Omakase at Sushi Yasuda

Craig's birthday has always been an excellent excuse to splurge at a high-end restaurant, the kind of place I couldn't justify going to the rest of the year. Usually I pick a place that piques my curiosity, or a place I've been dying to try for a long time. Last year we visited Momofuku Ko, the year before--and it was quite a year--Per Se and, the year before that, Blue Hill.

This year, it finally occurred to me: all this time, I'd been choosing places I really wanted to go to without really factoring Craig into the equation. Sure, he loves food and loved all these meals, but would he have picked these places himself? Probably not (reading over my shoulder, he says: "I would've picked Blue Hill.") Regardless, there's one kind of food that Craig absolutely loves and that I just enjoy which, if this birthday was going to be about him, I would have to pursue: that food is sushi.

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Tags: birthdays, Craig, Frank Bruni, sushi, sushi yasuda | February 9, 2010 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments

Made-Up Minestrone

My proudest culinary achievements aren't the ones where I followed a recipe really well or repeated a specific technique demonstrated by a chef, they're the ones where on a freezing cold night, instead of ordering a pizza or Thai food (side-note: we still haven't found good take-out in the West Village; anyone?) I whip up something delicious with what I have on hand.

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Tags: beans, cold weather food, minestrone, rice, soup | February 8, 2010 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments

Lucy's Salty Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies + Momofuku Milk Bar Cookies

I care about you, readers, and I don't want you to go through this weekend without cookies. Everyone deserves cookies, especially on the weekend.

The cookies I'm going to tell you about may already be familiar to you. The first, Lucy's Salty Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies, were cookies I told you about in December. Remember I went to a cookie party? And how I was assigned Pfeffernussen? And how my Pfeffernussen were a bit tough and unwieldy, but how the best cookies at the party--salty chocolate peanut butter cookies--were so good I tracked down the recipe for you? Well now I've made those cookies myself and they are still mind-bogglingly good.

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Tags: cookies, Diana, Lucy Alibar, Milk Bar, Momofuku, peanut butter, salt | February 5, 2010 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments

The Best Meatloaf I've Ever Had

It's hard to get excited about meatloaf. That is, unless you're standing in the kitchen at Craft in New York and Chef Damon Wise (Tom Colicchio's right-hand man) is mixing together ground beef, pork, crisp shitakes (that taste like bacon), golden soffrito, soy sauce, fresh oregano and Parmesan cheese. The resulting meatloaf--which Chef Wise called "Umami Meatloaf"--was, without question, the best I've ever had. And then, as you'll see in the following Food2 video, I went and recreated it at home. All the proportions and ingredients and steps are listed in the video, but, just in case, I'll share them after the jump. And now, without further pause, here's one killer meatloaf:

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Tags: Craft, Damon Wise, Food2, meatloaf, recipes, videos | February 2, 2010 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments

Chicken Cooked in a Pig's Bladder (Chef Eric Frechon at Daniel)

Maybe I'm crass, but when I think bladder, I think pee.

When the bladder comes up in conversation, it's usually in the context of "my bladder is going to explode, please pull over" or "ouch, don't sit on my bladder, I just drank a liter of Coke." It's rarely: "Mmm, you know what would be delicious? Puffing up the bladder of a pig and cooking a chicken in it!" If someone said that to you, you might stare at them, mouth agape, wondering how quickly you might get to the nearest exit. Yet, at some point before I arrived at the NYT 4-star Michelin 3-star restaurant Daniel on the Upper East Side, the visiting chef--another Michelin 3-star chef, Chef Eric Frechon from The Bristol in Paris--made that very statement. And no one recoiled in horror; in fact, they helped him do it.

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Tags: chicken, Daniel Boulud, Eric Frechon, Fernand Point, fine dining, French, pig's bladder | February 1, 2010 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments

The Great Soup Battle of 2010

Hear those distant drums? A great battle is about to begin: the Great Soup Battle of 2010.

As readers may remember, last week I announced a big contest on my blog. Submit your favorite soup recipe--it didn't have to be original, just a soup recipe that you love--and the best one would win a $450 VitaMix blender. Then 325 of you, that's right 325 of you, submitted recipes. And little old me had to wade through them to pick the best. It was hard work, not for the faint of heart, but I wound up choosing the three most intriguing; recipes that, for whatever reason, grabbed my attention and made me hungry to try them. Then I invited my friends Diana Fithian (an enthusiastic home cook) and Leland Scruby (who works at the French Culinary Institute) over to help me make them. The three of us, plus Craig, would sample these soups and carefully choose the winner.

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Tags: cabbage, contests, Diana, fagioli, Leland, peanut butter, soups, VitaMix | January 28, 2010 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments

Do-It-Yourself Dumplings

Brothers and sisters, I have seen the light! All these years, these years of reading Calvin Trillin (the poet laureate of dumplings) and fake nodding as my Manhattanite friends (ones who grew up here) debated dumpling dives, I faked an interest that didn't really exist. You see, I didn't really get the big deal. What's so great about dumplings? Aren't they just glorified ravioli, greasy gut-bombs that you dip in soy sauce and that make you feel gross and un-full and desperate for a salad? This, of course, is sacrilege in the food world but my confession here is a precursor for an absolute conversion that came about because of a little web show called Working Class Foodies.

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Tags: dumplings, Flushing, Kit Pennebaker, pork, Rebecca Lando, Working Class Foodies | January 26, 2010 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments

Heaven & Hell Cauliflower Pasta

White food is supposedly unappetizing. Tom Colicchio, on "Top Chef," will mark down a plate of food if everything on it is white or beige. I see his point: there's something almost clinical about a plate of white food. That's why parsley's such a useful ingredient to have around; it's an easy color-solution, the flecks of green create a vibrancy and sparkle a plain plate of white food just doesn't have.

That said, there's always one plate of white food that makes me smile. It makes me smile because it's white food with a secret; a plate of white food that explodes with flavor. And that, faithful readers, is my Heaven & Hell Cauliflower Pasta.

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Tags: anchovies, cauliflower, garlic, pasta, Zuni Cafe | January 25, 2010 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments

How To Host A Vegetarian Dinner Party (Answer: Mushroom Bourguignon)

My friend Lisa was there at the very beginning of this blog. Six years ago, she and I would have debates about the worthiness of olives, we'd sing songs about pumpkin cake, and often we'd cook together. Then I moved far away to a country called Brooklyn and even though Lisa and I still saw each other socially, we'd rarely cook together. Three years passed. In that time, my cooking improved immeasurably and Lisa got engaged. Life is funny that way. And now that I'm back in Manhattan and Lisa still has an appetite I decided to invite Lisa, her fiance Eric, our friend Ricky and his new boyfriend David over for a sumptuous feast. Only problem: Lisa still is (and always has been) a vegetarian. What would I make for dinner?

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Tags: Bourguignon, dinner parties, French food, Lisa, Smitten Kitchen, vegetarian | January 21, 2010 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments

Spectacular Sweet Potato Soup (PLUS: Win a $450 VitaMix Blender)

A splash of this, a pinch of that: that's the kind of cooking I've always wanted to do, but I've never been very good at it. Sure, I'll sprinkle some cinnamon into my oatmeal and, yes, I'll sex up a plate of pasta with some red chile flakes, but the ability to cook impulsively, to grab ingredients out of the fridge and make something scrumptious, has always eluded me. That is until I discovered soup.

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Tags: contests, original recipes, soup, sweet potatoes, VitaMix blender | January 19, 2010 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments

6 Years

No need to make a fuss, but today's the 6th anniversary of my blog. Six years ago, on January 14th, 2004 to be exact, I wrote the following words: "Are you sick of competency? Of food blogs run by competent people with flawless track records and no history of salmonella? Are you tired of not having salmonella? You've come to the right place."

Six years later, I can't believe how that small gesture changed my life so dramatically. Thanks to everyone who's supported me along the way (mentors, friends, colleagues, designers, illustrators, you know who you are) and, most importantly, thanks to you--yes YOU--for reading me. What do the next six years hold? I'm not sure, but if they're anything like the last six, I've got a lot to look forward to.

[P.S. Check out this Serious Eats interview where I reveal my top 3 favorite posts from the past six years.]

Tags: anniversary, Serious Eats, six years | January 14, 2010 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments

The Best Tuna Sandwich in New York is at The New French

Recently, I had my friends Rob and Kath over for dinner. They live in our building and we were chatting about the neighborhood, our favorite places to eat and, inevitably, The New French came up. "You know it's funny," I said. "At first I didn't love The New French, but recently I discovered their tuna sandwich and it's seriously the best tuna sandwich of my life."

"You didn't just discover it," said Rob.

"What?"

"You blogged about it," he insisted. "Last year."

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Tags: best of, Rob, sandwiches, The New French, tuna | January 14, 2010 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments

Caramelized-Apple Skillet Cake

I had the apples, I had the butter, I had the sugar, the vanilla extract, and even the cornmeal. Jimmy was coming to dinner (see here) and, with only an hour or two to prep, I knew there had to be dessert. So I yanked down Karen DeMasco's newest book, The Craft of Baking, and followed her instructions for a caramelized-apple skillet cake.

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Tags: cake, caramelized apple cake, cast iron skillet, Jimmy, Karen DeMasco | January 12, 2010 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments