Back to BABBO

Babbo is located on Waverly between 6th Avenue and Washington Square West and I walk past it several times a week on my way back home from school. Every time I pass it my body tingles a little the way your body tingles when you see someone attractive through a train window pulling away from the station---oh how magical it might be, if only if only if only...

Don't get me wrong. Unlike the mysterious person through the train window, I've done Babbo. I've done it twice. (Both times with Lisa: first reviewed on Chowhound, second time reviewed (by way of an epic poem) on here). I've declared Jean-Georges the best restaurant in New York, but I think Babbo's my favorite. I love Babbo.

So Lauren came today. Hi Lauren! She's here doing work on a case for her big new law job in DC. Lauren in Atlanta was always a bit reticent when it came to fine dining because we LIVED together and we ate many many meals together so it was hard to justify spending mucho dinero on just a Wednesday night meal. But now that we live THOUSANDS of MILES apart (ok it's just a 3 hour train ride) random city visits merit special occassion meals. Tonight we had many options before us, but I had my heart set on Babbo--and since Lauren had never been there, I practically insisted on it. We were not disappointed.

*****

The first thing you should know is that we did not have a reservation. We simply walked in. This is good to know because Babbo has an intimidating reservation system. You call, you wait, you press buttons, you wait some more, you press more buttons, and finally you talk to someone. That person will most likely tell you they are booked for the entire month. You hang up and drop out of society, having lost your will to live.

When my brother came to town a few weeks ago, I wanted to take him to Babbo. I experienced everything described in the preceding paragraph, gave up, and took him to Home and Film Forum instead. We had fun.

But tonight I recalled something I read somewhere (perhaps by Steven Shaw at eGullet?) that the best way to get into a hard-to-get into restaurant is just to show up. There are cancellations, there are tables at the bar. And that was precisely the case tonight at Babbo. Lauren and I walked in at 8:50 (we came from a one-man show on the life of Tennessee Williams at school) and the host told us a table at the bar would only be 30 minutes. We said "woohoo!" and gave our name.

At the bar, I made Lauren have a bellini. Both times I've been to Babbo, we've had bellinis at the bar. Tonight's bellini was prickly pear: it was red in color and sweet and tart and delicious. Lauren, I believe, enjoyed hers too.

The bar scene was crowded. I turned to Lauren and said: "How would you desribe the people here? Fancy? Yuppy?"

She stared at a weird looking couple and said: "Men cheating on their wives."

I thought that was funny.

Soon (a little less than 30 minutes, actually) a hostess came and got us and sat us at a table right in front of the bar. A hard-to-please person (like my mom, for example) would have said "unacceptable!" because the table was in a throng of people waiting for their own fancier non-bar tables. But we took ours gladly and I actually enjoyed the hustle and the bustle and the people-watching.

Let's talk about the music here because Babbo's music is something of a sensitive subject for those who read Frank Bruni's 3-star review a few months ago in the Times. Bruni marked Babbo down for the loud rock music that disrupted his meal. I had the completely opposite experience: I felt like the rock music enhanced the meal because it was so eclectic and unusual for such a highly lauded dining establishment. Radiohead blasted overhead--"Karma Police"--and I felt like this place wasn't for my parents, it was for ME! Young people! Us!

Seriously, the music gives Babbo a mystical vibe. It's spiritual rock: Radiohead, Coldplay (I'm not suggesting that Coldplay's on par with Radiohead, but they did play some Coldplay tonight)---music that can be aggressive but also ponderous and magical. Like when the bells come on at the end of "OK, Computer": that coincided with the arrival of our appetizer, and the feeling was that of an ancient food ritual carried out in a futeristic society. I asked Lauren if she agreed and she said, "I'd prefer Italian folk music."

*****And now for the food...****

First we were presented with an amuse (as the French would say) or "a gift from the chef" (as our waiter said): chick pea bruschetta. Here's Lauren modelling it for you all:

She looks a little nervous. "I look scared," she agreed, surveying the picture after taking it. But after tasting a chickpea her mind was set at ease. "Mmmm," she said, "I like chickpeas." The bruchetta had a great balance of textures and flavors---the crustiness of the toast, the bite and the creaminess of the chickpeas and the snap of the vinegar and oil. A great beginning.

Then for our first appetizer: Goat Cheese Truffles. I've asked this question before, but I'll ask it again: how pretty is this picture?

Seriously, it looks better than the picture in the Babbo cookbook.

The concept here is that balls of goat cheese are rolled in different coatings. The one on the upper right is smoked paprika, the one on the bottom is cracked black pepper and--most unusual--the one on the upper left is fennel pollen. Lauren tried that first, not knowing what it was and she seemed a bit nonplussed. "That's fennel pollen," I explained. That didn't seem to help.

But she regained her composure with the other two flavors. "I like the smoked paprika and black pepper ones a lot," she concluded. I was left with the fennel pollen which I gladly consumed. It tastes like mild powdery licorice. It's not for everyone. But I do think it's cool that it's pollen.

Now then, the pasta course. You can't go to Babbo and not get pasta. I made Lauren get the pumpkin lune because you have to have the pumpkin lune when you go there. She kvelled over it: "Mmmmm," she moaned, "this is so good." It is SO good. I dare you not to like it!

I took a bite of hers and snapped a terrible bleachy picture of the half-eaten lune on the fork so you could see the filling. Behold!

[It just occurred to me: this is my first time to Babbo with my new camera. How lucky for you, then, right? In terms of vicarious eating, that is.]

For my pasta, I had the beef cheek ravioli. It's not particularly photogenic, but it is beautiful to eat:

It's very rich and very dense. There's liver in it, which gives it weight. I liked it---I think I'd like it more on a freezing cold winter's night. It's that sort of pasta. It ain't heavy, it's my pasta.

Now then, the main courses...

Lauren had the duck. I've had the duck before and you can see pictures if you click the link to my second Babbo post. She really enjoyed it. That's understood.

I had the lamb. This lamb must have been sacrificed at a temple because it was the most succulent, delicious lamb I've ever tasted:

The outside was charred perfectly and the inside melted in your mouth. It was so tender. There were hints of rosemary and other flavors. The pile in the middle featured peas and mushrooms and whole pieces of mint. This dish was a knock-out. 4 stars. A lamb for all seasons.

But hold on. We're not done with our hyperbole yet. Our greatest Babbo moment has yet to arrive. Can you feel it? Can you sense it? Do you know what's coming?

DESSERT

I was very stern with Lauren when it came to ordering dessert. "WE ARE ORDERING DESSERT," I said definitively.

We were given our dessert menus and I yielded to her to make the decision.

"I'm so full, Adam," she said, "you decide."

I know Lauren likes chocolate. It was between pistachio semi-freddo with chocolate ganache and Italian donuts. The waiter steered us towards the former and oh.my.God.look:

I am printing a picture of this dessert and putting it in my wallet. We were practically licking the plate by the end. How to describe it to you?

The semi-freddo itself was like a frozen, lush, creamy whipped cream without all the air. It's dense but not so dense. It's like a custard, but not so eggy. And it's redolent, here, of pistachios--glorious pistachios--that go so well with the chocolate, it's like heaven itself ordained this dish. I have no idea what's on the outer rim of the plate (honey? syrup?) but all these flavors combined make this the best dessert I have experienced in the latter half of my life. Every dessert from the age of 13 onward has paled in comparison to this one. This is the dessert I want before I am executed for the murder of some-yet-to-be-determined innocent victim. In fact, I'm more likely to carry out a murder if it means this dessert will be my last meal. Oh, this dessert... sigh...

is the meal over? I guess it is. The check arrives. Lauren and I strike up an interesting conversation.

"You know," says Lauren, "it's amazing but for the price of this dinner we could have bought two iPod shuffles."

Aha! A debate ensues! Temporal gratification vs. worldly goods; the intangible vs. the tangible. How do you quantify a meal at Babbo?

"You can't put a price on experience," I say, whimsically but perhaps profoundly.

Lauren agrees. We pay our bill--chat with the host ("Thank you for coming," he says to us most kindly, as if we did HIM a favor by filling a much sought-after table) and walked 18 blocks back up to my apartment. Another perfect, priceless evening at Babbo.

March 31, 2005 2:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (17)

Spring Is Here! A-Suh-Puh-Ring is Here!

If you live in New York and you walked outside today--specifically through the Union Square Greenmarket--there should have been little doubt in your mind that the season has officially changed. It's spring! Look at the flowers!

And to celebrate this most joyous of seasons, here are the lyrics to my favorite spring song: Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park." (I recommend that you download an mp3 of it so you can hear the music...) Enjoy and Happy Spring!

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park by Tom Lehrer

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don’t you? ’course you do.
But there’s one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes ev’ry sunday a treat for me.

We’ll murder them all amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin’
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon.
It just takes a smidgin!
To poison a pigeon in the park.

March 31, 2005 1:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

Circus Food

I enjoyed this R.W. Apple article on circus food especially the bit about the food tent in the old days--157 cooks? That's crazy!

March 30, 2005 1:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (14)

The Answers

Here are the answers to the Bouillabaisse game. No one got all five, but two people got four: Gretchen and Emily. Good job, Gretchen and Emily! You only missed the first one, which was tough... here they are:

1. Alice B. Toklas
2. Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa)
3. Julia Child
4. Moi
5. Anthony Bourdain

Tune in for the next round: The Hamentaschen Preface Game with special guest star Feivish Finkel.

March 30, 2005 1:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (16)

Five Prefaces to Bouillabaisse: A Game

I just watched 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould while reading a certain famous cookbook (I'm a multi-tasker) and I came up with a game called "Five Prefaces to Bouillabaisse." Here's how it works. In a moment, I will type out five prefaces to Bouillabaisse. Four of them come from either famous cookbooks or famous authors and the fifth is made up by me. None of them (except the one by me) are from obscure sources like the Sally Struthers Weight Loss Fish Stew Cookbook. So it's a fair game. And a fun game. It's totally going to make your Tuesday. If anyone guesses all five correctly they will win...nothing, but they will be hailed in the follow-up post tomorrow night! So without further ado, let's begin...

(1) "The fish should be more than fresh, it should be caught and cooked the same day. This is what gives the dish its quality. There must be many different kinds of fish to give the proper flavour. It is not only the ingredients that go into the sauce--which is not a sauce but a soup--it is the flavour of the fish that predominates. There should be at least five different kinds of fish. In Marseilles where the Bouillabaisse was born there are frequently seven or more not counting the shellfish. It cannot be repeated too often that they must be very fresh. In France there are three different kinds of Bouillabaisse--the unique and authentic one of Marseilles with Mediterranean fish, the one of Paris made of fish from the Atlantic, and a very false one indeed made of fresh-water fish."

(2) "I don't have the patience to make bouillabaisse because it always takes a whole day to make. However, I love this seafood stew becasue it has the same flavors and, once the stock is made, only takes about an hour. Placing a slice of toasted bread in the bottom of each bowl before you ladle in the hot soup adds that extra something."

(3) You can make as dramatic a production as you want out of a bouillabaisse, but remember it originated as a simple, Mediterranean fisherman's soup, made from the day's catch or its unsalable leftovers, and flavored with the typical condiments of the region--olive oil, garlic, leeks or onions, tomatoes, and herbs. The fish are rapidly boiled in an aromatic broth and are removed to a platter; the broth is served in a tureen. Each guest helps himself to both and eats them together in a big soup plate. If you wish to serve wine, choose a rose, or a light, strong, young red such as a Cotes de Provence or Beaujolais, or a strong, dry, white wine from the Cotes de Provence or a Riesling.

The fish, except for live lobsters and crabs, may be cleaned, sliced, and refrigerated several hours before the final cooking. The soup base may be boiled and strained. The actual cooking of the fish in the soup will take only about 20 minutes, and then the dish should be served immediately."

