know for sure is that I'm home for the weekend, pug at my side, trying my best to keep the bread crumbs (challa this time) out of keyboard.

Cravings

2010-01-22T17:05:00.009-05:00

Cravings are funny things. One can crave a lot of things--food, a puppy (boy, have I been craving one something awful ever since the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam came back into my life), sex, a massage, but food cravings seem to be the most common and easily remedied.

Cravings are often irrational and can be alarmingly specific. My dad told me that when my mother was pregnant (he did not specify which child), she would crave Hungry Man brand TV dinners, specifically the Salisbury Steak kind. Eugh. Lord knows why she wanted those, but luckily enough, the chemicals lacing those meals did not leach into the baby. Too much. Perhaps this is why my dad won't tell us which one of us this craving was connected to. I do have a funny mental image of him in his pajamas at 1 a.m. trolling the frozen food aisle, asking the lone grocery store staffer, who is probably stoned at that hour, if he has any more Hungry Man Salisbury Steaks in the back. Other than the 5 he already has in his cart, thank you.

Granted, the hormones in this particular case are not as useful for our purposes, but cravings are funny things, and often linked as much to memory as they are to taste, and sometimes, it is extremely difficult to vocalize exactly what the hell you want (salt? sugar? salt and sugar? Is there a chocolate covered pretzel in the house?).

I recently finished a charming little tome entitled Gourmet Rhapsody by French writer Muriel Barbary, the author of the bestselling Elegance of the Hedgehog, which is marvelous. Funnily enough, her editor here in the States is actually a good friend of Vronsky's and mine, and is an excellent cook himself.

In Gourmet Rhapsody, the snooty, difficult, and aloof Pierre Arthens lays dying in apartment on the rue de Grenelle. Pierre also happens to be the greatest food critic France has ever known, and as he reflects upon his life in his final hours, he finds himself searching for that one last taste, a taste he cannot quite define or specify, but that he yearns for with all his waning strength.

I doubt it was Hungry Man Salisbury Steaks.

But as I said, cravings are powerful things, and Pierre sifts through a lifetime of memories surrounding food. From the perfect brioche to his first taste of sushi, for him, food is an inseparable combination of the sensation of taste, texture and association. He believes that the best chefs in all of Paris are striving to capture that same magical emotional response they first got from their grandmama's beef bourguinon, and what finally satiates Pierre's craving will surprise you.

I've had all sorts of bizarre cravings in my life, usually centered around something cheese related. I know, I'm a freak. Who craves cheese? This must be a sign of some sort of nutriet deficiency. I am half-Chinese, after all, and petite--a walking poster child for early-onset osteoporosis--but still. I am clearly getting enough diary between my greek yogurt, granola and banana parfaits in the morning and this constant search for cheese. Brie, manchego, Dublin cheddar, you name it, I will eat it. I had these amazing goat-cheese and leek crepes from Le Bonne Soup last week that were incredible. Mmmm...I wish I had some brie right now with some some raspberry quince jam or dried apricots. I must make a trip to the store.

I don't usually crave sugar, but every once in a while I will get an intense yen for strawberry ice cream in a cake cone. Not the fancy waffle cones. Those artificial beige cake cones. The kind they used to serve at the old school baskin robbins. Or chocolate covered almonds. Mmm.

Sometimes cravings are obviously nutrition related. After a nasty bought with the stomach flu, I craved some perfectly blanched broccoli with lemon. I love broccoli, but it was probably also due to the fact that I had nothing but saltines and tea for two days and needed some actual vitamins.

I went backpacking for a week up in Isle Royale, which is about 3 hours each way smack dab in the middle of Lake Superior, so obviously we had to pack in all our own food, and at the end of the week, I would have killed some one for some clementines and pineapple. After every triathlon I've ever done, I crave BBQ chicken pizza.

One day at work I had a craving for a turkey sandwich on rye bread with tomato, sprouts, and a little spicy mustard. April Bloomfield of Breslin apparently craves tea and biscuits (that's cookies to us non-Brits) on a regular basis. Vronsky has craved miso soup. My roommate currently has a craving for cauliflower mashed potatoes, and we planning on making some Sunday night.

What about you? What are some of your weirdest cravings?

Back to reality

2010-01-17T21:53:00.003-05:00

As many of you may know, my relationship with skiing has not been nearly so smooth as my relationship with food, or little else for that matter. However, Vronsky is determined to make a skier out of me yet, and after a little stint in Aspen, I think I finally have gotten to the point where I get a little bit of enjoyment out of this lunacy! Hallelujah!

But as is often the case with ski trips, sometimes the best part of skiing is not necessarily the skiing itself. Sometimes it is the massage or hot-tub after a long day on the slopes, or the fact that the altitude makes it so that you get buzzed off of one glass of red wine, or a blissful mountain-side meal at a little Swiss cabin, as was the case the first time I went skiing. However, Aspen is a bit too refined for such discoveries, but it is still filled with culinary delights. It is home to the "annual Food and Wine classic," as touted on "Top Chef," and several five-star restaurants, including the incredible Piñons and Pacifica.

Yet the one dish that will probably define this trip for me is a steaming hot bowl of chili. It is not the most glamorous of meals, and I doubt one would ever find a fur-clad Aspenite cuddling up to this meaty, spicy, vegetable laden concoction, but it warms my tired, bruised bones like nothing else and is the best thing served slope-side. The new Viceroy Hotel served up a great version, as does Cafe Suzanne and Brother's Grill, all on Snowmass mountain. I am sure there are other great places to score great chili, and perhaps other things as well (apparently Sam's Smokehouse has great baked beans), but those are the only two places I can ski to without killing myself or others.

Every day, as a reward for being one of the top-5 slowest skiiers on the mountain, I would enjoy some hot chili with some nice toasty bread. Seeing as it feels colder here in NYC than it does on the mountain, I see no reason why I should not reward myself for say, sending some emails or not rolling my eyes too hard at the person on the subway who does not feel the need to tell their toddler to stop shrieking as loud as they can for no apparent reason.

My mom gave me a great recipe for home-made chili that is not too spicy (heartburn, anyone?) and chock full of tasty goodies.

You will need: 2lbs of preferably organic ground beef
1 1/2 large white onions
soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
2 cans of tomato sauce
sliced celery and carrots, to taste
dark red kidney beans (canned OK)
garlic
Italian seasoning blend
sugar
chili powder

In large sauce pot:
Brown ground beef in olive oil, and add 1/4 cup of sugar as beef starts to brown.
When meat is brown on both sides, add 1/8-1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce, then 1/4 cups of soy sauce.
Continue to browning until sugar and soy sauce are semi-caramelized
Add diced onions and sautee until transparent
Add celery and carrots
Add boiling water to cover meat and veggies and bring to boil
Add diced tomatoes and garlic (to taste) and large dash of Italian
Stir well and bring to a boil
Add 1-2 cans of tomato sauce, depending on how thick you want it
Bring to boil again, add just a pinch of chili powder, and then immediately bring down to a simmer
Thicken with cornstarch if desired, mix, then take off heat

Enjoy with a plain sliced French baguette or corn chips a side of something crisp (a nice salad or perhaps some green peas?).

Consider the...egg

2010-01-07T11:02:00.005-05:00

Am I showing my age when by admitting that when I titled this post, the commercial jingle "the incredible, edible egg!" popped into my head? Hopefully not, but I suppose I can stop by Sephora for some anti-wrinkle cream on my way home.

But seriously, the egg is an amazing little vessel of gastronomical delights and under appreciated potential. The great Escoffier himself devoted an entire chapter of his definitive cookbook to the glorious egg. The other chapters were broad headings like "sauces," "meats," "soups," or "garnishes" (aka vegetables). I know this because my lovely little sister, Amanda, scoured New York for the original English translation of the great Frenchman's 1902 masterpiece, which was to become my Christmas present. It was incredibly thoughtful, and I kind of felt like a butthead for getting her a nice, but generic, J.Crew sweater.

But back to eggs. Eggs are the core of so many wonderful things: cookies and cakes, quiches and even pasta. Yep, that's right. True pasta is made one part egg, one part flour, no water at all. Enjoy such pasta at places like Po or Babbo, and you really will taste the difference.

Yet I think what makes the egg so great is that it is probably best when allowed to be the focal point of your meal. Fluffy scrambled eggs are hard to beat, (har!) and all you need is a little bit of milk, butter and a non-stick pan. A fried egg with some toast, bit of cheese and bacon is the breakfast of drunk champions, and a nice frittata or omelet can make up an entire meal. A good omelet with tomatoes, onions, red peppers, and mushrooms is a near religious experience for me. Crush a little black pepper on there and my day is only downhill from there.

Poach an egg, grill some bacon, and stir it all together with some pasta and olive oil and you have pasta cabonara. Easy and yet it will easily impress your dinner guests! I find that poaching the egg in your pasta water (after the pasta has been taken out of course) gives it a nicer consistency. To keep the egg from falling apart, I break it in a wide-lipped bowl and then quickly tip it in.

Hardboiled eggs are a great source of protein and other nutritious goodies for you athletes out there, especially those of you engaging in endurance sports. A friend of mine who is a die-hard cyclist and rides for hours says that a hardboiled egg, a banana, and a carb of your choice will give your body everything it needs for seven hours in the saddle.

Vronsky is crazy about eggs Benedict and deviled eggs. I myself am sort of skeeved out by hollandaise sauce, which is no doubt rooted in my extreme dislike of mayonnaise and all things "mayo-like" in texture. This includes ranch dressing and sour creme. However, I do enjoy deviled eggs, even though I know mayo is a part of the recipe (thankfully, not too large a part).

The Spotted Pig has incredible deviled eggs (along with everything else on their menu), and while it is extremely difficult to get a table, or even a seat at the bar, it is worth the extra effort to sample any of their amazing wares. Luckily, a die-hard fan and contributor to New York Magazine managed to recreate their deviled eggs at home. How she managed to smuggle a few out (tupperware?) is beyond me, but once she broke down the recipe, it seems fairly easy to manage with things I have in my own kitchen. Will keep you posted on the results!

