Three Little Truffle Pigs

Best. Comfort. Food. Ever.

2009-10-24T15:51:00.001-07:00

Okay, while it's certainly not for everyone, the Tea Lounge (in Park Slope) has a sandwich that could really cure the meanest of my mean reds: Nutella, Peanut-butter, and Banana. Its taste brings me back to those magical afterschool hours when I was in elementary school, home alone, watching cartoons, and creating incredible fatty-salty-sweet-carby concoctions from anything I could find in the pantry. But, unlike my cold PB, Banana, Fluff, Hersey's syrup, and rice krispies sandwiches of yore, the Tea Lounge tastiness is actually grilled to goey perfection. Sometimes it's good being a grownup!

Leek Curry with Tofu and Thai Basil

2009-09-30T06:26:00.001-07:00

Having barely made an impact on my oversized Thai basil bunch with the winter squash soup, I tried to use up a little more of it and cook up some leeks sitting around since last week's csa haul.

Like most "recipes" I share on this blog, this is dead simple. Sauté some clean, chopped leeks and green pepper strips in a pan with sesame oil, butter, and olive oil (one by itself would, of course, do) and stir in some green curry. Once caramelized, add in coconut milk until it looks like a dish you might order in a Thai restaurant. Throw in some Thai basil leaves to steep while you brown up some tofu. Mix the tofu in with the curry and serve with rice, garnished with purple basil flowers.

Winter Squash and Thai Basil Soup

2009-09-29T19:48:00.001-07:00

A ridiculously large bunch of Thai Basil (with lovely purple flowers) arrived with my CSA take today. I was pretty clueless about what to do with it until I thought about the two types of winter squash which came in today, too, and remembered a pumpkin curry from Busaba Eathai in London.

I sautéed some garlic and shallots in sesame oil, butter, and olive oil, stirring in some green curry paste after a minute or so. I then coated a couple pounds of cubed squash in the mixture and then poured in enough veggie stock to cover it. Then I covered it (and simmered). After the squash was fork tender, I simmered for another 5 min and then got the boat motor going. I salted to taste and blended in some of the Thai basil.

Can't wait for tomorrow's leftovers!

(Pureed) Purple Pepper Pesto Pasta (with Spinach)

2009-09-23T12:56:00.001-07:00

Okay, it's official: call me an infomercial but I am using my oven about 80% less frequently now that I have the NüWave. To get my oven to preheat to 450 for some veggie roasting takes over half an hour--in that time I can have the thing roasted and done in my crazy space-age appliance. Case(s) in point: the garlic and island purple peppers I roasted perfectly in about 12 minutes. After roasting, I tossed the peppers and a few cloves into the food processor and processed with some olive oil. I let that sit for a bit as I cooked up some linguini and sautéed some shallots, spinach, and the rest of the cloves. I scooped the pesto into the sauté pan and added starchy pasta water until the conistency was right. Stirred in the pasta over heat and microplaned some Parmesan. The texture was practically like an alfredo but the only dairy was the sprinkling of cheese; it was just the way the pesto coated the pasta that felt so decadent. And talk about nutritional value! This dish for two used a full head of garlic, 4 medium-sized peppers, and a big ol' bunch of spinach!

Cheatsy Peach Pancakes

2009-09-05T15:56:00.001-07:00

After pulling out all the stops for a homemade poached eggs florentine (okay okay: I used storebought English muffins!) on Friday, I decided to let my kitchen tools and my pantry do all the work for this morning's peach pancakes.

it all starts with an Aunt Jemima powdered pancake mix. Soooo easy, and to make them taste (almost) as good as homemade, I stir in some (wild berry and ginger) preserves. Meanwhile back at the ranch, or, in this case, my Nü Wave oven (don't judge, dude), I have some maple sausages (making a return cameo) browning perfectly alongside ramekins of diced white peaches (unripe is fine!), microplane'd ginger, brown sugar, and butter. When the flapjacks are ready, I drench them in the perfectly jammy "baked" peach sauce and serve alongside the crunchy juicy sweet savoury (humanely raised!) pork sausages.

No syrup needed, even for a stroope hound like me!

The Bombay: Flex Mussels

2009-09-05T11:53:00.001-07:00

With shellfish so succulent you can easily forgive the punny name, Flex Mussels on 82nd and 3rd boasts over 20 moules-frites concoctions and about 5 oysters on the half shell, including one which is an exclusive. The oysters (roughly $3 each) aligned perfectly with the menu's tasting notes and were easily the best I have ever had. Ditto the full & meaty mussels which, a la The Bombay ($19, pictured above, after K and I had gorged for quite some time) come bathed in a white wine, mango, curry, star anise, and cinnamon sauce. Suh-blime.

Dont miss the homemade donuts (4 for $9) on the dessert menu, especially the wild blueberry!

(The place can get quite loud and the service a little sluggish when busy, so I recommend popping in after 10pm)

sweet potato gnocchi with brown butter sage, maple sausage, raisins, and spinach

2009-09-05T11:17:00.001-07:00

Confession: I didn't make the gnocchi from scratch, nor did I make the unfathomably delicious maple sausage (which came from one of my CSA's neighbouring farms). What I did do, however, is have the good sense to brown up the sausage, remove it from the pan, deglaze with butter, brown up some sage, sauté some spinach (with a few healthy cracks of nutmeg), throw in some rehydrated raisins, boil up the gnocchi, spoon some of the starchy water into the sauce pan, throw the sausage back in, stir in the drained gnocchi, and coat the whole thing in fresh Parmesan.

(One other confession: this recipe was ripped off from the rather excellent Vespa (on 84th & 2nd) which has a similar sweet potato raviolacci with raisins.)

Vitaorganic: a London restorative for your body (and your wallet)

2009-08-09T10:20:00.001-07:00

Though my interest in photographing the food certainly raised a few eyebrows, and my revelation that I was not a vegetarian raised a few more, I hope the staff and owners of Soho's Vitaorganic (on wardour street) will be flattered that I devoted two of this trip's five London meals to their delicious (and deliciously low-priced) "nutrition revolution."

Vitaorganic offers a smorgasbord of organic vegan and vegetarian cold and hot dishes, many featuring raw and/or live ingredients and all without a trace of processed flours, sugars, etc. They also have a dizzying number of hot and cold beverages from smoothies to lattes to lassis to juices to soft drinks, with ingredients like carob, barley, rose hip, ginger, and their living "mylk." If I've made this all sound like the backroom of a health food store, that only tells one half of the story: sure, this is healthy food, but it will also satisfy your inner-gourmand: a chef's care has most certainly gone into these exotic yet comforting flavor fusions, and the texture pairings and bright, vibrant colors thrill the other senses.

If you take your "nutrition revolution" to go, a satisfying meal for two plus fancy drinks comes to about £8, a terrific deal in an expensive city. There's even a tranquil little church a block away!

is it wrong to eat duck eggs in front of a duck pond?

2009-08-09T03:33:00.001-07:00

any of this blog's readers know that I have, over the last two years, been evolving and refining my relationship to meat as a cook, as a consumer, and as an eater. though I didn't get a chance to try alain passard'd michelin-starred vegetarian cuisine in Paris (as it costs $170 per person), I was moved by his frustration "trying to have a creative relationship with a corpse."

and yet: I love the taste of meat when it is one part of a brilliantly prepared meal. i do, however, grow increasingly uncomfortable when I don't know the sourcing or the ethics of the meat's origin.

it is, therefore, always thrilling to come to London, where they take these issues very seriously. enter: inn the park, an incredible breakfast spot nestled in st James park and overlooking the duck pond. their menu lists the source of every ingredient and all of these sources are local farms with ethical practices. nothing tastier than ethics!

I had the above English breakfast with duck eggs, black pudding, massive (and perfectly-cooked) whole mushroom and tomato, baked beans, a tattie scone (need to figure out what this is besides delicious), unsmoked bacon back, and the piece de resistance, sage sausage with smoked bacon IN it.

So, while I struggle to figure out what relationship to meat will make me (and the world and the animals) as happy as possible, it's lovely to know that places like Inn the Park are around, making sure omnivores (ambivalent and otherwise) can make healthy, ethical, and environmentally responsible choices.

abannach in trafalgar square

2009-08-09T03:23:00.001-07:00

abannach is a very special place. it's one of the slickest lounges I've ever set foot in with a killer playlist (or DJ, not quite sure), but they didn't even glance at my footwear to see if I was up-to-snuff (I was not). they serve the finest scotch in the world (with prices going up to $500 a shot for a 1960 laphroaig), but my lovely scotch (their peatiest offering, as per my request) and k's gorgeous cocktail (the london pride, pictured above) came to just over $20. oh, and they serve hagis. oh, and the sharp waiters and mixologists wear kilts.

it's at 66 trafalgar square in London, and if you'll be going during dinner hour, be sure to google for the "50% off" coupons scattered around the web.

and this was dessert: the carre d'or

2009-08-09T03:22:00.003-07:00

dark chocolate mouse spiked with mariage freres' decadent black magic tea, with layers of salted butter caramel and chocolate biscuit, all enveloped in gold leaf and sumptuously resting in a pool of tart red currant coulis.it's an unfathomably sensual experience just watching your fork cut through this gorgeous composition...and then the taste! my goodness that shouldn't be legal.

mariage freres has various locations throughout Paris, but my fave is the one on tiny bourg tibourg in the marais.

mariage freres iced teas

2009-08-09T03:22:00.001-07:00

I've lost all hope of ever blogging the early July recipes I cooked in New York and I'm now just doing my darndest to catch up on Paris before I leave London for India (where I imagine I'll be quite the busy glutton).

k and I had resolved to spend one of our last Paris lunches at la maison de la truffe. a Madeleine-area truffle specialist I'd been hoping to try for 7 years. But: it's August so...no dice. After walking about 3 miles on Paris' hottest day we were desperate for food, drink, and sanctuary.

We returned to our perennial marais refuge, the extraordinary tea salon, mariage freres. We ordered iced teas bigger than our heads (smoky Earl Grey and a jasmine green). The teas are served with liquid sugar and paper straws (so the tea's flavor isn't harmed by plastic).

I can't imagine being more refreshed.

it's a pizza. in a cone!!!

2009-08-03T07:48:00.001-07:00

I was strolling around rue d'assas and just at the corner of rue du Rennes, I discovered an adorable (and as yet unlisted) bar a manger named PG's. they specialize in playful fast food like "pasta in a box" and the above pictured "pizza in a cone." my selection, the $7 rennes d'assas (I was rewarded with a free tasty bluberry mini-muffin when I guessed where it got its name!), had artichoke hearts, country ham, tomato sauce, and two different types of cheese.

it definitely tasted like a pizza, and a good one at that, though the crust was a little thick for my TMJ-riddled jaw. best part of all, since you can one-hand these "slices," I was able to continue biking on the velib you can just make out in the background of my photo. talk about fast food!!!

macrobiotic magic @ grand apetit

2009-07-28T08:23:00.001-07:00

even though I'm still more than 3 posts behind on some great early July meals and recipes, I needed to post a mention for the delightful vegan macrobiotic food I had the pleasure of eating last night.

grand apetite may be light on the decor (and the salt!) but it more than makes up for this with a hearty and healthy meal at a price tag you'll hardly notice, even when the dollar is getting its (green)backside kicked raw by the euro.

while the menu offers a number of options, it seems to make to most sense to pick either the tart or the assiette, both just over 10 euros with all-you-can-drink heavenly herbal tea. the assiette, pictured above, comes with two different grains (I went for couscous and the croquette), three or four little salads, some cooked veggies, some hijiki seaweed, and some tofu. after you order and pay, you go find a table...which you set yourself! in a city filled with fois gras and frites, it was a terrific treat to hunker down with some whole grains for a little while...

the restaurant is a couple of blocks away from the Bastille, located at 9 rue de la cerisaie.

(oh, and, apologies for all the weird lower-case in recent posts; my de facto iPhone blogging app eliminated autocaps and I'm apparently just too lazy to hold the shift key.)

When life gives you currants (and lots of them!)...

2009-07-16T17:03:00.003-07:00

...make Mint Currant juice. I destemmed and food processed a pint of red currants and a pint of their white cousins with a handful of mint, half cup of water, and squeeze or three of honey. I strained the resulting pulp, served over ice, and smiled.

Phillipino Pheast @ Elvie's Turo Turo

2009-07-16T17:03:00.001-07:00

I checked out this East Village Philipino restaurant (13th & 1st) on Monday. I had never sampled the culinary delights of the Phillipines, but the helpful folks behind the counter (and the perhaps even more helpful clientele) showed me what to order and how to eat it while only making a slight fool of myself.

grilled fig stuffed with goat cheese, truffle honey, black pepper, and mint

2009-07-10T12:39:00.001-07:00

why are you reading this? the entire recipe for this amuse bouche (or savory dessert) is in the title of this blog post. so: go make it. now. fresh figs aren't in season forever you know!

raw zucchini "linguini" with ragu crudo

2009-07-08T22:34:00.001-07:00

okay, folks: dust off your mandolin slicer and julienne your zucchini (sounds so racy, doesn't it?). salt it and set aside. next, put 3 or 4 chopped tomatoes in a food processor along with a tiny handful of chopped red onions, a couple cloves of garlic, a few slices of jalapeño, three or four basil leaves, and a glug or two of high quality olive oil. salt and pepper to taste and serve with fresh parmesan.

Seared lamb chops with a ginger lavender mint black currant sauce

2009-07-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

The CSA newsletter said the black currants were probably too tart unless you cooked them so that was all the encouragement I needed to turn them into a sauce to drizzle over some CSA lamb chops. First, the sauce: melt some buttter in a small sauce pan and sweat some shallots. Shave some ginger into the sweating aromatics. Pour in the pint of (destemmed) currants and stir, lowering heat a bit. Drizzle in some honey (I think I did about two tablespoons in total) until the tartness is bearable. Stir in about 1/3 cup of mint, a tablespoon of lavender buds, and a dash of white pepper. Salt to taste and keep it over low heat until the consistency starts to thicken up. I marinated the lamb in black mulberry vinegar, olive oil, wildberry ginger preserves, salt, and pepper for about 2 hours, and then I slid it under the broiler for about 10 minutes in total (reserve any cooking juices to stir back into the sauce). For the oh-so-fancy presentation, lay the lamb on a bed of the fruit sauce, drizzle a little bit on top, and then sprinkle some mint leaves around for garnish.

tossed salad in a raddicio cup

2009-07-08T07:49:00.001-07:00

take a big ol' raddicio leaf and lay it out on a plate. scoop some goat cheese on it and drizzle a li'l honey over the cheese. in a seperate bowl, mix chopped raddicio with chopped tomatoes, cucumber, and red onion. make a quick dressing with tarragon vinegar, olive oil, chopped summer savory, and honey and toss the salad with the vinaigrette. scoop a mound of the salad on top of the raddicio bowl. garnish with a sprig of savory and be slightly disappointed that the color contrast is not ideal and plan to use a green leaf lettuce or frisee next time.

Garlic Scape Pesto

2009-07-07T19:55:00.001-07:00

If you have leftover scape from your CSA shares or trips to the farmer's market, toss them in a food processor with some toasted walnuts, anf Parmesan, drizzling olive oil in until the consistency is right for you. Salt. Pepper. (And when you mix it with your pasta, stir in some of the starchy pasta water.)

the summer squash is here: week 5 of the csa

2009-07-07T14:54:00.001-07:00

AND we got our first fruit shares today, too: black currants and two types of cherries

Iced Hibiscus Tea with Mint: The taste of summer

2009-07-07T13:00:00.001-07:00

Fill a sauce pot up with water. Drop in 5 hibiscus rose hip tea bags and let simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in some honey to taste. Chop up about 2 cups of mint and place in a sturdy glass pitcher. Pour the still hot tea over the mint. Refrigerate until chilled then serve over ice, garnished with fresh mint. Build a patio to enjoy it on.

Miso Braised Bok Choi & Shiitake Mushrooms

2009-06-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

CSA season means lots of Asian greens. I have a feeling this isn't the last ginormous head of bok choi I'll be seeing this month. Using some dried shiitake mushrooms, I doctored the below recipe by substituting the reserved mushroom juices for the chicken stock. I also used those juices to cook up some quinoa to serve on the side:

3/4 pound large shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
3 small heads bok choy, rinsed and chopped
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons peanut oil
1 tablespoon red miso paste
2 tablespoons low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup water
freshly ground black pepper

1. Brush or wipe away any dirt from the shiitakes. Remove and discard the stems. Cut the mushrooms into thick slices (in half for smaller mushrooms, thirds for larger mushrooms). Cut the leaves of the bok choy away from the stems. Wash both well.

2. Heat the butter and peanut oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the miso paste and chicken broth together until smooth. When the butter melts and browns slightly, add the mushrooms. Leave them alone to brown on the first side, 2-4 minutes.

3. Add the miso and broth mixture to the mushrooms and stir. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms absorb the miso and most of the liquid evaporates, 3-5 minutes.

4. Add the bok choy and 1/2 cup water and stir. Cover and cook, stirring once or twice, until the mushrooms are soft and the bok choy is tender but still bright green, 4-6 minutes. Remove the cover to let any remaining liquid evaporate. Season generously with fresh ground black pepper.

Herring Festival @ Grand Central's Oyster Bar

2009-06-18T12:06:00.001-07:00

It's an annual tradition at the lovely Grand Central Oyster Bar: the arrival of tasty Dutch herring. A twenty-spot buys you the above herring filet with all the trimmings, a glass of Dutch gin (which drinks more like a grappa), and tax/tip. It's too late to go to the festival, but the herring (at the above prices) will continue to be on the menu for awhile. While you're there, be sure to try a few tattamagouche ersters--my fave!

Elk Chili with Macaroni

2009-06-16T21:09:00.001-07:00

Recipe stolen from a user at All Recipes: (all I added was tomato paste, smoked paprika, and macaroni. Oh, and the photo is of my own version!)

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds ground elk meat

2 large yellow onions, diced

2 (10 ounce) cans tomato sauce

1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes

1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained

1 (4 ounce) can diced green chiles (optional)

1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 cup brown sugar

DIRECTIONS

In a large deep skillet over medium heat, cook the ground elk with the onion until evenly browned. Drain off excess grease.

Pour the tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, kidney beans and green chilies into the skillet with the meat, and stir to blend. Season with chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, oregano and brown sugar. Cover, and simmer over low heat for at least one hour.

Sweet & Spicy Salad

2009-06-11T13:16:00.003-07:00

Ah, the first veggie delivery from my CSA! Along with some rhubarb that I transformed into Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp and some sage that became Gnocchi with Brown Butter, Fried Sage, and Morels, this week's delivery featured quite a few items with bite: arugula, mizuna (a fern-like spicy green), and radishes. I figured that they would pair nicely with some sweetness, so I chopped these spicy veggies into a salad together, roasted up some pears (oven at 450 for 30 min), caramelized some onions (oven at 450 for 10) and walnuts (toasted in my cast iron with some white sugar), shaved some parmesan, shook up a pistachio honey vinaigrette (with pistachio oil, honey, lemon juice, cider vinegar, shallots, dijon, salt, and black pepper), and garnished with the purple sage flowers.

Chilled Spicy Watermelon Soup with Crab Meat

2009-06-11T13:16:00.001-07:00

Sweet, simple, spicy, and delicious. K came home with a watermelon the other day and, after tasting some delectable watermelon dishes which paired the sweet fruit with savory fare, I concocted a chilled summer shellfish soup. Here's the (non)recipe:

Cut up enough watermelon to fit in a normal sized food processor. Process.
Sweat some garlic, shallots, lemongrass, jalepenos, and ginger (I use my microplane with frozen ginger to keep things simple).
Dump the pureed watermelon into the pot. Throw in some salt, black pepper, and cilantro, with some extra jalapeno to taste.
Whip out your immersion blender. Immerse. Blend.
Chill the new puree (or, if you like, strain it first)
Form a mound of lump crabmeat (I use high quality canned claw meat) in the center of the bowl, slice some more jalepenos on top, and gently pour the chilled soup around the shellfish.

Savour: Steamed Calamari stuffed with black rice, caviar, seaweed salad, and miso

2009-05-23T19:53:00.001-07:00

Blogging on the road from Charlottesville, VA, where K's fam and I dined at the excellent Savour. The chef-owner offers a very reasonable 3-course $30 pris fixe with clever flavor combinations, satisfying portions, and dazzling presentation. He even personally visited our table before our order to answer any questions, eager to accomodate any special requests and/or dietary needs.

I had a lovely meal, but the highlight was most definitely the above pictured calamari appetizer (which they call "bites"). The calamari was so delicately steamed it was practically creamy, stuffed with a savory and moist black risotto, topped with a dab of flying fish roe, all atop a bed of seaweed salad and gently dressed with a buttery white miso. Quite memorable!

After dinner, the chef came round again to send us each home with bags full of the day's leftover freshly baked (and still warm) bread. I highly recommend Savour to anyone in the Charlottesville area.

Tengda: Spiced Green tea rubbed salmon

2009-05-22T13:51:00.001-07:00

Took my mother out to dinner at Tengda (Field Point Rd in Greenwich, CT) for a belated Mother's Day dinner. It's a (pricey) pan-Asian chain with an excellent sushi bar. My sister really enjoyed her two spicy crunchy rolls and my mom ordered a very delicate and perfectly flaky Chilean sea bass bathing in chunky red miso.

My green tea rubbed salmon (pictured above) was tasty and flavorful, cooked just a hair past my preferred doneness. I was, however, perplexed by the overabundance of foam smothering the well-spiced fish. It was my first encounter with this hip culinary trend, and I sincerely hope this "whimsical" fad goes the way of fondue. The accompanying edamame and lobster mashed potatoes were fine, though my jury is still out on the textural repercussions of burying chunks of well-steamed lobster in a starchy mass, no matter how temptingly creamy/buttery said mass might be.

Verdict: find someone willing to pick up the tab & there's some fun to be had with Tengda's menu.

Curried Mango Quinoa and Goat Cheese Fritters w/Truffle Honey

2009-04-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

There are times when I really pat myself on the back (perhaps a little bit too enthusiastically?) for a clever innovation or inspiration in the kitchen. Tonight was one of those nights when the only thing I should congratulate myself for is having the good sense to spot two brilliant recipes and enough kitchen competence to avoid complete failure with either.

So, here are the original recipes (which featured my CSA chevre and goat's milk ginger yogurt!):

Curried Mango Quinoa (the only things I added were sauteed sweet onions. Oh, and I roasted the peanuts myself)
Goat Cheese Fritters (Bollos) over which I drizzled some truffle honey (purchased at Arthur Ave market) and served over an arugula, tomato, and red pepper salad (doused in a truffle lime vinaigratte).

Hearty and humane: Steak, homemade beer battered onion rings, and gnocchi with spinach and chevre

2009-04-21T20:40:00.001-07:00

The title pretty much says it all. Had a meat and cheese delivery from my CSA today and put a bunch of it to immediate use. The gorgeous (and completely frozen) steak was medium rare and juicy as all heck in just 25 minutes thanks to my nifty Nu-wave oven (yes it does work!). I have officially sent my decades old fry daddy out to pasture now that I see my plain ol' cast iron can turn out perfectly browned onion rings. Served the whole meal with the same Saranac Pale Ale that bubbled up the onion batter.

Vosges: rooster

2009-04-21T20:30:00.001-07:00

Did someone say chocolate ganache infused with tallegio cheese? Vosges' Katrina Markoff did and I said yes please. Vosges has multiple locations, but this truffle was acquired on Spring St in Soho.

Baked by melissa: one bite (birthday) cupcakes

2009-04-14T11:05:00.001-07:00

This darling miniature cupcake shop, baked into a tiny sliver of "store-front" on Spring st (just west of Lafayette in Soho), serves up about half a dozen diminiitive delights (3 for $3, with per pastry prices diminishing with volume). I treated myself for my 29th b-day and got the peanut-butter cup, pb&j, and red velvet (for k). Mine were perfect little peanut-buttery morsels, though they (bizarrely) tasted almost identical. I suppose peanut-butter is a little dominant as a flavor.

Bonus: these tiny treasures solve my two top cupcake complaints, frosting on my schnoz and crumblage.

Gotta go back for the S'mores!

Taste tripping with the miracle fruit?

2009-04-13T19:25:00.000-07:00

Um...does anyone know where I can get a hold on one of these:

The miracle fruit plant (Synsepalum dulcificum) produces berries that, when eaten, cause sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet. The berry, also known as miracle, magic, miraculous or flavor berry, was first documented by explorer Chevalier des Marchais who searched for many different fruits during a 1725 excursion to its native West Africa. Marchais noticed that local tribes picked the berry from shrubs and chewed it before meals. The plant grows in bushes up to 20 feet (6.1 m) high in its native habitat, but does not usually grow higher than ten feet in cultivation, and it produces two crops per year, after the end of the rainy season. It is an evergreen plant that produces small red berries, with flowers that are white and which are produced for many months of the year. The seeds are about the size of coffee beans.

The berry contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. While the exact cause for this change is unknown, one hypothesis is that the effect may be caused if miraculin works by distorting the shape of sweetness receptors "so that they become responsive to acids, instead of sugar and other sweet things". This effect lasts 15-30 minutes.

Donut Plant: peanut butter glaze and strawberry jelly

2009-04-12T14:52:00.001-07:00

After seeing a Dunkin Donuts commercial repeat at least 9 times as I watched the Mets and Yankees both lose today, I was eager for some sweet fried dough. Luckily as I was walking to a theatre to see a show, I happened to stumble upon the world famous Donut Plant (Grand St on the lower east side). I saw them best Bobby Flay in a donut throwdown last year so I am glad I had this random chance to sample the goods.

Lotsa good options. Went for the one that most closely resembled the PB&Js I hold so close to my heart. The jelly to dough ratio was kind of perfect, just moist enough that I got a nice squish with each bite, but with enough structure that the squishes didn't end up on my shirt (even though I ate it while jogging to make it on time to the theatre!).

I'll be back for more...

Anyone know how to cook these?

2009-04-08T17:25:00.001-07:00

Payard: seared scallops with blood orange

2009-04-08T08:12:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday I took my kid sister and K out to Payard (74th and Madison). We wanted to go to the nearby Buzina Pop, but they were shuttered with a sign which (rather passive aggressively) announced they were moving downtown "where they belong."

Payard is a stunning patisserie with a luxurious two-floor restaurant attached. It is also tres cher (with attentive service befitting such luxury), so we only ordered 2 entrées and ¹app to share.

The duck (w/seared breast and confit) was nicely cooked but nothing thrilling (though I was glad my sister got a chance to taste one of my favorite meats). The Chatham Cod was certainly tasty, but just not the tastebud explosion of uni -infused reduction, bacon, caviar, and black trumpet mushrooms promised by the menu.

The scallops (pictured above) were, however, even better than I could have imagined from the menu description. Perfectly seared over a bed of frisee tossed with avocado, hearts of palm, nicoise olives, blood orange slices, and a delightfully tart blood orange reduction. Too bad it was just an appetizer portion!

I was feeling too po' for dessert so we picked up a bar of Hershey's new dark chocolate with pomegranate.

I think I'd happily go back to Payard on someone else's tab or for a special occasion, but the food wasn't quite dazzling enough for me to commit that kind of cash on a regular basis...

More Arthur Ave fun: oysters @ cosenza's fish market

2009-04-07T09:40:00.001-07:00

If you have ever, like me, lusted after beautiful oysters in a fish market and grown angry that those very same oysters will cost you twice as much a restaurant, head up to Cosenza's on Arthur Ave in the Bronx. Shucked before your very eyes at $1.25 per shell, the oysters are, while a bit muddy (just the shells: use a fork and you'll be fine!), fresh and juicy as can be. The lobster-sized cooked shrimp are available with cocktail sauce for $.75 per tail. You can eat at the outside counter and chat up your shucker or you can sidle up at one of the two outside tables.

Palombo Cafe: Cappuccino perfection

2009-04-07T08:50:00.001-07:00

Go grab it and tasty cannoli and myriad other pastries in Little Calabria on Arthur Ave (@ 187th St) in the Bronx.

Busaba Eathai: fried calamari (um...WOW!)

2009-04-07T08:47:00.001-07:00

Though we enjoyed all of our meal at london's busaba eathai (see below), this appetizer (which actually arrived AFTER our main course) was one of the best dishes I have ever tasted in my life. This is not hyperbole: I giggled with delight!

The squid are melt in your mouth tender, cut into nice juicy 1" wide rings. The batter is lighter than an angel's kisses. The sauce, subtly applied, is a ginger honey concoction which, if I bathed in, might lead to autocannibalism.

The whole meal for 2, including the life-changing calamari, a cranberry presse, beer, and two dessert teas came to £33, about what I'd pay for gross and greasy Thai in NYC.