(4) "For a strong bouillabaisse, smack the fish several times against the counter before cooking. The eyeballs should dislodge and the fins should seep a green fluid. This is precious: save for garnish. I like to serve my bouillabaisse in a fish tank----the presentation is dramatic and will cause your guests great delight. NOTE: Please remove any pet fish before adding the bouillabaisse! We learned this the hard way and we therefore dedicate this preface to our dearly departed Flipper."

(5) "What is an 'authentic' bouillabaisse? That's an invitation to a fistfight if there ever was one. Frenchmen living in Marseille can't agree, so there'll be no consensus here, I assure you. Above and beyond the "lobster, oui?" or "lobster, non" question--and the various interpretive issues, which we could spend the rest of our natural lives discussing--there's the issue of fish. You're simply not going to be finding any congre, loup de mer, rascasse, or rouget near you. This, my boss Jose assures me, is as close to the real deal (whatever that might be) as you're likely to get. It's pretty damn tasty."

Good luck!

March 29, 2005 1:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (13)

Chocolate Worship: Jacques Torres's Mudslide Cookies

"Well I don't want no Anna Zabba
Don't want no Almond Joy
There ain't nothing better
Suitable for this boy
Well it's the only thing
That can pick me up
Better than a cup of gold
See only a chocolate Jesus
Can satisfy my soul."
- Tom Waits, "Chocolate Jesus"

Chocolate lovers are strange people. Sensualists, they tremble with excitement at the mere mention of rich, oozing, glistening chocolate. Are you trembling now? Perverts, all of you! Out with ye!

I am not a chocolate lover. Like smoking, heavy drinking, and public sex, chocolate is too sinful for my conservative tastes. Give me something bright and lemony, something fruity, and I'm content. Chocolate, in my humble opinion, is boring. Even the best chocolate--if I dare say it--tastes too similar to the worst chocolate. Chocolate is chocolate. Leave me out of it.

But I am surrounded by chocolate lovers. The world is populated by chocolate lovers. How can we be chocolate lovers if we can't eat M&Ms? That made no sense but it's fun to sing.

Two chocolate lovers deserve chocolate this week: one is a teacher and the other is Lauren, my old roommate. Lauren's coming on Wednesday. My teacher's birthday was last week and it's been disclosed that she loves chocolate. I have her class tomorrow. The impetus was too great: I made Jacque's Chocolate Mudslides. (Click those words for the link to the recipe.)

Have you had these? Have you made these? Are you aware of these?

Even for a chocolate-hater like me, these are pretty special. When I tell you how much chocolate goes into them, you won't believe me. Are you ready? 38 oz!

This amounted to 10--count them, 10!--bars of chocolate. The lady at the register eyed me suspiciously. "No," I assured her, "I'm not a chocoalte sensualist---chocolate doesn't give me orgasms." She called the manager and I was asked to leave.

Let's get on with the recipe. We melt 6 oz of unsweetened chocolate and 16 oz of bittersweet chocolate of a double-boiler: (for those unfamiliar, fill a pot with water, bring it to a simmer, and put a bowl over it--that's a double boiler)

Next, it's your standard butter and sugar beat until its light and fluffy maneuver. Only, I needed a mathematician to figure out to extract 3/8ths a cup of butter from 1/2 a cup of butter (1 stick.) See, the recipe only calls for 3/8ths a cup. A stick of butter is 1/2 a cup. I did the following math:

1/2 cup = 4/8 cup. Thus, 4/8 cup - 3/8 cup = 1/8 cup. So I needed to remove 1/8 a cup. Dividing 1/8 by 4 to get back to 1/2 a cup I determined that I needed to remove 1/4 of the 1/2 a cup. I cut off two Tbs. Where's your abacus when you need it?

(Meanwhile, there was so little butter involved and so much sugar, that when I turned the mixer on sugar went spraying everywhere---and now it's all over my feet. I should wash my feet, shouldn't I.)

After that, you add 5 eggs and 1/2 a cup of flour. That's it! 1/2 a cup! The least amount of flour you will ever use to yield 20 cookies. After that it's baking powder, salt, and then the melted chocolate. Then you stir in the chopped remaining chocoalte and walnuts. Pour on to a parchment lined cookie sheet and refrigerate for 5 to 10 minutes.

Five minutes later (I was impatient), I took the sheet out and put parchment over the chilled chocolate and flipped it upside down. This is what I saw:

Here I was asked to divide this into 20 squares and to roll each square into a ball. This was a gooey, sticky, unpleasant (by my standards) task that took some time. I placed these chocolate balls on parchment lined cookie sheets and then flattened them a little:

Actually, as you can see by this picture, this one was a Silpat lined cookie sheet---the other had parchment paper. And I should tell you here---the Silpat sheet cookies came out far better than the parchment paper cookies. Ok, maybe not far better, but the parchment paper cookies had burnt bottoms.

They went in a 400 degree oven for 15 - 25 minutes. I say 15 - 25 because that's what Jacques says and I found it a bit disconcerting. How do you know when they're done? He says they should be crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside. Ummm, Jacques, how can you tell that looking in your oven window?

But I took them out after 17 minutes and I think that was a good choice. The cookies cooled for a while, and I took a bite:

Mmm, see that melted chocolate in the middle, oozing out and perfuming the air with its primal chocolatey scent. I felt my body quiver with satisfaction, my hair flying back in the wind, my pelvis thrusting like...

[THIS POST HAS BEEN CUT SHORT BY THE FOOD BLOGGING CENSORSHIP BOARD OF AMERICA. PLEASE VISIT FAMILY CIRCLE FOR MORE SUITABLE RECIPES.]

March 28, 2005 3:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Mediocre Chef's Salad

Continuing to plow my way through the Amanda Hesser canon, tonight I attempted her Chef's Salad. I blame the results not on her recipe but on my ingredients. And their preparation. Ok, and a little on her recipe.

Let's see: her chef's salad contains romaine lettuce, chicken, bacon, egg and avocado. I had fun multi-tasking--boiling the chicken, boiling the eggs, and frying the bacon:

But she has you fry the bacon on medium low heat so it never really gets crispy. She has you boil the chicken in water, so it really isn't flavorful. And she has you place the egg for 9 minutes in simmering water, so it never really gets cooked. What's going on here?!

My avocado was a loser too. Citronelle was closed for Easter so I went to this alternative grocery store a few blocks up on 6th Avenue and all their avocados were bright green. Meaning: they weren't ripe. I bought the softest one I could find, which on a scale from 1 to soft was nowhere more than a 3. This avocado sucked!

So what was redeeming? The dressing. Amanda has a good dressing recipe: 2 Tbs of dijon mustard, 1 Tbs of red wine vinegar, 1 Tbs of balsamic vinegar, you whisk that together, add salt and pepper, and then drizzle in a half cup of olive oil while whisking until it emulsifies. I really liked the dressing.

The romaine lettuce didn't feel right for this salad. Is romaine lettuce standard for a chef's salad? It feels like it isn't, but I'm not sure what is. Iceberg lettuce? Nah. Perhaps it is romaine.

Here's the unimpressive result. So impressive, in fact, I'm linking to a small picture of it:

Why should your eyes have to suffer the indignity of this mediocre chef's salad? Quick--scroll away, scroll away! Remove the image from your retinas. Stab your eyes out! This chef's salad is the pits.

March 28, 2005 2:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Happy Easter from John and Amy

As usual, Amy Sedaris made an appearance today at Joe's on Waverly bearing a tray of cupcakes. I was there with John and soon after Amy left, John purchased Amy's holiday-appropriate confection:

"Where does she buy these things?" asked John, removing the plastic bunny head from the cupcake and picking his teeth with it.

"I don't know," I responded.

John bit into the cupcake.

"How is it?" I asked.

"Hmm," he chewed. "She shouldn't quit her day job!"

"Really?"

"No, here, take a bite."

He passed the cupcake. I took a bite. I mulled it over. "It tastes like batter," I concluded.

"But it's cooked," John retorted, indicating the cake's interior.

The bunny head rolled its eyes. "Fuck off, it's just a cupcake."

Happy Easter!

March 28, 2005 2:13 AM | Permalink

Eating Swan

Alex Ross tapped me on his blog to answer the question: "Would this taste good, Amateur Gourmet?"

The "this" he is referring to is swan. Why swan? Let Alex tell the story:

"Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen's Musick, was recently questioned by the Northern Constabulary when a half-eaten swan carcass turned up on his Orkney Islands estate. The swan is a protected bird in the UK, and the police were unamused when Sir Peter offered them swan terrine."

Having never eaten swan and with my limited food knowledge, I almost left the question unanswered, but then I remembered the fine folks at eGullet. I posted the following carefully worded question on Alex's behalf: does swan taste good?

I received many helpful responses---almost all of which were permutations of "no, it doesn't taste good."

One poster writes: "I've never eaten it myself, but I've always heard that swan is tough and stringy, requiring a long, slow cooking process to make edible and usually covered with a gravy or sauce for flavor reasons. "

Another writes: "I ate swan once on a trip to the UK in the 1970's. It was awful. Tough - and gamey."

Someone posted a link to another thread on the same topic where more detractors expressed their distaste for swan. "Tough and fishy," writes one unhappy swan eater.

"I second the tough and fishy opinion," writes someone else.

And so we can conclude that swan does not taste good. However, when it comes to decorative aluminum foil sculptures in which you may carry home your leftovers, nothing beats swan.

March 28, 2005 1:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (17)

Chef Tattoos

Thanks to James Felder for this link to the NYT Magazine's chef tattoo slide show: Chef d'Oeuvres. I think Rick Tramonto's is pretty cool:

But it doesn't compete with the life size nude portrait of Sarah Moulton on my back! Sarah's Secrets indeed...

March 28, 2005 1:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Miracle Almond Cake

I received an e-mail recently telling me that my movies have a "good choice of music/motion" but that I "need to work on the special effects." So tonight Lisa and I labored over this film which features such dazzling trickery, Speilberg's bound to call at any moment. (Well, at least the music's fun.) Hope you enjoy it!

Here it is: Miracle Almond Cake.

March 26, 2005 2:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

More Bleecker Street Magic: Risotteria and Cones

This is Lisa's last weekend as a Chelsea resident. When I moved to New York, I moved to Chelsea 10% because it's a great area and 90% because Lisa lived here. Now she's moving to Hell's Kitchen, leaving me alone with Ethan Hawke (the only other Chelsea resident I see on a regular basis.) Whatever will I do?

Well, I'm sure I'll pull through. And to celebrate her last weekend here I offered to take her to The Spotted Pig down in the Village. I wanted her to experience the pumpkin salad and the gnuddi. I have a feeling she will love them. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was packed. So we went a'scrambling. Where did we end up?

My favorite food street in New York! Bleecker Street! See, I told you, I wasn't kidding around---I love eating on Bleecker.

And tonight we tried two places I've passed many many times but never ate in. First: Risotteria.

I can't tell you how perfect this place was for Lisa and I. Usually, places I like aren't so vegetarian friendly. But this place had a whole segment of vegetarian risotto options. Lisa was thrilled. We started with a beet walnut salad:

Isn't that beautiful?

I asked Lisa: "On a scale from 1 to 10 what would you give this salad?"

She paused and said: "A 7.9. You?"

I paused and thought and said: "8."

She nodded. Because it's not like so spectacular that it merits a 10, and it's not quite a 9, but it's surely an 8. Simple but delicious.

As for my risotto, I ordered the one featured in one of the blurbs on the door---chicken, porcini and pine nuts:

In terms of quick risotto made to order it wsa really terrific. Compared to risotto I've made myself, it didn't compare. The layers separated (liquid, solid) and the flavors were pleasant but not particularly memorable. Lisa enjoyed hers though. We had fun.