Deviled Eggs a la Spotted Pig

12 large eggs
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 tablespoon mayonaise
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon malt vinegar
Maldon brand sea salt (or just regular sea salt if you don't want to shell out for the top level)
Peperoncino chili flakes, pulsed in a spice grinder into approx. 1/16th inch pieces
3 tablespoons of very thinly slices chives (sharpen up that knife!)

Place eggs in a single layer in medium saucepan. Cover with 1 1/1 quarts cold water. Place over high heat, bring to a light boil, shut off heat, and wait for at least ten minutes. Drain the eggs and peel under cool running water. With a thin, SHARP, knife, carefully slice eggs in half.

Place egg yolks in bowl of food processor. Add olive oil, mayo, mustard, and both vinegars and process until smooth puree forms, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Season to taste with salt.

Transfer mixture to a pastry bag (aka, a plastic zip-lock bag with the corner cut off). Select the 12 best egg white halves (reserve the remaining egg whites for a salad or something), and pipe the mixture into them by starting outside the indentation, completely filling in the indent, overflowing to the other side, finishing with a curled "tail" at the end for show.

Sprinkle eggs with the sea salt, peperoncino chili flakes, and chives. Drizzle with some more olive oil and serve!

New Year's Resolutions: "To change the color of my mood ring"

2010-01-03T19:11:00.004-05:00

While en route to Washington DC for the holidays I had some down time to browse through about six different newspapers and magazines while waiting for my train, and I had the good fortune to read through Sam Sifton's review of La Grenouille for The New York Times. Sifton actually used to work as the culture editor for the paper and I used to try and get him to review some of my books, but I get the sense he is quite happy in his new position.

Sifton believes that La Grenouille is one of the last great French haute cuisine restaurants in the city, and as he regales the reader with luscious descriptions of each course, he claims that their dover sole, filleted table side, sauced with butter and served with a side of soft, golden mustard sauce "will change the color of your mood ring."

It is a bit of an odd figure of speech, but for those of us that suffered from some middle school fashion crises (skater jeans, any one?) and owned a mood ring, they really are quite nifty and the idea of a single bite being so transformative on ones state of mind is a noble one indeed. After all, that first bite of a perfect turkey sandwich during a Monday lunch can erase a stressful morning. Hot butternut squash soup can chase away a winter's chill, and I am sure the perfect piece of bacon saved many lives on January 1st.

So one of my many new year's resolutions, besides the usual don't spend so much money, don't drink so much, give more time and money to charity, go to church, etc. etc., is to try and have as many mood-ring changing experiences as possible.

Mood-ring changing experience, of course, can embody many things, and I am including some nights out at the opera, ballet, philharmonic, trips to the Frick and Met, and some more marathons/triathlons in there as well. However, those will come few and far between in my daily life, and I believe I can have many mood-ring changing experience with food alone, at any price range.

When Vronsky and I are feeling flush with cash, a trip to La Grenouille will definitely be in order. (There goes that pledge to not spend so much money...)

Nobu Next Door is such an experience and the perfect place to try new things, from a different piece of sashimi to miso cod. Nobu Next Door shares the same kitchen as Nobu, but they do not accept reservations and therefore easier to get into than Nobu proper. Every time I go there is a mood-ring changing moment, and well worth a few trips in the new year.

Jack the Horse in Brooklyn Heights was a great new discovery by Vronsky, and while Brooklyn may seem far-flung to some, it is off the first stop in Brooklyn on both the 2, 3 (Clark Street) and the A, C (High Street). Jack the Horse serves wonderful "gourmet-country" style cuisine, from incredible brussel sprouts, complete with those lovely charred edges, to perfectly braised short ribs and house-cured charcuterie. It is a great neighborhood spot for a Tuesday night, be it a date, a catch-up dinner with some friends, or just an incredible home-style meal to ease your cares away.

Another great spot for a quick lunch-time mood change, if you work in midtown, is Le Bonne Soup on 55th between 6th and 5th. The food there is classic bistro food, from crepes to perfect little quiches and pomme frites, and so damn delicious that Vronsky and I were actually inspired to take a trip to Paris while stuffing ourselves with some of their airy chocolate mousse.

And what if you would like to change your "mood-ring" at home? A quick, easy, comforting thing to make that will also make your apartment smell divine. You can buy pre-made crusts at your local grocery store, and either pulp your own tomatoes with some basil and garlic for sauce or buy a nice looking jar at the store. Sprinkle on a little mozzarella, slice up some pepperoni and sweet peppers, maybe even pre-sautee some onions and put those on as well (they need some pre-cooking since they take so long to cook), and then pop in the oven for about 15 minutes, and voila. Yummy for the tummy.

Here's to 2010!

Holiday Traditions

2009-12-20T18:00:00.006-05:00

Everyone has a Christmas tradition or two that they follow faithfully, be it leaving a carrot out for Santa's reindeer, a special ornament for the tree that has to go in just the right place, or a favorite carol that simply must be sung on Christmas Eve (that's "O Holy Night for me in any case).

My family and I are very big on Christmas traditions, some sentimental and some from the lunatic fringe. My father has to watch the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve after we return from church. He also managed to convince us that "Santa" would much rather have a ho-ho and a diet Pepsi instead of milk and cookies. And we could always tell which presents "Santa" wrapped, since those were the ones covered in at least 70 pieces of tape, versus the ones from my mother, which were always pristinely wrapped.

We are also very proud of our "ugly" tree. Every ornament and knick-knack from all four children are prominently displayed, including, but not limited to, a green pipe-cleaner ball covered in glue. Some have a much nobler sentiment, like my grandfather's favorite tin soldiers who now hang alongside old baby rattles that my mom just could not bear to part with.

But over the years, new traditions have developed as well, not all of them limited to the family circle.

Three years ago, my roommates and I thought it might be fun to have some girls over for cookie decorating. We broke out a little white wine and icing and enjoyed a couple hours of gossip and sugar highs. Now, people expect this party and have planned accordingly. My roommate literally takes off the night before to bake dozens of sugar cookies from scratch, and then the night of, we make our own icing and go nuts with the decorations, be it sprinkles or red hots, M&M's or food coloring.

To be honest, my cookies suck, at least from an aesthetic standpoint. I just don't have the touch or patience to make beautiful, intricate, clever designs on five different snowmen like my friend Kate. But I enjoy it nonetheless and hell, the cookies taste delicious in the end, so that keeps me happy enough. Plus, it is the one chance we all get to bond as friends over the holidays, no high heels required.

I have found that Christmas dinner is a mixed bag from a lot of people. For Vronsky, it is Thanksgiving redeux, with tons of people and at least two hams. Some people are too wiped out to prepare anything elaborate and they just have leftovers. My family and I fall between the two: we make our own pizzas.

It is certainly not very high-brow, but it is a way for all of us to get in the kitchen together and enjoy both cooking and eating together. And this way, no one person (usually my mom) gets saddled with all the work while everyone else plays with their new toys.

Home-made pizzas are the best. We sautée our own ground beef, select the best chorizo to use in lieu of pepperoni, and have an abundance of onions, mushrooms, olives, sweet peppers, and home-made marinara sauce. I like to load up on the veggies and do just a light layer of ground beef. I love the chorizo, but I prefer that plain with a bit of manchego cheese and Rioja while watching Snoopy and the Peanuts' Christmas special.

My dad and brother on the other hand, load theirs up so thickly with chorizo that their pies take twice as long to cook and are usually burned on the edges, but they say that is how they like them. My mom goes light on the cheese, and my sisters are mushroom fanatics.

Whatever toppings do not make it on the pizzas are parcled out to the pugs, who deserve a little holiday treat as well. The aroma of the baking pizzas are torture for them and we want to make sure they feel included in the holiday cheer, especially since we made them wear those reindeer ears for the Christmas photos.

However, this is what I actually hope to find under the tree. Cute enough to eat!

William Grimes: Personal Hero

2009-12-19T15:20:00.002-05:00

There is nothing I can say about this man that does not come through in this great New York Magazine article that follows him throughout a weekend. Grimes is a former New York Times food critic and book reviewer (he gave one of Pegasus' titles a rave review and that book is still hot, thanks to him), and he is the author of Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York, which is certainly on my Christmas wish list.

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2009/12/food_historian_william_grimes.html

Read and be inspired! The man grows his own kale, makes his own Vietnamese-style sandwiches, and has home made coffee-cake every morning, for cryin' out loud!

Santa baby

2009-12-17T00:16:00.005-05:00

I got the new Williams Sonoma catalog in the mail yesterday afternoon, which is my guilty pleasure right after the Zingerman's catalog and those weird little SkyMall catalogs you get in the airplanes. I mean, a statue of a giant Yeti to put in your front lawn? Or a scalp massager that also cuts onions? How can you resist?

So, upon browsing through this catalog while waiting for the subway, I saw a few things that I'd love to see under the tree:

An All-clad Gourmet double-burner grill
A new sauce pan or three (in smaller sizes, please, since I have a lot of larger ones)
And I am actually in need of a new pepper-mill

However, there was one thing that caught my eye in this catalog, but not because I particularly want it: there was a whole spread devoted to tools and gadgets to help make baby food. And I'm talking serious stuff. Special silicon trays with "baby food sized" indentations so you can freeze all the heirloom produce you lovingly pulped for your little budding gastronome, who is probably much more interested in what is going on with their diaper than anything you are cooking. Yet they actually have a thing called a "babycook" which is a tiny little steamer and puree-er all in one, and it is not cheap.

I understand the reasoning behind making your own baby food--more economical and you avoid any preservatives or artificial ingredients that might come with regular ol' Gerber food-- and yet this all just seems obsessive to me, even bordering on absurd. I'm all for giving kids a healthy and diverse diet. My parents were always leading by example and exposing us to new foods and never gave us "Lunchables" or nasty stuff like that--we got salami sandwiches with brown mustard for lunch, fresh plums and Asian pears sent over from my grandmother's backyard orchard in California, and we were eating sushi for family dinners long before it became trendy.

