Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'Diana'
Roasted Chickpeas
Let me say right off the bat: this is not a great recipe. It has the potential to be a great recipe--I really wanted it to be a great recipe--but as it stands right now, it's in need of some serious tweaking. And that tweaking may just be the simple addition of a Tablespoon of olive oil, but I'm getting ahead of myself....
Raw Milk; Or Diana Experiments with a Controlled Substance
[Hey, this is Adam The Amateur Gourmet. I'm on vacation in Barcelona, Spain and while I'm gone I've asked some awesome people to fill in for me. Now you all know my friend Diana Fithian, don't you? She's such a popular fixture of this blog, she deserves her own sub-category. Diana is currently working on a play, but if I say anything more, she'll break my legs. Take it away, Diana!] Last week my fiancé Mark and I went upstate to Kingston, New York for a quick summer getaway. Where we stayed was beautiful but pretty rustic, with no internet or cell phone service, and at first we were afraid that after a few days we'd start re-enacting scenes from "The Shining."...
Porchetta
My Twitter followers are a fervent bunch. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was in the East Village, getting a haircut at Sei Tomoko (the best haircut deal in town), and thinking of going to Porchetta for lunch. "Ooooh!" they cheered, "you've gotta go!" "I'm jealous!" "Porchetta is AMAZING." Then, later, when I confessed that I skipped Porchetta for Hummus Place--where I had a lighter, healthier lunch--the Twitter crowd was not happy. "Boooo!" they booed. "Grrrr!" they growled. "Hiss!" they hissed. (Wow, this post sounds like a children's book.) I thought they'd unfollow me and spurn my name forever, but now they should be appeased: I went with Diana to Porchetta for lunch last week and now I get what got them so worked up....
The Best Beans of Your Life
If someone asks my friend Diana what I got her for her birthday this year, she's very likely to answer: "Beans. I got beans for my birthday." That sounds like a negative thing, but in the case of Diana's birthday dinner, it was entirely positive. These beans, like the beans Jack trades his cow for, were no ordinary beans: they were magic beans. Specifically: the Barefoot Contessa's Baked Beans, which bake in the oven for six hours with bacon and ketchup and maple syrup and come out a deep rusty red and taste smoky, zippy and intense. In other words: the best beans of your life....
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....
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....
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....
Lauren & Diana
In the history of this blog, I've had not one but TWO roommates. Both of them were women. They still are. The first, Lauren (pronounced LAW-ren, like Sofia Loren) was there at the very beginning; we lived together (we were attending Emory Law School at the time) and I said, "Hey I'm going to start a food blog." And she said, "Sounds good to me" and then she was there for disaster after disaster in the kitchen, with a few successes in between. Here's a quick Q&A with her about our time living together....
Mercadito Cantina is Better Than Sex
[The Amateur Gourmet is on vacation and, while he's gone, he's asked his friends to cover for him. Today is a post from one of Adam's closest friends, his old roommate Diana Fithian! You know Diana, you love Diana, and now you get to read a post written by her just for you. Aren't you excited? Oh, and just so she fits in with all the mighty guest posters here on the blog, Diana is the author of "Girls on the Clock" which was recently performed at Brown University as part of their Playwright's Rep. Take it away Diana!] Really good Mexican food is hard to come by in New York. My boyfriend Mark is from Santa Fe, New Mexico and finds most NYC Mexican mediocre at best. I’m from Virginia so I’m maybe not quite as good a judge, my town didn’t even have a Taco Bell until I was in high school, but his high standards have rubbed off on me. One Mexican restaurant we both approve of is Mercadito on Avenue B between 11th and 12th, but the steep-ish price keeps us from going too often. The Mexican gods must have heard our prayers because just a few weeks ago a new spot opened literally across the street from good old Mercadito: Mercadito Cantina, basically Mercadito’s cheaper, prettier, more fun younger sister....
The Great Crab Debate
For as long as I've known him, Craig has waxed lyrical about the Dungeness crabs he and his family eat when they go to their cabin on the San Juan Islands, pull the crabs right out of the water, boil them and eat them right on the spot. Diana, however, who comes from Virginia is partial to the blue crabs she gets from the water near her house, cooked in a mixture of beer and various seasonings. Mark, her boyfriend, who's had both Diana's blue crabs and Dungeness crabs (though, not Craig's Dungeness crabs) prefers the blue crabs and you can see them agitating Craig in the above video. I'll finally get to taste Craig's beloved crabs a week from Friday when I fly out to Seattle for a week-long visit to Bellingham and the San Juan Islands. Meanwhile, those of you who've had both, which do you prefer: Dungeness crabs or blue crabs? If you say blue, prepare to get angry e-mails from Craig....
We Eat Rhode Island
I don't want to call myself a muse--that'd be overstating my case--but for a year I lived with my friend Diana, a fellow graduate of dramatic writing school who spent her time there studying screenwriting even though, from day one, I thought she was a world class playwright. "You should write plays!" I would constantly tell her as she showered or tried to sleep. "Why aren't you writing plays? I love your playwriting. Write a play!" Again, I don't want to take all the credit. But, finally, Diana heeded my advice and wrote a killer play called "Girls on the Clock" that was selected by Brown Uniersity's Playwrights Rep this summer for a production. The production got great reviews (The Providence Pheonix says: "'Girls On The Clock' is a tight little play that's bound to go places") and it was with tremendous excitement and great pride that Craig and I joined Diana's boyfriend, Mark, for a trip to Providence to see our girl's play. The trip turned into a grand eating adventure, with a Sunday in Newport, and now--after a week to process it all--I'm here to share. So pack your bags and come along.......
