To quote Peter, Paul and Mary: “If I had an orange, I’d make a candied orange peel.”
And so it was that I had an orange left over from the recipe below. And so it was that I made candied orange peel.
Making candied orange peel is very easy. I used a recipe from foodtv.com but it was so easy I memorized it. Here’s what you do.
Buy an orange. Peel it with a vegetable peeler in long strips from top to bottom.
Fill a pot with water, preferably hot water so it comes to a boil faster. When it’s boiling add the orange peel and boil for one minute.
Immediately remove into a strainer and bring to the sink. Rinse with cold water. Dump the hot orangey water out and refill with clean hot water. Bring to a boil again and repeat the process. (Don’t cheat and reuse the water. Just be patient, it’s worth it.)
Once you’ve boiled and rinsed in cold water twice, take a small saucepan and place 3/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water in it. Bring to medium high heat until sugar is dissolved and then bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the orange peel and lower to a simmer.
Let it simmer for 15 minutes or until the peel is “tender.” You can actually watch the process of the peel getting candied: it becomes transparent and very pretty.
Remove to a sheet with parchment paper. And let dry for one hour.
And that’s it! Candied orange peel!
What’s that? You’re not satisfied? It’s Halloween and you want me to dip my orange peel in chocolate?
My you’re pushy today, aren’t you?
Very well then: in chocolate we shall dip. Take 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chips and melt over a double boiler. Once melted, dip the orange peel in about 3/4ths of the way. Place on a new sheet of parchment and put in the fridge for 15 minutes for the chocolate to dry. You will have this: [click to enlarge]
The chocolate actually enhances the candied orange peel experience so I recommend it. Can you imagine the delighted faces of the little children tomorrow who come a’knocking for candy when you drop chocolate covered orange peel in their bags? No? Ok, neither can I. Which is excellent because you can keep it all to yourself. Happy Halloween!
There are two extremes when it comes to recipes. There are the soul-wrenching deeply-intricate 40-step recipes and then there are the Rachel Ray Sandra Lee Every Day Food 20-second recipes that appeal to working moms or non-working moms with slow reflexes. This recipe is mostly the latter with a hint of the former: it’s an easy to assemble, wildly rewarding dish that I learnt to make my first year of law school. Let’s admire the end product first so you can see what all the fuss is about, before we proceed:
That’s Brazilian chicken with olives! Doesn’t it look terrific? The picture doesn’t lie: what you can sense, perhaps, in that picture is a profound cohesion of chicken, rice, garlic, and cilantro, all in a moist heap surrounded by oranges. Wouldn’t a dish like this make you perky? Or at least Brazilian? (Bikini wax, notwithstanding.)
The recipe comes from (where else?!) Epicurious. Click here to view it. And because you can view it there, I won’t reproduce it here. I’ll simply walk you through the crucial steps.
The flavoring agents at the top are 4 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp of orange zest and orange juice (which gets added later):
You add these to hot oil and already a bizarre exotic perfume infuses the air. Garlic and orange zest, who’d a thunk?
Next you add the chicken thighs. The secret to this whole dish lies in those chicken thighs: boneless, skinless chicken thighs. If you watch Food TV you’ve probably heard at least one cook say: “Chicken thighs have way more flavor than other parts of the chicken.” And it’s true: they’re richer in flavor and also way way moister. You cut them into 1/2 inch strips here and add them to the garlic, zest and oil and brown for a few minutes.
After that, you add the orange juice and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil:
You should keep your eye on the garlic before this step and when it starts to brown immediately add the liquid to stop it. Nothing can ruin a dish like this more than burnt garlic.
Now then. Once at a boil, you add a package of yellow rice, the seasoning packet, and 1 cup of green olives stuffed with pimentos: (I couldn’t find pimento stuffed olives so I just used small green pitted ones):
You cover that and simmer for 20 minutes (double check that in the recipe, but I’m pretty sure it’s right), take off the heat and let rest for 10, then stir in cilantro, surround with orange wedges and you’re done. And it’s an awesome meal in just a little bit more than 30 minutes.
Oh no. I’m turning into Rachel Ray…. 30 minute meals… E.V.O.O… how appropriate for Halloween! I shall terrify you with my perkiness! Wahahahahahaha….
Ceviche, for those not in the know, is fish cooked in acid—usually lemon juice or lime juice. It’s really delicious. Here there were three large shrimp, though I thought there were four and wrongfully accused Kirk of attacking one of mine when there was only one left on the plate.
“How many did you have?” I asked.
“One,” he said.
“Oh,” I replied guiltily.
He cut the third shrimp in half and muttered: “I’m not the one whose religion forbids the eating of shellfish.”
My entree, I suppose, is where my meal entered lacklustre-land. I ordered the filet migneon because I haven’t had red meat in a while. [Ha, you can refute that when you scroll below and re-examine my meal at Craft.]
Are you swooning over that plate? Probably not. The steak was well prepared. I enjoyed the onions. The plaintains were confusing: they were flat and crunchy but where was the banana? And the rice and beans were adequate.
It was the cost that makes me say this meal is just an “ok” meal. If we’d had the same food for much cheaper I’d say: “It’s a great steal at Little Havana.” But as it was, it was pricey and right across the street we could have spent the same money and eaten Batali-cuisine. But a certain someone hates bar stools. And steals shrimp.
Those reading since June will remember the first most momentous meeting of food bloggers ever when I dined with Clotilde “Chocolate & Zucchini” at Babbo. Before that I met Danny “A Year In Food” at The Bar Room at The Modern. So that was kind of momentous too. But at the time I didn’t think to call it “momentous” so Danny doesn’t get momentous status, but he’s in Europe so he’ll barely notice. And so the meal I had last night with Derrick “An Obsession with Food” and his lovely wife Melissa will henceforth be known as the Second Most Momentous Meeting of Food Bloggers Ever. Here we are at the end of our meal, aren’t we cute?
But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. How did this meal come about? Why Derrick? Why Melissa? Why now?
Well a few weeks ago Derrick wrote me to say: “So you may remember we’re going to be in New York in October. Any chance of meeting up with you for lunch or dinner on one of the days? We’d love to meet the famous AG in person.”
Pandering to my delusional sense of fame is the perfect way to get me to say “yes” to any dinner invitation. Plus, I’ve been a big fan of Derrick’s site for a long while now. He really knows his stuff. So I quickly said–or, typed: “Yes!” and then obliged his request for “any places you’d really suggest as don’t-miss?” by sending him the link to my list of all the restaurants I ate in in 2005, adding: “As for places I’ve yet to try that may be fun for us—I’ve always wanted to check out Craft (though I know it’s expensive), Gramercy Tavern, Aquavit, and a few others.”
And before I knew it, Derrick had made a reservation for three people at 8:30, October 25th at Craft.
So you know how in some movies there’s a raggedy woman who walks by a fancy clothing store and peers in the windows pining desperately for the mink stoll or the diamond earrings that she’ll never have? Sometimes I felt that way walking past Craft on 19th Street. The inside looked so forbidding, so wooden and brassy, that I could never imagine myself inside with the chic looking crowd. Plus the only chance I had—going with my parents—was shot because my parents once went there with another couple, saw the menu, found it too confusing and left.
But here I was—having braved the freezing cold winds and aggressive drizzle on the walk over—sitting in the lobby of Craft waiting for Derrick and Melissa to arrive. (I’m perpetually early for things.) I enjoyed overhearing many of the entryway conversations while I waited. Like there were these four women, three of whom looked like business women and one who looked like a model. The three businesswomen insisted on paying for the model’s cab. “Rob really gets upset, though, when I let people pay for me,” she said. I found that very interesting. Who’s Rob? Why does he get upset?
Before I could solve that mystery, Derrick and Melissa arrived. I recognized Derrick from his long hair—I’d done my research on his wife’s Flickr page before our meeting. It’s weird meeting food bloggers for meals: it’s sort of like a blind foodie date. Except here I was meeting a couple, so it had even more suspect swinging spousal undertones. Were they auditioning me to join them in some kind of Californian marital foodie triangle? What role would I play: houseboy? I found the prospect humiliating and told them, right away, that I had a terrible rash all over my body in the hopes they’d let go of that idea. [Though Craft did encourage us slightly with its food-sharing policies.]
What tangent was I just on? I have no idea. Anyway, let’s get to the food. We have a lot to write about.
Craft is famous for its notoriously “difficult” menu. Actually, the menu’s not difficult at all. (You can study it here). It’s divided up between “first courses” and “main courses.” The “first course” menu is divided between raw shellfish, cured/marinated shellfish, charcuterie, roasted meat, and salads. Easy! And the main courses are divided between fish and meat and within those categories it’s divided between braised and roasted. The vegetables are either roasted, sauteed, or braised. Are you confused? Ok, maybe it’s a tad bit confusing.
So let’s enjoy our amuse bouche:
Lord, you’re going to buy me a pad and a pen when you see how bad my recall is when it comes to what we ate and drank last night. On that spoon, I know, is some kind of fish. I want to say it’s white fish. Then there’s daikon radish, I remember that. Is that cucumber I see? Whatever it was, it was all bright on the palate and quite refreshing.
Derrick took to studying the wine list as Melissa and I discussed the menu. One thing that I loved about our meal last night was that Derrick and Melissa knew so much—I had a very edifying experience. So for example, Melissa turned me on to oysters. Since it’s a sharing restaurant, we ordered three of each kind of oyster to start. Here’s our big oyster platter:
Now from the menupages menu, I know for a fact three of these oysters are Kumamoto oysters. These are Melissa’s favorite. They’re small and sweet and creamy. We ate these last but I’ll write about them first because even though they’re Melissa’s favorite, I had some bits of shell get into my slurp and it detracted from the experience. But I could see why she enjoyed them. Our other oysters may have been Beau Soleil and Glidden Point (again, from menupages). Regardless of what they were, I felt like my oyster-eyes were opened: it’s been said that what makes oysters so enjoyable is that they taste completely of the sea. Is it Ruth Reichl who writes in her book about being on a boat with her parents, shucking fresh oysters out of the water and slurping them down? It’s a very romantic idea and I loved how the salty slimyness of the oysters was so evocative of the ocean. Plus they went great with the wine…
That’s right: there was wine for the oysters that Derrick selected. Derrick knows his wine and I really really don’t. I told him I would do my best to recall the wines we drank (there were two) and he can correct them later when he blogs about it on his site. The wine we drank with the oysters, if I remember correctly, was a mix of three whites: Chardonnay, Riesling, and _____ (Sauvignon Blanc?). It came from the _____ region in Italy. I really enjoyed it but I enjoy white wine. We drank most of it down with the oysters, but saved a drop for the scallops that came with our entrees.
And here they are:
I know these look outrageous, and I’ve heard the Craft scallops raved over before, but these weren’t the highlight of the meal for me. They were fine: I found them to be a bit rubbery and not that memorable. However, I was assigned the task of dividing up the fourth scallop (well–I assigned myself the task) and though I tried to cut it in thirds, it ended up in fourths. Who ate the extra fourth? I did. So I must have liked the scallops more than I let on.
For our entree food, Derrick consulted the sommelier for advice on an appropriate wine. The last time I’ve seen this done was in Monaco when we were at Joel Robuchon and mom and dad assigned me the task of choosing the wine. I chose a Riseling and the sommelier okayed it. It ended up being way too sweet and my family wrote me out of the will.