But when you do not even have teeth and your day revolves around soiling your own pants, I do not think you are in need of a culinary education just yet. But just to see if my opinions on "baby cook" where valid, I asked my mom, who raised four children who all grew up to be good eaters once they become fully functional.

She laughed out loud. "Make your own baby food? I mean, that's a nice idea, but babies don't eat food. Babies eat what is on the floor or whatever is covered in dog hair. Baby food is for smearing on their face, spitting up, and throwing against the wall." I think for a long time, my mom believed that maybe modern science had it all wrong...babies actually don't eat through their mouths, but rather absorbed the nutrients directly through their skin. Ha! If only...she does have a point though. You see a baby with food smeared all over its entire body, and boy, do they have a huge grin on their face. Sheer delight!

I like coffee, I like tea...

2009-12-15T23:17:00.007-05:00

I like the boys and the boys like me...or at least that is how the song goes. But seriously, a good strong hot beverage is a wildly underrated form of comfort. It is cheap, makes you feel better, and can cure everything from fatigue to a bad mood or a sore throat. I feel like coffee gets a bad rap, what with this alleged "caffeine" addiction we are all supposed to be afraid of.

Addiction schmadiction. One of the great joys of my morning is making a cup of French-pressed coffee. No Folgers insta-drip for me. I by whole roasted beans from Garden of Eden, Folgers, Trader Joe's, or even Starbucks if it comes down to it, have them specially ground to "coarse" and use my little French press religiously. It is actually much more economical than a regular Mr. Coffee, since you don't have to use a new paper filter each day, and the difference in taste is beyond compare.

For those of you unfamiliar with a French press, it is this little glass pitcher with a lid that has a mesh "plunger" attached to it. Put a few scoops of your favorite blend in the pitcher, boil some water in your kettle while you eat your cereal/dry your hair/primp, and once the water comes to a boil, pour over the grinds, let it sit, give it a stir or two with a spoon, put the lid on and push the plunger down which pushes all the grinds down to the bottom while the yummy coffee goes to the top. Pour and enjoy.

This coffee is so rich and flavorful, I haven't taken coffee with milk or sugar in years. It has a thickness to it that warms you to the bone, and a good french press will give you those foamy bubbles at the top of your cup. I cannot image starting my day without this little ritual, and if it makes mornings more bearable, what is the harm? I think what has given coffee such a bad rap is all the nasty frappachino blends laden with sugar and lord knows what else that are ubiquitous today, plus the fact that they sell for $7.00. A whole bag of coarse ground beans is at the most $12.00, and it lasts for months. And you can buy a great French press here for $23 and it will last you a lifetime.

On the more wholesome end of the hot beverage spectrum is tea. The good Chinese girl in me has taken my po-po's wisdom to heart. There is nothing that hot tea can't fix. Cramps or insomnia? Chamomile tea will relax your mind and your muscles. Detox or just need to slow down for a minute? Green tea will do the trick, and even cure cancer to boot (according to some). A nice cup of English breakfast or Earl Grey is a perfect way to break up the afternoon and help you get through those 28,349,723 emails that came in while you got up for 5 minutes to make a damn cup of tea. Ginger and lemon sooth a stuffy nose and sore throat, and Jasmine tea, besides tasting incredible, helps prevents cavities.

I had a good friend (who is now on her way to becoming a doctor) who suffered these insane bouts of nausea after a long night. Nothing we tried could settle her stomach, from club soda to toast to pepto bismol (UGH). But one night, I mentioned her troubles in passing to my po-po, who promptly told me to go to a Chinese grocery and find green tea with roasted rice in it. I knew that green tea/tea in general can help settle your stomach, and we had already tried tea for my friend, but she insisted that it was the rice that did the trick. Regular rice settles your stomach, so why not extract that magic property along with the healing power of tea? Plus, it gave the tea a nice nutty flavor that took away some of the inherent bitterness strong green tea, which I usually love but when you're already queasy, might be too much to bear.

Worked like a dream. Funny thing was, for the remainder of the time we lived together, only I had the magic touch required to make this tea that would cure my friend. Every other Sunday or so, I would hear her weak call, "Jess, can you make me the tea?" And even though all this entailed was literally boiling water, somehow I was the only one who could summon up the power.

I have about 10 different types of tea at my office floating inside my bottom drawer. Besides being the coolest person in the office, it has saved me through many a cold and grey afternoons. Buy in bulk at ethnic food stores, whole leaf if you can, (especially for Jasmine) although I like Celestial Seasoning's chamomile and "Sleepy Time" tea for herbal cups, available in all grocery stores.

Leave the gun, take the...pumpkin bread?

2009-12-12T21:58:00.003-05:00

My sweet, lovely roommate got mugged the other night returning from a book club meeting (ah, hazards of hazards). That in and of itself is not funny at all. Actually, it is quite scary and serves as a reminder for all of us to be careful out there!

Being the hostess with the most-ess (or rather, the "best guest" since someone else was hosting said book club), she had baked two loves of pumpkin bread. One for the meeting, and one to bring home for us to nosh on while we watched the season finale of Top Chef.

So here she is, tra-la-la, walking to the subway stop way the hell up on 116th street, and a man comes up to her and tells her to give him her wallet. Knowing that it is proper mugging procedure to just give them whatever the hell they want, as nothing is worth bodily harm or worse, she slowly starts to reach into her purse, moving her arm in such a way as to inadvertantly display the plastic baggie with said bread inside it.

The man looks at it, looks at her and says, "Actually, I'll just have that." He then takes the bread and books it the hell outta there.

What?! I mean, this is awesome on a lot of levels, first and foremost being that she was safe, secondly that the trouble of having to replace her ID, credit cards, etc. was spared, and thirdly...pumpkin bread? I love it well enough, but who knew?

The lesson we can all take from this is: when venturing out into rough, sparsely populated neighborhoods, always carry prominently displayed baked goods.

I only wonder if my home-made pumpkin pie would have had the same effect?

Tickity-tack glory

2009-12-09T21:54:00.005-05:00

I love Chinese food--white rice increases my life force, I could eat roasted duck until I am sick, and get double helpings of bok choy in garlic sauce any day of the week. When I was 4 and going through an extremely "picky" eating phase as a way of punishing my parents for having my sister, Amanda, the only thing I would deign to eat was...wait for it...sea food chow fun.

Needless to say, I was a bizarre child, but my fixation on classic Cantonese-style Chinese food has never left me. I am extremely fastidious about it, and the taste of kung-pao chicken or orange anything repulses me. It's what Taco Bell is to actual Mexican food.

The irony is, in a city of thousands of Chinese restaurants, it is hard to find one that isn't complete tourist fare or squarely in the take-out category, at least in my experience. Back home in DC, my family was devoted to Mark's Duck House, a loud, rowdy, sit-down brasserie that served amazing Hong-Kong style Chinese food. It even got my grandma's seal of approval when she visited, and I literally do not think that we have eaten at any other Chinese restaurant in ten years. It is Chinese food at its best, and I have yet to find a comparable place here in NYC. The fact that I actually don't speak any Chinese doesn't help matters.

However, I think my search might finally be making some progress. Tonight, Vronsky and I went to "Congee Village" down on Allen Street and it was fabulous. Neon lights call to you from three blocks away, and there is a waterfall as you walk in the door. It is Chinatown excess at its best, complete with multiple karaoke bars.

And clearly, the food matched up to the décor. The duck was excellent, although it was steamed rather than roasted, which is still my preference (the skin MUST be crispy!). The pot-stickers were nice and plump, the gia-lan (Chinese broccoli) perfectly sautéed, the scallops nice and juicy. Vronsky and I weren't hungry enough to get into any of the noodle dishes (sea food chow fun is usually my litmus test), nor were we able to try the soups or another vegetable dish, but I have confidence in Congee Village, and will be back for more.

However, I do not think my search for the perfect Chinese restaurant is over. The food needs to stick in my memory so well that I become a bottomless pit the minute I walk in the door. At Marks, for a family of six, we get: sea food bean curd soup, pot stickers, prawns, clams in black bean sauce, seafood chow fun, beef and gia-lan (broccoli), white rice, a half rack of roast duck, baby bok-choy in garlic sauce, plus five-spice pork and friend rice to go. Bring on the sweat pants!

And that entire meal is centered around the duck, which is picked clean off the lazy Susan in about 4 minutes by the Case clan. While the aforementioned steamed duck at Congee Village was nice, I am still searching for that perfect roast duck to center my experience. I think Congee Village is perfect for group dinners, as it has that fun-festive environment that really jives with a family-style meal, but I think the next on my list of restaurants to try is the Golden Unicorn. I went there for dim sum years ago, just a few weeks after I moved into the city and got hideously lost along the way and showed up so flustered and late that I couldn't really enjoy the food, which was cold by that point. Will report back with my thoughts in due course!

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite...

2009-12-07T16:09:00.003-05:00

....I have just discovered a great brand of canned soup. I know, I know, I just waxed poetic about the virtues of making your own chicken soup, and while I still hold that it tastes better to make your own (and healthier too), sometimes you just don't have the time or wherewithal to do so, and damn it, you want soup NOW.

Amy's Organic Soup is where it's at. It is sold nation-wide, even in my dinky little Associated Supermarket on 22nd Street. It is delicious and cheap, so stock up! I love that the ingredients are almost exactly in line with what it would take to make it at home (no MSG or tons of salt or other preservatives), and the serving size is perfect. For example, their cream of tomato: ORGANIC TOMATO PUREE, FILTERED WATER, ORGANIC CREAM, ORGANIC EVAPORATED CANE JUICE, ORGANIC ONIONS, SEA SALT, SPICES. Nice! This is versus, say Campbell's, which has high-fructose corn syrup, vegetable oil, citric and ascorbic acid, and a lot more salt.

It really lacks that "canned" taste, and has a great texture (not too liquidy, like a lot of pre-packaged soups. I am a big fan of the Creamy Tomato, Lentil, and Spanish Rice and Red Bean. They are a great pantry addition for any late-nights or sick days, when you need some hot comfort food but can't necessarily leave the house for supplies to make your own chicken soup or juk. (Although to be fair, I am never without rice, chicken, and ginger...).