Diana's Birthday Lamb
Cooking a big meal for a friend's birthday is something that I enjoy, especially when that friend is Diana. But, inevitably, the party will end, the dishes will be stacked in the sink and, most devastating for a food blogger like me, there will 1,000 pictures of the meal in my camera and I'll feel an overwhelming duty to blog. Especially when I spent the time to make Suzanne Goin's chorizo-stuffed lamb from "Sunday Suppers at Lucques," a recipe that Goin herself deems the most difficult in the book; I know my readers will want to hear about it. But the pictures have been on Flickr now for weeks and just the idea of taking you through this whole dinner, step by step, fills me with dread. Do you really want to know how it all went down, to the last detail? Aren't you happy just to look at that pretty picture of Diana with those pretty flowers? Can we leave it at that? No? FINE, I'll blog all about it. But first: Diana has a play debuting this week at Brown University called "Girls on the Clock"! For ticket info, click here. To see Diana's birthday lamb, click ahead!...
Should Chefs Do Reality TV? A Discussion.
[I just chatted online with my friend Diana, who works in reality TV, about that very subject. Here it is, unedited (reality-style), for your consumption.] AdamR218: i'm about to do a post about reality tv on my blog Diana: ooh AdamR218: i'm going to tell my readers never do it AdamR218: that you always end up looking bad Diana: haha AdamR218: and even if oyu win you won't be that successful...
The Night I Let Friends Cook For Me
Psychologically speaking, I'm a Jewish mother. I smother those I love with attention, worry, enthusiasm, judgment and, most of all, food. The food bit is a relatively recent development--I wasn't smothering my high school friends with food--but now that I do cook and cook quite regularly, I have an almost compulsive need to feed others. I love having people over to dinner. Like you, you look hungry. Have you been eating? You're too skinny. Can I offer you some leftover pasta? A semi-stale brownie? Let's put some meat on your bones. The consequence of this, however, is that I'm rarely eager to have others cook for me. It's not that I'm ungrateful--the gesture is much appreciated--it's just that, well, I'm a control freak. When you go to someone's house for dinner, who knows what they're going to cook? What if their pasta is gummy, how could I stand it? Or what if their food is undersalted? Can I sprinkle on some salt when they're not looking? Keep some salt up my sleeve for that very purpose? What if they frisk me at the door? This problem is amplified now that my food blog is basically my job. People KNOW that I take pictures of food and write about it--that's my whole M.O.--so will they expect me to photograph what they cook and write about it? Will they be nervous and hushed as I take my first bite? Or will they go overboard, spending way too much time and money on a dinner that I may not even write about?...
A Cookie Trick
As much as I miss Diana for her winning personality, I mostly miss her for her cookie sheets. It was with her cookie sheets that we first made the greatest cookies of our lives--you can read the recipe here. Meg of Megnut rejected these cookies when she tried them and called them "too thin," but I still think they're the best. Yesterday I was all set to make them when I made a painful discovery: Diana, despite my efforts to thwart her, remembered to take her cookie sheets. Her cookie sheets, unlike mine, are flat with no sides and the cookies made on them came out perfect every time. The ones made on mine often got burnt around the edges or black underneath--my cookie sheets have sides. I was almost ready to give up, when I had a "eureka" moment. "What's wrong?" asked Craig. "I'm having a eurkea moment," I answered. The eureka was this: I could bake cookies on the BACK of my cookie sheets. Flip them upside down. Lay parchment across them and bake them that way. Look: See what I mean? So I made the batter as usual and, as I revealed in a previous post, I used an ice cream scoop to get the batter on to the sheets: I also flattened them with a wet hand, a trick I learned from one of my regular TV shows (Barefoot Contessa)? They went into the 350 degree oven and I was going to switch the sheets after 9 minutes to cook another 9 minutes more, but at that point they were already a perfect golden brown and the edges were dark. So I made the executive decision to take them out 9 minutes early and guess what? They were fantastic. I mean you saw that picture above, look at this one: What more could you want from a cookie? And you can recreate these at home this weekend using my trick. Who needs Diana and her stinkin' cookie sheets? From now on I will use her for her personality and nothing more....
Farewell Diana, Hello New Banner
A full year has passed since Diana and I moved into our apartment here in Park Slope. It's been a fantastic year--with brunches, bargains, pork shoulders, trips to Maine, near-death experiences, and food in threes; there were discussions about ethical eating, pound cakes that threw up, and the best cookies of our lives--but life marches on. Yesterday, Diana moved to a new apartment (not too far, still in Park Slope, so she'll be back!) and Craig officially moved in. It's an exciting time, sure to bring lots of stories and anecdotes and recipes. But this post is dedicated to Diana: a fantastic roommate and an even more fantastic sport when it came to enduring all of my cooking experiments. She was a great audience and an even better judge and I hope that now that she's moved out she'll finally pick up where she left off before she lived with me and journey back into the kitchen. So farewell, Diana. We'll miss you! [Note: for her farewell dinner, I made a roast chicken that's both hers and Craig's favorite.... it's from the Chez Panisse cookbook, it's the best.] If the news of Diana's departure upsets you more than you expected, take heart: as promised, there's a new banner to enjoy. (Remember? As part of my new site design, there'll be a new banner and a new color scheme each month.) If you can't see it, trying emptying your cache and reloading. If that still doesn't work, load it up temporarily in another browser. Thanks to Leah, Ben and my new illustrator Erin for doing great work on short notice. I love it....
