A Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

In case you haven't noticed, food blogs, food magazines, food networks and the like love Thanksgiving. They love it because, for once, the nation is intent on cooking dinner. For 364 days out of the year, that's mostly not the case--what with fast food and frozen dinners and all the other instant options at our fingertips. But Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is something you've gotta cook. That is, unless you're me.

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Tags: chicken, cranberry sauce, Food52, stuffing, testing, Thanksgiving | November 19, 2009 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments

Ordering in from Otto

As a New York based food blogger, I often make an effort to vary my posts so that those of you not in New York--which, I imagine, is actually the large majority of you--can feel like I'm speaking to you too.

But this post, despite its New York specificity, has what I imagine is universal appeal--mostly because of a chef that I've loved and admired for as long as I've been interested in cooking. That chef is Mario Batali.

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Tags: Mario Batali, Otto, pizza, Regina Schrambling, Twitter | November 18, 2009 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

Pot Roast

When I think pot roast, I think Americana, I think 50s sitcoms and a beleaguered housewife who intones: "Oh, darn it, I burnt the pot roast!"

It's not a dish that I ate much growing up, eating--as we did--most of our meals out. My first real pot roast memory, actually, comes from Atlanta. I ordered pot roast at one of my favorite, kitschy restaurants there--Agnes & Muriel's--and got very sick afterwards. I don't blame Agnes & Muriel's, but I did blame pot roast. I avoided it for years.

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Tags: apples, braises, John "Doc" Willoughby, pot roast, recipes, Twitter | November 16, 2009 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments

Steam-Scrambled Eggs

Those of you with cappuccino makers, may I have your attention? I have a weekend project for you. When you make your scrambled eggs this weekend, instead of melting butter in a pan, beating the eggs with a fork, plopping them into the foamy fat and stirring them round and round, why not find inspiration in the picture above? Those eggs, you see, are the work of renowned New York chef Jody Williams. I ate them last Sunday with my friend Jimmy at her lovely little restaurant, Gottino, and they were so cloud-like and delicious I thought they might float right off the plate. But the best part was how they were made...

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Tags: cappuccino makers, eggs, Gottino, Jody Williams | November 13, 2009 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments

Lunch with Lidia Bastianich (and my dad)

It's my fault, really. My parents were in town and my mom asked me, early in the week, if I'd babysit my dad for lunch on Tuesday while she met some of her friends. I said, "Sure." Then, the day before, I received a confirmation e-mail from Lidia Bastianich's publicist reminding me of a lunch scheduled at Lidia's restaurant Felidia the next day. I'd RSVPed for two (I was going to bring a more talented photographer friend (why? see picture above)) and so, after some clever thinking, I decided to take my dad.

"What is this again?" asked my dad when I told him about it. "Who is this person?"

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Tags: cookbooks, Felidia, Lidia Bastianich, my dad, the pope | November 11, 2009 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments

Pork on Fire (The Spiciest Dish in New York?)

On Friday, I sent out the following e-mail to my pork-eating friends:

Dear Friends,

Today I was reading the New Yorker profile of the only food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, Jonathan Gold. In it he says of a spicy Thai food dish: "It was glowing, practically incandescent. You bite into it and every alarm in your body goes off at once. It's an overload on your pain receptors, and then the flavors just come through. It's not that the hotness overwhelms the dish, which is what people who don't understand Thai cooking always say, but that the dish is revealed for the first time--its flavor--as you taste details of fruit and turmeric and spices that you didn't taste when it was merely extremely hot. It's like a hallucination."

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Tags: Chris Dufault, Craig, Doug, Jonathan Gold, New Yorker, pork on fire, Rhong-Tiam, spicy food | November 9, 2009 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

Arnold Schwarzenegger at Le Pain Quotidien

My friend Tom snapped this picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday at Le Pain Quotidien in Santa Monica. Says Craig, in his Arnold Schwartzenegger voice: "Hasta la vista roast beef with caper mayonnaise, diced tomatoes and scallions!"

Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, celebrities, Le Pain Quotidien, Santa Monica, Tom | November 9, 2009 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments

MIchael Symon's Spicy Tomato & Blue Cheese Soup

At the end of yesterday's video podcast with Michael Symon, you may have heard me sheepishly express doubt about adding blue cheese to tomato soup. For some reason, I thought the result would be grainy and gloppy and just kind of gross. Instead, this tomato soup was absolutely the best tomato soup I've ever had--and the best part about it is you'd never know that blue cheese was what was making it taste so good. It adds depth and creaminess but it doesn't taste funky and you don't notice the texture.

