Pronounced with a short “A” so that it rhymes with “lodge,” and not “cage,” to stage is a restaurant term meaning to intern for just a short term, like one night. And since I’ve been out West, I’ve gotten to stage at three excellent restaurants thanks to the kindness of chefs and mutual friends. It’s allowed me to explore a whole lot more from their menus than the few items I could afford had I just gone there to eat, and combined, a much more intimate glimpse at the Bay Area’s brand of cuisine. And I’m totally into it.

a homey, brick hearth is the focal point of Camino’s open kitchen

I overheard a conversation while staging at Camino Restaurant in Oakland that its chef/owner, Russ Moore, had once said to a reporter, “The thing about California cuisine is that we don’t have a lot of fancy technique; we just do some really good shopping.” And when I arrived there to stage one Saturday night, he had just come back from a two-hour trip to two farmers’ markets, to bring back the goods. The head cooks sat around a table shelling fresh black-eyed peas from the pods as they planned the menu for the night. (Since opening three years ago, Camino has had a different menu every night.) I got to join in the shelling and listen on, and would continue shelling these beans intermittently throughout the night.

not exactly the dog’s dinner: grilled squid with fresh julienned peppers

pork leg and belly with grilled escarole

The menu was amazing, as it turned out. The highlight might have been a whole petrale sole that was fired in a wood-burning oven until the skins crackled and puffed up like pizza dough on top. Camino adamantly never makes any pizza in this oven, however, wanting to offer diners something they couldn’t find anywhere else instead. The other dishes were just as unpredictable, and delicious — an appetizer of coagulated, breaded and deep-fried pig’s head with endive and beet puree, pork leg and braised pork belly both in one entree with fresh corn and beans, and grilled trumpet mushrooms with a beautiful spring onion sfogato, or souffle-like custard that was slightly browned on top thanks to its being placed next to a blazing wood fire.

sous chef Melissa plates the ratatouille with a poached egg

Russ demonstrates to wait staff how to remove bones from the whole fish

Clearly, Russ was selling himself short by saying the restaurant didn’t boast much technique. But I can see where he was going with that comment. As a former cook at Chez Panisse of twenty years, Camino seems to have expounded on its ethos of using only good ingredients sourced responsibly. While showing me the wine and liquor cabinet, Russ explained that all the wines were organic or biodynamic, and even all the hard alcohol served could be traced to known, non-GMO grains. (They didn’t serve vodka drinks for a while at first.) Some restaurants claim to use local and organic produce and meats “whenever possible” on their mission statements, but Russ sees this as a requisite. And proves it is possible.

mis-en-place at the open kitchen

the ratatouille-in-progress

My one-day stint at Camino was inspiring, to say the least, and I hope to somehow help trickle back some of it with my community in Brooklyn. Like the impressive family meal, which was enjoyed by the staff at the end of the night. As service was winding down for the night, the cooks managed to prepare a feast that included most of the dishes featured on the menu that night, and special add-ins, like a home-cured corned beef tossed on the grill. Everyone on staff got to sit down at the almost-empty dining room and have a glass of wine as they shared in the grub (including myself, though I’m sure my bean-shelling was much less deserving of this reward).

You can’t stage everywhere and you probably can’t make too much of a habit of it, but I’m already sniffing out my next restaurant to cook at, hopefully, and hope to share more of those tales. Meanwhile, planning a big dinner for my last week in San Francisco, with all the produce I can’t seem to stop purchasing!

Here’s a great recipe for what to wake up to: a thin fog clearing over a stretch of golden, sun-baked hills, the chortle of a horse in a barn nearby, the sour smell of manure and fresh scent of wild fennel wafting in through the window, and farmers making you breakfast with newly dug potatoes, greens, and enormous blue eggs. Over the course of my second week in California, I’ve really woken up to what real farms (i.e. not Brooklyn rooftops) are like.

I took a detour from San Francisco to Sonoma County recently. It was only about one hour’s drive North, but a drastic change in climate — about twenty degrees warmer and sunnier much longer during the day. My friend Melissa, who chaperoned me on this trip, told me that where she currently works, at a farm in Mendocino County, it’s even warmer and drier up there. But, she was taking a drive to Sonoma to visit her old stomping/farming grounds there, and we got to meet up in the middle for two fun-filled days.

Melissa checks out exotic birds at Cline Vineyards’ gardens

You might recall Melissa (aka Midge Pingleton) from various cook-offs as well as Garden of Eve farm in Long Island, where she used to work before switching coasts. She’s a real legend on this blog, come to think of it. And she’s still farming, cooking, pickling and jamming up a storm — so much so that she’s rented a plot of land in Sonoma that’ll be her own farm starting this fall. It’s called Bees Knees Farm, and it will grow vegetables and orchard fruits to sell to local farmers’ markets and CSAs. Check out how to support its launch and get some of her really good pickles in exchange here.

a black mission fig straight from the tree

Our first stop was at a roadside dinner in Sonoma called the Fremont Diner, where we loaded up on Southern fare with only local farms’ ingredients (fried chicken for me, pulled pork sammie for Midge). It’s a fantastic place. But perhaps the most memorable part about it was that a few hours later, we were covered in flour churning out brick-oven pizzas at Melissa’s friend Kashaya’s brick oven pizza-mobile at Sonoma Farmers’ Market. (The farmers’ market there is in the evening, and not to sound like a broken record given my SF Part 1 post, but it too features prepared food trucks and farm stands in fairly equal portion and attendance, something that Brooklyn has not yet quite done.) And one of the people we ended up serving pizza to was none other than the waitress who’d served us at Fremont Diner earlier that day. Too small a world.

And way too good food in between to gain an appetite for it all. After hitting up the diner, Melissa took me to the roughly one and a half-acre plot that she’ll be soon farming at, and that of a neighboring farmer, Arthur. Arthur has been growing plums, peaches, apples, figs, berries and a small garden of vegetables on his widespread plot for decades. We got to taste them all as we toured around. Later, Melissa told me that his experience in stone fruit orchards was especially helpful, as there were fruit trees on her land, too. Arthur didn’t see the need to sell his produce far beyond giving them to friends and a select few loyal accounts; whereas Melissa, just starting out, was eager to provide food to local restaurants, CSAs and more. A changing of the guards in Northern California was happening before me.

While he happily showed us around his farm, Arthur was also grappling with a disturbance on the land that happened earlier that day: a beehive had swarmed all of the sudden, and he wasn’t sure if he needed to adopt another hive right away. When a bee colony swarms, he explained, they take a new queen bee along with them, leaving about half of the declining colony behind. While he scratched his head about this and pondered talking up an expert beekeeper in the city, Melissa urged him to come by the farmers’ market to get pizzas from us later. He did.

a view from Green String Farm in Petaluma, CA

That night, we set up camp at Green String Farm, a sustainable, 140-acre farm in Petaluma where Midge used to work. We went bowling with a number of the interns and graduate-interns in the farm education program there before calling it a night. The next day, we toured as much of the extensive lands as we could (the vineyards notwithstanding). It was there where the compost was smelly enough to pervade the wildflower-strewn landscape, and we came across solar panels that provided energy for the sparse living quarters. It was also there where I was treated to a savory potato hash and fried egg breakfast prepared by Melissa’s former fellow-interns, as well as a lunch of fresh whole-wheat pasta with pasture-raised meat sauce studded with plenty of summer vegetables.

a well-fed hen’s egg tops an otherwise modest hash

digging into a fresh pasta and meat sauce lunch, prepared by the farm interns

When you live on a farm, it’s just too plenty to eat anywhere else, I quickly learned. Even in the early morning hours, when we came home from the bowling alley, Melissa’s friends ducked into the gardens to pick cherry tomatoes for midnight snacks. Originally, Melissa and I were planning on going into downtown Petaluma for breakfast and lunch, but we were (quickly) persuaded by the farm intern-friends to join in their feasts at the cabins instead. The rich egg yolk bleeding into the hash in the photo above, as well as the fresh salad made with tomatoes and Armenian cucumbers at top, were just a few things that were closest to grab on the farm and easiest to throw together for a meal. Can you really order anything more exciting than that?

the entrance to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds store

Perhaps you can. One of my last stops in Sonoma County was the home base of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, where I’ve bought most of the seeds for my garden from by mail-order delivery. This monstrous warehouse of saved seeds is actually housed in an old town bank, and now bears a crest for “Seed Bank” on its front door. I bought a few more seed packets there to plant next season, or perhaps once I get back to Brooklyn in late summer. It’s always good to know where exactly your food is coming from — and now, even your seeds.