(The people sitting at the table next to us were this icy couple who didn't say anything to each other so they spent the entire time staring at Lisa and I as we talked loudly--our usual boisterous selves. It was a strange dynamic.)

Afterwards, we went to Cones. It's a brightly colored ice cream shop that makes homemade ice cream. To quote the Barefoot Contessa: how bad could that be?

Not bad at all, it turns out. Here's what Lisa and I ordered:

There's lots of pressure when ordering because you can only sample two. I sampled Dulce De Leche and Tiramasu. I chose the Tiramasu which you can see on the right. It was awesome---it had all the good qualities of Tiramasu boiled down into a homemade ice cream. I give it an A+.

Lisa sampled pear sorbet and chai tea sorbet. She didn't like them. She was in a bind. So she chose chocolate sorbet mixed with raspberry sorbet. The owner called her a genius--"That's a great combination," he said. You can see it pictured above. Lisa really liked it. But I liked mine better.

And thus concludes another successful night of eating on Bleecker Street.

March 26, 2005 2:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (10)

A Sweet Gift

David and Rebecca (mentioned in the post below) were also really sweet and bought me macaroons from Financier, a place I need to check out on Stone St. Here they are--aren't they pretty?

I've already eaten four. They're terrific. I'd give you some, but they're mine--get your own!

March 26, 2005 2:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (15)

Harlem Buffetaissance: Lunch at Charles Southern Kitchen

Meet David and Rebecca. David is an actor whose show "Mama's Knishes" features him in your kitchen, dressed as his great grandmother cooking knishes for you and telling stories from the past. You can read about it on his website, Knish.org. (Check out the praise from The Wall Street Journal--it even has a cartoon of David!) I'm trying to convince him to perform it for me and my classmates. If he does, I promise to tell you all about it.

He and his friend Rebecca met me today at Macy's on 34th Street where we boarded the D train and headed up to Harlem. David and Rebecca are big fans of the site and they wanted to take me somewhere I'd never been before. David settled upon Charles Southern Kitchen, reputed to have the best fried chicken in New York. I said I was game and up we went.

Here they are, David and Rebecca, in front of CSK:

David knew a great deal about the area. We were near the old Polo Grounds he said. "Oh, where the Dodgers used to play?" I asked.

"No! The Giants!!" he responded calmly.

Inside Charles, there's just a few tables, a TV playing soap operas, a fridge with sweet tea and lemonade and this buffet:

The menus are matted to the table and are pretty straightforward: lunch buffet, all you can eat, complete with drink: $10. A good deal if I ever heard one!

I loaded up my plate and got some sweet tea. It was great to have sweet tea---that's in my Top Five things I miss most about Atlanta. And here's the plate I made for myself:

Starting at 12 o'clock we have collard greens treated with smoked turkey. I didn't care for it--it was a truly unusual flavor--but I appreciated its unusualness. Then, at 2 o'clock, my hands-down favorite: the candied yams. The yams weren't soaked in sweetness, they were just sweet with hints of spice to them. They were terrific.

The chicken was top-notch. It wasn't hot and that takes it down a slot for me, but in terms of New York fried chicken it's among the best I've had. (Ok, I haven't had much fried chicken in New York, but still...)

The mac and cheese was maccy and cheesy. We all enjoyed it.

The atmosphere was friendly and unique. We laughed as a soap opera played overhead, though one of the waitresses watched it with rapt attention. When Rebecca went to the bathroom, a man held the door for her and said: "Welcome to the bathroom!"

On the walk back to the subway, we saw a dead cat. That was depressing. Otherwise, I enjoyed some of the sites of Harlem. Like Jackie Robinson park---that's a neat complex. On the train back, an Asian woman came on with a Bible and told us it was Good Friday and that Jesus died for our sins and that we should follow his word. I mulled it over.

No, the Asian woman didn't convert me on the train. But the fried chicken? And the candied yams? They may have done the trick. Praise Da Lord! And thanks David and Rebecca for taking me up there!

March 26, 2005 2:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (21)

They Love Me In Canada

Hey! We're the site of the week in The Montreal Gazette! Good news, ay? (Or is "ay" Toronto? I'm alienating my new readers!)

March 23, 2005 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (20)

I'll Never Give Up My Rugelach

If we were in psychoanalysis (and who says we're not?) we might draw connections between my urge to cook and an unconscious need to mother myself. I wonder if this is true of many cooks? The logic works like this: as a child you are fed and nurtured by your mother--before she's anything else, she's a food source (see: milky breast). My mother, it should be said, had milk fever and couldn't breast feed me. But her role as food giver is still embedded somewhere in my psyche.

As I aged and became more self-sufficient I became more and more capable of feeding myself. I remember putting Ellio's pizzas in the toaster oven and feeling proud of myself. I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven: was that my effeminite side peeking through early or a premature desire to mother myself? (Tangential question: why ARE Easy Bake Ovens only given to girls, not boys? I know what the feminists will say!)

What does this have to do with rugelach?

Well mom buys lots of rugelach for the house. At least she used to: apricot and raisin. There'd be tubs from TooJay's sitting in our kitchen that we could snack on in the afternoon. This is true of other cookies too: black and white cookies and, my favorite, rainbow cookies. Mom is a source of cookies! Thus, living all motherless up here in New York (mom's in Florida) I make cookies in an attempt to mother myself.

(Session Over. Fee? $800.)

See, this is particularly relevant because I don't like rugelach. I'd eat it out of starvation or simply not to let it go to waste, but I never loved the rugelach mom had out at home. So why did I make it last night? Was I trying to mother myself in a time of need?

Perhaps. But also, the Barefoot Contessa's recipe and pictures (form her Parties! book) looked marvelous. And I knew everyone at school was sad this week (see "Sad Week" post below) so I wanted to bring in something elaborate and plentiful to cheer them up. Rugelach was the answer.

How to describe rugelach for those who've never had it? Do you exist? Have you never had rugelach? It's a rolled cookie filled with jam and other treats that render the too-often dry dough tolerable.

The Barefoot Contessa's filling consists of raisins, walnuts, brown sugar and regular sugar:

It's a lovely, comforting combination. These are all things that would go well with oatmeal so you know it's mmm mmm good. (Oh wait, that's Campbell's soup.)

The biggest challenge I encountered making rugelach was rolling the dough. Making the dough was a cinch: combine butter and cream cheese in the mixer, beat together, then add sugar and flour and you're done. Dump it out, make a ball, and cut it in four. Wrap each piece in plastic and refrigerate one hour.

One hour later I took the first piece out, floured my counter top, and attempted to roll a 9-inch circle. That barely happened. My circle was more like a trapezoid. Pieces of dough thinned out and holes were torn. I almost gave up. But I somehow patched it together and decided to go forward anyway: spreading 2 Tbs of apricot jam (I used apricot ginger jam from Whole Foods) across the dough then sprinkling 1/2 cup of the filling over it. It looked something like this:

Once you get this far, the hard part's over. Now you cut this into quarters and cut each quarter into thirds. (It's easier than it sounds.) Then the fun part: you roll the fat outer edge of each wedge towards the tip and you're done! Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and continue with 3 dozen more:

Aren't those pretty? Even eating them raw tasted good. (Yes, yes, I ate a few raw--so sue me!)

They bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. I was nervous because they weren't turning brown and I didn't want to overbake them. So I took them out after 22 minutes or so and they were perfect. Look at this gorgeous plate:

And here's one up close. Want a bite?

These received universal raves at school. So much so, in fact, that one of my teachers, who shall remain nameless to protect her identity, pulled me aside after class and told me she's having a dinner party on Saturday. "I want you to cater it!" she said. I laughed robustly and said: "I can't cater it! I'm an amateur!" We negotiated and I ultimately agreed to make dessert which I'm bringing to her place Saturday aternoon. She wants to pay me but I can't take money from a teacher, can I?

In conclusion, what have we learned? Rugelach is a great temporary substitute for a mother's love and can help get you cooking gigs for teachers. I'd say that's a pretty powerful cookie.

March 23, 2005 2:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

New Me

Check out the "About Me" section. I updated it to make it less offensive(*) and more informative. Enjoy!

(*I apologize to anyone I may have offended with the "midget" reference. It is no longer there.)

March 23, 2005 1:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sad Week

This is a sad week for me (and many others). One of my favorite teachers, Charlie Purpura, passed away on Monday to the shock and sadness of everyone who knew him. The funeral is tomorrow night so it's going to be an emotional evening for many of us. If anyone hasn't seen his movie Heaven Help Us starring Andrew McCarthy and Mary Stuart Masterson, you really should. Its humor and pathos speak to everything that made Charlie great. I'll miss him very much.

March 23, 2005 1:27 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (18)

John Eats Iceland

My friend John already has an adoring fan base here at The Amateur Gourmet. Now you get to read an exclusive account of his food adventures in Iceland. Yes, ICELAND. John went to Iceland for his Spring Break! Read all about it below... And thanks, John, for sharing this with us!

Ah Spring Break. While MTV is in Cancun, I decided to go somewhere a bit more my speed: Reykjavik, Iceland.

in Europe's most unpolluted city. Just learn from me and bring a hat. And gloves. And a scarf would be nice, too. Oh...and a winter jacket. A heavy winter jacket.

March 21, 2005 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (17)

This chicken chili is pretty good.

This chicken chili is pretty good. I'm not wild about it. You won't see any exclamation marks in this post.

It comes from Barefoot Contessa: Parties. I am wild about the Barefoot Contessa. I will give her three exclamation marks: !!!

But this chili is a little soupy and a little ridiculous in that her recipe feeds 12, so halving it feeds 6. That's ridiculous!

With that said, it lacks that certain snap and excitmenet of real, meaty chili. Maybe this isn't a critique of Contessa chicken chili, but chicken chili in general.

Contessa chicken chili has onions, peppers, and garlic:

There is also a bevy of spices, but not too big a bevy (which is why it maybe lacked punch?):

Let's see there's cumin, and chili powder, and cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes, and salt. (I feel like that lady with the magic mirror on Romper Room.)

The Contessa has you roast chicken breasts with bones in and skin on in a 350 degree oven:

I think they came out really pretty but now that I think about it, I think this step is a waste of time. Just buy an already roasted chicken---it's cheaper and saves you time. You're just pulling the skin off and using the meat. (Or, if you're me, you nibble at the skin, feel guilty, and nibble some more.)

And that's it. The chili tastes good and bright and fresh. (I think "bright" is the nicest word you can use to describe it.) It definitely benefits by the addition of sour cream (see lead photo) and the use of tortilla chips to eat the chili with. And it's healthy---let's give it that. I mean, it has only 1/4 cup of olive oil in it and that's the only fat. Plus I will eat it for the next few days and still have more to freeze. So these are all nice things about this chili. In fact, I will end with an exclamation mark.

!

March 21, 2005 1:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When My Baby Smiles At Me I Go To Bistro: Resto Leon

(I put great effort into that title. Who knows what song I'm parodying? Who among you, who? Hugh Jackman?)

Saturday night I called up my dear friend Diana and said: "Dear friend Diana, with whom are you dining tonight?" And dear friend Diana replied: "With no one, darling, shall we dine?"

It was then we decided to meet at school and sojourn somewhere snappy. I brought along Robert Sietsema's "Best Ethnic Eating" guide and we honed in on page 87: East Village Bistros.

NYU is near the East Village so it was just a matter of which one. Sietsema gives two stars to Lucien and says it's the best in the East Village ("this is the East Village's best bistro," he writes) but there is a $ symbol and Diana and I didn't want to spend mucho dinero.

So we settled upon Resto Leon, Sietsema's "former favorite East Village bistro."

Here is Diana outside pointing up:

Inside we were transported to Paris, or at least the East Village's conception of Paris. It was really dark. The characters were quirky and colorful. Our waitress was non-existent. We sat for a long while before the front door flung open, a woman with a knit hat and a big jacket scuffled in, ran to the back, and quickly came to our table. Our waitress was late on the job!

But she tried really hard. And she had a lovely French accent---so much so that I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell us about the wine list. Apprently they were out of "mumble jumble mumble" so I ordered a Syrah and Diana ordered a Muscadet. (Am I spelling that right? I hope I am.)

For an appetizer, Diana and I shared this awesome appetizer that is so simple you should go run now and make it at home: (Sorry for the glarey pic---it was really dark in there!)

Basically, this is goat cheese on french bread that has been drizzled with honey and put in the oven (maybe under the broiler?) It was terrific. And the salad was perfectly dressed. This was the best part of the evening, food wise, so enjoy it.

Otherwise, my hanger steak wasn't so good:

Look how buttery it is! No wonder it's so dark in there, health nuts like me would run away screaming if they saw that under bright light.

But even if you weren't a health nut and gluttony was your middle name, this had no flavor! I think it was under seasoned. And the sauteed scallions added little. The salad, again, was great but I'd already had that with my appetizer. And the side of scalloped potatoes that came with it---which looked so naughty and exciting it could have had its own DVD informercial during a Howard Stern commercial break---was all bluster, no flavor. All talk: no action. Diana confirmed this and spent the rest of her time disappointed with her duck confit.

Oh well. The atmosphere was fun. The company made everything excusable. I do not regret going here. But I do regret going afterwards to Cold Stone Creamery----Diana loves it there, but my "Cookie Doughnt You Want It" (or whatever it was called) was a sticky, gloppy, unappetizing mess. And how depressing it was when someone tipped the lady at the register so everyone behind the counter had to sing a song. Everyone in the store watched these women sadly. Don't make women sing songs, Cold Stone! And season your meat and confit, Resto Leon!

Thank you.

March 21, 2005 1:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (15)

What lives in a pineapple under the sea? SHERBET!

First I hook you in with a sexy picture:

Then I tell you a story...

I bought a pineapple last week. I was in Citronelle and a pineapple screamed out to me: "BUY ME! PLEASE, BUY ME!"

I'd never bought a pineapple before. I was on a health kick. I figured buying a whole pineapple and slicing it up would be more economical than buying the tub of already cut pineapple. (Retrospectively, I'm not sure if that's true.)

So my pineapple sat on my counter, eager to be sliced, eager to be eaten. But I did no such thing. Then Friday rolled around. Lisa was coming over. I had an epiphany: Pineapple Sorbet!

I had no recipe for Pineapple Sorbet and neither did Epicurious. Instead, it had a recipe for Fresh Pineapple Sherbet (I made it linkable so you can find the recipe). All you need is: pineapple, sugar, milk, and a lemon. Oh, and an ice cream maker.

I love my ice cream maker. As the warm weather rolls in, I'll be using it more and more and more. I will even use it to make things it's not intended for---like souffle. That's how much I love it.

So a pineapple. How do you cut a pineapple? I tried a sneak attack:

The pineapple was totally surprised and gave itself up nobly. I sliced it this way for the presentation you saw at the beginning:

(See that Irish Oatmeal next to it? I just bought Irish Oatmeal. I am excited to try it.)

If you are not worried about presentation, you can cut your pinneapple an easier way. Just slice off the top then the skin and cut it into slices. But this was prettier, you must admit.

I had Lisa cut the flesh out while I made a sugar syrup (see recipe):

After that, we put the flesh in a food processor and blitzed. After doing two batches, I can tell you the longer you blitz the easier it is to ge it through the strainer. Lisa did this with a spoon:

After that, you just mix the pineapple gunk with the sugar syrup, the milk and lemon juice and put in the fridge. Let it get cold (Lisa and I watched "The Birds," but I am furious at NetFlix because the first time they sent me "The Birds" the disc was cracked in half, and this time it froze right at the very end. But it's ok, I watched the documentary and now I know the ending. But still, I was mad!)

I think this post is over. Do you want to see the end product again?

We both really enjoyed this. You have to admit, it's pretty easy. And a fun way to use a pineapple. I highly recommend it.

March 21, 2005 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Do other food bloggers exercise?

It occurred to me the other day: do my peers in the foodblogging world exercise also? How do they eat such rich foods without exploding? I decided to e-mail a few of them to ask that very question. Here are their responses:

Bruce Cole of Saute Wednesday writes: "San Francisco is just one hilly street another. I run the ones with an ocean view at the top...."

Josh Friedland of The Food Section writes: "I really need to exercise more. The winter has killed my motivation to do anything, and I pretty much hate going to the gym. However, I did recently start taking some tennis lessons in one of those bubbled over courts and going to the gym twice a week (treadmill)

As soon as it warms up, I love to go bicycling and occasionally force myself to go running. I also will regularly take the subway a few stops farther than my workplace and walk through Central Park to work (a 40 minute walk) to get some exercise.

Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim writes: "Exercise? What exercise? I am too busy eating!"

And, finally, we hear from Hillel Cooperman of TastingMenu who writes: "In a seated position extend your right hand 90 degrees in front of you. Lift the silver object. Place a weight on the object. Flex your arm at the elbow another 90 degrees. Move your head forward. Open your mouth. Insert the item on the silver object into your mouth. Close your mouth. Remove the silver object. Chew. Swallow.

Repeat."

March 19, 2005 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (2)

I Cheat Because I Care: Pearl Oyster Bar, (Red Bamboo), Chikalicious

Oh you dastardly website. Were it not for you, would I have said "yes" to Kirk yesterday and broken my four days of healthy, nutrtious eating to enjoy a lavish, wildly expensive and mayonaissey lobster roll at Pearl Oyster Bar?

Ok, yes, I would have. And it wasn't Kirk's idea---it was mine. But we don't change our lifestyles overnight do we? Baby steps, people, baby steps. Four days of healthy eating, then a little cheating, and back on it. I was so back on it today---all my sins are forgiven. Enjoy my sins.

So Pearl Oyster Bar. Funny, remember how I said Bleeker Street was my favorite food street in New York? And that Cornelia was my favorite side street off my favorite food street? Well it ends up that Pearl Oyster Bar is ON Cornelia right next to Home where I went with my brother. I've walked past it 1000 times and never noticed it. Even when it was our destination, Kirk and I walked past it and had to call to see where it was. It's kind of invisible there on the street. Here's the doorway:

Amanda Hesser has a whole bit on Pearl Oyster Bar in "Cooking For Mr. Latte." She has recipes for their Caesar salad and their lobster roll, I think. It's supposed to be the best lobster roll in the city. I've read that other places too. Kirk heard that also. We anxiously anticipated the lobster roll.

On the menu it says: "Lobster Roll....MKT price." On the chalkboard, it stated what that market price was: $22.

"Wow, that's a mighty expensive lobster roll," I said.

But Kirk and I were not dissuaded. We each ordered a lobster roll and pretty promptly they arrived:

When I told my mom about it today and how much it cost she asked, rather logically: "Well, was it the best you ever had?"

I thought about it and answered: "Yes." It really was. I think Kirk thought so too. He said, "Damn, this is a really good lobster roll."

I mean the meat was so fresh. Sometimes I've had lobster rolls where the meat was stringy and hard to bite through. This wasn't the case here. And the mayonaisse herb mixture had a perfect balanace. The brioche roll was the perfect vehicle for everything. And the french fries were my favorite sort of fries---skinny and salty. I love skinny, salty fries.

So I loved my cheating lunch at Pearl Oyster Bar. If you're going to cheat, why not cheat in style?

Then it was off to do work. I'm trying to write the first acts of two separate plays for next week. That's a lot of work. I'm going slightly batty over it.

When dinner came around, I had plans with John. You know John, you met him in Chinatown. John recently returned from Iceland and he's going to do a write-up of what he ate there for this site. (Sneak preview: he ate whale!)

We went to this place near his dorm called Red Bamboo. Everything that Zen Palate did wrong, Red Bamboo did right. Their food was great vegan food. This is the best fake chicken I've ever had:

Several times I said to John, "Are you sure this is fake chicken?"

"Yes," he said, hitting me in the head with a fork.

The best things about this fake chicken are: (1) the marinade, and (2) how they cook it over coals. It says it on the menu. "Cooked over coals." So you get all that magic of real chicken cooked over coals without all that chickeny evil vegans hate so much. I enjoyed it.

But now on to more cheating. That was a healthy dinner, you must admit. But then we were bored. We wanted dessert. We were walking to the East Village. A dark mischevious light bulb went off over my head: "Chikalicious!"

Chickalicious is my dream restaurant. A dessert lover by trade, this place was made for me. It's two pastry chefs who give you a three course dessert "dinner" for $12. The place is tiny and you can watch the women work as you sit and chat---they're the ones who serve it to you too:

When John and I arrived, there was no wait. We sat in a little booth and a friendly waiter man guided us through the menu.

Oh, so many choices! How to choose, how to choose. And the menu changes every three days. It's not like you can come back and try the ones you rejected. So I made my choice (which you'll see in a moment), John made his, and we were brought our amuse.

This picture's blurry and strange looking----almost ethereal. Well that's how it tasted: rosemary gelee and yogurt sorbet. What a weird combo but it totally worked. We both "mmmed" our way through it. The yogurt sorbet was creamy and luscious, the rosemary gelee subtle and only slightly perfumed with rosemary.

For my dessert choice I chose cinnamon baba au rum that came with cherries and some kind of cream:

Of course, it was delicious. I loved it. And small enough and subtle enough not to make me feel TERRIBLY guitly.

John had an apple dessert:

It was baked apple in some kind of pastry with creme fraiche and apple sorbet. His was tasty too.

I must tell you now, sadly, that the petit fors kind of sucked. Believe me, I wanted them to be delicious, but they weren't:

I know, I know, they LOOK pretty. The coconut marshmallows were ok. But the little poppy seed cream thingies with orange peel on them didn't taste like much of anything, and the banana cake slices tasted like someone pushed the "mute" button on flavor.

But still, by the end I was enchanted---I love Chikalicious, I'm totally going to go back. And if you have to cheat on your healthy healthy plans, this is the way to do. My penance will be a week of tofu and yoga. These are the things we do for lobster rolls and dessert.

March 18, 2005 6:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (18)

Healthy Healthy Healthy (Did I Mention Healthy?) Sweet Potato Bread

I'm still on my health kick. Day 3. I spent 45 minutes on the eliptical this morning, burning 460 calories. "The View" was on with no sound and subtitles and my favorite part is when Merideth Veira and some new blonde host interviewed Baby Spice who has a new album coming out. The best bit of dialogue was this:

Merideth: I hear your new album is really personal.

Baby: It is really personal, Merideth. A lot of songs are taken directly from my journal.

Blonde: Wow.

Baby: Yes, it's like I took the words straight from my journal and literally set them to music.

Then she sang a song that, as I watched the words scroll by, makes it seem like Baby's journal was written by a 4th grader. "I love you / ya ya ya / You are like candy / ya ya ya / I want to love you." (Something like that. Ok, I'm making those lyrics up. I just went to her actual website (her name is Emma Bunton) and the real lyrics are: (assuming this is the song she sang): "Now free me/ let me loose to love you / yeah, I long to seduce you / oh free me.") Anyway, it really made me laugh. Thought I'd share.

This post is about sweet potato bread. I can't give you the recipe because it comes from Chef Kathleen's cookbook and I've already sort-of given you a recipe from her cookbook. I don't want her to sue me.