Busaba Eathai: Pad Thai

2009-04-07T08:26:00.001-07:00

Lured by what blogs said was the best Thai food outside of Thailand, K and I decided to spend our last London meal (we didn't know it would be our last but K got a stomach bug the next morning) at Busaba Eathai (yes, the last word is a conflation of Eat and Thai) on Wardour St in Soho. The line literally stretched to the end of the block, but the host (without even glancing at it) assured me that we'd be seated within 15 minutes. While we waited for about 10 minutes, we were quizzed by more than a few passersby who were trying to understand what all the fuss was about. I didn't give a good answer then but I can now: busaba eathai is a restaurant which has earned its hype.

You are seated at a communal table but, unlike our experiences in Paris, there is no expectation to socialize with your fellow diners. You receive your menu while waiting on line so a server takes your order seconds after you sit down (this + the lack of a dessert menu is how they ensure speedy turnaround). The service is indeed efficient, but it is friendly and helpful, too.

K and I ordered the pad Thai and butternut squash curry (pictures above) and fried calamari (pictured in next post). The pad Thai was delicately flavored, the usual grease replaced by an actual sensitivity to ingredient combinations. I tastes the lime, the peanuts, the grilled prawn, the fried tofu, and the crabmeat distinctly, each with their own unique texture and each cooked to perfection. Once we devoured the dish, there was nary a drop of oily residue on the plate--a great sign! The curry which we ordered with a side of addictive coconut rice was likewise near perfect. The only way to describe the texture of the squash would be to, absurdly, say it was "falling off the bone." The heat of the dish was well-balanced.

Pain, Vin, Fromage: The fromage

2009-04-01T10:04:00.001-07:00

This was the actual cheese flight we ordered (from PVF, see below). We opted for the Southwest and were treated to a nice assortment ranging from the hard and mild, to the melty and stinky, to the blue and moldy. Though I definitely enjoyed all of them, I missed the fruit and quince etc that you often get with a cheese plate (especially one that costs over $20!). Apparently they have another location which offers such sweet savory pairings, wine by the glass, and later hours. K and I will definitely check that out when we are back in July.

Pain, Vin, Fromage: La Norvegienne

2009-04-01T09:58:00.001-07:00

Now I am two countries behind on my food blogging. No good, says I! But the above sandwich was!!!

K and I heard about PVF last summer but it was closed in August. It's tucked in on a sidesteeet just east of the Pompidou museum (in Paris, off rue beauborg).

It's a cozy rustic affair with cheese flights sorted by region, hardness, and milk (goat, sheep, and cow) for 17 euros each. As the name suggests, they also have wine (though few by the glass or half-bottle) and an assortment of sandwiches toasted on the truly incomparable pain poillane sourdough.

Above was the extraordinarily decadent norvegienne with smoked salmon, double-cream brie, and creme fraiche (on a thick slice of poillane!). Like a tuna melt for hedonists! 7 euros.

Au Petit Sud Ouest: Smells like a duck, tastes like a duck...

2009-03-26T14:50:00.001-07:00

In search of Paris' best foie gras and other assorted duck-derived fare, K and I were told (by more than a few respectable few food blogs) that La Ambasadde de Sud Ouest was the place to go. Unfortunately, La Ambasadde was closed on Mondays. Fortunately, it's little brother, Au Petit Sud Ouest was open. Same hearty southwestern (we're talking France here, not fajitas) grub and the same adorable personal toaster ovens sur la table (see above).

I have (happily) had my share of cut foie gras but wanted to try something a little more adventurous. I ordered the above, fried foie gras in truffle sauce. Though I wish the truffle sauce was a little more truffled (note the name of this blog), the mild flavor and creamy texture of the foie gras itself was exceptional. I washed it all down with a sauternes, lest I be yelled at by the food snobs who insist that it is the only quaffable accompaniment to good foie gras.

For the main course, K had a cassoulet (a white-bean stew with braised duck wings and duck sausage) that could pretty much be the definition of comfort food, and I had duck with cherries. While there wasn't a zippy flavor combination or clever texture that thrilled our palettes, few meals have been so uterly pleasant as our few hours at Au Petit. The entire atmosphere, food included, is so drenched in conviviality, that you leave warm and satisfied on so many levels. Next time you find your soul needs lifting on a chilly, rainy night in Paris, step into this southwestern haven and toast yourself up some happy.

Chestnuts roasting...outside Jardin Luxembourg

2009-03-20T10:46:00.001-07:00

Chilled to the bone after spending an hour or so reading at the medici fountains, these marron chaudes were exactly what K and I needed. And the woman who scooped our chestnuts into the above bag..."her hands were black with her trade," as K noted. Such a rich sensory experience!

Parisian breakfast spread

2009-03-20T05:49:00.001-07:00

This strange, eclectic breakfast is something K and I have been having for about 7 years now, each time we come to Paris, no matter what apartment we stay in (with slight variations, of course). Pictured above is a cool glass of blood orange juice (2 euros/bottle), caviar (1 euro/jar), monstrous strawberries (1 euro/quart), half a baguette (.45 euros), camembert and chevre (2 euros for each round), nutella (3 euros a jar), and, from the organic grocer, apples, dried sausage, and fig jam (8 euros altogether). It can be very difficult to find organic apples in American grocery stores as they make a tough sell (for most consumers) next to lustrous and beautiful wax-coated red delicious; it's a great treat, therefore, to pick up a dirty organic apple (and local, to boot!) here in Paris.

Obviously, I'm not mixing the caviar and nutella together (though I have tried it: could be worse!). I tend to start with the savory options (sausage & cheese, caviar), work towards savory sweet hybrids (chevre & fig jam), and end with pure sugar (nutella & fruit). Amortized over a few days, these purchases (one needs to replenish the baguette, of course), this spread works out to about $4 per person per day. Not bad for a decadent breakfast of caviar!

Pain de Sucre: Tentation

2009-03-20T05:48:00.001-07:00

We picked up this beatiful treat (which my iThing photograph refused to do justice) at the well-known designer patisserie, Pain de Sucre (Rue Rambuteau). There you can find incredible tarts, madelines, macaroons, and even gourmet marshmallows (saffron, anyone?). What looks like a simple rasberry tart is made more complex (and mouth-watering) by a pistachio base. We also sampled a matcha mouse (filled with pineapples) over a curry crust. There are cheaper patisseries, to be sure, but few have quite this many enticing, original, and decadent indulgences.

La Goulette: Indian pastry

2009-03-18T15:38:00.001-07:00

A perfect post-soirée treat! It will only cost you a euro (and a few cavities). La Goulette is just south of the Pompidou museum (Rue de la verrerie).

Soiree @ Patricia's

2009-03-18T15:34:00.001-07:00

K and I enjoyed this simple meal of baguette, cheese tortellini, and chopped endive at one of Patricia's ex-pat soirees. These events are held every Wednesday and Sunday evening at Patricia's apartment (your donation of 15 euros per person covers Patricia's expenses). An incredibly diverse and interesting group of expats and anglophone tourists gather to chat, listen to guest speakers, and devour the various liquid and solid consumables Patricia lays out on the table. It is highly unlike K and I to willingly put ourselves in a situation wherein we must mingle with complete strangers, but the evening was quite pleasant and we certainly met a few people with whom we'd like to meet-up again. We definitely plan on returning to Patricia's in the future, hopefully on one of the nights when she has an artist or writer as the featured guest!

Neal's Yard Dairy

2009-03-17T18:37:00.001-07:00

We were surely the most unpopular passengers on the Eurostar to Paris, what with our (sealed) bag of two of the world's smelliest cheeses (one of them is actually called "Stinking Bishop"). They made an excellent midnight snack when we finally got settled in the Paris apartment (long story for tomorrow.

Be sure to check out this divine cheese shop in Covent Garden. You can taste anything in the shop, and if you're being thrifty, they'll cut a slice as small as your budget!

Free guinness!!!

2009-03-17T11:16:00.003-07:00

Meal #8 was a pint of the dark stuff, compliments of Guinness' 250th St Patty's Day!

(not the best pour, though, but grifters can't be choosers...)

Cornish pasty!

2009-03-17T11:16:00.001-07:00

Popped into the Cornish Bakehouse for our 7th meal of the day. A traditional steak pasty. The crust was like puff pastry meets buttery croissant and the steak was perfectly spiced and as tender as an osso bucco! £2.

Cadbury flake outside St Paul's

2009-03-17T11:15:00.005-07:00

Since I took about a year fishing around for fifty pence amidst a wallet filled with three currencies, the sweet vendor gave us the sweet treat for 20% off! He was very excited to share our "first time" (eating a cadbury flake) with us.

Coffee with a conscience: Monmouth Coffee Company

2009-03-17T11:15:00.003-07:00

We're tucked into a little nook in Monmouth Coffee Company (Monmouth St in Covent Garden) and drinking delicious brew as we read the 6 page menu (that also serves as mission statement and newsletter). Each coffee receives tasting notes and a paragraph describing the source and cultivation. Monmouth is dedicated to roasting sustainable fairtrade coffee from "single farms, estates, and cooperatives around the coffee growing world." They visit the source and taste the coffee on site.

I choose a cup of Na Bagak Bagak, described as fresh tobacco leaf. I adore all smokey drinks, from laphroaig scotch to lapsang suchong tea, and this Sumatran cup of joe has easily earned a place in my heart.

The sign outside The Breakfast Club

2009-03-17T11:15:00.001-07:00

Cheeky.

Breakfast club: spicy blue monday

2009-03-17T11:14:00.003-07:00

K's lips depicted here, sucking up the spicy blue Monday smoothie: a tasty blend of strawberries, blueberries, apples, and ginger. We are ginger addicts so I wouldn't call the drink "spicy," by our measure. It is. however, absolutely delicious and refreshing and tart and light and all things a good smoothie should be.

Breakfast club: the full monty

2009-03-17T11:14:00.001-07:00

Booking it down Regent St, we made it into St James park and managed to find Inn the Park with two minutes to spare before the noon cutoff when most London cafes stop serving breakfast. Unfortunately, Inn the Park stops serving at 11am. Drat!

Whipped out the ol' smartphone and googled "best English breakfasts london served all day" and landed on a time out review of Breakfast Club. They have quite a few variations on the traditional English brekkie, from more vegtastic mutations to somewhat more Americanized fare like pancakes.

The "full monty" pictured herein is two eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, mushroom, and a grilled tomato. All was scrumptious, save for the tomato which wasn't quite grilled enough for my taste. The thick brioche, lightly coated with a sheen of butter, was the perfect sponginess for yolk diving. The plate will cost you about 7 pounds. There are cheaper brekkie spots to be sure, but I ate my money's worth!

Food for thought: three fruit and cinammon cobbler

2009-03-16T15:05:00.001-07:00

This is the dessert we grabbed with our mezze (see below). It's hard to tell from the picture, but that bowl is about the size of K's head (which is, to be fair, on the small side). Happy oversized chunks of pear, plum, and apple, perfectly caramelized (none of that overcooked mush!) and just the right ratio of crumb to fruit to creme fraiche.

Food for thought: Greek mezze

2009-03-16T15:00:00.001-07:00

So it's not all sausage and mash in London town...Tonight K and I returned to what will definitely become a London haunt for us: Food For Thought (Neal Street in Covent Garden). For about $10 you get a ginormous plate of of vegan/vegetarian mass deliciousness and a dessert sized to match. The menu changes every night and they close at 8:30 (often selling out of some of their courses long before then). This fine evening we opted for the greek mezze: a baby spinach salad with roasted peppers, white bean and rosemary dip, beetroot relish, and a filo creation with butternut squash and eggplant. Feels so good to stuff oneself on veggies!

The staff is to-die-for, whistling "America" from West Side Story as they serve up tasty grub and debate whether or not they could actually fall in love with a perfect 10 who did not believe in climate change.

Don't miss this place, and be sure to stop at the cheese shop across the street for some stinky melty artisansal goodness.

Park Porker

2009-03-16T14:23:00.001-07:00

First day in London and K and I wandered around the lovely Regent's Park (where spring has definitely sprung!) as our hotel was readied. We stopped by this adorable little sausage hut, lured by the promise of happy pork. In NYC (and elsewhere in the US), K and I try to maintain a pescatarian diet (except when we can order humane meat), a (perhaps misguided) attempt to use the power of the pursestrings to push agribusiness to reform while also supporting the good guys who use humane practices. All that said, we don't know the politics of meat in London or Paris (though the former, as I have mentioned in the past, tends to have an eye toward all things sustainable/local/organic) so we let ourselves go a little more hog wild, as it were, when travelling. If you find yourself hungry in Regent's Park, do stop in here for the par porker, a tasty (but not life-changing) 4 pound (the currency, not the weight) sausage sandwich (with free cup of tea on Mondays).

Balon

2009-02-21T20:22:00.001-08:00

Seared scallops

Balon

2009-02-21T18:42:00.001-08:00

Seared wild salmon

Balon

2009-02-21T18:41:00.001-08:00

Honey roasted spicy pecans

Scrod a la Enzo

2008-12-31T19:22:00.001-08:00

Scallops on a bed of curried maple festival squash

2008-12-11T20:20:00.001-08:00

I really need to a) get a good camera and b) take a course in food photography because as I reflect back on my meals using such washed-out blurry photos I actually can't remember how good things tasted.

At any rate, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Butternut, Acord, or Festival squash
Scallops
Ginger
Sage
Nutmeg
Butter
Maple syrup
Curry powder
Mango Chutney powder

Recipe:

Grate ginger over halved squash and sprinkle curry powder, salt, & pepper. Grate nutmeg
Coat with olive oil and put sage leaves in the squash cavity
Roast for 1 hour at 400 degrees, then scoop out and puree with maple syrup and a dash of lime juice
Sprinkle mango chutney powder, salt, & pepper on scallops
Sear in butter

On a kale kick

2008-12-11T20:04:00.001-08:00

Rotini with kale, shallots, garlic, fresh chillies, (and super-secret anchovies).

You can replace the anchovies (which you dissolve into the oil first before sauteeing the shallots and garlic) with bacon, pancetta, or any other fatty goodness that will render down and give a little extra richness. I suppose if you wanted to go vegan you might even be able to brown some portabello mushrooms and deglaze with a veggie stock.

Kale with pomegranite seeds?