Derrick fared much better when he and the sommelier settled upon (and you’ll be proud of me that I remember this!) a Cab Franc from Australia. (Cab is wine lingo for Cabernet. I don’t know what “Franc” is wine lingo for.) This wine was really wonderful. Again, I don’t know my wine, but this wine was unusually distinct. I began describing it aloud: “I taste cherries…”
“Yes,” agreed Derrick.
“…and a hint of the forest.”
“Yes,” laughed Melissa.
“…a wolf howls in the distance. Small children frolick in a meadow.”
I could’ve gone on, but then came the greatest dish of the entire meal:
This is one of our “sides” and Melissa gets the credit for spotting it. It’s bacon and egg risotto. That’s right, the risotto tastse like bacon and there’s a poached yolk on top that you break into the risotto. The end result is wildly rich and decadent and wonderful. We scraped this plate clean as quick as you can say “Clogged Artery.”
These pictures are quite unorderly, but bare with me. Here are the hen of the woods mushrooms:
These were really enjoyable in a very simple, straightforward sort of way. In fact I think these Hen of the Woods embody what Craft stands for as a restaurant. It’s all in the name: Craft. Cooking is a craft before it’s an art. Like any other craft, the goal is to maximize the return with simplicity and grace. (I’m making this crap up but it sounds good.) That’s what these mushrooms are: simplicity and grace on a plate. (That’s the new NBC hit on the make: “Simplicity and Grace on a Plate.”)
Now for the meaty stuff. Here’s a braised short rib:
This was quite lovely and soul-satisfying in a homey but impressive way. The meat fell apart so it was really easy to eat and the herbs (I think that’s thyme in there) really enhanced the experience.
And then there was Venison (that’s Bambi’s mother, for the unknowledgable):
The Venison was prepared—(I just realized I don’t need to capitalize Venison, but instead of fixing it I thought I’d point out the mistake in a parenthetical aside)–in three ways, as you can see. But the venison chop was impossible to cut through because they kept the ____ bone intact (it was Derrick who made this comment, and I don’t remember the bone name.) So we sent it back for the chef to cut through it so we could share it.
Oh, the venison in the middle is bacon wrapped. I forgot to mention that. I really liked the venison presentation: it was earthy and smart and colorful but not over-the-top. Subtle with a hint of whimsy. (Wow, that sounds professional. But I mean it.)
I encouraged the group to try the cippolini onions beacuse I read they were in season in New York magazine:
These were definitely a highlight for me. I loved the flavor and the texture–sweet and crunchy with a slightly bitter undertaste. If you have access to cippolini (sp?) onions and New York magazine, go buy some and make their recipe. (Maybe I’ll do that this weekend if I feel so inclined.)
Now then, it may seem like we pigged out but you have to remember there were THREE of us and all three of us LOVE FOOD so it’s really not that much. Now then, Melissa’s a big cheese platter person so she ordered cheese for the table from the dessert menu.
She was impressively assertive with her cheese order. She knew which cheeses she wanted and so when the waiter offered to bring over the cart, Melissa said: “Well you can bring over the cart, but I still know which cheeses we want.” And if my memory were photographic, I’d tell you what they were. I do remember there was a goat (at 6 o’clock), a cow’s milk, a sheep’s milk (?) and then the waiter gave us a free one just to be nice.
I particularly enjoyed the condiments they served with the cheese:
That’s almonds, plums and honey. I love pouring honey on cheese. Since I’m scared of cheese (see salad post below where I recall my Cheeseophobic childhood) pouring honey makes the experience more Adamable–since I like things that are sweet. (That’s why I like YOU reader! You’re sweet.)
What’s next? Why it’s a gift from the chef: a concord grape spritzer.
Ah, refreshing!
Have we hit our limit?
We have not!
Naturally, a meal of this magnitude must end with donuts. (I kind of insisted on dessert since dessert is my favorite part of any meal.) Here they are:
Aren’t they pretty? And they tasted as good as they look: nothing beats a fresh donut. I think we should end all our meals with donuts from now on.
But donuts didn’t end our meal. There was another gift from the chef: caramel corn!
Ok, now they did it: I was stuffed into oblivion. And Derrick and Melissa, who’d been eating New York all day (they’d hit Mary’s Fish Camp, Sweet Sunshine Bakery, and Artisinal) they must’ve been busting at the seams. But we were all still in great spirits.
You know, a great meal is a confluence of many things. The food can be great, but if the company’s not it all goes to waste. And vice-versa. But when the two factors come together–great people and great food–there’s nothing like it. And that’s how it was on Tuesday night when the second most momentous meeting of food bloggers took place at Craft. I’d like to thank Derrick and Melissa for an amazing time and I really intend to come through on my promise to visit the Bay Area (where more momentous meetings await: Pim! Heidi! Alice Waters!) and we’ll eat Pacific oysters, drink wine, I’ll bring a pen and paper so I remember all the details for sure! Thanks, again, for a great night.
There’s something thrilling about food shopping without a recipe. Last night I hungered for a salad, and I made my way to Whole Foods (I’ve been making my way to Whole Foods way too often lately) and stood in the produce section waiting for inspiration to alight.
“Excuse me,” said a woman, “You’re blocking the aisle.”
“One moment,” I snapped, “I’m waiting for inspiration to alight.”
She threw a tomato at my head.
That’s when I had a vision:
I will make a salad with pre-packaged lettuces—but exotic ones, with frisee because that’s sophisticated! And I will roast some beets and add tangerine and bleu cheese! And so I found a tangerine—actually it was a tangelo, kind of a tangerine/orange combo—and bought “nutty, slightly sweet” bleu cheese from the cheese section. This was a big step for me because I come from a Cheesophobic family [my family, by the way, is still without electricity two days after Hurricane Wilma plowed through South Florida—trees toppled, roof tiles fell, and they’re cooking frozen peas on a Coleman stove to survive! Hopefully things will get better for them soon!] and bleu cheese is the final obstacle in my slowly advancing appreciation of cheese. I really like how bleu cheese works in this salad: I stole the idea from Deborah, where I ate a few weeks ago, pairing it with the tangelo and the beets to contrast the intense pungency.
As for the beets, I roasted them at 400 degrees in foil pouches—this time drizzled with olive oil, a touch of balsamic, and salt and pepper. At one hour, I stabbed them and removed them. They were more flavorful than the last time I roasted them just alone in the pouch. So I now have a beet-roasting technique I can be proud of.
Many of you know that I’m a grad student in dramatic writing at NYU. What most of the dramatic writing department at NYU didn’t know, at least last year, was that I had a food blog. This year the cat came out of the bag when one of my professors, I won’t say his name, made the discovery and informed all the other professors about it. Now I’ve gained a reputation in the department as something of a food guy.
The reason I bring this up, though, is because I think it’s funny how my teachers are using food metaphors now to help me see their points about my work. And so it was last week, for example, that my masters’ thesis teacher was talking about losing the one thing that you love and having to go on. “Imagine that you couldn’t cook anymore,” she said to me, “what would you do then?” And then this week she was talking about the book “Blink” and she said some things are worth mulling over, like what play you’re going to write for your thesis, and other things are worth trusting your instinct on: “Like Adam, when you cook, you say: ooooh marjoram would taste good here, maybe some garlic. Those are things you can make split-second decisions about.” I took her point well and accepted my role as The Food Guy.
And in an e-mail from one of my TV-writing teachers regarding the “South Park” spec script I’m writing (yes, I’m writing a South Park!) he wrote: “Make sure you feed Chef too, and a couple of other traditional SP walk-ons, to taste. I can talk that way to you. Fold them in.”
Sisters and brothers! Brothers and sisters! Who among you is coughing? Who among you is sneezing? Whose throat is so sore it’s like you gargled sand paper? I’m Reverend Pastor Amateur Gourmet and I’m here to heal you with the yellow waters of homemade chicken soup. You may think to yourself: “Heck no! I ain’t go time for no homemade chicken soup! I’m opening a can!” But you’d be wrong, my friends, you’d be dead wrong. For one whiff of this Godly creation and you’ll be better restored than the Sisteen Chapel. Behold the vision:
A bowl of this is within your reach. Click here to read the recipe in great detail, or let me walk you through it. I’ll show you how easy it can be.
What you need, more than anything else, is a big ‘ole pot. My biggest pot is the Le Crueset Dutch Oven I purchased a while back. But even this holds little more than two quarts of water. How could I proceed when the recipe calls for four quarts?
Reach to the heavens and you shall find your answer. Or turn to the Steve Martin section at your video store and look for the title “Leap Of Faith.” That’s all it takes.
I layered a raw cut-up chicken on the bottom of my dutch oven. I didn’t use all the pieces, just as many as I could get in without overloading it. Then I poured in about 8 cups of water (that’s 2 quarts). I brought it to a boil:
I skimmed the fat off and then added all my vegetables:
That’s: 1 onion unpeeled (nice! you don’t have to peel it! (though, I did, ultimately, cut it in half to help it fit); 2 parsnips peeled; 1/4 cup chopped celery leaves, 2 stalks celery and their leaves; 1/2 a rutabaga peeled and cut in half again; half a turnip, peeled and quartered; 2 carrots peeled and left whole; 3 Tbs chopped parslsey; 3 Tbs snipped dill; 1/2 Tbs salt, 1/8th tsp pepper.
Once in, the very crowded pot looks like this:
You lower it to a simmer, you cover it, and you let it go like that for two and a half hours. Start this at 4 and it’ll be ready at 6. And look at the transformation that takes place. You start out with raw chicken, raw vegetables, and cold water and you end up with:
Hallelujah! You’ve got soup!
So then you fish out all the vegetables and dump them: they’re no good–they’ve lost their flavor to the water. (That’s what makes the soup taste so good.) Then you take out the chicken and you let it cool. When it’s cool, get rid of the skin and cut up the chicken into little pieces. You’ll only use about half, use the other half for chicken salad the next day (which I did and it was tasty).
Then with the remaining liquid, strain it into another pot.
Here’s where you’re supposed to refrigerate it and let the fat collect for you to skim off. I was too impatient to complete this step. So I put the stock back on the heat, I chopped up a carrot, some celery, some leftover rutabaga and added it to the simmering broth. Then I added some egg noodles (acutally, I added WAY too many egg noodles: the next day, when I went to reheat the soup, the noodles had absorbed all the liquid! So be careful!) and waited about 6 minutes for them to cook. When they did, I ladeled myself a bowl, garnished with dill and look how beautiful:
There’s nothing like making your own chicken soup. If you haven’t done it, I highly suggest you try it—you’ll never wanna eat canned soup again. And my cold? It’s getting better. True, I started an antibiotic yesterday (my throat was infected) but I only credit the antibiotic with 20% of my healing. The rest is in the soup. Can I get an amen?
Alas, on Friday night, I was without plans. How does a strapping young lad such as myself find himself alone and without plans on a Friday night; especially with his thousands of admirers hurling gushy e-mails at him on a daily basis, stalking him on the streets, throwing themselves at his feet? Well, the answer’s simple really: I have a cold. I was feeling un-well. I wanted to curl into a ball and die.
Then I logged on to the ole instant messager. Instant messager is to our generation what smoke signals were to our Native American grandparents’ generation. (I come from the Rothenberg tribe of East New York.) Sure enough, sitting there online, was Diana.
“Diana, what are you doing?” I typed.
“Nothing,” she replied.
“Do you want to see Capote?” I asked.
“Sure!” she typed back.
Then James Felder logged on. “Hey James,” I typed. “Wanna see Capote with Diana and I?”
“Sure,” he agreed.