This recipe was time consuming. I baked sweet potatoes in the early afternoon and then let them cool and came back to puree them. Of course, Kathleen gives you the option of using canned pumpkin but I had to make things difficult. Here's the sweet potatoes in the food processor:

Actually, these were yams. Kathleen doesn't say to use yams, she says to use sweet potatoes. So I suppose you'll remind me now that there's a world of difference between a yam and a sweet potato and that anyone who doesn't know that should set their extra personal journal entries to music and sing them on The View. As it happens, if using yams instead of sweet potatoes means they don't really puree very well and stay a little bit hard then I learnt my lesson. I don't think it affected the end result, though.

Basically, the wet mixture is: 1 egg, 2 egg whites, light brown sugar, the sweet potato, 1/4 cup vegetable oil and vanilla.

The dry mixture is: flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

After whisking together the wet mixture, you add the dry mixture and stir 5 times. Then you add cranberries and dried cranberries. I bought these cranberries from Whole Foods called "Just Cranberries" and they're SO WEIRD because they look like normal cranberries but when you eat them they tasted hollowed out and dry like styrofoam cranberries only they're not dried cranberries they're "JUST CRANBERRIES." On the tub it says to use them in baked goods, sauces, etc etc. So maybe the idea is they're dried out but when you put them in things they reconstitute. After I ate this bread, the cranberries tasted cranberryish to me so perhaps it works. Here's what the batter looks like in the pan: (you also add pecans):

It bakes for 50 minutes and fills the apartment (or house, depending on where you live--where DO you live? I never see you anymore) with a wonderful aroma. I needed that aroma to kill the smell of fish from yesterday.

Then it comes out and you cool it and it looks like this:

Then you slice it and it looks like this:

Which begs the question: how did it taste?

Well, since I've been depriving myself and this was a risque 11 o'clock cheating snack it tasted heavenly. But had I made it before I became a different person with my new fad diet and my swimsuit aspirations I would have thought, "this could use some butter." However, the cranberries and pecans do a wonderful job of masking the lack of fat in the batter. I think this is a perfect bread for those who love to bake who want to lose weight and have cans of pumpkin in their pantry. If only I could give you the recipe, you'd be losing weight in no time. Now you'll be fat forever while I get skinny skinny and beautiful. YOU'LL NEVER BE AS PRETTY AS ME, NEVER!

Wow, I better go write that in my journal...

March 17, 2005 1:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Cleanse Your Soul (Among Other Things) at Zen Palate

My dear friend Stella, who catsat for me over Christmas break, left me a windy message the other day that went something like this: "Adam (wind wind wind) saw a cool restaurant (wind wind wind) Zen Palate (wind wind wind) let's eat there sometime."

After deciphering this message, I called Stella back and made plans to eat with her tonight. Zen Palate is located on 16th and Union Square East. This Wednesday night it was packed---full of young health-conscious people looking to save a buck. It's like something you'd find in a college town minus the college.

"Table for two," we said and the hostess pointed to a table near the door. The door kept opening and closing and huge gusts of cold air came in so we asked for a different table.

"The only other table we have is near the bathroom," she replied.

"I'd rather sit near the bathroom than near the door," said Stella. Gentlemanishly, I obliged.

As you can see, this made for less than ideal dining circumstances:

But I made do. (Haha---"made do.")

Stella ordered herself a rice milk milkshake.

"It's peanut flavored," said the waiter. Stella said, "That's ok."

I said "nothing now" strategizing that I would try Stella's and if I liked it I would get one for myself. The peanut rice milkshake arrived and Stella sipped it curiously.

"It's kind of gross," she said, "but I like it."

I took a sip and agreed. "It IS kind of gross but I like it too." I ordered one for myself. As I sipped it throughout the rest of the meal I thought to myself: "What was I thinking?" Because it was REALLY gross, not just "kind of gross" as previously determined.

As for an entree I had the eggplant in garlic sauce. I figured this was a safe choice for my new health consciousness, though I'm not sure how much oil it was cooked in:

Actually, that picture above presents an editorial challenge. I think the food in that picture looks nasty. Also, it tasted pretty nasty. I mean it wasn't bad, but I've had much much better eggplant in garlic sauce in my time. I post that picture because I want to show what people are eating out there in the real world---at a restaurant that does a fairly good business. It's no coincidence they sat me by the toilet: they know what the average consumer will tolerate.

I tolerated it and had fun with Stella. I'm no food snob. (Ok, maybe a little.) I left feeling healthy and boisterous. And it was nice to know that had I needed a bathroom at any point during my meal, I need only have turned my shoulder.

March 17, 2005 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (25)

Correction 2

I may be 5'9, not 5'7, in which case my ideal weight is 160--which I already weigh. I will attempt to confirm this later by using a ruler and dental floss or a simple tape measure.

March 16, 2005 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today is the 2nd Day of the Rest of My Life: Exercise and Swordfish

Blogging about what you eat and having a doting mother who reads everything you blog about what you eat is a dangerous combination. Lately, mom's been on my case.

"I can't believe some of the stuff you're eating!" she said to me this weekend. "Chocolate chip muffins in the middle of the night! And those cupcakes! All that butter! It's not even that you'll get fat, it's your arteries. It's so not healthy. Even Oprah tells you not to eat at night!"

This health intervention in combination with the vast amount of food we consumed this weekend (scroll down to see the carnage) plus the fact that spring's approaching which means SPEEDO TIME, I decided yesterday to turn over a new leaf. Here is what my new leaf entails:

* Exercise!
* Better eating habits!

Specifically, I'm going to return to my Body for Life routine. Two summers ago, Ricky turned me on to Body for Life. The concept is 12 weeks to Ultimate Fitness. You exercise 6 times a week (alternating cardio and muscle training) and eat 6 small meals a day. Well I never did the 6 small meals a day thing, but I did do the 6 days a week of exercise. I actually enjoyed it because at most each session is 45 minutes and doing it every day helps you build it into your lifestyle easier than twice a week where it's easier to skip.

So yesterday I did 30 minutes on the eliptical and burnt 330 calories! (Is that a lot? I have no idea.) And today I worked my upper body while listening to The Clash's "London Calling" on my iPod. (Yesterday it was The Scissor Sisters--which is awesome to work out to.) (What's your favorite workout music?) While at my parents hotel, I weighed myself and I weighed 160. I just went to an "ideal weight calculator" online and apparently for someone of my height (5'7) I should weigh 148. So I have to lose 12 pounds!

Now, for anyone who has been reading this site, I don't think it'll be hard to point out what habits have to change. No more burnt butter cupcakes at 2 in the morning! No more endless feasting when my parents come to town! I'm not going to change my diet to the point of being unhappy or hating food. (Oh, and Body For Life gives you Sundays off, so I can eat whatever I want!) I'm just going to be smarter about how I eat. Which is where Kathleen comes in.

Meet Kathleen and her book, "Cooking Thin":

[If you follow that link and buy it I make mucho dinero! But I'm not urging you to buy it, I'm just saying that if you are going to buy it anyway do it through that link.]

I bought this book for my mom after watching her show on the Food Network. Even though she betrays a Rachel Ray like cheesiness, I liked her message and her method. She basically tries to maximize FLAVOR and visceral enjoyment out of food while still keeping it healthy.

Naturally, my mom never lifted the book--she doesn't cook. So when I was home most recently, I swiped it off her night stand and took it home. Tonight I cooked from it. I made swordfish and the recipe was simple and everything came out dynamite.

First you need swordfish:

Kathleen says to buy 1 lb but I think that's if you're feeding more than yourself. I bought 1/2 lb which was plenty.

She says it should be 3/8ths of an inch thick (what kind of measurement is that!) and as you can see from the photo above, this is way thicker than that. So I butterflied it--yielding two pieces that were about 1/2 an inch thick. Make sure to sharpen your knife first.

Now then: the flavorings. It's really simple but it comes out delicious. Sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper. (Make sure to get enough on there, it makes a difference.) Then grate a lemon and sprinkle the lemon zest over both sides of the fish. Take a quarter a cup of flat-leaf parsley and press that into the fish too. It should look something like this:

Here's where I overdid it a bit. She says 2 tsps of olive oil in a skillet. I did a little more than that and it was TOTALLY not necessary. (It's just that the 2 tsps wasn't covering the bottom.) You heat the olive oil on medium high heat until it's hot but not smoking. Then add the fish. Cook for 2 minutes on each side and you're done! It turns a beautiful golden color. (I should tell you here that cooking this fish set off my smoke detector, terrified Lolita, and forced me to leap into the air to hit some kind of button to turn the screeching noise off. We were all ok, though.)

Here's the end result. I served it with Amanda Hesser's Arborio Rice salad (Recipe Here):

I know it looks oily in this picture, but I wanted to show you how beautifully golden it got and how crisp the edges are. It had amazing flavor---the salt, pepper, lemon zest and parsley really worked their magic. And it tasted so buttery: and there was no butter! I can't believe that THIS is dietetic.

I also set out to make pumpkin cranberry bread tonight. (That's in Kathleen's book too.) I purchased the cranberries, the dried cranberries, flour, etc. I preheated the oven. I prepared the pan. I sifted the flour. Then I realized: no pumpkin. Brings to mind the great proverb: "It is difficult for one to make pumpkin cranberry bread without the pumpkin."

Let's hear it for the newer, hotter me! Will I stick with it? Stay tuned...

March 16, 2005 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Classic New York Moments: Mahler, Patti and Pizza

Sunday I enjoyed a classic New York moment. My friend Ricky and I were supposed to go see Mahler's 1st at Carnegie Hall for $10. (You can get $10 obstructed view tickets at 12 pm.) Well he called me after 12 to say there were no $10 tix, the cheapest tix were $80. I said, "Sorry, Rick, don't got it." He said, "Well I love Mahler so I'm going to pay the $80." "Ok, have fun!" I said.

I returned to my Chelsea apartment. I played with my cat, I read something online. I set out to do some work but fell asleep on my couch. The phone rang around 3.

"What are you doing?" said the voice.

"Ummm," I replied.

"It's Ricky. It's intermission. There's an empty seat next to me. Hop in a cab and get to Carnegie Hall and go up three flights and find me in front of the spotlight."

Now I'm the sort of person who 99% of the time would have said "no" or "that's illegal" or "are you nuts?" but this time I didn't and I simply said: "Ok!"

I hopped in a cab, sat in some traffic, but arrived at Carnegie in 10 minutes. I was all ready to sneak in when a woman guarding the stairs said, "Ticket?"

I called Ricky on my cell. "They're asking for a ticket!"

He ran downstairs (four huge flights!) and passed off his friend's ticket which I showed and snuck in and as we ran back up the four flights the bells were tolling for the beginning of the symphony. This moment was so cinematic: I literally collapsed into my seat as the conducter took the stage.

This was the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the second half of the show was the Mahler's. Ricky loves Mahler, Alex Ross blogs about him, and Sondheim has the lyric: "A matinee / a Pinter play / perhaps a piece of Mahler's." Elaine Stritch, in her one-woman show, says that when she first sang that lyric she thought "a piece of Mahler's" meant a slice of cake at some pastry shop named Mahler's.

Anyway, this is all to say that I loved it. It was an amazing piece of music and an even more amazing performance. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra makes the music explode in your ears. There was such a buzz in the air---when the first movement ended I wanted to leap into the air and applaud but Ricky had to hold me back. You don't applaud between movements, apparently, when at the symphony.

Here's a picture that gives you an idea of how grand and exciting this afternoon was:

All because I said: "Ok!" And because I stole an $80 seat.

Now then, this is a food blog. I remember that. Afterwards, we went to the best secret spot near Carnegie Hall: The Burger Joint. (Apprently, it's not so secret---Kottke was there this weekend too.)

This post is titled: "Great New York Moments: Mahler, Patti and Pizza." We've covered the Mahler, now let's talk about the Patti and the Pizza.