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Tags: blue cheese, Michael Symon, soup, tomatoes | November 6, 2009 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments

A Video Podcast with Michael Symon

Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with Iron Chef Michael Symon outside the Standard Hotel in New York's meatpacking district. Chef Symon's in town to promote his new cookbook, "Live To Cook" which he co-wrote with this blog's good friend Michael Ruhlman. Here's our lively chat edited down to just 4 minutes:

As for the tomato soup I mention at the end, I made it later that night and it was so fantastic I'm going to share the recipe in a separate post (look for it tomorrow). And if you want to watch the video of me cooking with Chef Symon in his kitchen at Lola, click here.

Tags: Iron Chef, Live To Cook, Michael Symon, Standard Hotel, video podcasts | November 5, 2009 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

Where To Buy Ethical Meat?

My friend Rob wrote me the following e-mail yesterday and because it's such a good question, I thought I'd answer it right here on the blog.

Hey Adam, I was reading reviews of [Jonathan Safran] Foer's new book "Eating Animals" on being a vegetarian and renewing my pledge to only eat "humane" meat -- free range, cruelty free, local, organic, etc. But I cannot for the life of me figure out which places are "approved." Is there any way to figure this out? Would this make for a good blog? It seems to be a topic a lot of people are talking about... - Rob

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Tags: ethical meat, farmer's market, Flying Pigs Farm, Jonathan Safran Foer, Rob | November 3, 2009 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments

How To Make Doughnuts

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who can delay gratification and those who can't. The following video, our latest from Food2.com, explores this subject with two recipes for doughnuts; one for those who like slow authentic doughnuts (recipe courtesy of Emily Isaac from Trois Pommes Patisserie in Park Slope) and the other for those who like 'em fast and dirty (recipe courtesy of our friend Krisse, my director Josh's wife (you can see her making them in an old post here)). These recipes are like mirrors; whichever one you choose will reveal the real person within. So which are you: slow and authentic or fast and dirty? Choose a doughnut and choose YOUR DESTINY.

Tags: doughnuts, Food2.com, Josh, Krisse, videos | November 2, 2009 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments

Gina DePalma's Zucchini Olive Oil Cake

You say "chocolate cake," and the masses come; you say "olive oil zucchini cake" and there's a bit of a silence. "Ummm," a timid voice emerges a few seconds later. "What kind of cake did you say?"

It's olive oil zucchini cake, timid-voiced person! Or, rather, zucchini olive oil cake. It comes from Babbo pastry chef Gina DePalma's book "Dolce Italiano" and one bite will make a convert out of you. It's moist, it's got terrific fall spices (cinnamon? check. ginger? you got it. nutmeg? who's your daddy?) and there's a "lemon crunch" glaze on top that'll make you pucker your lips in delight. Craig's friend Alena was dubious at first, but after one bite she declared "this is AMAZING" and asked for a second piece. The defense rests.

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Tags: baking, cake, fall recipes, Gina DePalma, olive oil, zucchini | October 30, 2009 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments

Momofuku's Ginger Scallion Noodles

Bow down before me, mortals, it's time to face facts. David Chang is one of the most celebrated, important chefs in New York, right? Right. His cooking is hardcore and bad-ass isn't it? It is. So what does it mean that a mere amateur like me, a tiny speck on the giant tapestry of New York gastronomy, not only created one of Chang's signature dishes at home--his Ginger Scalllion Noodles--but that I did it so accurately? So triumphantly? So magnificently? It means, I surmise, that I am the King of Awesomeness! BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, YOU HEATHENS.

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Tags: David Chang, ginger scallion noodles, King of Awesomeness, momofuku, noodles | October 28, 2009 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments

The First Meal

The first meal that you cook in a new apartment is very, very important. We all remember what happened last time, don't we? I attempted to inaugurate our Park Slope apartment three years ago with Edna Lewis's fried chicken (fried in butter and lard) and didn't get the fat hot enough. The result? Gooey, gloppy, undercooked chicken and a cursed apartment that gave us bad heat over three harsh winters. (OK, I exaggerate: I liked that apartment. But the heat did suck).

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Tags: chocolate cake, Murray's Cheese, neighbors, pasta, West Village | October 26, 2009 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments