Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'Craig'
Pork on Fire (The Spiciest Dish in New York?)
On Friday, I sent out the following e-mail to my pork-eating friends: Dear Friends, Today I was reading the New Yorker profile of the only food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, Jonathan Gold. In it he says of a spicy Thai food dish: "It was glowing, practically incandescent. You bite into it and every alarm in your body goes off at once. It's an overload on your pain receptors, and then the flavors just come through. It's not that the hotness overwhelms the dish, which is what people who don't understand Thai cooking always say, but that the dish is revealed for the first time--its flavor--as you taste details of fruit and turmeric and spices that you didn't taste when it was merely extremely hot. It's like a hallucination."...
A Picnic in the Park
There are random acts of kindness and then there are random acts of picnics. Or random picnics of kindness. I need to work on the name, but here's how it works: you have a friend or loved one who works in midtown Manhattan. You offer to meet them for lunch. When they say, "where?" you say: "Let's meet in Central Park, I'll bring the food."...
Garlic Scapes
For as long as I've been going to the farmer's market (about five years now), I always eye garlic scapes with skepticism and fear. These tangly, green specimens look like a cross between a plant and an octopus. Even Craig, who loves octopi, approached the garlic scapes I brought home this weekend with great dread and apprehension.......
Cheese For Dinner
Murray's Cheese is often celebrated as the best cheese shop in New York. Frequently I walk past it and wonder, "If I go in there, what will I buy? And how can I make a meal out of that?" I'm very meal-oriented when I food shop: I usually ignore long-term ingredients like high-end oils and designer vinegars in favor of short-term ingredients like vegetables and meats that I can put to use right away. And with cheese, there are very few short-term things you can do with it, in terms of making a meal, that I find satisfying. 1: you can make mac and cheese; 2. you can...? See my point? So the only reason to buy cheese is if you want to keep cheese around long-term to snack on. But I don't shop for long-term snacking, I shop for meals. Which is why, the other night, walking past Murray's, I had a provocative thought: what if I served cheese for dinner?...
The Churros That Saved The Dinner Party
Have you ever had a son or daughter who plays the piano like a real champ, such a champ that you invite all your friends over one night and set up a little concert--with fliers and cocktails and a video camera on a tripod--and when your son or daughter finally sits down to play they totally freeze up and won't hit one note? That's how I felt two weeks ago when I had friends over to eat not one but TWO dishes from a new favorite cookbook, David Tanis's "A Platter of Figs." My love for this book ran pretty deep for a variety of reasons: (a) it was a gift from Craig's parents; (b) David Tanis is the chef at Chez Panisse, one of my favorite restaurants; and (c) the book is knock-you-out beautiful, with gorgeous pictures and recipes and writing that's heartfelt and really, really smart. But when it came time to perform, I'm so sad to report that the two recipes I made from it--the Green Chile Stew & the Spicy Pickled Vegetables--were total duds....
The Food At Disney World
There's high culture and there's low culture and then there's Disney World. I grew up going there and going there and going there; seriously, we went there a lot (we lived in Florida, so it was close). When I dream, I dream about theme parks (psychologists: what does that mean?) and the theme parks I dream about most often are Disney theme parks. So when Craig's movie got into the Florida Film Festival in Orlando and he was hooked up with a hotel room and a car and all I would have to do is pay for a plane ticket there and back, it was hard to resist a trip to Disney World. It'd been almost ten years since I'd been there last and I was immensely curious to see if I'd still think if it was fun or if I'd outgrown it. More importantly, I wanted to write about the food--a strange idea, but a compelling one, perhaps. What's there to say about the food at Disney World? Actually, there's plenty....
Elvie's Turo-Turo & Butter Lane
I'm getting a little rusty in my old age. In the early days of the blog, I was the one dragging my friends to obscure hole-in-the-wall joints in the East Village--now I'm perfectly happy to go to Grand Sichuan over and over again. But Mark and Diana have my number, both literally and figuratively. We had plans for a double date on Saturday night and as I texted with Diana about what we would do, she ignored my suggestion to return to the home of Gui Zhou Chicken and Dry Sauteed String Beans and, instead, told us to meet her and Mark at Elvie's Turo-Turo on 1st Ave. and 12th Street. "It's a Filipino place," wrote Diana. The old adventurer in me perked up: "See you there," I wrote back as I grabbed my camera (or Craig's camera, rather: mine's been in repair for eternity), excited, once again, to try something new....
We Try Marmite
I received Marmite on my birthday and today we finally got around to trying it for the first time. Many of you have strong opinions about the stuff so watch the video to find out what we thought.......
What I Ate in Austin, Texas
There are a few things you need to know about my trip to Austin, Texas. First, the purpose of my trip was to support Craig's film at SXSW, so while a typical trip to a new city would involve obsessive visits to any and every eating establishment, this trip I was pretty restrained and also a bit hobbled because I didn't have a car. Craig's film team had a van that would drive us to screenings and interviews and other film events, but to get anywhere food-related cost about $25 by cab because our hotel (a dilapidated Day's Inn that we fled to after the house we rented had fleas) was way out in the boonies. Add to that the fact that my camera overheated and died (I used Craig's camera instead), this was quite the challenging trip. And yet still, somehow, I ate really well....
Craig's Premiere at SXSW
Before I get into all the food I ate in Austin, I just have to share with you how exhilarating it was to be at the premiere of Craig's movie, True Adolescents, at SXSW. Having been there at the very beginning of the project--remember when we scouted locations on The Olympic Peninsula?--it was amazing to sit in a darkened movie theater, every seat full (they turned almost 50 people away at both screenings) and to see the words "written & directed by Craig Johnson" projected on the giant screen. It was even better to feel the audience reaction afterwards....
Where To Eat in Austin, Texas?
You readers are the best at suggesting places to eat in cities I don't know. Baltimore, Paris, and San Francisco: you've kept me very well fed. Now, tomorrow, I leave for Austin, Texas to attend Craig's movie premiere at SXSW. I'm pretty sure most of my time will be spent doing movie stuff--attending screenings and panels and papering the town--but a person has to eat, don't they? Craig's family's scheduled a trip to The Salt Lick BBQ (I'm really psyched for that) but, otherwise, I'm in your hands. So tell me A.G. readers: where do I eat in Austin, Texas?...
The Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake at Stand
Friends don't let friends go to Stand--the burger place on E. 12th Street--without ordering the toasted marshmallow milkshake. It fell upon me yesterday, after seeing "Synecdoche, NY" with Craig and his filmmaker friend David Russo (whose own movie, "The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle", premiered at Sundance this year) to shepherd them both to Stand for burgers and, of course, the toasted marshmallow milkshake. I was so forceful on the latter front--"You've gotta get the toasted marshmallow milkshake," I began; "It's really one of the best milkshakes I've ever had", I continued; "Aren't you going to order it?" I begged when neither person ordered it--that my plan backfired: these two were going to need a more direct intervention. I ordered the milkshake for myself....
Make Your Own Chicken Burrito
Running on the treadmill, it's useful to dangle an image carrot in your brain: something you can run towards, something to look forward to, a reward for all your hard work. And last week, for me, that was definitely a chicken burrito. I was craving one, hardcore. The problem is that where we live in Park Slope? The chicken burritos leave much to be desired. Craig is very much NOT a fan of Los Pollitos; I think it's passable, but certainly not a reward for burning millions of calories on the treadmill. No, if I wanted a good chicken burrito, I'd have to make one myself....
What I Ate On My 30th Birthday
My birthday always begins with the Angel of Food hovering over my bed and handing me a pass that says, "EAT FREELY," which is not so much a mild suggestion, but an absolute imperative. There's no "maybe I shouldn't"s on my birthday--the word "shouldn't" is verbotten, as is "mustn't" and "oughtn't" (is oughtn't a word?)--my mission is a clear one: devour the city in 24 hours or less....