While at Carnegie, I noticed that Patti Lupone was performing Monday night. I took it upon myself to go Monday at 12 pm and get the $10 obstructed view tickets. I love Patti Lupone---her voice is so unique and so powerful. This is embarassing, but I used to drive around listening to her concert CD at full blast and belting "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" with my windows open. Umm...don't judge me, ok? We're all entitled to our vices.

So before the concert, I went with Jason and Lisa to this pizza place across from Carnegie Hall. It's a really good pizza place. I can't remember the name. I am a terrible food blogger.

But look, I will tell you this: it's not the really really fancy Italian restaurant. And it's not the really really cheap pizza by the slice place. It's the one across the street from Le Parker Meridian. I think it's Angelinos or...no, I think that's it. This is what the pizza looks like: (featuring Jason's Vanna White like hands):

We all enjoyed this pizza. As for the concert, Patti was great. She didn't do her greatest hits, but that's understandable---she has to keep redefining herself to stay a vital artist. (Ok, ok--I realize that to 99% of the world Patti Lupone is not a vital artist, BUT TO ME SHE'S ALL THE VITAL ARTISTS IN THE WORLD.) At the very end she put her microphone down and sang, sans mic, a song called "100 Years from Now." It was hard to make out the words, but the sound definitely filled the space. On the way out, we saw Martin Short! I was too starstruck to tell him that I'm the world's biggest Martin Short fan, I must say, and that I have monologues memorized from his obscure 1994 special featuring Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman. I simply savored it and moved on---the perfect capper to the two nights of classic New York moments.

March 15, 2005 11:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (15)

Corrections

My brother would like me to tell you that in this post where I say that Michael doesn't really like American food, that it's a lie. He does like American food.

Thank you.

March 15, 2005 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Family Feeding Frenzy: Katz's, Lever House, D.B. Bistro Moderne, and a Return to Jean-Georges

Maybe it's the Jew in me ("Let me out, you putz! It's hot in here!") but I feel guilty about the meals I'm about to share with you. Guilt--am I the only food blogger who feels guilty about eating good food? Maybe because it's all so decadent. But I can shift the blame to my parents--as we already know, my parents are decadent eaters. I'm just the lucky bystander who tags along and eats what is given to me. All I crave are the simple things---a ripe tomato, a slice of cheese. It's my parents who forced this upon me. What you are about to see happened totally against my will, I was dragged along, kicking and screaming...

Ok, you're not falling for it. So my parents spoil me when they come to visit (at my urging), even more than I spoil myself. And in the spirit of spoiling myself before they came, I took Michael (my brother, you met him in the last post) to Katz's deli on Thursday to experience New York's best pastrami:

Michael was dubious at first---as we got off the subway on Houston and passed 2nd avenue, he tried to divert us to the 2nd avenue deli. "I want a waitress!" he said, when I told him that Katz's only had counter service. But I persisted and he came and sure enough Katz's does have waitresses if you want (although our experience leads me to suggest that you just do the counter service, our waitress was pretty inept). Michael was completely converted by Katz's pastrami. "Mmmm," he said. He's not someone who relents easily--he might have pretended, for example, to hate the pastrami to win the fight about 2nd Ave. Deli being better--but he did no such thing. He enjoyed his pastrami and agreed it was the best in New York.

We also shared potato latkes which, too, were excellent:

And just to get the gluttony ball rolling, I took him afterwards to Doughnut Plant (it's not a far walk away) to experience New York's best (and most interesting) doughnuts. He had the Vahlrona chocolate doughnut on the right, I had the orange on the left:

Naturally, they were terrific. The coffee was pretty good too.

Now then: my parents arrived. Here they are with Michael in an artistic shot at Fresco:

I didn't document our Fresco meal for three reasons: (1) I've done it before; (2) the meal wasn't very good (it was fine, not great), and (3) for the first time ever in my history of doing this site, a manager asked me not to take pictures. I think it had less to do with taking pictures of food than it did with the flash irritating their celebrity customers. They shot themselves in the foot, though, because, as we all know, this site is a powerhouse in the food world, and one bad word from me and...and...

Moving on.

For lunch Friday we went to a giant in the world of corporate business lunches: Lever House.

A few years ago, Lever House made a big stir when it opened. Here's where the players came to play, where titans--Masters of the Universe--came to nosh on Cobb salads and grilled fish, signing contracts, fiddling with cell phones and pulling the Levers (get it? Levers? Lever House?) on the slot machines of capitalism. (I am a genius! What a great sentence! Ok, no.) Anyway, now I wonder if Lever House is a little past it's prime---if only because our power lunch was only impressive in one regard: the architecture.

Isn't that a cool doorway? That's how you enter Lever House. The room has a honeycomb theme---people sit in little honeycomb pods surrounding the less interesting tables in the middle. We sat at a less interesting table in the middle. We kept our eyes peeled for celebrities and power brokers, but didn't see any. (Last time my mom was here, however, she saw Michael Eisner.)

The food?

Eh. Ok, it's perhaps my fault that I let the waiter talk me into this pheasant terrine:

I must confess that the image in my head of "terrine" was not what was brought out on the plate--but that's ignorance on my part, not the waiter's. With that said, though, I've had terrines I've really enjoyed (like this one at Cafe Bouloud)---and this one tasted gamey and unpleasant. I was not a fan.

Then for the entrees, I ordered halibut which was nice and fine, and dad ordered risotto "with no cheese." Dad hates cheese. So when they brought the risotto covered with cheese, I martyred myself and switched with him. Here it is:

The glum lighting mirrors the glumness of the risotto. It had no real flavor base. The cheese was nice, there were mushrooms too--but this risotto was a loser. L-on-its-head loser. Like "I took you to a Remington party and you paid me back with puke" type loser. (Ya, Heather, I went there.)

But the dessert. Lever House almost fully redeems itself by way of this dessert:

Milk chocolate coconut cake with coconut sorbet. It was really delicious--I loved it. (Shared it with Michael who did most of the gobbling.)

Moving on, then, we go to the next day. (Friday night we saw Billy Crystal's "700 Sundays" which was really impressive in that Billy worked really hard---only, (and this could totally be a generation thing--we of the age of irony and self-awareness) I found it slightly shlocky and emotionally manipulative, though I have no doubt for him he's being as raw and honest as he could get in live performance. I just wish he didn't paint himself so cleanly. (With that said, though, he's a great performer. The pantomime bits were terrific.)) (We ate in Joe Allen's afterwards and saw (as guaranteed by my post on Joe Allen's where I say it's the best Broadway Star-Sighting place after theater) B.D. Wong. Yes, he's a star, isn't he?)

Lunch Saturday. We went to D.B. Bistro Moderne. This is a great pre-theater place (we were going to see "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," which was a lot of fun): great location and great food.

Normally, I don't take pictures of other people's dishes (I don't have the space for it to post all these pics) but Michael's clam chowder was outrageously beautiful:

Couldn't that hang in the MOMA?

The way lunch works there is you can get an appetizer and an entree or an entree and a dessert. You who know me know what I did. So for my entree I chose Atlantic cod with porcini dumplings, vegetables "paysanne" and a garlic-parsley broth:

It was marvelous (and also the best picture I took all weekend.)

For dessert, I jilted my tablemates (they all opted for appetizers and were not entitled to desserts) who love chocolate. I of the fruit-dessert persuasion had Tropical Fruit Soup with ginger-vanilla bavarois and pink guava sorbet:

Not surprisingly, I had the whole dessert to myself. If you eat with my family and want a whole dessert to yourself, order a fruit dessert---they won't touch it.

Now then, we come to the greatest eating moment of the weekend. I began this post by pretending that I am just a happy bystander of my parents food-love, that their gourmet outings are in no way influenced by me--but that's not entirely true. I think somehow (and this could be complete megalomania on my part) this site and my newfound food "authority" have somehow seeped into their consciousness (mostly my mom's--she who makes the reservations) and that their former tendency to eat big family-style meals at Italian theater-district places like Carmine's has been displaced by a respect and awe for the finest things in life, pointed out by me in my journey towards gourmet enlightenment. So whether it's my influence or her own self-will, my mom made a reservation for the four of us at Jean-Georges Saturday night, because she loved it there the last time. I did too and anticipated it with great excitement.

We were not disappointed.

Jean-Georges is the best restaurant in New York. I will qualify that statement only to say that I haven't been to every restaurant in New York, but I have been to many, and several of them were 4-stars (Per Se, Daniel.) Jean-Georges, however, is the best that I can imagine a restaurant to be---it's a magical dining experience. The room is enchanted, the service outstanding, and the food exciting, surprising, and luscious. It's just dazzling.

We started with an amuse bouche of (and this is from memory, so forgive me): pear with caviar, chicken broth with olive oil (and this chicken broth had a kick to it), and tuna(?) hamachi with something on it (sorry):

Last time we did the Jean-Georges tasting menu. This time we ordered from the left side of the page which allows you to choose an appetizer, a middle course, an entree and a dessert. This worked out perfectly.

For my appetizer, I had the sea scallops, caper-raisin emulsion and cauliflower:

These were TOO good. And the sauce---what a crazy perfect combination. Capers and raisins? It works. I'd like to recreate this dish at home sometime like the folks do at Gothamist Food. Maybe I can put them on the job.

For my next course I ordered foie gras because it's the sort of thing I NEVER eat on a regular basis, I only eat it on very special occassions and this was one of them. It came with another thrilling combination: peanuts and a cherry sauce. All-American foie gras?

Seriously, this is why I love Jean-Georges. Who would think to combine peanuts and cherries on LIVER? And it works--I swear, these things are radical food revelations that happen in your mouth. It's like having eyes in the roof of your mouth that have slept for 26 years that suddenly and miraculously open up. (Ok, that's a gross image.)

For my entree, I had the duck. But first, look at this man carving a pineapple:

This was happening at the table next to us. I swear (and I kid you not) he did this for 45 minutes. He carved this intricate design into it and then sliced it and it was beautiful and theatrical and had everyone staring from around the room. Where else does this happen? Nowhere, I tell you, nowhere!

Now my duck. Oh my God.

Look at the top of my duck. What do you see? Looks strange, right?

They're almonds but they almost taste like an almond brittle--they fuse with the skin and make this crazy, crispy, candy-like crust. I was in heaven. (I should state here, though, that my dad and brother--who were also at this table--ate their food with mild interest and very few spurts of joy. Dad, who also had the duck, found it "too sweet.")

But my middle name is "too sweet" so this was perfect. It had a honey wine sauce that accented everything nicely. I loved this dish.

Then there was (drumroll): dessert.

Oh, dessert. Dessert at Jean-Georges. If only I'd asked for a menu I could identify everything! There were four choices: a chocolate menu (which, boringly, mom, dad AND Michael opted for), a citrus menu, an apple menu and an exotic menu. I chose (at the waiter's suggestion) the exotic menu. I was glad I did:

I can't remember what everything is (I'm sorry! I know! I failed you!) but my favorite was on the lower left: there was passion fruit in it and I love passion fruit. Otherwise, on the upper left is pineapple upside down cake, on the upper right some kind of sweet fruity soup, and on the lower right a banana dessert with ice cream. Do I really need to tell you how terrific it all was?

Once again, Jean-Georges won our hearts and minds (at least mom's and mine) and I left feeling bloated, sick, and all the better for it.

Today, I ate as little as possible---eggs, toast, a burger that served as lunch and dinner, and then, just now, oatmeal. Tomorrow begins my return to the gym which I may or may not blog about. If this was the last "hurrah" it doesn't get much better than that. Mom, dad and Michael are back in Florida so I'm safe for a while. Until their next visit... happy vicarious eating!

March 14, 2005 1:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

A Brotherly Bleecker Street Night: Home, Rocco's and Film Forum

I love Bleecker Street nights.

Let me explain.

When a friend, loved one or acquaintance asks me: "Where should we go for I dinner?" I frequently reply: "Let's just go down to Bleecker street and find something."