It's the most wonderful time of the year

2009-12-02T16:20:00.005-05:00

Or is it? For a lot of people I know, the holiday season causes a surprising amount of stress, be it work-related (everyone is trying to get ten thousand things done before everything closes), socially, financially, and yes, gastronomically as well.

The stress of finding appropriate gifts (and not going broke while doing it) and balancing a social calendar (why does everyone I have ever known, socially and professionally, want to have holiday events on December 10th?), I can completely relate to. Yet people stress out about food during the holidays as well, be it what to bring to potlucks, what to serve at parties and dinners, and of course, how do I enjoy myself without putting on an additional 27 lbs?

However, I think food is the best part of this whole crazy season (aside from the presents of course), and I think it is a good time to experiment and try new things, be it new recipes, restaurants, or that strange h'or dourves being passed around.

As someone who does not have much of a sweet tooth, I am always a bit sad that a lot of traditional holiday treats revolves so heavily around cookies and candy. Not that a well-placed macaroon will ever go amiss, and my roommates and I throw a fab cookie-decorating party each year, but I have vowed to always provide savory treats versus another plate of cookies. After a sugar-laden party, when I come home at night, all I want is salt, salt, and more salt, to counter-act the sweetness of the evening.

A healthy munchie to bring to parties is Avocado Hummus. It is a nice spin on traditional hummus and tastes amazing. Plus, it is super easy to make and all you have to do afterwords is scoop it out of the blender and into some fancy tupperware or saran-wrapped bowl, grab a bag of pita chips or slice up your own pita bread, and you are set to go for any potluck, apartment fete, or secret Santa get-together.

You will need:

1 large ripe avocado

1/2 lb canned chickpeas, rinsed

6 tablespoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons tahini

1-2 garlic clove, crushed

salt (to taste)

paprika

Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit, scoop out the flesh, and toss into the blender along with everything else listed above, minus the salt and paprika. Blend until creamy. Season with salt to taste, and then garnish with the paprika. You can even slice up some black olives to put on top, or some cucumbers and tomatoes. Yummy for the tummy, and if you do tomatoes, it is even sort of "holiday" colored.

I also really like chili come the winter months...a good base for the stomach, what with all that booze that flows during this time of year, and it is warm and savory. I also love to make a big vat of chicken soup to come home to late at night. It keeps in the fridge for a while and will help ward off any colds that always threaten to throw me off my game as a result of crappy weather and just plain-old exhaustion. It is so easy to make--just some chicken, onions, carrots, celery, salt, pepper, and noodles. WAY better than in a can and the smell it gives off while simmering is as relaxing as any massage or scented candle.

And when it comes to gifts, you can never go wrong with food, be it a basic spice collection, a wine or cheese or even pie club of the month, anything from zingermans.com, or even a nice country ham! (http://www.waycoham.com has some nice ones) A ham might seem random at first, but for people with large families, feeding the entire brood can be daunting, especially when they all come home for the holiday break with rumbly tummies. Plus, ham is nice and salty--a nice addendum to those surgar cookies! Vronsky is sending hams to a lot of people this year, although if he sends one to me instead of something sparkly, he is going to be in for a roasting himself!

Consider the Cranberry.....and Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T12:14:00.006-05:00

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, perhaps even more so than Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I am a complete sucker for carols, tree decorating, 5-year olds doing a nativity re-enactment, you name it, but Thanksgiving has managed to stay pure and relatively uncorrupted by gross commercialism, to the point that retailers have kind of skipped Thanksgiving and now move right onto Christmas decorations immediately following Halloween.

There are no presents on Thanksgiving, no material gains, and you don't even get a lot of time off of work. But to me, the idea of sitting down for an awesome meal with your friends and family and making a point of giving thanks for it all, makes Thanksgiving the perfect holiday for the tummy and the soul. And while it may seem odd, even hypocritical, to some that we Americans need to set aside a whole day just to be thankful, I think it is a wonderful thing that every year there is a day set aside to remind us how lucky we are.

And yes, viscerally most of us are probably aware of our good fortune in our day-to-day lives, but it always takes some sort of reminder for us to consciously recognize it. Whether it is the annual battle against the crazies that descend on Penn Station each year trying to get back to Washington, only to be welcomed home at midnight by a hot midnight snack and 5 jealous pugs, or your pet wolf's appreciation for his daily croissant, these instances should be savored and appreciated. After all, isn't the fact that we are in a position to take so much for granted, something to be thankful for as well? I am never thankful for clean water, or hell, even my own skin, until I read about dysentery and cholera in The New York Times or I fall off my bike wearing nothing but spandex and have road rash for three weeks.

Every year I always resolve to call my grandparents more often, play the piano more, go to church, not be shy about telling people I care, not be bitter, volunteer more, etc. But of course, I promptly forget about this about two days back into my routine.

I have even found it difficult to truly appreciate things like exercise and a good book on a routine basis. So often, I fail to appreciate the exhilaration of speed on a ride, the solitude of a long run, or the smoothness of a good swim, because the path is too crowded or I am just doing this so I don't die during my next triathlon, or, oh gross, that bum is peeing over there. And too often, when I read, I have a hard time getting the "Editorial Jess" or worse, the "Publicist Jess" out of my head.

The one thing I have been able to slow down and savor on a daily basis though, is food. I am "enjoying my croissant" each day, as it were. I relish my french-pressed coffee each morning, savor every meal with Vronsky, covet every warm sip of home-made chicken soup. I have come to love "carpet picnics" with my girlfriends as much as I love a night out at a Michelin starred restaurant.

And when I sit down at the table tomorrow, what I will savor the most, besides being home with my family, is not the turkey or even the stuffing, but the humble cranberry.

Cranberries are ridiculously good for you, and have a tartness that I absolutely adore. I love that fuzzy feeling on my tongue that my morning glass of cranberry juice gives me each morning, and craisins are a must-have on any salad I make. Yet like many things we should appreciate but don't, the cranberry gets overlooked in the Thanksgiving spread by the more glamorous, showy dishes.

I am not talking about that weird canned stuff that comes out in a perfect cylinder (although that is a sight to behold in and of itself). But the tangy, ruby-red sauce that adds fresh bite to each morsel of potato, turkey, and stuffing, which, without cranberry sauce, is just brown on top of more brown.

Additionally, cranberry sauce is VITAL to any Thanksgiving left-over sandwich, which, quite frankly, is almost better than the meal itself. Or you can be like my father and just dip a cold piece of turkey right into the sauce, and then listen to my mother go ape-shit when she finds turkey bits in the sauce the following morning.

Here is my favorite recipe for classic cranberry sauce. Make it all year round!

You will need:

14-oz. of cranberries, either fresh or thawed frozen ones

1 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar

1/2 cup of orange juice

1/3 cup of Grand Marnier or Cointreau (mmm)

8 black peppercorns

6 allspice berries

5 cloves

1 2" stick of cinnamon, broken in half

Heat the cranberries, sugar, OJ, and Grand Marnier in a 2 qt. saucepan over medium heat. The cranberries will "burst" open once things get hot. Place the peppercorns, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon in a piece of cheesecloth and tie ends with kitchen twine. Add this "spice bundle" to the mixture. Cook, stirring often, until cranberries soften and the mixture thickens, which usually takes about 25-30 minutes.

Once mushy and "sauce like," transfer the mixture to a medium bowl and refrigerate for an hour or more to let the flavors meld. Take out the spice bundle and throw it away, and stir the sauce before serving. Yummy!

If this is too complex for the chaos of your own Thanksgiving, you can make a very basic sauce by first bringing one cup of water, one cup sugar to a boil, adding cranberries, bringing back to a boil, and then down to a simmer for about 10 minutes or until they burst. From here, you can add a bit of cinnamon, all spice, raisins, etc. stir in, then remove and refrigerate as mentioned above.

The best peanut butter has the worst name

2009-11-23T16:36:00.003-05:00

I have done it. I have discovered the best peanut butter on the market today. Ironically, it has a terrible name: Cream Nut.

That's right, Cream Nut All-Natural Chunky Peanut Butter , is the best peanut butter I have ever tasted. I am halfway through my second jar and have been eating it on everything from carrots and celery to granny smith apple slices, sandwiches, and straight out of the jar with a spoon.

I cannot decide if the weird name is just sheer hippie oblivion or a genius marketing strategy because I will admit, the reason I picked this up to begin with was because of the weird name.

There is both chunky and smooth, but I definitely vote for chunky here (it has a red cap versus white). I usually am a "smooth" fan, but the chunky kind has a lot more flavor and the texture is perfect. The chunks are not too big either,which I dislike about other "all-natural" brands.

It is sold in the Zingerman's Mail-Order catalog (of course) and in many food-stores around the country. I have found it here in NYC in my local grocery store as well as at Forager's Market in Brooklyn, so I am sure it is easily available.

I have a lot of friends out there who seriously believe that peanut butter increases their life force, as do several editors at Runner's World magazine. Besides bananas, I think peanut butter is a perfect "desert island" food, and endurance athletes swear by it. A half-sized PBJ or with some apple slices is a perfect pre-workout meal, as it is not too heavy or harsh on the stomach, but gives you a lot of protein, healthy fats, and a bit of carbs to fuel you up without giving you cramps or worse.

Also, Cream-Nut is literally 100% peanuts. No chemicals or preservatives and the peanuts are ground in small batches, with just a pinch of salt added for taste. When I compared the labels of my beloved Cream-Nut to Jiff, I was shocked at how many chemicals were added. Ew! I know that sometimes it has to be done, but when you can make such a fabulous-tasting product without it, is there really any choice about which one to purchase??

Sometimes all-natural peanut butters can "separate" at warmer temperatures, meaning you will have a bit of peanut oil rise to the top. Chunky kinds do this less than smooth, and if you dislike having to stir the jar a bit before spreading/eating it, just keep in the fridge.