2008-12-10T20:51:00.001-08:00

Yep. Tasty! And looks like Christmas on a plate but my cell phone camera dulled the colors :(

Here's the "recipe":

Heat up some olive oil in a pan
Sautee some shallots and chillies
Throw in some chopped kale and make it go all wilty
Sprinkle some celery salt as you stir in some pomegranite seeds and lemon juice
Serve immediately, eat immediately, and sigh with pleasure (immediately)

Death and Co

2008-12-07T21:08:00.001-08:00

I don't normally review bars but K and I just had such bafflingly beautiful cocktails at Death and Co (6th between first and ave a). The entire place is themed like a funeral parlor complete with austere entrance, with a menu full of about 12 pages worth of original drinks, sorted by primary liquor.

K & I both opted for selections from the whiskey page. She had La Dolce Vita (right), a strong drink centered around a chamomile-infused rye, complemented by St. Germain, Campari, and Elderflower liquor. It grew on both of us as the ginormous ice-cube began to dilute. I'm a sucker for all things smokey (scotch, bbq, lox, and lapsang suchong), so I went for the Laphroaig-based Paul's Word (left) spiked with lime juice and Green Chartreuse. It was, despite the strong single-malt structure, a bit lightweight for me, but it was oh so interesting to taste the peaty backdrop of Laphroaig cut through the sweet. And our bartender Thomas: this is a man worth befriending, folks. He worked his tail off, even going so far as to taste (with a little pipette) my Paul's Word and decide it wasn't to his liking. He spilled it out and started from scratch. Wow.

So, if you're looking to contemplate your mortality while you imbibe some highly original cocktails with uber-top-shelf spirits, I definitely recommend Death and Co.

It now appears I have a hot chocolate blog

2008-12-05T10:09:00.001-08:00

At MarieBelle New York in (wait for it) New York. Ordered their Panela ($6.50). 75% chocolate!!! I didn't think that was street legal. Such a well-crafted drink feels both decadent and refreshing, equal parts dessert and restorative. And since it is served in delicate little gilded teacups in a second floor boutique over looking Madison Ave, one feels oh so uppercrust. As near to chocolate perfection as I have had, but MarieBelle has not solved the classic hot chocolate dilemma: lumping. It invariably sets in as the hot chocolate becomes less..hot. Stirring doesn't help. Maybe all hot chocolate should be ladelled into shot glasses from an auto stirring fondue pot on your table? Maybe I should just chew my lumps :)

Chocolate decadence

2008-11-29T13:25:00.001-08:00

After Friday's jaunt into Chicago, the fam and I were eager to sink into what I was told (by a few different websites) was Chicago's best hot chocolate, a Barcelona-inspired concoction at the EasyBake oven-decored Angel Food and Bakery. They were closed when we finally hunted them down on Friday, but the sign said they would return on Saturday so we made plans to do so as well.

It was worth the wait.

We ordered 4 regular-sized "Barthelona" hot chocolates which I washed down with a peanutbutter cupcake (yes the cupcake actually appeared to be less thick than our drink). The chocolate, topped with a few inches of homemade whipped-cream, was thick, rich, and dark, texturally quite stunning as a sip of chilled cream and the hot cocoa equivalent of 3 melted chocolate bars mingles in your mouth. The peanutbutter cupcake was like Haute Reeses.

I didn't finish either but it wasn't for lack of trying. The chocolate coma set in shortly after my first sip and bite, and, by the time I gave up, my eyes had started glazing over, the world-filtered through cocoa-colored glasses.

Angel Food & Bakery is located in Ravenswood and is about 15 minutes from downtown Chicago. Well worth the trip. Has anyone tried their homemade twinkies?

Lula Cafe in Chicago

2008-11-28T10:09:00.001-08:00

Lesson of the day: If you're visiting a new city, ask an aerialist what her favorite restaurant is? I asked E if she had any friends in Chicago, and a friend of hers from ART who just happens to be a Chicago-based aerialist gave me an incredible dining tip: Lula Cafe.

I can't imagine someone creating a restaurant more compatible with my food-activist philosophies and my adventurous palette. The walls are decked with gorgeous photos of farm-fresh produce and the farmers who grow them. You can probably quiz your server and ask them to source any ingredient on them menu. You'd find they're all (the ingredients, not the servers) locally grown with organic practices (it can be difficult for small farmers to actually gain organic certification) and, in the case of meats, humanely raised and slaughtered. Beyond the many many ways that supporting such establishments is absolutely vital in these days of corrupt agribusiness, I think you can actually taste the difference when such care has gone into the raw materials of your meal.

And, one quick glance at the menu makes it clear that equal care is being put into the innovative entrees that Lula offers. I started my brunch with a Black Sambal Bloody Mary: strong and spicy (in both senses of the word, both hot and flavorful). My sister M and I decided to share two of the brunch entrees:their take on Eggs Florentine (with poached eggs, hollandaise, sourdough crostini, tomato coulis, and pickled asparagus) and a fascinating squash dish (Ancho glazed sweet dumpling squash, scrambled eggs, black beans, queso blanco, and pickled brussels sprouts). The florentine was really quite perfect, offering a nice twist on a Norwegian Eggs Benedict (served with lox instead of bacon) with perfectly cooked striped bass, both flaky and savory. And while hollandaise-doused eggy brunch items can sometimes overwhelm with their richness, the pickled asparagus (pickled asparagus? yep!) cut through and complexified the palette. The squash entree was quite a flavor festival and though I'm not sure it all came together for me, I really found each individual ingredient flawless on its own.

So, all you Chicagoans and those visiting, hie thee hence to the Lula Cafe.

Super Heeb Sandwich (Russ & Daughters)

2008-11-15T21:26:00.003-08:00

Had this tasty treat at the Lower East Side legendary lox-spot, Russ & Daughters. They call it the Super Heeb. The regular (unsuper) Heeb is an oh-so-fluffy and just fishy-enough whitefish salad on a bagel schmeared with (double-whipped) horseradish creamcheese. The mild-mannered Heeb earns its cape and long johns (thereby becoming...SUPER!) with a few bounteous dollops of wasabi infused flying fish roe. Though lots of reviews have praised the Super Heeb's sinus-clearing potency, I think I've just drowned too much gefilte fish in horseradish sauce (and sushi in wasabi) to be impressed on that front. That said, it is really quite good and a nice way to introduce the smoked-fish averse to their first white-fish salad.

Oh, and did I mention that their lox are sliced so thin that if you dressed yourself in them you'd be violating public decency laws in most states?

August stinks: Pain, Vin, Fromage

2008-08-04T14:48:00.001-07:00

Missed out on what seems to be another must-eat. Ah well--gives us a reason to come back.

Les Philosophes (3/3)

2008-08-03T13:26:00.001-07:00

Foie Gras, the consolation prize. (See my below tantrum)

Les Philosophes (2/3)

2008-08-03T13:24:00.001-07:00

A watermelon, blender, and a handful of spices walk into a bar. Bartender says, "You three think you're so cool, don't you?"

Watermelon soup. Chilled. Oh. Yes.

Les Philosophes (1/3)

2008-08-03T13:21:00.001-07:00

Salade des utopistes: goat cheese, avocado, beets, tastiness.

I'd list other ingredients but they change every time. Which, I guess, is a good thing, proof that Les Philosophes is somehow responding to the availability of fresh local ingredients.

I should also mention that we did not actually eat at Les Philosophes and have not eaten on their premises yet this trip. We go to the wine bar owned by the same company, order a bottle, and hunker down in the back room , ordering food at our whim. We're so very noble (as in regal, not kind). :)

Sadness

2008-08-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

[Weep]

[Weep]

[Sniffle]

[Sniffle]

[Sob]

[Sob]

Did some research on Paris' best foie gras and I think I found it. Unfortunately (or rather tragically, devastatingly, and cosmically unjustly), it is closed until September 2nd for the holidays. Well, I will write the name here so I remember it for next year: L'Ambassade du Sud-Ouest.

:(

Lizard Lounge Brunch

2008-08-03T06:40:00.001-07:00

The vegetarian breakfast...with a side of sausage! ;)

Une Pita Grec on @ Rue de la Huchette

2008-08-03T02:59:00.001-07:00

So I've just set up SHOZU on my new iPhone which I'm hoping will increase the frequency of my blogging as I can now take a picture at a restaurant (or in my own kitchen) and have it posted immediately to this blog which a title and description. While I certainly won't have the luxury to fully indulge my writerly aspirations using the phone's on-screen keyboard, I can in the very least get a pretty photo posted with a brief description and add more later if I see fit.

And I see fit: the above pita was darn tasty. Crunch schwarma-style meat (probably a blend of lamb and turkey), a tzatziki sauce that wasn't too sweet, crisp lettuce, and well-cooked, nicely salted french fries to sop up all the juices. Washed it all down with une Fanta Citron and I was a happy. Rotund and happy. Later walked down to Ille St. Louis to see if I wanted a scoop of Berthillon icecream. I did. Quite an internal battle between the forces of good ("Try something new, like the Spiced Bread flavor."), the forces of evil ("You know you love the Caramel Butter Salt flavor...just get it!"), and the forces of very evil ("Order the Whiskey Chocolate flavor and you'll get your nightcap in at the same time!"). Good won.

Today K & I return to the Lizard Lounge's ex-pat brunch and have very exciting dinner plans. More later.

Parlez vous neerlandais?

2008-08-02T12:32:00.001-07:00

K and I haven't been very adventurous these last few couple of weeks in Paris. Which is not to say we haven't been eating very well—we have!—but we really haven't visited any place that I haven't already rounded up in previous entries on this fair city. One nice discovery, on Rue de Turenne 95, just a couple blocks from our apartment (after two nice visits in rental flats, we are finally back in the adorable apartment K's family owns), is Le Bistrot. It's a dive to be sure, but I'm not sure one can actually get more food for one's money than the 8 euro giganto-salads they sell there. Our waiter would have seemed downright hostile if he wasn't so darn amusing in his desire to stop serving us, but when dinner for three comes out to 30 euros (including beer and wine!), it's hard to complain. I ordered the Nicoise and though the waiter mocked me a bit when I asked for extra anchovies, he made sure the kitchen heaped them on and I was happily able to spear a little fishy with each forkful. K's salad featured crab, avocado, and grapefruit which is always a dandy combo.

K was a bit grudging about our trip to Amsterdam; I understand: who wants to leave Paris…ever. I tried to prepare a nice culinary itinerary to ease the transitional trauma and I think we did pretty well:

While I wanted the first of our four meals to be the Ostrich with Truffles at De Koe, I discovered with tremendous sorrow that the café, legendary with the locals, is closed for lunch. We wandered over to Wagamama, confident we would find a nice restorative meal after our 4-hour train trek. There's very little difference between the A'dam and London branches except there are some local specials and you pay in euros instead of pounds which certainly does make the whole experience go down a bit more smoothly. K sampled one of their large soup bowls, filled to the brim with prawns, tofu, vegetables, and the fish of the day, and I had a grilled Butterfish salad over rocket (with watermelon and chiles, now up there with prosciutto & melon as one of my fave flaves!). We both found it strange that "rocket" hasn't caught on in the States, that is until I just googled around and found that it is, in fact, "arugula."

Evening found us at Van Dobben, a broodje shop (broodje are basically sandwiches on buttered white bread) which is so famous here that the street it's on bears its name. This is another local joint and they don't have an English menu posted. I asked the young man behind the counter if he could prepare us a couple of the most popular choice. He served up broodje kroket, a delicious concoction that can best be described as deep-fried beef stew on a bun. In addition to the yellow mustard on the table, there was some unidentified condiment which K swears was molasses-derived. I don't care what it was made from: I could have doused it on my hand and devoured myself. Three minutes later we had finished our dishes and I asked to try a roast beef, so rare it was nearly tartar (YUM!), and smoked eel (tastes like divinely UN-greasy mild lox and textured like a white fish filet with a bit more structure). Getting greedy now, we had barely devoured these broodjes before I was up at the counter again, asking to try a salt beef & liver combo, as well as a tomato, egg, and mayonnaise open faced broodje [see inset pictures]. I think by that point I was too stuffed to enjoy them or anything else…until 7 minutes later, when K and I walked into a nearby Haagen Dazs to chase the meat away with other saturated animal fats.

The next day we took a lovely canal walk up Prinsengracht for our third trip to the Pancake Bakery. You can read my earlier review of the always reliable pancake house. This time I had the banana/bacon pancake and K had the "Greek" (lamb, feta, olives, etc). Both were fantastic, though I think mine won out in the end as it could satisfy both the sweet and the savory. Another random highlight: the waitress, who we'd already heard speak English, French, and Dutch (like nearly every other A'dammer), also whipped out a mighty fine Italian when explaining the kids' menu to an eager and sophisticated 5-year old boy.

For our last meal, we took in an early dinner of the Netherlands' national cuisine: Indonesian. Having tried out the top-shelf rijsstafel at the swanky Indrapura, we were eager to sample a version which might not mock the weakness of our greenbacks. I read some great reviews of Café Bojo and while it clearly was no match for the delicacy of its more bank-breaking brethren, we certainly ate a tremendous amount of food for 22 euros. The longtong rames (chewy rice cakes in center of inset image) and the fried coconut were nice treats, as were the refreshing pickled vegetables in the uncharacteristically hot weather.

At the train station only a few minutes after paying our bill, I debated grabbing a kroket to go from one of the FEBO automats, but K talked me into getting a much more reasonable Mango & Passion Fruit Shake (more like a thick juice with fruit chunks). Four hours later we were back in Paris and I was eating a salmon burger on Rue Bretagne (though I was kicking myself for passing on the café's specialty: horse steak).

We have a week left in Paris and then back to London for a day en route to NYC. I'm currently on a hunt for the city's best fois gras. Any advice?

London food = tasty? Yep

2008-07-19T05:21:00.000-07:00

So it seems I only have time to write about food when I travel. Fair enough. So. Here I go.

En route to Paris (again), K & I decided to fly Zoom into London (again), spend a night, and then Chunnel into Paris. Setting out to prove again that London food can be most extraordinary, we did a little research and then happily "tucked into" four delicious meals. One thing that immediately struck us was how simple it was, from simple pub fare to gourmet gastronomy, to eat local, organic, humane, sustainable, fair-trade, etc. New Yorkers, stop kidding yourselves: if "green" living was a race, London would have lapped us thrice. Carbon neutral cabs? Pepsi Raw? While I have to work very hard in the Big Apple to find food that meets my ethical/ecological standards, I'd have to work as hard or harder to find London fare which harms the world.

Sounds like I should be on a soap box at Speaker's Corner, right?