Fried Eggs with Potato Hash & Farm Vegetables
(makes 2 servings)

2 large eggs
2 medium-large potatoes (any kind), diced
2 spring onions, both bulbs and green parts, chopped
about 1 cup packed greens (such as broccoli or cauliflower leaves, a little old and wilting is fine)
1 sweet pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste

Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter and sautee the potatoes over medium heat for 4-6 minutes. Add the onions, greens, garlic, peppers, and a pinch of salt and pepper and continue to sautee, stirring occasionally, 5-7 minutes.

On a separate pan, heat the remaining tablespoon of butter over medium-high. Fry the eggs sunny-side up.

Transfer the potato hash to a serving dish and place the eggs on top.

Why am I here? A lot of people have been asking. Well, for lack of a tidy explanation, I’ll be trying to illuminate some of those reasons for this getaway in this post, and recipe, and in more to come. And wish all a happy late-summer wherever you are.

Getting into the city late on Tuesday night, I hit up a taqueria in the Mission District and called it a night. The next day, I spent no fewer than two hours and fifty dollars at the farmers’ market in Civic Center, marveling at what seemed to be three seasons of produce lumped into one blissful stroll downtown. Among the finds were the tiniest round globes of green summer squash, like limes, round, purple-blushed eggplants of about the same size or smaller, pattypan squash, wax beans, spring onions, full artichokes, heirloom tomatoes, corn, and even a fig tree for my hosts’ patio. I admit I went a little ballistic, but thought it only wise to stock up — as if there weren’t farmers’ markets almost every day here. The very next day, I went to the market at Ferry Terminal, but exercised a little more restraint.

Most fascinating were the ethnic produce and herbs found at these markets, like bitter squashes of Southeast Asian cuisines (but not so familiar to Western ones). I’ve seen wrinkly, pale-green gourds known as bitter squash at Asian markets, but not spiky ones, favored in Vietnam (according to the Vietnamese farmers selling some), and haven’t chanced upon Thai green eggplant in a while. Noting the wide selection of these uniquely flavored fruits, this was a market very much for the ethnic communities, too.

Well, I decided to pick some up to play around with, too. While loading up on bunches of herbs from a stand, I asked the farmer about one that was labeled “Rice Paddy Herb.” The friendly attendant informed me it was a Vietnamese herb often used to garnish soup, or it could be sauteed whole as is. It has a unique, peppery, almost anise-y, almost shiso-like flavor that almost defies comparison. I figured I could make it work with something.

The market at the Ferry Terminal is like a better-executed version of Brooklyn Flea’s Smorgasburg: farmstands are set beside food stands in perfect harmony. People were just lining up for lunch at the small handful of pop-up restos or food trucks, which included sorbet and fresh fruit soda businesses. I got in line at Hapa Ramen (naturally), and had a bowl of miso ramen with fresh corn and string beans. It was pretty good. Afterward, I scoped out the marketplace inside the terminal, and found more things that reminded me a little of Brooklyn: small artisanal foods and crafts. After tasting some sweet samples, I snatched the last jar of a strawberry lavender jam from Happy Girl Kitchen Co., for my happy jam girl back home.

In the Mission District, there were some real visions of back home, too — Bi-Rite grocery stocks McClure’s Pickles (oh, the days), and I saw Mast Bros. chocolates somewhere, too. But for every Brooklyn artisanal craft, there were more than a dozen local favorites in the same vein. And that’s what I’m all about getting to know while I’m here.