Game Day Food: Part II of II

2009-11-22T22:26:00.004-05:00

I learned a lot of things this weekend while in Ann Arbor, cheering on the struggling Wolverines while simultaneously celebrating their incredible tradition and the strength of my liver.

Lesson #1: Zingerman's is still the greatest single foodie mart/delicatessen in all the land. My friend Mike and I cruised their balsamic vinegar aisle and sampled "vintages" that were 10, 35, 60, even 100 years old. The taste difference is remarkable--from an extremely sharp vinegar edge in the younger versions, to ones that were almost like a syrup and were so sweet, it bordered on tasting like dark chocolate. Mike also introduced me to another delicious Zingerman's creation, the #85, the Detroit BBQ sandwich, complete with baked beans on the side. However, my heart still belongs to the #11 pastrami on rye with caramelized onions, brown mustard, and melted swiss. We ate our faces off and he even let me have his pickle, which gave me enough fuel and sustenance to make a smooth segue into my next "teachable moment."

Lesson #2: Just because you say you are turning into a pumpkin at midnight in an attempt to not be obscenely hung-over for game day, does not mean you can't do enough damage in 90 minutes to make you question your decision to go to a cheesy "undergrad" dance club the night before the game.

Lesson #3: Bacon cures everything. So does Irish coffee. My friend Pier hosted a sweet tailgate that included all these things and brought a bit of Princeton up to Michigan by making cheesy eggs. Unfortunately, he learned the heard way that you can't make cheesy eggs 24 at a time in a stock pot. The skillet is a required tool for successful scrambled egg making, and to try anything else will result in cheesy eggs with little black burned bits throughout that taste like pencils. Thankfully, there was plenty of other breakfast meat and doughnuts to go around, and we went off to the Big House with full bellies and high-spirits to battle the Buckeyes.

Lesson #4: I really hate Ohio State. And Tate Forcier, I like you a lot, but you really need to get your shit together.

Lesson #5: Bratwurst "sandwiches" are great tail-gate food. Your hands don't get messy, they are way better than hot dogs, and if it is a spicy wurst, you don't need any sort of condiment that could splatter all over your favorite maize sweatshirt.

Lesson #6: Mediterranean food is a surprisingly good way to get your "second wind" back. After the game, Mike and I took a 3 hour nap, waking up at 7pm groggy as hell and both trying our best to rally for the night ahead. I was completely greased-out and so we went to Jerusalem Garden and had some great hummus, falafell balls, rice pilaf, and some amazing lentil soup. The spice and potent flavors and relative "lightness" of the food really revitalized us, and I am resolving to integrate more tahini in my own cooking. We went on to party it up until 4am, complete with "beer monster" chugs, festive "Ole! Ole, ole, ole!" chants, boots of beer, and the hilarity of seeing my friend Paul in pigtails, who was in rare form upon being reunited with all his old wolverine teammates.

Lesson #7: I am old and can't hack it like I used to. But it was totally worth it!

Game Day Food: part I of II

2009-11-16T16:20:00.003-05:00

This weekend signaled the beginning of what I can only term Jessica's Wild Adventures in the Wide World of College Tailgates. To start, I went with Vronsky down to the lovely town of Chapel Hill to see the UNC Tarheels battle it out against Miami in football on Saturday and their basketball team take on Valparaiso on Sunday. They were victorious both times (hooray!) and I got to book-end both games with more soul-food and BBQ than I've ever eaten in my whole life over a two-day span.

I love baked beans and pulled pork, and while I don't share Vronsky's love for black-eyed peas, please don't come between me and applesauce or fresh biscuits. That said, the highlight of this little trip, gastronomically speaking, had to be our visit to the legendary Mama Dips for Sunday morning brunch.

After tailgating all day and celebrating all night, my body was craving grease with an abnormally high level of urgency. Mama Dips serves the entire gamut of what can be called soul-food, from chitlins to sweet tea and grits, plus traditional all-American breakfast fare, but what they are best known for is their friend chicken. When I am in the throws of a grease craving, I usually go for my standard cure-all: veggie omelet with a side of bacon, home fries and a ice-cold, full-fat coca-cola. While all that greasy loveliness was an offering on the menu, I decided to take a risk and try their "fried chicken breakfast," which included 2-eggs any style, grits, bacon, and two pieces of fried chicken smothered in gravy. Somewhere, a cardiologist is weeping.

I say, let him weep. The food was incredible, and bear in mind, this is coming from someone who actually doesn't like fried-chicken all that much. I usually find it to be too dry, but something about that gravy and "Mama's" secret batter put me over the edge. Plus, pair that Mama's some fluffy grits, warm, buttery eggs, and perfectly crispy bacon, and you can consider the day seized. I can see why the restaurant has earned accolades across the board, from Road Food to chowhound.com.

My fried chicken brunch was the perfect mid-way meal for what was a long, exciting weekend of fight songs and cheers. It is a good thing I just bought some new winter "bike gloves," as I am going to have to hit the road long and hard to prep my arteries for next weekend, as I will be journeying to Ann Arbor, MI, one of my favorite places in all the world, to watch my struggling Michigan Wolverines try and upset the evil Ohio State Buckeyes. I believe in miracles!

And if the game starts to suck, I already have a back-up plan: a Zingerman's #11 and rounding off a bottle of scotch with my friend Mike. Plus, my friend Paul, a former Michigan football-er himself and the man who found me tickets (thank you!), always has the hook-up with the best tailgates in town, and so regardless of the outcome, I will be well fed.

Leçons de choses: Lessons from Things

2009-11-12T18:50:00.007-05:00

I wrote my first fan letter last week. And yes, it was to New Yorker writer and acclaimed author Adam Gopnik regarding his marvelous little book, Paris to the Moon. Make fun all you want, but I don't think this is more laughable than those of us who have written fan letters to The Backstreet Boys or New Kids on the Block, or the like. (And you know who you are!). PLUS, I got a response from Gopnik. I doubt Nick Lachey ever wrote back.

Anyway, Gopnik's charming book is a loose collection of vignettes and meditation from his time in Paris, where he lived with his wife and young son for several years. There is an old Oscar Wilde saying that goes "when they die, all good Americans go to Paris," and indeed, for all its ills, Paris still embodies a sort of paradise in the American cultural psyche. Nobody gets fat, everybody has something profound to say, and the food is always amazing.

Many parts of Paris to the Moon are laugh out loud funny, from when Gopnik joins a Parisian gym (and the term "gym" is used very loosely here), to his month-long battle with French Christmas-tree lights that borders on existential (French lights are very different from American lights, you see). But the part of his book that I found most remarkable was a section entitled "Lessons from Things."

Luke, Gopnik's young son, is enrolled in a local pre-school. Part of the curriculum is something called leçons de choses, which gathers valuable wisdom from the process of turning stuff into things. Bricks (stuff) being turned into a house (a thing). Seeds, dirt, sunlight and water (more stuff), will all somehow create a flower or a plant (another thing). How does it happen? What is the lesson from it? It is a oddly lyric way of approaching the world, and Gopnik marvels at the "lessons" we all learn from these "things" when we take a similar approach has these pre-schoolers.

For example, it almost seems just short of divine when you think about how pots of paints and brushes (stuff), when put together in just the right sort of way, with the right kind of vision, becomes a priceless painting (a thing). Lumps of stone somehow become beautiful sculptures, letters and words, formerly gibberish, become books and poems. Musical notes, put together one way, its mere cacophony. Another way, it is symphony or a song. Indeed, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from the process of transforming stuff into things, but no where more does Gopnik find this more profound than when it comes to cooking.

Mere mortals probably don't have what it takes to put stuff like musical notes or paints into too amazing of a "thing." But most people can put together "stuff" like bread, mustard, turkey slices, and lettuce into a damn good turkey sandwich. You don't even need the trans-formative power of heat to make a good salad, just the proper selection of stuff, to make a marvelous thing to eat.

When Gopnik moves beyond the very elementary level of sandwich and salad making, however, the magic of "stuff into things" becomes even more incredible. The lumps of raw meat and bevy of mysterious bottles filled with spices on his counter somehow becomes an delicious roast chicken. Vegetables with dirt still on them eventually become soup. Seemingly disparate ingredients somehow become a tasty crepe. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from these things indeed, and I am a firm believer that cooking and understanding food at its most basic level makes one appreciate their meal on a whole new level. I would have enjoyed my evening at Savoy no matter what, but the fact that I have still not yet achieved a perfect crack-ly skin on my roast chicken, despite many valiant efforts, made me savor the marvelous texture of Savoy's salt-crust baked duck even more. What else could I learn from the marvelous things on my plate?

Perhaps nothing else, perhaps just the fact that cauliflower is an under appreciated vegetable in my kitchen, or that raisins go with a lot more than just oatmeal, or that I really need to expand my horizons when it comes to cured meats, as there are some awesome things out there besides salami and chorizo.

Conversely, attempting to cook news things on my own have made me a better "order-er" in a restaurant. I sincerely believe that cooking makes you want to explore new flavor combinations and take a bit more risk with your dinner, especially when the person in the kitchen is a trained professional. Learning to cook is not as difficult as one might think. Just remember Remy and Chef Gasteau's motto from the great Disney movie Ratatouille: Anyone can cook!

They can and they should. Just start small. Some pasta here, then try some chicken, and maybe an omelet. You'll be braising short ribs in no time. Not only is it more economical, frequently healthier, and a great de-stressor at the end of the long day (Mad at your boss? Get out the big knife and start dicing some onions, pretending it is their face. Or something.), but cooking opens up an entire world of new discoveries, those little leçons de choses that make life (and meals) that much more fun.

Feeling even more ambitious? Check out My Cooking Party. I did this two years ago with two other friends and we had an absolute blast. You basically play "sioux chef" in a real, mini- restaurant style kitchen to a head chef who has put together a 4 course meal. You all pitch in to make the dishes, and once it is done, you sit down and eat it. It is a great hands-on way to learn that is fun and can appeal to all skill levels. Plus, they throw in a few bottles of wine that match the food with the price of the class. Opa!