All right, on to the food:

Humble Pie (80 Buckingham Gate)
After our Easybus dropped us off from Gatwick, we found our hotel room wouldn't be ready for another hour, so we decided to explore Hyde Park. After a lovely morning strolling (and rowing!), we headed back to the hotel for a nap. On our way, we realized that all we'd had to eat since the airplane's dinner was a banana each. Humble Pie International Ltd to the rescue. Adorable storefront. Exciting menu with adventurous variations on a British standard. We settled on a lamb marinated in Shiraz, accompanied by raisins, sweet potatoes, and a few other tasty morsels which I've forgotten despite my attempts to save the menu. Also: the most exciting case of drinks I've ever encountered, filled with a nice stock of juices by James White Drinks. We decided to share the Beetroot juice and the Apple/Crushed Ginger juice. They also have single varietal apple juices which is very exciting to this food dork.

Abeno Too (17 Great Newport St)
After our nap, we trekked 2.5 miles from our hotel over to check out the National Gallery and work up an appetite. We are very very hungry at this point--this information will be important to explain the following. A hunt on the blogosphere had led me to Abeno Okonomiyaki and its little brother, Abeno Too. When I first tasted Okonomyaki in Japan it was translated to me as "my favorite things friend," which made sense for this savory Japanese omelette stuffed with bacon, shrimp, cabbage, carrots, ginger, and other assorted vegetables, all covered with sweet Japanese mayo, okonomyaki sauce, bonito flakes, and nori. After waiting for about 20 minutes at Abeno Too, we were ushered to our space at the okonomyaki bar and got a peek at the menu. This wasn't grandpa's okonomyaki: there were at least 10 different varieties, each offering a novel flavor combination. Having scrimped and saved all day, we decided to go for the most expensive option on the menu: the Abeno Okonomyaki: Organic beef & chicken, bacon, pork, black tiger prawns, asparagus tips, Konnyaku, lotus root, mushrooms, and garlic. Our waiter/chef was a ridiculously well-travelled Londoner of Polish extraction who was currently finishing up medical school. Michael "the Pole" (his own designation) stood in front of us at the bar, chatting us up as he prepared our meal over the course of about 25 minutes. This was high art, the way each component was individually cooked and then delicately layered on top of a growing stack of eggy-goodness. Our barside seats to this culinary demonstration were worth at least as much as the cost of the meal. Michael explained that he and the other okonomyaki specialists train for at least two weeks before they are allowed to make the simplest items on the menu and that you must work at it for some time before you are permitted to cook the specialty we ordered. He also translated the dish as "Fry it like you like it" which is somehow more democratic than the version I'd heard before. Well, suffice to say, as we watched his mastery and smelled the delightful scents cooking up under our noses, our hunger deepened to near-starvation level. When he finished the preparation, we dug into the meal so quickly it did not even occur to me that I should snap a photo of his heavenly creation, hence the afterthought above. Suffice to say, the meal was incredible. We'll definitely be back!

Ye Olde Cock Tavern (22 Fleet Street)
The plan was to check out a place on Essex called S&M, specializing in Sausage and Mash, as we made our way towards the Tate Modern in the morning. Unfortunately, we navigated our way to Essex St when, in fact, the sausage joint is located far north on Essex Road. Dejected and hungry, we began strolling around looking for an English Breakfast. And then the rain started coming down and we dived into a place that looked warm and friendly, Ye Olde Cock Tavern. As you can see from the inlaid photo, this fancy establishment still has restored fittings from the 19th century. It has quite a rich history, frequented by the likes of Pepys, Dickens, and Tennyson back when it stood on the other side of the street. It also has quite a good English breakfast, offering a solid variation for those who are veggie-inclined. The meat version is a fried egg (runny), sausage (juicy), bacon (crispy), white bread (buttery), baked beans (creamy), and cooked mushroom (fungi). The veggie version trades the bacon for a grilled 1/2 tomato and a vegetarian sausage replaces the pork one. A perfect rainy day breakfast. I'd like to thank the kind staff for letting us order the meal even though standard British breakfast time had elapsed while we stood confused in the rain looking for a place to eat.

Jonathan Crisps: "Crisps for Snobs"
Parsnip, Sweet Potato, Beetroot.
Black Pepper & Ginger.
Mature Cheddar & Red Onion.
Sea Salt & Malt Vinegar.
Horseradish & Sourcream.
Sundried Tomato & Basil.
Black Olive & Garlic.
'Nuff said.

Yo Sushi (14 St Paul's Churchyard)
Yes it's a chain, but I'd wanted to try conveyor-belt (kazen) sushi and here was Yo Sushi, beckoning me to come in and sample its rotating raw sea creatures. Simple premise: you sit at a bar and a conveyor-belts brings food right to you. There are 5 different color plates, each corresponding to a different price. Eat what you like and the empties are tallied for your bill. In addition to some fairly standard choices, we had a tasty tofu, seaweed, and cucumber salad, Softshell Crab & Rocket with Chili Mayo, Kobe Beef Sashimi, and, my favorite, Scallop Sashimi with Coriander Pesto (inlaid photo). The bill was more than I might have liked given the actual quantity of food ingested, but it's always good to try out new experiences and I'd never done Kazen-sushi outside of Japan.

We'll be back in London for a day at the trip's end so if you have recommendations for good eats, please do post a comment...Now on to Paris!

Too stuffed to type?

2008-03-27T06:15:00.001-07:00

It's amazing how easy it is to fall behind on one's food blogging. I mean, I'm not trying to catalogue EVERY meal I'm eating here, just the memorable ones. But, what can I say, most of my meals have been pretty memorable. Faced with the ridiculously self-imposed responsibility to write about all of them, I've instead written about none. So now I play catch up.

Monday night we (K, V, Bear, and Truffle Boy) made our 2 mile walk over to 6 Rue Jacquard, home of Ave Maria. It's an Afro-Brazilian-French fusion restaurant and it's worth paying a visit for the décor alone. Vines descend from the ceiling. Barbie dolls dressed like Mexican images of saints and mounted in frames on the walls. Kitsch posters abound. There is a dish I love here. Its tongue-and-cheek title stretches across 3 or 4 lines in the menu. But I've had it nearly every year I've come so it was time to bravely march forward and try something new. So I opted for one with the shortest title, the Kirikou (sp?). Inspired by one of the national dishes of Togo (or so they say), it offered beef and massive carrots stewed in "African spices," sharing the bowl with tomatoes, rice, onions, cucumbers, mint, oranges, and parsley. The beef was tough for my taste but the stewing juices were definitely worth soaking up with bread. Sometimes one should stick with the known and just make sure that one's dining companions will let one nibble on the unknown. Said dining companions also make it possible to order dessert when one knows one is far too full. We ordered their award-winning "Death by Chocolate," accompanied by a digestif made of rum with macerated ginger and infused with cinnamon. As Bear pointed out, in America, the "Death by Chocolate" would likely be too rich to be savored and, after all, shouldn't one's mort chocolat be savored? To extend the analogy further, I'd say that ordering such a dish in America is like a chocolate cyanide capsule: one bite and your finished. Ave Maria's version, though, is like, I don't know, drowning because you've fallen asleep in the world's most comfortable bath. And the little ginger shot was just what I needed to revive me from my chocolate languor.

V departed Tuesday in the late afternoon, though the departure proved a little more traumatic than we might have hoped as we scrambled from station to station trying to find a metro with an open ticket window (for some inexplicable reason the ticketing machines in Paris do not take American credit cards though everywhere else seems to!). Bear and I walked over to a poetry reading at the Village Voice bookstore and then managed to sneak into a grocery store right before it closed. Once we got to the house, Bear served up a gorgeous and tasty antipasto plate with some fromage, white asparagus, caviar, and sausage while I started work on the seared lamb with a (2 euro!) Cabernet Sauvignon & fig reduction. We had cleverly purchased a jar of marinated eggplants which I dolloped onto some couscous for a tasty side. The main course here was actually the world's largest head of cauliflower. With individual florets the size of my fist, it could have served 8 but we three managed to put away nearly all of it. I'm so proud of us.

Yesterday (Wednesday), Bear and I had some crossed wires and didn't end up meeting up as planned at the overpriced and rude Deux Magots. Bear lunched solo and was charged 15 euros for a small ham sandwich and a café au lait and they wouldn't let her charge it on credit card (16 euro minimum they said)! Meanwhile, I failed to eat anything whatsoever save a few candies Bear bought from a street vendor. That's okay, because at 9:30pm I more than made up for it by gorging myself (and actually being out-gorged by the normally restrained K) at La Cave du L'Os a Moelle (Rue Lourmel), the communal table restaurant that we've made a point of visiting each time we've come to Paris. Here's the set-up. They have sittings at 7:30 and 9:30 and you make your reservation accordingly. You arrive and pick a bottle of vin that pleases you off the wall (they range in price from 10 euros to well over 100, but they are all take-away prices) and take a seat at your table. Since they had lost our reservation, the only community at our communal table that night was comprised of the 3 of us…which was certainly fine with me. On the table when you sit down is a jar of cornichons, a delicious whole-grain mustard, a tray of crudités, a bowl of world's tiniest shrimp (to be eaten whole I discovered!), a blood sausage terrine and another country terrine, and some rather delicious marinated grated vegetables (beets, carrots, and celery root, I think). Bear had reasonably assumed that said dishes were the entire meal and stocked up accordingly only to discover moments later that there were also 5 other courses awaiting us. You go over to a counter and serve yourself (NOTE: the following courses change nightly and depend upon the season and the caprice of the chef) a spicy & creamy fish soup, a stewed pork breast, and a dish of Brussels sprouts and carrots. Follow that up with a cheese course and round out the night with a bowl of fruit salad or one (or two or three or all) of the other 10 desserts they offer. Aside from the wine, the 23 euro price-tag is all inclusive and we really stretched the definition of the word "all" (and our stomachs!). I can imagine few things as delightfully appetizing as the marinated vegetables (as in, they literally prime our appetite for the later courses) and the giant slabs of pork (the fat melting—literally: rendering--in your mouth) were the perfect salve for a frustrating rainy day. I'm still thinking about the Brussels sprout dish—we think it's probably only seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper, but I'd be lying if I said I'd ever had a better vegetable dish. I don't know what the secret flowery syrup in the fruit salad was, but I do know that it had perfectly ripe mangoes, oranges, pineapples, currants, raspberries, and apples in it. I also know that it was easily the best fruit salad I've had in my life (sorry dad!). Bear had 3 servings. Or rather, I served Bear 3 bowls of it (I had the end seat and played waiter and busboy). The people who work there are adorable, kind, and at least tri-lingual and as you and your fellow diners get high on wine and French comfort food, a boisterous conviviality fills the air. I so wish I could have this experience in my native tongue, but somehow I feel like the whole atmosphere would be lost in translation.

Crrrunch!

2008-03-23T12:48:00.000-07:00

It being Easter and all here in a Catholic city, much of the town closes down...except, of course, the Jewish quarter! After spending some time with the devout in Notre Dame (with our fingers still sticky from the Berthillon ice cream we, lunatics, that we are, picked up in the wintry weather today. I had the always delicious Caramel with Salted Butter flavor, K had the otherworldly Cassis, and V sampled the very nutty Pistachio), where we lucked into an "audition" (literally: hearing) of the massive organ (which seems only capable of producing the soundtrack to all of the 1920s and 1930s classic monster movies!), we headed over to Rue du Rossiers to make our semi-annual pilgrimage to L'as du Falafel. A man on the street takes your order (and your order is "Falafel Special"...5 euros--no bargain by NYC East Village standards but a steal in this city) and gives you a ticket. You wait on line. You cross your fingers and hope that the deep-fried balls of chick-pea treasure will just be emerging from their hot oil bath as you reach the head of the line. You reach the head of the line. Two aproned schwarma surgeons take your ticket, figure out what language you speak, and then tease you in said language. They play catch with your falafel which bounce and roll all over the many toppings with which your pita will soon be stuffed. White cabbage. Red Cabbage. Grilled seasoned eggplant (apparently a bribe of a euro buys you extra!). Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Tahini. And, if you say "Picante" at just the right time: hot sauce. Stick a fork in it and it's done. You can either eat it right there (which is probably the smart thing to do), or you can empirically discover the cooling time of falafel by trekking back to your apartment three blocks away. Here's the thing, though: even though it was cold, the falafel kept its crunch while all of the other toppings merge into TomaCabbaCucuPlantIni...and that's a very good thing!

Jean Bart Is No More, But Its Boutique Remains

2008-03-23T05:28:00.000-07:00

So, promising great moules frites at ridiculously cheap prices I dragged our little truffle trio (which will momentarily become a quartet tomorrow and then reshape to form a new trio the next day) east toward Bastille to Le Jean Bart (86 Rue St. Antoine).

Though my French was not good enough to make out the various signs affixed all over the closed glass doors, it appears that the marvelously atmospheric dive bistro has suffered both a crippling fire and a pretty dire financial crisis. Though I'm not sure how the chronology played out, the proprietor ended up staging a sit-in to try to save the restaurant. Alas, the place seems to be closed indefinitely.

Strangely enough, right next door is Jean Bart's Boutique, offering the same menu, the same prices, and its own petit share of atmosphere. 8 euros buys you one of their 8 preparations of mussels accompanied by french fries. If you opt for their moules marinieres, you can get that, the frites, beer, and a cafe for under 10 euros. V, K, and I each chose our own bowl of moules and shared a demi of a Bourdeaux Blanc Sauvignon. I went for the Moules du Gallo (sp?), a tasty concoction of oil, garlic, white wine, onions, and snail butter. Though I did enjoy the dish, I'd be lying if I said that the distinct flavor of the snail butter was easily discernible and transformed this rustic dish into a masterpiece. Kinda tasted like butter, perhaps a bit snailier...? As V pointed out, though, the best part of any moules experience is soaking your baguette in the steaming jus at the bottom of the bowl. Based on that taste test alone, this was definitely one of the better moules dishes I've had, but it really is a shame that you can't get the moules themselves more immersed in those flavors. I used to serve moules in a great big ugly clear plastic party bowl that I presume was intended for chips & dip. Advantage: you can ladle a good heaping of the jus right into the middle and dip the moules in with each bite.

At any rate: the Boutique is definitely worth paying the visit but I don't think it's a must-eat...

Back in Paris, Back in Blogland

2008-03-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

Ah faithful readers, your lovable truffle boy has returned. Apparently it takes a trip out of the country for me to squeeze time from my schedule, under-ripe lime though it often seems to be. Well, I'm back in Paris with K and another traveling companion I'll call V. Actually, I should probably give a quick run down of the 36-hours we spent in Amsterdam en route to France.