Momofuku Ko
If you live in New York and you're a food blogger who writes about restaurants, it's inevitable that, at some point, you must visit and write about Momofuku Ko, David Chang's most celebrated and impossible-to-get-into restaurant. So many food bloggers, in fact, have visited Ko--among them, The Wandering Eater, Food in Mouth, The Girl Who Ate Everything--that the restaurant now has an official "no pictures" policy. This, I must admit, was a bit of a relief when I surprised Craig on Sunday, taking him there for his birthday; now I wouldn't have to spend half the meal adjusting the aperture and manually focusing over plates of rapidly cooling food. For great pictures of dinners at Ko, click any of the links above. For a brief account of our time there, click ahead....
True Adolescents To Premiere at SXSW
Many of you know that my boyfriend Craig (whose birthday is today) is a film director who wrote and directed his first feature, True Adolescents, two summers ago in the Pacific Northwest. Now--at last!--the movie is having its premiere: it was announced today that Craig's movie is one of only 7 movies (out of 750 submissions) in the Narrative Features competition at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. And so, yes, that means we're heading to Austin in March (my first time in Texas!) and we hope to see YOU at his screening. But in the meantime, please join the True Adolescents fan page on Facebook, bookmark the True Adolescents website, and make the awesome poster (created by celebrated comic book artist Cliff Chiang) your desktop image. Also: root for Melissa Leo at the Oscars--she's in Craig's movie and now she's up for Best Actress for "Frozen River." This is going to be an exciting year and I'll definitely keep you posted here as our journey into the glamorous world of Hollywood--or, rather, Independent Cinema--begins....
Craig
One of the more hilarious moments in this blog's history was when I casually mentioned that I was dating someone named Craig in this post about soup dumplings in Chinatown and all my readers went crazy. "Thank God you finally came out!!!" said reader Bryan. "Wheee! You finally told who you were kissing!" said reader Marcy. Now, almost three years later, Craig has become a virtual staple of the blog. How does he feel about all this? Let's ask him....
How To Make An Apple Pie
Some of us have Oedipal complexes, others have Electra complexes, but very few of us have a complex based on apple pie. Allow me to lay on your therapist's couch for a moment: I have a serious pie issue. My apple pie is inadequate--it comes from Martha Stewart--and though it often inspires a happy nod and a fleeting smile, it rarely induces the kind of exaltation that comes when Craig's dad--who we'll call "Steve" because that's his name--makes his signature apple pie. What is it that makes his pie so good? Why do my pies never measure up? On a recent visit to Bellingham, Washington--home of "Steve"--I decided to solve this mystery once and for all. What follows are the closely-guarded secrets of Steve's Signature Apple Pie; a pie that I finally recreated at home to much acclaim--so much acclaim that I don't need this therapy anymore. How much do I owe you?...
Holiday Bounty
When it comes to gift-giving, it's good to have a thing. Those without a thing are hard to buy gifts for: you choose between scarves and candles and ponder the merits of fuchsia vs. chartreuse or hyacinth vs. gardenia. But when someone has a thing, you just get them something that fits their thing. Like shopping for Bono or Michael Jordan or Sigfried & Roy--you buy them music, basketballs and magic trick sets, of course; and everyone's happy. And those that have a thing can buy stuff for other people based on their own thing: like Bono can make you a mix tape, Michael Jordan can give you Air Jordans, and Sigfried & Roy can give you a white tiger. Having a thing is awesome....
My Dungeness Crab Adventure
Let's say you're growing up in Boca Raton, Florida and you're looking at a map and someone says to you, "Point to a place in America that seems the most exotic to you, the most far away?" there's a good chance you might point to Washington State. After all, it's pretty much as far as you can get from Boca Raton within the continental U.S. And growing up, as I did (past the age of 11), in South Florida, I very rarely--if ever--entertained the idea that I might, one day, find myself in Washington State, on a barely inhabited island on the San Juan archipelago, sitting in a rowboat with my boyfriend, his dad, and brother, pulling up traps of giant crabs that we would take ashore, smash on the side of a bucket, and cook in sea water. The closest I ever got to cooking and killing my own seafood in Boca Raton was choosing a lobster from the tank at Red Lobster when I went there with my grandparents. Flash forward to me at the age of 29: generously invited by Craig and his family to join them for five days on the San Juan Islands where we would catch, kill, clean and cook our own fresh Dungeness crabs; I was suddenly about to experience the most exotic adventure the younger me could've imagined....