Team PIE vs. Team cake

2009-11-10T18:16:00.003-05:00

What with all the heavy issues dominating the news today, I thought I should address what is obviously a serious cultural divide: pie versus cake.

I am team pie 110%. So is Vronsky, and my friend Emily, who prompted this post by informing me of the delicious pie that was brought into the office today. Pie is fabulous, and let me state that for the record, cobblers, tarts, and basically anything with some sort of fruit filling and a graham cracker/crumbly crust falls squarely in the PIE category. I am even a little bit jealous of those Yankee pitchers who get a "pie in the face" after pitching a perfect game.

I mean, what is Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie? Apple pie is an American tradition. We all know my fondness for blueberry pie, and I will pull over to the side of the road to check out cherry pies sold at road-side stands before I ever pull over to ask for directions. Nothing is better than a key lime pie on a hot day, and don't even get me started on lemon meringue pie. I am sure there are pies out there that I've never tried or even heard of. There is a whole world of pies out there waiting to be discovered!

And cake is, well, cake. I have always thought chocolate cake was over-rated and the uniform texture of cake just can't compete the warm pie crust segueing into the cool juicy pop of the fruit filling, followed by the chill of vanilla ice cream, if you take it a la mode. I understand the sentimentality of birthday cake, but make it a birthday pie for me any year. (Hint, hint..)

Autumn is definitely pie season (actually, every season is pie season), but the warm, savory flavors of pumpkin and apple pie definitely define the holidays for a lot of people, and my aunt makes amazing pumpkin pie from real pumpkin, not the canned goop. A loose recipe of hers is below, which I've tried to duplicate but never quite succeeded.

Go out and buy a pie pumpkin (at a grocery/food store, not from the lots on the street, which usually are raised differently than what you will buy in a market).

Wash your pumpkin with warm water, no soap, and then cut the pumpkin in half (serrated knives work best. If you are having trouble, one time we actually had to use a hand saw. Those rinds are tough!)

Scrape out the insides and save the seeds for roasting if you'd like. An ice cream scoop or melon baller works well for this and get everything nice and clean.

Next, cook the two pumpkin halves by steaming it on your stovetop for about 20-30 minutes. We have a large vegetable steamer so it fits comfortably, although you might need to quarter the pumpkin to make it fit. After 20-30 minutes, the pumpkin "meat" will be soft and you can scoop it out from the rind quite easily with a table spoon.

Pop your pumpkin "meat" into a blender/food processor and puree until smooth. Next, make your pie filling. To do so, you will need:

1 cup sugar
1.5 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. all spice
1.5 tsp. ground ginger
pinch of salt
4 eggs
your pumpkin puree (should be about 3 cups if you use a standard pie pumpkin, which is around 8 inches)
1.5 cans of evaporated milk

Mix it all together and pour lovingly into your pie crust, which for us, has always been pre-bought, oops, but Thanksgiving day is always crazy in our kitchen and no one can find the time to bake a separate crust.

Be warned, this filling may be a bit runny/soupy at first, but it will firm up once cooked.

Bake your pie at 425 degrees for 15 minutes and then turn it down to 350 degrees and bake for another 45-60 minutes, so that when you stick a knife in the center it lifts out clean.

Cool your pie while you're eating the main meal, and then dig in!

Team Pie for life! All you team cakers, you can make a case for yourself in the comments, if you dare.

And for the record, Bubby's in Tribeca has the best sour cherry pie outside of Michigan. (That is an actual picture of it to the right).

Korean BBQ: Kimchi and beyond

2009-11-04T20:49:00.005-05:00

Last night Vronsky and I had a little date at Woo Lae Oak, a Korean BBQ joint, which used to be the trendy SoHo restaurant du jour a few years back, but has held its own as its trendiness abates by serving phenomenal authentic Korean food while still staying approachable to diners who might not be familiar with Korean cuisine.

Growing up, my family was actually quite fond of Korean cuisine, and we would frequent the Woo Lae Oak in DC as well as a few places in the Korean neighborhoods in DC and Virginia, which has a large Korean population. My mother always manned the grill in dinners past, and so it was a real thrill for me to finally be my own grill master last night.

For those of you that have never had Korean BBQ, it is fairly straightforward: the meat and/or veggies are cooked right there at your table, which has its own little grill right in the center. It helps to be handy with chopsticks, as wooden ones are provided to tend to the meat, but you can ask for a fork or other utensil of your choosing.

The menu offers a lot of different protein options, but I recommend the bulgogi, (thinly sliced marinated rib eye) which is the traditional Korean preparation. They also have chicken, filet mignon, etc. but something about how the bulgogi is marinated just blows everything out of the water. Plus, because it is so thinly sliced, it cooks very quickly a will get these lovely charred edges, which are my favorite part. I am always tempted to try and lick the grill at the end, but not to fear, I always refrain. I like to wrap the cooked bulgogi in a large leaf of romaine lettuce, like a taco. The crispness of the lettuce compliments the smokey, savory flavor of the meats.

Vronsky was in 7th heaven and was thisclose to ordering another serving. He had always insisted he didn't like Korean BBQ, but I am convinced, based upon his most recent reaction, that the last time he tried Korean food, he ordered the wrong thing.

We also ordered some mixed vegetables (baby corn, shaved carrot, squash slices, snow peas, and some assorted mushrooms) to grill alongside the bulgogi and accompany the bevy of spicy sides that accompany any traditional Korean meal.

The center of this side-dish display is kimchi, which is, according to the latest issue of Saveur, my favorite food magazine in all the land, more important to Korea's culinary tradition than any other food to any other country's culinary identity. I don't doubt it--kimchi is freaking awesome, and apparently you can find kimchi on the table for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and any time in between, in Korean households.

Kimchi has an incredibly unique texture and flavor: it starts with the crunch and cool taste of the cabbage leaves, followed by the chunks of daikon, which is a type of Asian radish, followed by a chili paste that slowly starts to burn your tongue, and then cools down to reveal a hunt of garlic, ginger, and what I can only describe as sea salt. Some say it heats the belly and cools the throat, preparing the palate for the next part of the meal, similar to how wasabi and pickled ginger are supposed to cleans the palate between different sushi/sashmi rolls.

I myself can only handle a bit of kimchi at a time due to its heat, but Woo Lae Oak offers a bit of milder kimchi as well, which Vronsky and I both devoured. After stuffing ourselves with bulgogi, sauteed vegetables, and these amazing chilled duck rolls with plum sauce (fact: plum sauce makes everything better), we finished our wine by the bar with some green tea ice cream, which came in a bowl made entirely of ice. An amazing idea! It keeps the ice cream cold throughout the languid pace that usually follows the end of a meal when people are finishing off their wine/drinks. I can't believe I had never seen it before.

It is always exciting to turn someone on to a new cuisine, and Vronsky professed that Woo Lae Oak is his new favorite restaurant and that we need to come back as early as next week. I will work on my grill skillz so that next I go out for Korean with my family, my mom and I can duke it out for who sizzles out a better bulgogi.

Woo Lae Oak is in SoHo on Mercer, near Prince St. Or just mill around New York's Korea Town, which is loosely bordered by 5th and 6th Ave. and 30th to 36th Street.

Pictured above: bulgogi lettuce wraps at top left, kimchi below right.

Halloween happenings

2009-11-01T20:45:00.004-05:00

I have never had that big of a sweet tooth. If you look in my freezer, I am still slowly making my way through my Easter candy, having just defrosted another limb of my giant chocolate bunny. And so, for me, Halloween has usually been primarily about the costumes versus the candy. I feel like over the years I have had some fairly successful costumes, from a bunch of grapes to a china doll, leprechaun, and Wonder Woman. My "best" costume ever though was when I went as Maleficent, the evil witch queen from Sleeping Beauty, when I was five years old. I won a local costume contest hosted by this toy store, Kiddie City, and my prize was my first-ever Barbie doll. I was awesome, and my mom, who made this amazing costume was pretty pumped too.

This year, a group of girlfriends and I took a trip up to Boston to attend a charity event for GOTO, which sends underprivileged kids to art camp, sports camp, etc. Our costumes were actually food-oriented, if not necessarily gastronomical. Everyone dressed up as "food mascots." We had a Wendy, a Capt'n Crunch, Popeye, Snap, Crackle, and Pop, a "dairy queen" (she wore a cow costume with a tiara, hilarious), the Swiss Miss, and many more. I was Mrs. Field of Mrs. Field's Cookies. Fitting, as I used to eat one of her white chocolate macadamia nut cookies every afternoon before swim practice my junior year of high school. They always sold them at the gas station where I filled up en route to the pool. The next year, the pool location changed, and that was the end of that.

One of my friends, Dawn, who lives in Boston, is quite the chef and foodie herself, and took us to this fabulous whole-sale market, Russo's, on the outskirts of the city. I was in seventh heaven, and it was all I could do not to stock up on all sorts of delicious produce. I restrained myself at first and only picked up some drunken goat cheese and dried fruit. Stuff I could transport back easily on the bus. But I gave in when I saw the baby bok choy, which was perfect. I managed to get it back to NYC unspoiled and plan on sautéing it tomorrow with a bit of garlic. On this trip, it was only natural that we got to talking about childhood Halloween traditions and memories. My friend Stirling told us that her parent's used to take some of her candy as an "offering" for the "Candy Witch," who would then distribute it fairly to all the poor kids in the world who didn't get candy of their own.

A very philanthropic fairy tale creation. Too bad it was actually just a way of making sure that her candy intake was regulated, not too mention the fact that they got a few treats to eat themselves. My father, who has a huge sweet tooth, did not believe in such ceremony. He would simply poke through our buckets when we got home and pick out what he liked, justifying his findings as "tax."

My siblings and I would then go through the motions of swapping candy, but really we would just fight over who got the Twix bars and any precious dark chocolate Milky-Ways. None of us, oddly enough, are peanut butter fans, so we were always foisting the Reeses cups upon each other in the hopes for something better.

My poor little brother, who was the most adorable toddler, was always being dressed up in equally cute costumes, and the year we dressed him as a tiny little cowboy was by far and away the winner. He was getting way more candy than the rest of us based upon the fact that he was just too damn cute. His bucket was so heavy with candy he could hardly carry it, but he simply refused to let either of my sisters, or my father, help him carry it, as he was convinced they would take some of his candy. He was quite the tiny cynic. He was also right.

And so, there was the entire gaggle of them trapaising through the neighborhood along with all the other local kids. By this point, I was old enough to trick-or-treat with my little group of friends, and when I bumped into my siblings, it was the saddest thing you ever saw: tiny Davey, cowboy hat slipping down his head, his little legs pumping as hard as they can and his arms straining to hold up his bucket, lagging a good ten feet behind the rest of them, fiercely determined not to loose control of his precious wares.

Myself, I have never been too possessive of my candy (see note on lack of sweet tooth), but am fiercely possessive of any of sort of fruit-based dessert, notably baked apples. Candied apples, the standard Halloween fare, are nice too, but something about chipping open the candied coating with your teeth to start has always unnerved me a bit. Eager to re-create baked apples so I can then hoard them all to myself, I discovered a fabulous recipe in Saveur magazine, which is written out below.

Baked Apples with Caramel Sauce

1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temp.
2 tbsp. ground cinnamon (I adore cinnamon, and even put it in my coffee to give it some holiday "spice")
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
6 firm Fuji apples, stemmed and cored (I find Fuji apple, which are my favorite any way, hold their shape the best)
Vanilla ice cream for serving

For the caramel sauce:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup raisins
2 tbsp. of dark rum (mm)

Heat your oven to 325 degrees. Combine sugar, syrup, butter, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl and set aside. Cut a quarter inch off the bottom of the apples so that they sit flat and transfer the apples to a large baking pan. Fill the hollow cores with that sugar-syrup mixture you have set aside. Cover apples with tinfoil and bake until tender, which usually takes about 50 minutes.

Meanwhile, make your caramel sauce by heating the sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a 2 qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce/cook (don't stir) until the liquid is amber colored, which takes about 20 minutes. Remove pan from the heat and let it cool slightly. Add the cream, which will cause the caramel to bubble up slightly. Stir in your raisins and rum and set aside.

Plate your apples and drizzle sauce over them to taste, and add a scoop of ice cream if you are so inclined. A perfect dessert to combat any post-Halloween hangovers, emotional or otherwise.

Consider the...portobello mushroom

2009-10-24T18:31:00.005-04:00

In my limited study of human nature, I have found that when it comes to mushrooms, there are three types of people: those that are essentially mushroom-phobic and won't try any kind (Vronsky, I am talking about you), those that love mushrooms, any sort, any preparation, and then there are those that like them when the mood strikes, but still l-o-v-e portobello mushrooms.

I myself fall squarely into that third category. I like button and shiitake's in a stir-fry or at a restaurant where obviously they are integral to a chef's vision of a dish, but I don't seek them out of my own volitions, with one big exception: the large, steak-y, flavorful portobellos.

Portobellos are really just large "crimini" or brown mushrooms. When they mature and grow nice and large (approx 4-6 inches in diameter), they are call portobellos. When they are babies, they are simply called brown mushrooms.

Yet something happens when these "criminis"mature. Their flavor becomes much more intense, giving us a rich, earthy flavor with a firm texture that makes portobellos so popular.

They are excellent in polenta, and I've had portobello fajitas, which were excellent. You can bake them and stuff them with couscous, onions, and perhaps a bit of celery, or quarter them and put them on a kebab alongside red, yellow, orange and green peppers and onions (a good way to please any vegetarians who might be attending your cook out).

Portobellos are rich in potassium, vitamin B, protein, and amino acids, yet low in calorie and fat-free. And don't even get me started on the all of the "magic" powers mushrooms in general are supposed to possess. From Chinese grandmas (who know everything about this sort of thing) to hippies and alternative healing gurus (who know less, in my opinion, but can be right from time to time), mushrooms are where it's at. They've been touted as "anti-cancer" and even my stupidly expensive Yves Saint Laurent eye cream purports to have an extract of some special Chinese mushroom that will help keep those pesky little eye wrinkles at bay. This remains to be seen. If only I could find this special mushroom and eat it (sauteéd with some olive oil and garlic no less), imagine the wonders!

And besides, it is way more fun to eat and prepare mushrooms than to rub it on your face. Ew.

To wit, here is my favorite way to prepare portobellos. It is not terribly elaborate, but easy to do with limited resources and a tiny kitchen.

Take two portobellos and lightly wash them. Top chefs and gourmets say all you need to do is shake them to loosen any lingering dirt and debris, but living in NYC, where odd germs and pathogens coat every part of this fair city, a wash can never go amiss. Don't scrub too hard though, or you'll loose flavor.

Slice into about 3/4 inch horizontal pieces. Toss in a large bowl with about two pinches of sugar, one part soy sauce, 3 parts olive oil, and a tiny bit of balsamic vinegar. Mince a clove of garlic and toss in.

When slices are completely covered, let sit while you heat a pan greased with more olive oil. When it is hot, toss in and start to sauteé, Keep tossing and when the slices start to "blacken" in towards the center, do one more good go round in the pan, and then remove. The slices will continue to cook once removed from the heat.

Serve with a starch of your choice (I like rice as it will mop up that black portobello suace nicely), and for show, put the mushroom slices on long leaves of romaine lettuce. You can make lettuce wraps with them, and it is actually quite tasty.

Veggies, veggies, and more veggies

2009-10-21T11:07:00.003-04:00

Ah, Deutchland. You have many virtues, especially in the arena of goulash soup, anything to do with potatoes, breaded meats, sausages, and lingonberries. And your beer is pretty gosh darn excellent too. However, your ability to provide me with fruits or vegetables, that have not been covered in butter and/or "yogurt dressing" (aka mayonnaise with some paprika in it), needs a bit of work.

Now that I am back in NYC, city of culinary diversity, I am trying to make up for all the greens and spices I had to do without while abroad. That means honey crisp apples and juicy pears, carrot ginger soup, grilled sweet corn, and french green beans (steamed and then tossed in olive oil and a Provençal spice mix--I like the combination of rosemary, thyme, tarragon, basil, fennel, and lavender). I even have a mind to whip up some cauliflower tomorrow.

Yet fruits and veggies alone do not a complete meal make. You need to have a "protein," something that will stick to your ribs. I think a good stir-fry with tofu served over rice is a great way to have a complete vegetarian meal. It is quick and easy to make and even Vronsky, an avowed tofu-hater, will eat this:

You need extra firm tofu, half an onion, 1-2 red peppers, 1-2 yellow or orange peppers, celery, snow peas, and cashews.

Before you start prepping your veggies, put your rice in your rice cooker so it will be ready by the time your stir fry is done.

Slice onions and peppers to your preference of thickness. I actually like them on the thicker ends of things. Chop celery and cut tofu into bite-sized cubes.

Heat pan with olive oil, until it starts to steam. Put in tofu and onions first, as they take longer to cook. Once in pan, toss with soy sauce so that tofu will brown up nicely.

Once onions begin to turn clear, put in celery, snow peas, peppers, toss in a bit more soy sauce and continue to toss until everything cooks and you get that nice stir-fry flavor.

At the last second, toss in the cashews. Take rice out of cooker, plate, and then put your stir-fry on top. Easy squeezy, and a good meal for groups!

[You can add other vegetables to this mix as well--broccoli diced up into florets is really nice, as are button mushrooms or even some shaved carrots. A good way to deal with leftovers that might no longer be crisp enough for salads]

I've also had a few requests for a good mushroom recipe. Will post my favorite one for portobellos tomorrow!

Auf wiedersehen!

2009-10-11T20:55:00.006-04:00

I am off to Germany for work all through the week and won't be posting. Instead, I will be busy hob-nobbing with other literary types at the Frankfurt Book Fair and harassing our foreign agents to get us more deals. I really want our Brazilian agents to help make one of Pegasus' books a best seller there, and then I can go to Rio. It's going to happen! (Even if only in my mind).

Frankfurt is not my ideal Germanic destination (I would much prefer Munich or Berlin), but it's a fun town and all the fair-goers congregate at this stunning belle epoque hotel, "The Frankfurter Hof" for champagne, beer, and more schmoozing. Two years ago at this same event, I was propositioned by a German millionaire and a Knight of the Holy Grail (no joke–he had a crest and everything; apparently the holy grail now resides in Valencia, Spain. Who knew?). They were, of course, both looking to publish their respective books.

Last year, I stuck close to Pegasus' French agent, the ever elegant Michele, who is one of the grand dames of the international publishing scene. She can go anywhere in the world and when greeted, she extends her hand palm down to be kissed. Baller. Needless to say, she was very good and shooting a scathing side eye to any lurking declassé folks looking to interrupt our reverie.

I will drink plenty of good beer and eat lots of delicious sausage, schnitzel, saurkraut, and pastries while I am away and regale you with tales of the various meals that contributed to the nice little flotation ring I will be returning to America with.

Auf widersehen!

The greatest deli on earth...in the mail!

2009-10-10T20:00:00.005-04:00

I know I have mentioned Zingerman's Deli before, but to reiterate, it is one of my favorite restaurants, no, one of my favorite places, in the entire world.

It is a bold claim, but if you are ever in Ann Arbor, Michigan, make sure you stop by. You will not regret it. My friend Mike may have introduced me to Spanish food, but I feel he owes me one now too for insisting he try Zingerman's the minute he set foot on the Michigan campus for grad school.

Zingerman's is not just a delicatessen, it is an experience. Every type of bread, every make of salami, coffee blend, sauce, vinegars, chicken breast, farmhouse cheese, estate-bottled olive oil, and tomato is chosen and/or created by Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig for freshness and flavor, and it pays off, with FOOD & WINE selecting it as one of the "Top 25 Food Markets" in the entire world. Yowza.

The have a wide array of custom sandwiches and other deli fare–you can view the full menu on their website (it is like food porn to me). I maintain that their best sandwich is the #11, J. J.'s Pastrami Special, which is Zingerman's own pastrami on grilled rye bread with Swiss cheese from Switzerland and roasted onions. Add spicy mustard to taste. As is the case with my mother's spaghetti sauce, I have a hard time eating pastrami sandwiches any place else, although the Astro Diner on 6th and 56th is quite nice. I do have to request the onions, however--that does not come standard, and just the level of the ingredients is not quite the same.

Pastrami sandwiches (and really, all sandwiches) from any place else in the world also do not come with Zingerman's coveted "new pickle," which I now happily have a stash of in my fridge, thanks to the aforementioned Pickle Day here in NYC.

My father loves Zingerman's even more than I do. He had just graduated from Michigan's law school when it opened in 1982 and was clerking with judge in Bay City. He always made time for little weekend visits to Ann Arbor to stock up on breads, cheeses, meats, and other goodies from Zingerman's, and I am sure his visits only increased in frequency when my mom became pregnant with me and embraced all the accompanying cravings. Every year we journey to the shores of beautiful Lake Walloon up in the northern part of the state, and my parents insist we spend a few days in Ann Arbor prior. I know it is partly because they enjoy visiting their old alma matter where they met (my dad likes to point out the little bench in the law quad where he and my mom would have lunch between classes, aw), but I have a sneaking suspicion it is also so they can fill up on Zingerman's food.

Today, however, I can satisfy my Zingerman's joneses with their mail-order program. While I also have the wide array of gourmet food shops in NYC at my disposal, the prices through this mail order are very fair, and as my schedule grows increasingly hectic this fall, I have less time to spend hours poking around foodie shops. The mail-order catalog cannot provide me with my beloved sandwiches, but it can provide me with artisan cheeses from around the world, custom blended cocoa mixes, wild honey, coffee and tea, Great Lakes chesire, beautiful breads, and more. You can even order "Zingerman's Big Box of Meat." I mean, if that does not convince you that this place is money, I don't know what will.

Visit www.zingermans.com to satisfy your every gastronomical whim.

An Alphabet for Gourmets

2009-10-06T10:57:00.008-04:00

Monday was a sad day. Hot off the heels of Pickle Day, I heard some crushing news: Gourmet Magazine was closed by Condé Nast in light the magazine empire's continuing financial struggles.

Working in publishing, I truly do understand the delicate financial situation and tough business model inherent to the business. That said, I loved Gourmet. Not only was the incredible Ruth Reichl at the helm as editor in chief (former food critic of the New York Times and author of excellent books like Garlic and Sapphires and Comfort Me With Apples), but Gourmet was one of the few places left that published true food writing in the style of M.F.K. and other greats alongside more standard fare like recipes and critiques and chef profiles.

M.F.K. Fisher wrote for Gourmet for many years, and one of my favorite pieces of hers that was published in the magazine was the series "An Alphabet for Gourmets." Perhaps someday I will do a mini-series running through the alphabet on my own, but for the moment, her choice for the letter "A" resonated with me, and is perhaps my favorite "letter" in the series.

A is for Dining Alone.

It is clear from so many of M.F.K.'s writings that she loves sharing the pleasure of a good meal with those she cares about, whether she cooks it herself or is in the company of "another" at a restaurant. Yet as she progresses in her career and becomes increasingly well-known, she finds herself in a lonely position atop a culinary pedestal. Friends who would normally invite her over for dinner now no longer do so, and excuse themselves by saying that they simply wouldn't dare cook for her. And dinning out with company becomes an increasingly stilted affair, as the "other" feel inclined to critique and analyze every nuance of her reactions to the food, what she orders, how she sits, to the point that she must reconcile herself with dining alone.

Dining alone is a tough thing. And I am not talking about eating off your knees in front of the television and shielding yourself from your "alone-ness" with the appearance of busyness, be it with the TV on, tidying up, or even eating on the go. Not this does not have a time and place, but this is not "dining" to M.F.K. It is merely eating to live, and she is someone who has always, in true gourmet fashion, lived to eat.

Dining alone means relishing your meal while enjoying the company of ones own self and the passel of thoughts and musings residing just below the surface of the mind. This can be quite intimidating. Not to mention all of the perceived social stigma that accompanies a person dining alone. Often, the sight of a lone diner evokes pity, when it really should evoke admiration that someone is so secure in themselves that they can go out and enjoy a good meal and their own company.

As Fisher herself says in her essay:

'“Never be daunted in public,” was an early Hemingway phrase which had more than once bolstered me in my Timid Twenties. I changed it now: “Never be daunted in private,” I said resolutely…"

It is a good mantra, and over the past few years, I have increasingly come to enjoy dining alone, although admittedly I sometimes still hide behind the "shield of busyness" and bring along a manuscript I am editing, book, or magazine to ward off any advances or interruptions to my solitude. I have come to find that when I am stressed, confused, or have the blues, a glass of wine and a hot meal at a nearby bistro is just the thing I need to sort myself out. That feeling of being alone in a crowd is the perfect setting for self and gastronomical reflection, and while I still prefer the company of another, there is something to be said for never being daunted in private.

Happy International Pickle Day!

2009-10-04T14:47:00.003-04:00

Today is international pickle day. I love pickles, so I am actually headed down to the Lower East Side where pickle lovers and vendors from around the world will be congregating, at least until 4:30. Apparently there are not only people dressed as pickles, but music and all sorts of fun and games. Should be a grand time.

I love sweet pickles, which are harder to find than regular dill ones. The best pickles I have ever had are the "new pickles" from Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor. I hope they have a booth so I can stock up...

Pickle is also just a funny word. Pickle, pickle, pickle.

UPDATE: I am totally going to Pickle Day next year and recommend you do, too. Not only was it a hilarious pickle-themed afternoon, but they totally DID have my favorite kind of pickle, and so I have bought a giant tub of them. I even found a new "new pickle" maker (does a person who makes pickles call themselves a "pickler?) here in NYC so I don't have to worry about finding a way to get them from Ann Arbor to here. The Zingerman's new pickles are still the best, though, but the ones from Garden of Eden and 2nd Ave. Deli are an excellent alternative as well.

Babbo is my new sweet baboo

2009-10-02T09:35:00.007-04:00

On Tuesday, Vronsky and I went to dinner at Babbo with a friend of ours to "pay him back" for writing an introduction to one of Vronsky's books. This was much nicer than paying him a real advance, as we also got to partake. I will say, however, it was probably about as expensive in the end.

But you know what? That's just fine, because Babbo is a New York culinary landmark, and I have been fascinated by Mario Battali's work ever since reading Bill Buford's fantastic book Heat years ago. I know I've mentioned this book before, but here it is again. Buford, formerly of the New Yorker and founder of Granta Books, quit his gem of a job at the magazine (!) and goes to work in Battali's kitchen at Babbo. There are no shortcuts on the New York food scene, and Bill starts out as a "kitchen slave" chopping vegetables and taking out the garbage, slowly working his way up to line and pasta cook, which is no small feat. He then travels to Tuscany and "interns" with a Tuscan butcher and learns the ancient tradition of Tuscan cooking. In fact, even the use of cutlery originated in Tuscany and spread to the rest of Europe when one of the de Medicis traveled to France and took forks and a whole new way of preparing food with her.

It was in this region that Battali (and Buford) hand-roll pasta on oak boards, using no water, just the egg of a wild chicken, which is so rich that the yolk is almost red compared with the commercially farmed eggs we are used to. They learn how to make their own salumi and prepare sweet breads and cheeses. The entire process has such a delicious lyricism to it, and Buford's description of all this wonderful food made my stomach grumble.

Needless to say, I had constructed quite a fantasy as to what to expect when I finally had the chance to dine at Battali's flagship, the mecca of his vision. I am pleased to say, it lived up to its expectation and more!

The three of us decided to be super decadent and ordered the tasting menu with wine pairing.

First up, was duck bresola with parmigiana and aceto manodori, which is essnetially duck bacon and a sort of Parmesan cheese custard on the side. Divine. I wish I could have duck bacon instead of regular bacon for the rest of my life. No exaggeration.

Next up was parpardelle with chanterelle mushrooms and thyme. Here is where that hand-rolled pasta comes into play. It is so smooth and has such a velvety texture, it complemented the flavor of the mushrooms perfectly. Vronsky doesn't really like mushrooms, and I love them, so I got double the pleasure!

Then we got duck tortellini with sugo frito, which is a fresh tomato based sauce. It was incredibley rich and I am glad we only had a few squares, as I wanted to make sure I saved room for what came next: pork tenderloin with pumpkin fregula and a black truffle vinaigrette. Whoo wee did they save the best for last.

The pork was perfectly seared–juicy and flavorful with a tiny bit of awesome chew gristle on the end. And the fregula was light and airy in texture which contrasted nicely with the earthy flavors of the pumpkin and truffles. I really wished there was more of this dish, and hope it is still on the menu when I go back so I can order it as a full entree.

Next came the cheese course, which was goat brie with fennel honey. I love any and all cheeses, and this one was excellent, especially with the fennel honey. I should learn how to make it or at least where to buy it so I can eat all my cheese with it in the future. I even ate half of Vronsky's cheese when he went to the bathroom, oops.

And THEN we had dessert. Three of them. First was a gelo alla siciliana, which was essentially a cold watermelon puree that was unlike anything I had ever eaten before. It was a odd cross between a smoothie and a gelato, and I loved it.

Next came a chocolate tartufino, which was heaven for Vronsky, a chocolate lover, but I preferred our final dessert, the sweet plum belizia with cinnamon fior di latte. I adore fruit-based desserts, and this one was excellent. Plus, cinnamon makes anything better.

By this point, the three of us are so stuffed that we can barely get up out of our seats. We had planned to order some celebratory glasses of prosseco, but I had no room in my belly by that point. Thank the lord I was wearing a dress and not pants or even a skirt without enough give. If only someone would design a stylish skirt or trousers with an elastic waist, I would buy it in a heartbeat and reserve it for all Babbo dining adventures. Fancy!

Visit http://www.babbonyc.com/ for reservation information. It takes forever to get through to someone and you have to plan a month out, but it is well worth it. Hit the phones!