It was the third time K and I made an extended Amsterdam stopover and we know exactly what we want to eat, see, and do while we're in town for a few hours. Apparently, there is very little in the way of Dutch "national" food as many Netherlanders will proudly declare Indonesian to be their native cuisine. So, each time we visit we hit up Indrapura, a tasty little spot in Rembrandtplein that serves up rijsttafel, a fixed-menu meal featuring a variety of Indonesia tapas. Here's how the restaurant's website explains the the meal:

The origin of the concept 'rijsttafel' is difficult to trace. According to one legend it referes to the actual table used by the Dutch settlers during the colonial days in Indonesia. A traditional Indonesian meal is always based on white rice, not only because it is noutricious, but also for its calming and soothing effect in combination with spicy dishes. One fish or meat dish accompanied the rice seasoned with 'sambal' or chilipeper. In colonial days a simple meal like this symply did not satisfy the appetite of the Dutch planters, so a greater variety of dishes, from all over the islands, was added. It is this large amount of tasty dishes that as a whole forms the elaborate 'rijsttafel' of today.

It is tasty. Very. We chose the Purnama for 29 euros a person. White rice, fried rice, tempeh, peanuts, cucumber salad, spicy mango salad, various skewered meats (lamb, beef, pork) in satay-like sauces, various slow-cooked meats in peanut sauce and soy souce, shrimp crackers, a cabbage dish, and at least 3 other dishes I can't remember. Good deal. None of the individual entrees is, itself, more than casually appetizing, but altogether as a spread it is filling and offers a really diverse tasting. K mentioned that about half the dishes seem to offer very Thai flavors while the others rely more on Indian spices.

Another don't miss in Amsterdam is the Pancake Bakery. If you're like us and chose your digs in the Reguliersgracht/Rembrandtplein area, then you might want to take bikes to visit this adorable and cozy pancake specialist. Be forewarned though: this place does not serve breakfast and they do not even open until noon. Or rather, much of what they serve can be deemed breakfast but you cannot dare to deem it so until after noon. At any rate, Dutch pancakes are like French crepes but a little bit thicker. And Dutch syrup, stroop, is super-thick as well, smokier (can you use that for sweets?) and richer (but less sweet) than maple or, deity-of-your-choice forbid, Aunt Jemima. All three of us went for savory options. V ordered the very delicious Greek pancake (lamb, feta, onions, tzatziki), K went for my favorite, the Swedish (coriander and thyme marinated reindeer, onions, carrots, cabbage, poached pears, and cranberry sauce), and I tried something new with the Canadian (with crispy bacon, onions, mushrooms, ham, cheese, and curry sauce). We ripped off some "untouched" pieces of our pancakes and covered them with stroop to save money on dessert. Stingy? Yes. Tasty? Yes.

And right before you hop the tram to the train station, make sure to stop at the northwest corner of Rembrandtplein for Vlaamse Frites. While you'll only rarely catch me touching the white nastiness we call mayonaise in these United States of ours, Euronaise is a whole different creature. A delicious creature that pairs perfectly with deep fried potatoes. Do it. Smother them. Pack lots of napkins and tell your arteries to be quiet!

Okay...on to Paris:

The Paris apartment this time around is on Rue du Temple, just two blocks west of the Seine and just a few blocks north of many of our favorite Marais haunts. We had a bit of a nightmare getting into the apartment the first night and, homeless at 12:30 in the am, ended up crashing into Belle Hortense with all of our luggage because it felt "safe." Who goes to a French literary wine bar in the middle of a crisis? Truffle boy does. While K and V tried to figure out where we were going to sleep that night, I got the menu from the nearby restaurant Les Philosophes (along with Le Petit Fer A Cheval, all three share an owner) and ordered "delivery" to the wine bar, where I was "safely" ensconced with my Sancerre. I got Steak Tartare for myself (how else does one know one has arrived in Paris?) and picked up salads for the ladies. K's was one of those delightful French creations topped with smoked duck breast, prosciutto, avocado, beets, and hot goat cheese on little toasts.

The apartment has a clean and reasonably well-appointed kitchen. Slick electric range & a nuker, but no oven and the cutlery might better befit a Fisher Price Kitchenette. No matter: V and I have already been cooking up a storm. Last night I braised some chicken quarters (doused in a little cumin, garlic powder, basil, salt, pepper, and flour--the only pantry items in the apartment!) in Riesling with carrots, leeks, and onions. Tonight, V and I shared kitchen duties. I picked up some goodness from Hedonisme (6 Rue du Mezieres), a lovely little organic/artisinal shop. Left with organic gnocchi, organic truffle butter (which, of course, is composed entirely of TRUFFLES and BUTTER!), and a bagful of pretty veggies. V prepared a lovely salad with a lemon-shallot dressing (as I said, we have nothing in our pantry) and I made the inset gnocchi with sauteed mushrooms & shallots, basil and garlic powder, and a few spoons full of truffle butter (oh, dear readers: may my veins run thick with the stuff when they cut me open on judgment day!).

Au Revoir! More soon...

Truffle boy is back...

2008-01-30T23:18:00.001-08:00

I just happened to browse this site after a lovely couple of hours in NYC's Vespa Bar and it might be the Negroamaro talking, but I've made a resolution to get this site up and running again. So I will try to eat (and write about what I eat) with a little bit more regularity in coming weeks, and if I still can't get it together, I'm sure March's return to Paris will inspire me to blog away.

This little truffle pig is vacationing from blogland

2007-10-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

Given the fact that my last post was in July, I think I've sadly realized I just can't keep up a regular blog posting schedule while the school year is in session (one of my "dayjobs" is in education). So, it looks like I'll keep my blogging to winter and summer recess.

Hope some of you will pay me a visit again in December!

Paris Round-up: Part 1

2007-07-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

K and I have spent nearly two weeks in Paris thus far, literally hopping from cafe to tea house to bar to bistro to ice-cream shop to brasseries to creperie to lounge all day and all night long. There has scarcely been a moment that one of us has not been consuming something, but we haven't had an ounce of bad luck yet and we've been eating and drinking remarkably well. As anyone who's spent some time in Paris will realize when I begin listing our conquests, most of the places we've patronized are within a few doors of each other; K and I haven't really walked too far afield of the the 3 block radius or so of our apartment on the lovely Rue du Bourg Tibourg in the heart of the Marais.

Here are some of the trip's culinary highlights so far:

L'as du Falafel (Rue du Rossiers): If you happen to be lucky enough to grab your 4.50 euro falafel special when those creamy crunchy balls of deliciously herbed chickpea puree come sizzling out of the deep fryer, you'll understand why this place deserves all of the hype that's been heaped onto it over the years. Complementing your perfect pita is a great melange of fresh and grilled vegetables and zesty tahini sauce. The schwarma is also superb!
Mariage Freres (Rue du Bourg Tibourg): This is hands-down the world's best tea. The combined tea-house/shop's fragrance wafts down the entire block making it an irresistible pit-stop for those of us who are easily tempted by such heavily scents. Inside, the decor is colonial, drawing influences from all the great tea regions of the world, and service is white-suited and as delicate as it comes. You are seated with a 200 page book called The Art of Tea, which serves as both an informative dossier on the experience and a detailed catalogue (with tasting notes) of the hundreds of teas they offer. Although some of my favorite teas there are the Marco Polo, French Blue, Bal Masque, Casablanca, and The des Impressionists, I haven't had a dud yet. And the food is as good as the tea, with brilliant brunch platters and high-class afternoon tea sandwiches. My favorite combo (this week): K and I share the Pondicherry Afternoon Tea (30 euros) which comes with a pot of tea (we choose the Impressionists), a platter of tea sandwiches (featuring fabulous ingredients fois gras and smoked magret and shrimp and smoked salmon!), and a dessert (we always choose the coup du soleil, which is more or less a creme brulee pie with fresh raspberries tucked away inside the custard).
La Belle Hortense (Rue Vieille du Temple): This is a combination wine bar/literary cafe/book shop that embodies most of what I love about Paris. Trilingual academic discussions fill the air with the haze of cigarettes and seemingly endless clink of glasses filled with gorgeous (and cheap!) wine. They make some of the best cafe in Paris--by my reckoning at least--and have some unique items like an aperitif made of truffles. If you work up an appetite with all of your yammering, you can order from the menu from Les Philosophes, the bar's sister-restaurant across the street (they have great steak tartar and excellent duck confit with honey, available as the main course in a 3-course fixed price meal available for 26 euros--if you, however, want to sample the most delightfully Gallic restaurant service ever, you should really head over to the restaurant itself and spend the evening attempting to catch the attention of the playfully surly servers!).
Creperie Suzette (Rue du Franc Bourgeois): In the past 5 years, K and I have probably spent a weeks-worth of our cumulative vacation time gobbling down this simple but adorable creperie's fine fare. From the simple sugar & butter crepes to savory offerings like the Franc Bourgeois (spinach, emmenthal, tomato coulis, and basil oil) and unique sweet treats like the Creme du Marron (chestnut cream and creme fraiche), this place is always good for a quick to-go fix or for a leisurely lunch or dinner in their air-conditioned interior. Dinner for two can be kept under 22 euros and they offer continuous service throughout the day.
Cafe de Medicis (Luxembourg Gardens): K and I visited this cafe (overlooking the stunning Luxembourg Gardens and adjacent to the always-interesting Luxembourg Museum) before taking in the delightful marionette show in the gardens. While I can't really speak for most of the items on the menu, it's always a great place to sit-down with a cafe and they Club Sandwich Fois Gras is really something else: several geese worth of buttery fois gras is arranged, in a deconstructed presentation, with some slices of brioche, grilled pineapple, caramelized onions, and port glaze. I forced so much (albeit delicious and amusingly paired) fois gras down my gullet that I began to feel a little bit like the poor geese they make the stuff with!
Le Nemrod (Rue du Cherch Midi): Just a few blocks south of the incomparable boulangerie of the late Lionel Poilane (which is thankfully still baking up his intoxicating sourdough-started loaves) is a great little spot where you can get Paris' best Croque Madame. Nemrod's version features not only the standard fine ham and cheese topped with bechamel and a perfectly fried sunnyside-up egg, but the entire thing is on a slab of Poilane's finest and it makes a tremendous difference. Oh, and they put tomato wedges on the sandwich when they put it through the broiler! It's a little out of way but it is definitely worth the trek...
Pont Louis Phillipe (on the Ile St. Louis side): Best picnic location ever. Grab your bottle of wine, your smelly cheese, some baguette, prosciutto, and couscous and enjoy the acoustic strummings of nearby troubadors as you watch the Bateaux Mouche tourboats drive by and light up the City of Lights.

Okay, off to La Belle Hortense.

40 pounds a day

2007-07-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

So, in honor of the overexposed Rachel Ray, K & I tried to do London on 40 pounds a day. One would think, given the exchange rate that $40 a person for 3 meals & tea wouldn't be that hard, but London is such an expensive city that we were much closer to gaining 40 pounds of fat than we were to keeping our wallets in check.

Our Zoom Airlines flight got in roughly 4 hours late (or right on time, as Zoom fully discloses that all of their departure and arrival times are approximate) so we arrived in London proper by noon, a little wary of mass transit given the recent bombings. We hit the streets from Waterloo station after stowing our baggage. I wanted to head right for fish & chips but K hadn't had any breakfast yet and wanted something resembling coffee and a pastry. We tried to find the nearest cafe (avoiding the 2 Starbucks we passed) and settled on the Charles Dickens Cafe because it accepted Euros and we hadn't gone to a cash machine yet. Big mistake. No iced coffee (which was all K really wanted), uninspiring pastries, and I don't know what sort of fuzzy math they used to convert the Euros, but we got a pound back from a 10 euro note after buying an espresso and juice.

More than a little bit frustrated, we moved on to find what we heard was the best fish & chips joint in London, Rock and Sole Plaice. The take-away menu was very reasonable (at least it would have been if those were dollar signs in front of the numbers) but there was a treat tempting us only on the sit-down menu so we decided it was worth the tripled prices. On one of Alton Brown's Good Eats episodes (Flat is Beautiful III: Flounder), whilst shopping for flat fish at a Georgia Whole Foods, the man himself asserted that if one ever has the opportunity to try Dover Sole, often very very expensive, one simply had to. With this declaration in mind, I had no choice other than to order the market priced (gasp!) Dover Sole, fried whole. I doused it in lemon and malt vinegar and began picking away at it. Great crispy and flavorful fried crust, doing exactly what a fried crust should do, keeping the delicate and buttery Dover Sole moist and tender on the inside. Even K, who is the first admit she doesn't have much of a palette for white fish and even less of one for fried foods found the subtle flavors very complex and satisfying. Since I wanted to nibble on an authentic version of a dish I've tried at home, I asked K to order the Cornish Pasty for herself. That was quite something, too, with the root vegetables tasting rooty, moist and flavorful (as opposed to starchy and dry, that is) and the ground beef very well-seasoned. The pasty's texture itself was as flaky as a puff pastry. Overall, a great fattening meal, which, unfortunately, cost nearly as much as the tasting menu I described in my last post about JLOB.

We headed over to the National Gallery and took in its stunning permanent collection and then meandered over to the National Cafe where we took in a Cream Tea service. A pot of tea, a scone, and a dish full of Jersey clotted cream for roughly $8 American. The tea itself was mediocre, certainly no Mariage Freres, but the raisin scone was quite something; I told K it was all of the pleasure of muffin tops without any of that pesky cakey muffin middle! Said scone was even further improved by the decadent Jersey cream (which, neophyte as I am, I mistook for butter as its color is hued more towards the caramel than the milk end of the spectrum) and divine raspberry preserves (the jar of which seemed to be reduced from a 1-ton vat of raspberries and yes that is a very good thing!). I'm not supposed to say anything about this but someone who happened to be sitting at my table (who certainly couldn't be K!) liked the preserves and cream so much that she actually started eating it by the spoonful whenever she could be sure that the waitress wasn't eyeing her. :)

We decided it was highly inappropriate to follow tea immediately with dinner, but we were on a tight schedule with a chunnel ride to Paris awaiting us at 7:43pm. We killed about 90 minutes wandering around the Leicester Square area, trying to squeeze the clotted cream through our by then surely clotted arteries, and then settled on a noodle-house chain called Wagamama. We were little bit concerned about the time, but our host reminded us that it was technically fast food so it shouldn't take too long. I ordered a delightful and refreshing pressed juice blend with cucumber, pomegranate and apple and layered like a parfait. K and I shared an app and an entree, opting for the deep-fried duck and leek gyoza and the seafood ramen. The duck was tasty though I realized that, with the exception of the occasional pork potsticker at Dumping House in NYC, I tend to prefer my dumplings steamed. That said, it was crispy while staying definitively un-greasy! After the day's delicious fried goods and other fatty indulgences, the main course was so clean and light: a very delicate vegetable broth with healthy-tasting ramen noodles (were they whole wheat?) and generous helpings of grilled shrimp, calamari, and dory. One rarely feels cleansed after a giant bowl of soup but this certainly did the trick!