I say that because there are SO many options on Bleecker Street and in that area. I'm talking, basically, about Greenwich Village---I love eating in the Village. I'm constantly stumbling upon new places and loving them. There are many treats to be had on Bleecker street--the cashew bar at Amy's bread, the pizza at Joe's or John's. Bleecker Street is my favorite food street in New York.

So tonight with my brother, who is here visiting (my parents may follow tomorrow depending on whether my dad beats his cold), I took him down to Bleecker and we strolled in the cold cold cold. (I've been triplifying my prose, lately, I'm not sure why why why).

"Which place do you like, Michael?" I asked.

"I want Chinese," he replied.

"Ummm," I said, "There's no real Chinese around here. But pick one of these places."

We looked at Po.

"This is owned by Mario Batali," I said, "It was his first restaurant. It's supposed to be great."

He studied the menu on the outside. "Quail? Sweetbreads? No thanks."

We were on Cornelia St. (my favorite side street off Bleecker) and after wandering past a few more places, we discovered Home:

"Look, Michael," I said gleefully. "It's Home! It's like we're eating at home! Let's eat here!"

With a grumble, he ok-ed it.

Here is Michael:

He's sitting in Home. Our waitress came over and said: "Let me tell you about the specials..." It was weirdly done because usually you say: "Hi, how are you tonight?" Or something on that order. She just jumped right into the specials.

But that's ok, we'll forgive her. The food was great. We shared a fried cornmeal coated oyster appetizer:

Michael ate his half bravely and seemed to enjoy it. I enjoyed mine.

Then, for my entree, I had the duck which had great accoutrements (quince sauce and a butternut squash side) but the duck itself was a little fatty:

Michael had the roasted chicken with garlicky greens, onion rings and homemade ketchup:

I thought his looked fannntastic and I confirmed that by eating some. It was. Even Michael thought so: "I don't normally like American food," he said, "but this is really good."

So that was us at Home.

But the fun doesn't stop there. We were on our way to Film Forum for a festival of Westerns, but first we stopped into Rocco's pastry shop for some cannoli. Look at this display case!

How can you NOT love Bleecker Street?

I'd like to say Michael and I shared this cannoli, but please forgive us and our gluttony when I say we each had our own:

I don't think I even need to tell you how good this was.

After that, it was a brisk walk down 6th Avenue to Houston where a big line already formed at Film Forum. We bought our tickets and went in to see Jimmy Stewart and Janet Leigh in The Naked Spur which was terrific. I took this picture going in:

I think it's my most artistic shot yet. Maybe because I was so inspired by our night on Bleecker Street?

I'm telling you--those Bleecker Street nights. They're the best.

March 10, 2005 2:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Bizarro Burnt Butter Brown Sugar Cupcakes

&uotMy pantry, on a surface level, would appear well stocked. There's pasta, there's rice, there's beans, there's flour, there's sugar, there's oil, there's baking soda. You can look in my pantry and think to yourself: "My! Imagine all the glorious things he can make with this!"

But when put to the test, my pantry failed me. This happened Monday night. I have a new Monday night ritual. Because I've spoiled my Tuesday playwriting workshop week after week with home cooked treats, I now feel obligated to bake something for them on a regular basis. They expect it. "What are you bringing, tomorrow?" my workshop classmates ask me. "I DON'T KNOW! LEAVE ME ALONE!" I scream and run into the bathroom crying. (I'm very dramatic in the Dramatic Writing program).

So this past Monday, at 11 pm, after directing a scene for directing class and writing a 10 page paper comparing "Uncle Vanya" to "The Wood Demon" I set upon making a baked good. I flipped through my many baked goods cookbooks and found, to my dismay, that I didn't have the ingredients for 99% of the recipes. I needed coconut, I needed cream, I needed marzipan, I needed lemons. I just didn't have those things.

What I do have plenty of is butter. And so when I stumbled upon Nigella Lawson's ;Burnt Butter Brown Sugar Cupcakes" I was intrigued. The ingredients were incredibly basic and the end result sounded so exotic.

Now I must tell you here that my brother is sleeping in the living room right now so I can't turn the light on to take the book off the shelf to tell you the recipe beat by beat. I can do that for you in the comments for it at a later date if you BEG ME and reveal DEEP PERSONAL SECRETS ABOUT YOURSELF.

What I will do is give you a very basic narrative. First, you burn the butter. It's this much butter in a saucepan at medium heat:

You let it cook until it turns dark golden brown. This is a fun process. You stir stir stir and wait wait wait. This is what you end up with:

But here's the part that angers me. Nigella then says: "Wait for the butter to resolidfy. Do not put in the fridge though! You need the butter soft. It really won't take that long."

Oh, Nigella. How long it took. It took so long that I almost put the butter in the freezer, but I settled upon the fridge. Even that took a while. So I'm not sure what was happening (I'm sure my foodie friends can chime in) but if I were you, if you ever make this recipe, just stick it in the fridge and check every few minutes. That's what I'd do.

Once that happens, it's so straight forward you could die from overexposure to straightforwardness. You just blitz that brown butter with brown sugar and flour and other things in the food processor. Add milk. Pour into muffin tins. You're done.

But wait. Then there's the frosting. For the frosting you have to do the SAME BROWN BUTTER PROCESS. So it takes that same crazy amount of time. But this time I used the fridge method and I was happy. The frosting is wonderful. Here's the resulting cupcake:

I actually love this cupcake because the ingredients are so simple and yet it tastes so exotic. When people talk about browned butter they often use the word "nuttiness" to describe the taste (at least Nigella does). I think that's true but it's a comforting nuttiness--there's a warmth to it that's hard to describe.

Was it a hit in class?

Well Dan, sitting next to me, bit into it while someone was reading a poem and said: "OH MY GOD! Adam, this is AMAZING."

On the other hand, a certain classmate who shall remain nameless took one bite and pushed it away. She didn't know I noticed this but I DID. Burnt Butter Brown Sugar Cupcakes aren't for anyone. Are they for you? Only one way to find out. All you need is butter, fire and time.

March 10, 2005 2:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Alex Ross Links To Moi

Alex Ross (one of my favorite New Yorker writers) always posts pictures of his cats on his blog. So a few days ago I rather timidly sent him a link to my Lolita video and today, to my surprise, he linked to it! (He also linked to my Bright Food Shop review which is one of the rushiest things I've ever written. But no gift horse mouth looking here!) This man knows Bjork, people, and now he loves my cat. I'm purring!

March 10, 2005 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (14)

The Chowing Chelsea Catch-Up Post: Dinner at Bright Food Shop and Brunch at Diner 24

Life is busy busy busy right now. Busy busy!

It's the last week before Spring Break, so lots of work due, and my brother's coming tomorrow, mom and dad to follow Thursday, so there was cleaning to do too. Working, cleaning--there's no time to blog! But...my...readers...need...me...

So here we are. 2:21 AM. Let's see how fast we can type up this post. We're going to cover the meals I ate this weekend, both of them with Lisa. (I ate more meals than two, but these were the exciting ones.)

Bright Food Shop

I swear to God, Bright Food Shop has the easiest-to-forget name I've ever dealt with. Seriously. Because I walk past it all the time on 8th Avenue and I know it's next to Kitchen/Market (owned by the same people) and so I'm always like: "We should eat at Kitchen Market, sometime" when I mean Bright Food Shop, since Kitchen/Market only does take-out burritos and I'm visualizing BFS not K/M. But even after having eaten there, I had to just Google Kitchen/Market to recall the name of where we ate---and now that I've recalled it, I'm still like: "What am I writing about?" Even right now if you froze me and told me not to move my eyes upward and to remember the name of the place I'm writing about I'd be like "uhhh???"---although, in all honesty, I do remember, my short term memory's not THAT bad. So, my meal at Le Bernadain.

Just kidding. Kitchen/Market. UGH!

Bright Food Shop.

The food is Mexican Asian fusion. Yes---this is a fusion place. (It's 2:25, we're being long-winded.) So they have fused together foods in varying capacities. The tortillas with three dips weren't fusion, though. They were Mexican:

I enjoyed these dips. One's clearly salsa, one was a bean dip, and the other's that green dip you've seen before, you know what I'm talking about. (2:27).

Lisa and I both ordered exotic sodas. I ordered non-alcoholic sangria soda and Lisa ordered grapefruit soda:

I enjoyed my San Gria soda until Lisa sipped it and told me it tasted like grape juice. Lisa enjoyed her grapefruit soda until I sipped it and told her tasted like Fresca. "It tastes NOTHING like Fresca," she steamed.

For our entree we shared a Moo Shoo vegetable burrito. (We had to share because the food at this place is surprisingly expensive. I think this thing cost $16, but don't quote me on that.)

Lisa loved it. "I love it," she said. "I think it's delicious."

It had Asian vegetables in it with a great marinade and then the dipping sauce on the outside was great too. I enjoyed it.

That concludes my review of...umm...ummmm....

Brunch at Diner 24

(It's 2:29, we're doing well...swiftly, swiftly, swiftly...)

Somebody, I can't remember who (sorry! time-pressed!) e-mailed me and told me to eat brunch at Diner 24. So I did. I took Lisa. We did this Sunday morning at 11---we got there before the crowds.

I had this great dish of fried eggs on sauteed potatoes, mushrooms, spinach and DUCK. Yes---DUCK. There was duck in my breakfast food. I loved it.

Lisa, on the other hand, was disappointed with hers. She got an omelette:

Yes, she's smiling, but behind that smile is deep pain and disappointment. Actually, if you study the omelette you can see it has a certain airplane like quality. The whole thing is homogeneous---there's no zest, no life, no star quality. A small tear trickled down Lisa's face as I savored my duck.

It is now 2:35. That concludes The Chowing Chelsea Catch-Up post.

March 9, 2005 2:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A Million Customers Served

I've been keeping an eye on my hits and statistics lately because we've been creeping towards a million hits. And then this morning it happened:

Total number of hits: 1,000,085.

That's after 14 months of blogging--not so bad! Makes us feel like a fat cat for the day:

Here's to several million more!

March 7, 2005 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Great Moments in Musical Theater Featuring Eggs: Part Three

When I was a youngster, Broadway shows weren't really about content, they were about spectacle. (I grew up in the 80s.) So there was "the rollerskating show" (Starlight Express), "the show with the floating tire" (Cats), "the show with the rotating stage" (Les Miz) and this---"the show with the helicopter landing." For those that missed it, here's that big scene recreated with eggs!

Great Moments in Musical Theater Featuring Eggs: Part Three.

March 5, 2005 1:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (20)

Dramatic Late Night Chocolate Chip Muffins

Look at these dramatic muffins:

Do you get it? I made drama masks with them. Happy face, sad face. You people are so uncultured, it sickens me.

I've been craving chocolate chip muffins lately. I don't know why. Maybe I'm pregnant? No, if I was pregnant I'd want chocolate chip muffins and pickles.

There's just something sexy to me about the idea of a hot chocolate chip muffin coming out of the oven late at night. So I just made them using Nigella Lawson's feast cookbook. They were crazy easy. Do you want the recipe? It's so easy.

Preheat the oven to 400 and fill a muffin tin with 12 paper cups.

In a bowl put all these dry ingredients together:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbs best-quality unsweetened cocoa (Ok, I was an idiot and used Jacques Torres's hot chocolate powder--that didn't work so well)
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (plus more for sprinkling later)
3/4 cup superfine sugar (I used regular sugar and it was fine)

Then add these wet ingredients:
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup plus 2 tsps vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

That's it! You stir but not too much. Nigella tells us this: "Remember that a lumpy batter makes the best muffins." See?

Pour into the muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes. That's it! Deliciousness in no time!