“Do you want to eat dinner first?” typed Diana.
“Yes! Of course!” I answered. “Let’s ask James.”
“James, do you want to eat dinner with us?”
“No, I already ate.”
Ah, such are the stimulating conversations that take place on instant messager. If only we could bottle these talks and save them for future generations, they’d be really impressed with our penmanship. Suddenly the question of where Diana and I would eat arose.
“Where we will eat?” I typed furiously.
“I dunno!” she typed back eagerly.
Thankfully, James Felder came to the rescue. “You should try out Smoke Shack,” he suggested. “You have plenty of time.”
And so to cut to the chase: we did.
Smoke Shack recently opened up on Bleecker Street, right near Carmine. I believe there’s another Smoke Shack somewhere and I will Google it right now to see for certain. [Pause while Adam Googles.] My research reveals very little. This may be the only Smoke Shack.
I think Smoke Shack may have had a cold too because it was pretty alone this Friday night. There were only two tables filled when we entered. The host/waiter guy sat at the bar reading a newspaper most of the time. Diana and I sat near a window and watched people strolling by.
When it came to the menu, we quickly agreed on ordering corn bread muffins.
These were just the way I want corn bread muffins to taste even if it’s not authentic, though whether or not it is authentic is a matter of some dispute. See: I like my corn bread muffins sweet. These were very sweet, like cake. Stella–my Southern friend and Southern food expert (who joined us, later, for the movie)–says that real Southerners don’t make their cornbread sweet. When she cooked a Southern feast for us on her birthday, she made her cornbread not sweet. And becasue Stella’s sweet I pretended to love that cornbread as much as I love sweet cornbread, but the truth is I really do like sweet cornbread the best. Thank you.
Diana and I both had the same entree: ribs. We liked this entree choice because it came with any side we wanted. Diana chose greens (ugh, what are those greens called? You know: the southern greens you get with southern food? It’s slipping my mind right now) and I had maple whipped sweet potatoes.
These ribs were nice and meaty and super-tender. Plus their flavor was unlike any flavor I’ve experienced with a rib: there was molasses, which made it sweet, and some kind of curry or spice that created an exotic undercurrent. They were almost like short ribs they were so saucy and moist—we started with our knife and fork but progressed to using our hands. And my maple whippe sweet potatoes were awesome.
So Diana and I enjoyed the Smoke Shack. Hopefully the business will pick up soon.
Then we caught up with Stella and James Felder and saw “Capote.” This is a knock-out movie: I hope Phillip Seymour Hoffman wins the Oscar. It’s really an incredible performance.
After the movie, we craved post-movie conversation. There’s no spot more popular in the East Village for post-movie coffee and conversation thatn Veselka, on 1st Avenue. And sure enough, on the way, who do we run into? John—you know John–from “We Eat Chinatown” and Carol Channing. He was going to meet Himkar who had just spoken to Kirk (who, incidentally, had just hung out with Mini Driver.) We all met up at Veselka and my quiet evening of solitude became a veritable party.
Veselka serves Ukranian food which, because my family is mostly made up of Russian Jews, is very familiar to me. I was torn between ordering a Veselka specialty–a raspberry blintz–or a banana cream pie. “Maybe we can share a banana cream pie,” suggested Diana.
“Oooh, I’ll share with you,” said James Felder.
“Wait she was asking me!” But I was too late. So here’s Diana and James with their banana cream pie:
And here’s my delicious raspbery blintz:
A blintz is (according to answers.com): “A thin, rolled blini, usually filled with cottage cheese, that is folded and then sautéed or baked and often served with sour cream.” My blintz was filled with ricotta cheese and it was really enjoyable with the raspberry sauce and the sour cream. “So much better than banana cream pie,” I insisted.
“I like it,” said Stella (who nibbled a little) “because it’s not too sweet.”
The night wore on and soon I was home feeling sick again. But a fun night was had and that’s all that matters.