We miraculously caught the Eurostar and, as first class was in this case cheaper than economy, we were treated to a second dinner, though K preferred to sleep through it and I was too stuffed to eat anything besides the 5 steamed shrimp on a skewer. I did help myself to the free wine though!

Okay, more updates in coming days as we eat our way through Paris.

What a week!

2007-06-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

So it's been a little while since my last post, primarily because I've been so busy eating. K and I discovered a great new restaurant near our theatre company's rehearsal space and the harvest has started heating up with our new CSA so I've had some great fresh produce to work with (this newsletter details what our weekly take was).

Let's talk about this restaurant first. It's called Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, located on 2nd Avenue in the East Village and wow is this place a gem: service like you'd find only in the world's most elegant restaurants, jaw-droppingly stunning presentation, complex unique flavor pairings, and quite a lot of bang for one's buck.

I got the tasting menu and here is what I tasted:

Fruit de Mer Sampler: 1 East Coast Oyster, 1 West Coast Oyster, 1 Littleneck Clam, and a Toast Point with Caviar. Served simply, each with a little flavor-enhancing garnish. Possibly the freshest raw seafood I've had and certainly the best I've had outside of Poke.
Torchon of Tuna and Foie Gras with Blood Orange and Cilantro: Imagine the texture of creme brulee, rich, creamy and crispy (with a caramelized ginger glaze), but instead of a custard inside, there's a delicately mixed blend of tuna tartar and foie gras. The side salad was the perfect complement, with bright fruity acidic flavors to cut through any of the torchon's fattiness.
Duck Liver Pate with Port Gelee and Truffle: An arresting deconstructed preparation which, when mixed, provided one of the most decadent savory treats I've had in my life. The creamy pate had a light whipped consistency and was topped with the sweet gelee. The waiter instructed me to mix the hefty spoon full of chopped black truffles into the pate, and then spread the mixture on toast points, garnishing it with the accompanying ancient mustard, pickled onions, and cornichon. A-mazing!
Butter Poached Lobster with Pistachios, Haricot Vert, Mushrooms, and Lobster Jus: All of the pleasure of cracking open a steamed lobster and dipping it in melted butter, except someone has already done the work for you, pulling out the lobster's meatiest bits and infusing them with a deep butter flavor for you. They were tossed with the jus and the vegetables, with the haricot vert's crunch providing a nice counterpoint to the melt-in-your-mouth lobster and chewy mushrooms. The pistachios were ground in a line on the side of the plate, allowing me to coat each bite in the perfect amount of nutty texture.
Pear Sorbet with Greek Yogurt and Vanilla: Simple and delicious. The pear and vanilla are a natural pair (pun definitely intended!) but the tartness of the greek yogurt really woke up my palette and let me taste the full round flavors of the the sorbet.
"S'More" Chocolate-Pistachio Nougat and Toasted Marshmallow: Above and beyond the best S'mores experience of my life. The marshmallows were homemade and luxuriously textured, each caramelized to perfection like a very small creme brulee.

Not bad for $50 right? Yep, I said FIFTY DOLLARS!!! That's insanely cheap for such quantities of food this good. JLOB was the first (non-Japanese) restaurant I've visited since Babbo that I've said to myself, "My god I could never cook this myself!" I mean, it's not like I walk into every restaurant and say, "Oh, this is so easy I could have whipped it up in just a few minutes." That said, I can usually figure out a way to create a dumbed-down and simplified version of most things I eat at restaurants. Not so with JLOB; the techniques, the flavors, the presentation, the ingredients were all lightyears beyond my meager abilities. Reason enough to go to cooking school if I ever tasted one!

...And now a meal I cooked later in the week:

Gorgonzola Salad with Sundried Tomato Dressing:

A simple mixed salad with romaine, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onions, and slices of gorgonzola, topped with a (thick) dressing made from pureed rehydrated sundried tomatoes, lemon juice, and pistachio oil.

Grilled Figs Wrapped in Serrano Ham and Stuffed with Gorgonzola:

As simple as it sounds. Slice fresh figs open enough to cram them full of the (chilled) smelly fromage. Wrap them in Serrano or prosciutto and give them a good rub down to make sure the ham is going to stay on. Pop them onto a hot grill and turn every 90 seconds or so. Serve immediately while the ham is still warm. Hot and cold. Salty and sweet. A party in your mouth.

Gnocchi with Chanterelles & Crispy Sage in a Brown Butter and Truffle Oil Sauce:

This picture looks pretty gnarly but the dish itself was one of my best gnocchi preparations. As you're boiling up the gnocchi, saute the fresh sage and chanterelles in butter. Pour in a glug or two of truffle oil and some starch pasta water to thicken. Toss with gnocchi and garnish with crushed red pepper and shaved parmesan.

Had enough?

Tough. It's my foodblog and I'll back log as many posts as I like :) ! You can be sure I've spared you from the details of most of the fabulous meals I've consumed this past week, like the great stir fry I made with the mizuna and chinese cabbage that came from my CSA this week, or my intoxicating trip to Poke with E & K. But there are two more recipes I want to keep in my little virtual recipe box, both from last night:

Grilled Seafood Salad with Grilled Tomatoes and Grilled Citrus Vinaigrette:

The perfect summer salad. Get your grill (or your grill pan) hot and keep it hot. Halve a lemon and a lime and grill them till they're striped. Squeeze half of the lemon and half of the lime into a bowl, reserving the other halves for garnish. Whisk in some olive oil, honey, salt, and black pepper until you have a nice emulsion. Put that dressing aside for a bit and work on the salad itself. Grill a medley of halved small heirloom tomatoes until they're striped and put them on a bed of chopped greens (I used the mizuna and red sail lettuce from my CSA). I happened to have some garlic scape on hand so I chopped that up and threw it on top of the greens and tomatoes. Now, with a hot grill, char up any mixture of small shrimp, calimari, and tiny bay scallops (at those sizes you can cook them all together without overcooking either of the elements...Trader Joes makes a frozen bag of the stuff!). Toss them on top of the salad, drizzle the dressing on, and garnish with the grilled citrus fruits and summer savory (also came with CSA but wow that was a great discovery!).

Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce:

It's true, I had a box of gnocchi I've slowly been working my way through; it's a great way to turn a skimpy meal into hearty fare and takes to a wide variety of flavors very well. Simmer some light cream and melt gorgonzola in to taste. Stir in some dried sage and a dash of white pepper. Toss the gnocchi in the sauce, drain of excess cream with slotted spoon, plate, and garnish with summer savory and shaved parmesan (as cheesy as the sauce is, the parmesan still cuts through and adds some nice treble flavors).

My Big Fat Low-Fat Burritos

2007-06-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

The quandary: I wanted big and bold Mexican flavors but it was just too disgusting out to yearn for standard Mexican fare.

The solution:

I'll be honest, I've never cooked a burrito before. I've made quite a few quesadillas in my day and I make a mean chipotle chocolate chile, but I've never braved burritoville, as it were. I have made wraps, though, and that's pretty much all a burrito is. So, on to the components:

Rice: I just used Trader Joe's microwaveable brown rice. It's moist and crunchy and ready from the nuke in just 3 min.
Beans: I heated up some canned organic black beans and fat free canned organic refried beans (which I had to hydrate a little bit).
Salad: Just shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes.
Cheese: What's better than cheddar? Okay, pepper jack probably would have been fine...
Beef: I had my last bag of frozen (humane) lean ground beef from last season's CSA to use up so I mixed about half a pound up with some grill seasoning, cumin, and cinnamon and browned it with some garlic in some olive oil in my cast iron. Once the meat started caramelizing, I stirred in a big ol' spoon of tomato paste and 2 chipotle peppers (canned in adobo). A little more cumin and cinnamon and then I took the heat down and let it all stew together for a bit.
Toppings: Fat-free sour cream, guacamole, salsa, diced tomatoes, more cheddar, and a few slices of lime.
Beverage: Corona. Lime.

Done and delicious. It was nice to control every single ingredient that went into a meal that I'm accustomed to ordering from the likes of Taco Bell and Chipotle, and it obviously tasted much better. It wasn't really the sort of burrito that you can eat with your hands, though--I got a bit greedy while stuffing it!

And for dessert...

Sweet Plantains
Slice 2 ripe plantains up on diagonals so they have more surface area than the usual disc cuts. Melt some butter in a cast iron and brown them on one side. Flip them and sprinkle some brown sugar and white sugar on, as well as a healthy dousing of real vanilla extract (off the heat if you have a gas stove). Make the plantains dance for you in the air as you toss them to coat with the vanilla caramelly mixture. Plate them with a lime wedge to cut through the sweetness a bit.

Mango Madness

2007-05-26T21:45:00.001-07:00

I seem somehow to have lifted my food curse. Dinner was really pretty great tonight. With tropical humidity here in NYC this weekend (YUCK!!!) I decided to purchase a bunch of mangoes and see what I could come up with.

Mango Gazpacho with Shrimp
This is actually much easier than it sounds because if you can dig up all of the ingredients and a blender, it's pretty hard to screw it up. Take about 8 vine-ripened tomatoes and peel them (much simpler if you cut an "x" at the bottom and blanch them for 1 minute before shocking them in an ice bath. ) Chop them up and throw them into a bowl along with half a cucumber diced, half of yellow onion diced, half of a red onion chopped, 2 pressed cloves of garlic, and 2 minced jalapenos. In a food processor, blend together the juice of 1 lemon and 3 or 4 glugs of good olive oil. Put it on pulse and pour in the bowl of veggies, chopping until it is "rustically" textured (soupy but chunky). Add the zest of one lemon, the zest of one lime, and about 4 inches of microplaned ginger, as well as salt and pepper to taste. Pour into a large bowl and stir in 2 roughly chopped mangoes and about a dozen small boiled or steamed shrimp (or you can chop up larger ones if that's all you can get). Garnish with cilantro and lime. Sweet, salty, spicy, scrumptious!

Mango and Brie Quesadillas
Do all of your prep ahead of time, with piles of mango, sliced brie, jalapenos, and cilantro ready to go so your tortillas don't burn. Get a cast-iron or nonstick toasty over medium heat. Place a tortilla on it and move quickly. On half of the tortilla, layer sliced mango, brie, minced jalapenos, and chopped cilantro and fold the other half of the tortilla over omelette style. Press down with a spatula until the top sticks to the bottom. Let it cook on that side for no more than 45 seconds and then flip. Serve it with a cool sauce made of non-fat sour cream, the juice of 1 lime, lime zest, and chopped cilantro and garnish with a few more slices of mango. This dish is both refreshing and decadent. (Oh, and you might have noticed my dog Ben hiding underneath the table; he LOVES mangoes!)

If you're looking for a wine pairing for all of this (or if you're too tired to blend up some margaritas or Cran-quilas!), I suggest Cambrago's Soave Classico 2005. As the wine store clerk said, if you can deal with the fact that it's got Soave written on the label, it's actually a really great wine, and a nice bargain at $13.95.

Food curse?

2007-05-25T20:45:00.001-07:00

Oh, friends. Your resident truffle pig is going through a rough patch. As if my earlier post about osso bucco bungling and tiramisu trauma weren't enough, I had a veritable salt cod catastrophe this evening. Sure it looks good (see inlaid photo) and sure 70% of it tasted great, but the cod pieces themselves were practically inedible. Thing is: I can't figure out where I went wrong. I soaked the cod overnight and shredded it just like I have in the past. I think it might have just been a bad cut of salt-cod. From here on in, I'm sticking to fresh scrod for this recipe.

"Flaky Fish of Some Sort" Biscaino:
Heat up some olive oil over medium high heat with some red pepper flakes and anchovies. Once the anchovies melt, drop in diced carrots, celery, and onions and some sliced garlic, sauteing until they start to caramelize a bit. Deglaze with Vermouth and pour in a can of crushed roasted tomatoes. Stir it up and let it get a little bubbly before you stir in some saffron, cinnamon, and ground cloves. Lay the shredded fish in the mixture and cook until it gets flaky. Pour in some capers, green olives, and some boiled new potatoes. Once their warm, garnish with parsely and serve over rice.

Two Italian Meals

2007-05-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

I think I've cooked (and dined out at) much more Italian this year than in years past. I have no idea why. The only reasons I could come up with happen to directly negate each other. Either (1) the presence of CSA produce in my life makes me want to cook and eat food that showcases freshness (which Italian does well) or (2) my inability, as of late, to go grocery shopping on a regular basis has forced me to rely heavily on pantry ingredients (which, with its dried pastas, canned tomatoes, etc, Italian cuisine naturally excels at).

At any rate, I cooked for K, E, and L for L's birthday schindig last week...the whole thing was sort of a culinary failure on my part but, with enough wine, few people complain about free food.

A list of my idiocy:

I made Giada's Osso Bucco and I FORGOT TO PUT IN THE BOUQUET GARNI THAT I PREPARED!!!
I made a mushroom ragout for some polenta patties and I FORGOT TO BUY CREAM TO THICKEN THE MUSHROOM SAUCE!!!
After whipping up the ingredients for this Tiramisu recipe, I delegated assembly to E and I FORGOT EXACTLY HOW LONG THE LADYFINGERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SOAKED!

There's more, but it just hurts to much to think back :)

I made up for my sins last night by cooking well for K.

Here's my Linguine alla Vongole:
Saute sliced garlic, minced anchovies, and a few red pepper flakes in a healthy amount of olive oil on a medium-high heat. Let it all get golden and yummy, taking it off the heat to make sure it doesn't burn. Deglaze with some white wine and lemon juice and then pour in a can of high-quality clams. Stir and give the ingredients some time to get to know each other under a lid and over some low heat. Boil up the pasta and drop a splash of the pasta water into the clam sauce. Mix the drained pasta into the sauce and pour on a glug on high quality olive oil off the heat. Garnish with parsley.

Preserved Salad: (see above picture!)
So, this simple salad is just mesclun, tomatoes, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, anchovies, and parsely doused with a vinaigrette made from rustic mustard, balsamic vinegar, orange blossom honey, lemon juice, and pistachio oil. Yum.