Ok, small confession--these weren't 100% delicious, but I think that's because (as mentioned above) I used hot chocolate powder instead of cocoa. I know, I know--that's retarded--but it seemed like a fine idea at the time. Maybe it's a testament to how good these muffins are that even though that aspect of it didn't taste good, they still did taste really really good. They're light, fluffy and scream to be eaten hot out of the oven. Treat your inner muffin-lover today.

March 4, 2005 2:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)

Momofuku: This Ain't Your Momo's Fuku

Earlier this year I cheated you, my beloved audience. I ate at Momofuku and I didn't tell you about it. It just sort of happened. I didn't have my camera with me. It was late at night; I was drunk. I'M SORRY, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO FORGIVE ME? YOU CAN'T BE ANGRY AT ME FOREVER!

Perhaps tonight I will put us on our path towards healing. I went back JUST FOR YOU because I love you. Ok, that's a lie. I went for me because I love Momofuku. But you shall benefit.

I was with Jason (who lives near Momofuku and introduced me to it), Alex B., Molly and Colin. The latter three were like "what's Momofuku? Why are we going there?" and Jason and I were like: "Trust us, you'l love it."

We got there and the place was tightly packed. Luckily there were five stools facing a wall near the front. Here's a pic that gives you a feel of the place:

It's an open kitchen type atmosphere. See that girl in the pink vest? The distance between her and the wall is not much---I had to scoot past all those people to get to the bathroom. Momofuku keeps things tight and intimate. It's like a honeymoon in that way---a Japanese ramen honeymoon.

Yes, Momofuku's famous for its ramen. Also for its pork buns. But first, sake.

Alex and Molly shared a bottle of sake. Colin ordered a Japanese beer. Jason was sick so he stuck to water. When it was my turn I ordered a glass of Nigori Sho Chiku Bai. The waitress asked: "Do you know what you're ordering?" I responded: "How dare you! Of course I know!" Then I paused. "Ok," I whispered, "What is it?"

"It's unfiltered sake so it's sweet and there's granules in it," she responded. I like sweet so I said yes. Here it is:

It was sweet and milky. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I gave it to Molly to try. She made a face and said, "I don't care for it."

But how often does one CARE for an alcoholic beverage? Emotional connections with alcohol are dangerous prospects. And so I had a purely platonic relationship with my sake and it suited me well.

I encouraged everyone to share pork buns with me because I'd heard they were good. The pork eaters (everyone except Jason) agreed to it and soon the pork arrived in their buns.

Alex poked the bun. "What exactly is this?" she asked curiously. "A bun!" I scolded. Then we all bit in and "mmmm"ed. We liked these buns.

For my ramen bowl I ordered Ginger Scallion. So did Jason. Alex ordered the Chicken Soup bowl, Molly got the Ginger Scallion and Colin got the house specialty, I forget what it was. But here's mine:

This picture doesn't really do it justice. In the darkened space of Momofuku this bowl has an allure; the flash gives it an anaseptic quality. So ignore the picture and focus on the components. Particularly, the cauliflower and scallions---they make this dish whacky good. The noodles are oily but flavorful. Everything marries well and all of us ate with great enthusiasm---twirling, lifting, slurping.

I scraped my bowl clean as did Jason (I didn't see Molly's or Colin's). Alex didn't love her Chicken Soup bowl and regretted not getting Ginger Scallion. Keep that in mind when you go to Momofuku.

Soon the check came and soon we paid and soon we were on our way. Usually I chew gum after a meal--it's a nasty, juvenile habit. But here I let the taste linger in my mouth on the way home. It's that momo fuken good.

March 4, 2005 2:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (8)

"What kind of food do you feel like?"

I overheard a girl on her cellphone today walking down the street. She asked her conversation partner: "What kind of food do you feel like?"

I thought it would be funny if we took this question literally. So readers, tell us: what kind of food do YOU feel like?

[Edited to say: Sorry if this wasn't clear. I mean: "what kind of food do you feel like emotionally?" not "what kind of food are you in the mood for?" That's why I thought it was funny in the first place.]

I'll go first. I feel like beets.

Beets at the store, before you roast them, are kind of dirty looking and sad. That's me: dirty looking and sad. But wrap me in aluminum foil, sprinkle me with olive oil, stick me in an oven and I come out glittering and ready to rock.

Beets are pungent. Beets are messy. Beets have a flavor that's ancient yet new---they're not entirely sweet, they're not entirely not-sweet. Beets are smart. Beets are versatile. Beets work well with others.

What kind of food do I feel like? I feel like beets. YOUR TURN! (beet that...heh heh)

March 3, 2005 3:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

(Blurry) Truffled Egg Toast at 'ino

First, an apology for this picture: it's blurry. I'm not sure why it's blurry, must have been in the wrong mode, or not enough light, or whatever it is that makes a picture blurry. Forgive me. (If you click it, it gets bigger but even blurrier. That's a choice you'll have to make on your own.)

What the picture lacks in focus it surely makes up for in content: this is the truffled egg toast at 'ino. I'd heard many things about this dish. Amanda Hesser writes about it in "Cooking for Mr. Latte." (She has a recipe that recreates it, which I'll soon attempt.) My friend Alex B., when she heard I went to 'ino a few weeks ago, said: "Did you have the truffled egg toast? WHAT? YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE TRUFFLED EGG TOAST? ARE YOU CRAZY?"

So today, when stumbling around the Village, looking for a place to lunch, I suddenly realized: "Why Adam! This is a perfect opportunity to have truffled egg toast at 'ino!"

And so I did and it was a sublime experience. I don't use the word sublime lightly. I wouldn't use the word "sublime" to describe, say, the pecan bars I made the other day. Those were just tasty and comforting and sticky and gooey but surely not sublime. The Thai food I ate for dinner was really good---peanut and coconut curry---but still not sublime. If you want sublime, go to 'ino. Get the truffled egg toast.

This paragraph will put to the test my abilities as a food writer. I am going to try to describe, the best I can, the sensation of eating truffled egg toast. So first you have this thick toast---it's ciabatta bread they bought from down the street at Blue Ribbon. It's hefty and has weight to it, but isn't difficult to cut through--like really crusty French toast but crustier and not as buttery and no maple syrup. On top of that is some kind of cheese. I don't know what kind of cheese. I am failing as a food writer. (Acually, on second thought, I'm not sure there was cheese. Maybe the cheese was egg?) Let's talk about the egg. Is it poached? Is it fried? I think it's poached. Again, I'm a failure. But then there's a drizzle of truffle oil---you can see it melding with the yolk. Around the plate is scattered cut-up asparagus and then all over it, as if matter from another planet, is sprinkled salt and freshly cracked pepper. I say "from another planet" because the salt and pepper really stand out here in a peculiar otherworldly way. You've put salt and pepper on eggs before, sure, but here they feel (dramatic music plays)...different.

It's the melding of all these flavors---the truffle oil, the yolk, the pepper, the salt, the egg, the toast---that makes this unlike anything you've ever eaten. It's bizarre. It's exciting. It's food you never knew existed that once you eat it you can't remember a time that it didn't exist. It's that good.

And that's truffled egg toast. I've eaten it, now. Why haven't you?

March 3, 2005 3:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (15)

The First Two Paragraphs of Today's Bruni Review Needlessly Set To Music

First the review.

Then: the first two paragraphs needlessly set to music.

Here they are so you can follow along.

Confessions of a Reformed Sushi Eater
By FRANK BRUNI

Then again, there wasn't an abundance of exemplary sushi or expert sushi chefs back then. All too often the fish, overly chewy, and the rice, needlessly clumpy, didn't deserve gentler treatment. At Gari, a new Japanese restaurant on the Upper West Side, they do. I would never drag Gari's sushi carelessly through a salty, spicy murk.

March 2, 2005 2:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (20)

Cooking for Tennessee, Feeding Ed Instead

What a day! What a story I have to tell you! And how difficult to tell it since my spacebar is broken! (Don't worry, I'm working extra hard to put the spaces in for you---the story's that good.)

One of the classes I take in my second semester of Tisch's MFA program is Modern Drama. This week our teacher (who I love) had us read four plays by Edward Albee. We read "Virginia Woolf" last semester, and amongst the 20 or 30 plays we read (from Oedipus to Lear) it was among my top three favorites. For today it was "The American Dream," "A Delicate Balance," "The Play About The Baby," and "The Goat."

We were to stay after class, then, for a segue into next week's subject, Tennessee Williams. A famous NY actor, Jeremy Lawrence, was coming to do his one-man Tennessee Williams show and Dan, one of my classmates who helped organize, asked me to cook something for the reception afterwards. So last night, after roasting the chicken, I made pecan bars from The Gourmet Cookbook. They came out fantastic, look:

Normally the knock-dead pecan bar recipe is The Barefoot Contessa's, but Gourmet's were way easier and required less pecans. However, I did incorporate one Contessa trick: I grated half an orange and half a lemon into the pecan mixture. It gave it some zing.

But back to the main story at hand. I came to school today and there was a big sign up: "JEREMY LAWRENCE CANCELLED BECAUSE OF SNOW STORM."

I'd made the pecan bars for nothing! But no worries---I'm always happy to cook sweets and to feed them to my classmates. My classmates are always happy to eat them.

So we loitered for a bit in the lounge area waiting for class to start. We discussed things like the Oscars, the blizzard, the feasability of nuclear disarmament in North Korea. Then our teacher came and gathered us up. I was slow gathering my things, so I was the last one to follow. On my way to class I saw a conspicuous elderly gentleman walking in a different direction. He looked like Edward Albee. I thought I heard someone say: "Hey Edward," but then I thought I hallucinated.

I ran into my classroomm. "I think I just saw Edward Albee in the hall," I said, rather dazed. My class looked at me incredulously. My teacher shook her head and blushed: "Oh Adam," she said, "Don't be silly."

But as we were talking I saw that same man go into the bathroom. "He just went into the bathroom!" I yelped. "I swear, go look!"

So Darren, one of my classmates, went into the bathroom and came back grinning. "It's him, it's definitely him."

Our teacher's smile grew broader. Suddenly a face appeared at the door--Edward Albee!

Now I realize to the non-theatrical among you this might not mean much, but surely I'm not overstating when I say that Albee may be one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) living American playwrights. He has three Pulitzers to his name and constant productions of his work all around the world. A new version of "Virginia Woolf" is opening soon on Broadway with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin. The man is a genius.

He sat with us for well over an hour and answered all of our questions. I had a ton of them. He was really gracious, but really forthright. Here are some things that I wrote down:

- "You can't act what the play means. Only act the moment to moment reality in the play. That's all you can direct too."

- "I have never written a role for an actor ever."

- "Most of the plays that survive aren't cheerful. Look at King Lear having problems with his daughters. The Macbeths weren't a nice family."

- "Tragedy has lost its meaning. A word that's totally overused."

- "You (writers) have to come to the battlefield completely informed--know what everyone's written--good stuff and bad stuff--know everything and write the first play that everybody's ever written."

- "You have to know classical music. Nothing is closer to a string quartet than a play... A playwright should be as precise as a composer."

***
Now the question arises----did I feed Edward Albee one of my pecan bars? Were my pecans consumed by America's greatest living playwright? Well, unfortunately, no. Edward's diabetic. I did, however, snap this photo on my cell phone camera as Edward was leaving. It's not great, but it gives you an idea. You can see my teacher glowing in the background:

Intead of tying up this post of an enchanted day with a pretty bow (and it was an enchanted day, I'll never forget it!), I'll instead quote Mr. Albee himself from "Virginia Woolf." Here's a small smattering that crackles and pops and is ever so slightly food related:

(From Act One)

George: In my mind, Martha, you are buried in cement, right up to your neck. (Martha giggles.) No...right up to your nose...that's much quieter.

George: Martha eats them...for breakfast...she sprinkles them on her cereal.

March 1, 2005 3:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (16)