Boston, Day 2: Rachel Ray saves the day?

2007-05-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

The Neighborhood Restaurant
After spending a few morning hours in the hotel hot-tub, K, E, and I went to meet some of E's grad school friends for brunch. The Neighborhood Restaurant is known for serving hearty breakfast fare at student-friendly prices. The entrees (between $5 and $12) are all served with orange juice, coffee, cream of wheat, and a virtually unfinishable main course. I ordered the "Portuguese Breakfast," tempting it me as it was with a bevy of unorthodox breakfast items. It came with two poached eggs, linguiça sausages, 3 croquettes (shrimp, cod, and some sort of cheese), and some sort of dark entrail meat (blood sausage?). Oh yeah, AND rice and beans.

While the eggs were perfectly poached (runny yolk getting absorbed by the yummy rice and beans) and the linguiça was spicy and flavorful, I wasn't wild about the croquettes and I really had a hard time with the unidentified entrails. But such is the risk that accompanies my ordering antics. The real star here is the cream of wheat appetizer that precedes the whole meal. It's creamy, cinnamony, and just a little bit citrusy, warm and comforting without being sedating.

With our tummies stuffed to capacity, it was time to hit Boston proper. E had us walk the freedom trail to provide a very scenic route to our eventual dining destination in the North End. En route, I had to sample some fresh crab from a street market a block away from the Holocaust memorial. $2 for a large condiment cup worth of steamed crab. I hit it with some lime and hot sauce and yum.

Giacomo's
Seeing the line form outside Giacomo's an hour before the restaurant opens at 5pm makes one want to curse Rachel Ray for featuring this North End Italian Restaurant on her $40 a day. But here's the kicker: the lines were as long before the place became a Food Network celebrity. Don't worry about the line, though. If you can get there before opening I can't imagine you'd ever have to wait more than an hour, and I've waited at least that long just waiting to be taken to my reserved table at New York hotspots like Mesa Grill. And while I'm really not one for schmoozing with strangers, our incredibly friendly fellow line-mates made the time whizz by.

After waiting from 4:15-5pm (and seeing the line stretch around the block) until we were ushered in for the first seating, it was easy to see why the place was so popular: massive plates of delicious pasta at super-reasonable prices served up by hysterical no-nonsense waitresses who know their food and the neighborhood. I ordered the house specialty: the Frutti di Mare ($18). It is a plate of mussels, shrimp, calamari, clams, and scallops served on top of a bed of linguini and topped with the Fra Diavolo sauce (basically a spicy lobster-based marinara). It was simple and delicious. The seafood was all superfresh and pefectly steamed and the sauce was flavorful and just spicy enough (though I regretted not trying out their Scampiorgiacomo's sauce which is a lobster-based marinara with bechamel). The linguini itself was nothing to write home about, but the K's Butternut Squash Ravioli and E's Lobster Ravioli definitely impressed.

The meal for 4, with a bottle of wine, came to $80. It was a perfect way to end our fabulous 36-hour trip to Bah-ston (though I should warn all prospective Giacomo patrons: the lite fm they blast hovers in that delicate balance between comical and fully intolerable).

But you can't end a trip without dessert!!! Armed with our waitress's recommendation, we strolled over to Cafe Graffiti for some sweets. As I've mentioned here before, I don't have a dessert stomach so I certainly wasn't ready for the cannolis and cakes they had on display. I was, however, fully prepared for a cappuccino with a shot of amaretto.

And that, as they say, was that. Thanks E, C, and K for a great trip!

Boston, Day 1: Peanut-butter burgers?

2007-05-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

I spent Friday and Saturday in Boston (and Cambridge) with E, K, and C. It was pretty much 36 hours worth of eating and drinking, with just a dash of sleep thrown in for good measure. Here's what we stuffed our stomachs with:

Darwin's
A cute little sandwich shop a few blocks from the mighty Charles. The place names its menu after the local streets (which I discovered shortly after lunch when we passed the intersection of the two sandwiches I was choosing between). I ended up going for the Gerry, a Reubenesque (come on, how good is that allusion!) sourdough treat with hot pastrami, melted swiss, cole slaw, and thousand island dressing. As someone who feels compelled to every last bit of food I order, I was glad to see the portion-size was reasonable. Enough to fill me up but not quite enough to make me rue the day I was born. I washed it all down with an organic all-natural Cream soda.

Burdick Chocolate
We stopped in here for some quick sweet treats. While I wasn't in love with the ultra-cute handmade chocolates themselves (I suppose I'm spoiled by NYC's Vosges with its exotic flavor combinations), the iced hot chocolate certainly earned a place on my top 5 chocolate beverages.

Boston Beer Works
shark, marinated in Beer Works® We came here to stuff ourselves with enough grub to keep our stomachs from pestering us during the show we were catching that night. We only ordered from the appetizer column but the portions were certainly entree-sized. I ordered the Maco Shark Skewers: Fresh Mako marinated in Raspbeery Ale, grilled with tomatoes, onions & served with jasmine rice & fruit salsa. The very fresh fruit salsa and grilled tomatoes were excellent, with the latter popping with flavor in the mouth, but I was torn on the shark itself. The pieces seemed to come from very different parts of the sharks, as some were juicy and tender (like swordfish at its best) and others were more cartilaginous and tough. For some reason, the marinade was a little vinegary for my taste, but when I let some of the rice absorb it, I got more of the berry and less of the vinegar. I also nibbled from E & K's obscenely large half-portion of nachos, with dips placed conventiently in side-dishes instead of slopped on top in a goey mess.

Bukowski Tavern
With a kitchen open very late and a spinnable beer wheel for the indecisive, Bukowski's made for the perfect post-show dinner. There was one item on the menu staring at me like a dare: the Peanut-Butter Burger. Just a simple burger with the usual trimmings, except the patty was covered in chunky peanut-butter. A-mazing! One of those so-wrong-it's-right dishes. And yes, I know, peanut-butter and beef are combined all the time in various Asian cuisines. But, as many beef satay skewers as I've downed in the past, I was still surprised and delighted by the improbable taste of medium-rare meat with the salty goodness of the peanut puree. The crunch of the peanuts also gave the dish a lot of textural pleasure. I washed it all down with an equally rich oatmeal stout. I'm eager to try this dish at home with some of our left over CSA ground beef, though I'd by lying if I said I wasn't tempted to try to squeeze some jam between those buns :)

That's it for day 1. Day 2, or "Rachel Ray saves the day!", will be posted in the next few days.

No fresh food? No problem!

2007-04-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

Even though it was quite the long day and the end of quite the long week, I knew I wanted to cook for K tonight, if only because it's been nearly two weeks since I prepared a dinner of any kind. Unfortunately, I also haven't purchased groceries in at least that long and last week was so hellish that I even forgot to pick-up the last CSA delivery of the season (and our last with Prince George CSA). Sure, I could have just gone downstairs and picked up some groceries, but K and I live in a 5th floor walk-up and I had already gone up and down to walk my dog (and couldn't pop in for groceries then because of draconian health department codes).

So, faced with the challenge of cooking a two-course meal from my pantry and freezer, here's what I came up with:

Seared Scallops with Saffron Anchovy Butter
I decided it was time to polish off the last 7 bivalves from Trader Joe's' frozen Wild Japanese Scallops, but I wanted to create a brand-new recipe for the sauce (and one which didn't use truffle butter, truffle salt, or truffles of any sort!). I made the sauce first so that I didn't overcook the scallops while rushing to finish the sauce. I melted some butter and dropped some warm-water softened saffron and finely chopped (jarred) anchovies in it, whisking until the anchovies dissolved (yes, Virginia, fish do dissolve!). I stirred in some dry Vermouth and let the alcohol cook out. I whisked in some horseradish cream and some capers (in their brine). I set it aside in a condiment cup under tin foil and seared the scallops (dredged in a li'l bit of flour, sea salt, and black pepper) in butter. After both sides were browned, I poured the sauce in the pot and sauteed the scallops in the rich fishy goodness for a few seconds before plating it.

Rotelle w/Sundried Tomato & Chicken Sausage Sauce
Forget authenticity! While I usually try approach Italian dishes from a fairly traditional stance, trying to use ingredients that I know (from my father's cooking, from visiting Italy, or from watching Mario Batali) have some history of being paired together, an empty fridge meant I'd have to get creative. So, I began my dad's standard tomato sauce the usual way: some olive oil, some red pepper flakes, some dried Italian seasoning, some garlic, and some onion. Sauteed for a bit and then threw in some rehydrated and chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Once they absorbed most of the fat, I deglazed with some Vermouth and let it cook off. I poured in a can of diced tomatoes and after they cooked for awhile, mashed some of the larger chunks. I warmed the pre-cooked chicken sausage in the sauce a few minutes before serving, and poured the smokey deep tomato flavors over some store-bought rotelle and topped it with shaved parmesan.

Birthday Bash

2007-04-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend eating and imbibing to commemorate my birth.

Day 1 w/fam:

Dinner at Grand Central Oyster Bar.

GCOB has what is arguably the best shrimp cocktail in New York. 5 lobster tail-sized shrimp cooked to perfection and a tangy cocktail sauce with just a bit of bite.
I had an oyster craving and what better place to satisfy it. For some reason I tend to prefer Canadian oysters, so I ordered one each of the Conway Cup (Prince Edward Island), Cortez Island (Cortez Island), Denman Island (British Columbia), Great White (Nova Scotia), Malaspina (British Columbia), Malpeque (Prince Edward Island), Nootka Sound (British Columbia), Ship's Point (British Columbia), and Snow Creek (British Columbia). The sweet and perfectly slurpable Malpeque is always my favorite, but the others were tasty too. I do wish that GCOB offered consumers some guidance with oyster selections...would it kill them to offer 4-6 word descriptions of the 15+ varieties they offer or at least arrange the oysters on the plate in such a way that the buyer can tie a name to a taste for future reference (when I open an oyster bar, each platter will come with a printed card like when you order the wine flights at Metrocafe)?
For my 8th raw item, I ordered a single sea urchin. Now, uni is definitively my favorite piece of nigiri sushi (when served at a high quality restaurant, otherwise they're too pungent to actually consume) and I've had raw sea urchin preparations at French restaurants, but I've never actually ordered urchin at a raw bar. I fished around for the tasty parts that looked like uni, but didn't know what to do with the rest of the organs floating around in the shell. Did I miss out on some rare delicacies here?
My mom was pleased with her gorgeously seared scallops in puttanesca sauce and my sister had the best fried calamari of her life (I guess it helps that this one was probably made from fresh calamari instead of the frozen stuff they deep fry at most restaurants).

Dessert at Chikalicious.

This microscopic East Village dessert bar is a must-have New York experience. Chef Chika stands behind her counter with a sous chef or two assembling stunning presentations of some of the tastiest sweets I've ever had. $12.95 buys you a 3-course dessert prix fixe (menu changes daily, but a sample can be found here) and $7 more pairs your choice with a perfect dessert wine (my prix fixe was paired with a sparkly red dessert wine: Les Clos De Paulilles Banyuls 2002 I think). Though the wait is often upwards of 45 minutes to get seated on weekend nights, the maitre'd is so calming that I've rarely grown impatient.
Course #1: Dessert Appetizer. Lime curd with Mojio sorbet. Delicate and tangy, just enough to get my taste buds primed for the main event.
Course #2: Dessert Entree. Strawberry soup with honey parfait. I've had this before: it's delicious and refreshing but I had my heart set on the lavender marinated kiwi that had sold-out. I actually think the dessert pictured above, the warm chocolate tart with red wine sauce and pink peppercorn icecream might be my favorite as it mingles three seemingly incongruous tastes.
Course #3: Dessert Dessert. Petit fours. Coconut covered marshmallows, a little cake, and shortbread cookies. The marshmallows are always the best on this plate, completely distinct creatures from the puffed sugar we roast at campfires.

Day 2 w/friends:

Brunch at Alice's Teacup.

With a party of 11, we were really gambling in our attempt to get seated as walk-ins when all 3 of their locations were booked solid from 8am-8pm. K and I arrived 90 minutes ahead of when the rest of the party was going to arrive and out our name on the list. The very accommodating staff found a way to seat us just a few minutes after my first 6 of guests arrived.
I ordered the "nibble," a tiered tea service that comes with a scone, a sandwich, a pot of tea, and cookies for $22.
I chose the fragrant and pleasant Mango Amazon tea, an Indian black tea with mango pieces.
The pumpkin scone, served warm with jam and fresh clotted cream, was easily the best baked good I've ever head.
The sandwich was simple but tasty, smoked salmon and dill butter on Russian black bread.
I ended up giving away most of my cookies, but the little peanut-butter one was heavenly (I am a sucker for all things with peanut butter. Hence, for the evening's proceedings, my friend A picked up a peanut butter pie!)

Dinner with delivered Brother Jimmy's BBQ.

I know, I know, NYC doesn't have real BBQ, but this comes very close. I don't usually step foot in any of the chain's frat-tastic locations for fear of getting trampled, but I'm happy to order delivery. But careful: it's always slow, very slow, and if you are ordering more than a few dishes, they usually forget one or two items.
I always order the same thing: Northern and Dry Rub ribs (the real ones, no babybacks here!), collard greens, and mac & cheese (sometimes I opt for the candied yams instead). The Dry Rub ribs are spicy and smoky and firm and just perfect drenched in Jimmy's house vinegar-based BBQ sauce. The Northern ribs don't need any extra sauces as the meat is so tender, it's practically liquid already (and that's a good thing!). Even my friend C, a Texan transplant, enjoyed them.
The collard greens are probably the least healthy possible preparation of what could be a very nutritious ingredient, but damn they're good. Always a bit saltier than I'd like to be, but if I keep some beer on hand, I'm usually fine...
There's nothing really special about the mac & cheese except that it's perfect for absorbing the fatty greasy salty saucy flavors from the ribs and greens. The candied yams are really quite good, though: you can actually distinguish 3 or 4 different types of sweetness, and it's a really nice mix of mashed and solid pieces.
Although it sounds like pregnancy-fare, E convinced me to go in on an order of fried pickles (frickles) with her and wow I'm happy I did. I think they have now joined the pantheon of my other two favorite friend offerings: Sicilian aroncini and British deep fried Mars Bars.

My birthday extravaganza finally wrapped up last night, over leftovers of Brother Jimmy's, with K's birthday gift: a Personal Wine Curator for my computer. I'm very excited to start using that.

Find a CSA near you

2007-04-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been wondering how you can find a CSA of your own, just go here.