That, and more about bread. I’ll get into that more in depth soon. But for now, let me this is what the counter of the house I’m currently crashing at generally looks like. One of the roommates is the photographer of the Tartine Bread book (and former baker there), and another roommate teaches advanced breads at the San Francisco Baking Institute. So the kitchen is littered with bagfuls and bagfuls of these rustic batards, baguettes, bread studded with candied hazelnuts, and some wonderful chocolate loaves which are addictive at midnight.

So, a panzanella. With some of the juiciest tomatoes from the market, sweet spring onions, that rice paddy herb (instead of basil), and artichoke hearts. I began by ripping up a chunk of the batard into bite-size pieces, and baking them just until crisp with a coat of olive oil.

Panzanella is a leftover dish for stale bread that’s kind of like crostini, only not assembled. You can toss in any chopped fresh ingredients to create a salad with hearty chunks of bread. I think the key is to tie it all together with generous glugs of olive oil and a spritz of red wine vinegar, for extra tang.

Artichokes can be tricky to deal with fresh. I took the quick route of steaming them until tender and ripping off the thick, fibrous leaves to get to the succulent core. It’s well worth the effort for its wonderful flavor, especially if you’ve only had artichoke hearts from a jar. Be sure to get rid of all the spiky hairs just above the heart, if it’s a more mature choke (baby ones are much easier, on the other hand), and scrape all the tender flesh away from the unusable leaves with the back of your teeth while you’re working to salvage some of the good stuff.

A fun dish to make for a group, and an easy snack or light meal. The best part about what could easily be a comforting, familiar dish is the surprising taste of the rice paddy herb. If you don’t have any handy, try tarragon or another herb that’s rarely used in your kitchen instead.

Panzanella with Tomatoes, Artichokes & Rice Paddy Herb
(makes 3-4 servings)

about 6 oz. stale, crusty bread
3-4 ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 artichokes
1/2 small red onion or 1 shallot, chopped
handful Vietnamese rice paddy herbs
about 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Tear bread into bite-size pieces and toss with about 1 tablespoon olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Spread onto a baking sheet and toast for 3-5 minutes, just until crisp. Let cool.

Meanwhile, trim the stems from the artichokes and steam for 5-7 minutes (depending on the size of the chokes). Check to see if the inside is tender by halving one. The core should be olive-green, rather than whitish when cooked. Let cool a few minutes and remove two or three layers of the outer leaves. Cut into half lengthwise and cut off about half of the top of the choke, including any wispy, spiky parts inside. Continue to remove leaves, tasting as you go, until the bottoms of the leaves are perfectly edible and clip any tough parts of the leaves off. Chop artichoke hearts.

Combine the tomatoes, artichoke hearts, onions, red wine vinegar, and pinches of salt and pepper in a large bowl. Fold in the bread pieces, add the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil, and toss well. Taste for seasoning, and add the herbs. Serve immediately at room temperature or after sitting 5-10 minutes to let the bread soak in more juices.

I’m a strong believer in eating whatever’s plentiful when traveling in unfamiliar territory. There is no greater failure for the food-obsessed than to refuse some regional specialty, whatever it may be. So while taking a sojourn outside of Milwaukee this holiday week (my first time in the Midwest), I ate lots and lots of frozen custard, washed down with malt shakes and local beers. I’ll think about the health repercussions of that theory if I happen to be traveling in the Midwest again very soon.

The first stop was at Kopp’s Frozen Custard. The most well-known of a small handful of regional chains of its kind, it was the only one I’d caught wind of in NYC. There are also numerous freestanding mom-and-pop custard and burger shops, as a drive through rural parts can evidence. I didn’t have the time nor the tenacity to try everything, but I did know that a stop at Kopp’s Greenfield location was not to be missed. One step inside proved there existed a new order of fast food for me: everything was immaculately clean, from the brushed stainless steel counters and custard-spewing nozzles to the crisp white aprons draped across the staff’s adorably oldschool soda fountain-style uniforms. While the signs outdoors promised only custard and burgers, a full-fledged menu of fast-food sandwiches, sundaes and sides was available. But let’s focus on the frozen custard for now. The chain produces two flavors of the day, in addition to their everyday staples, chocolate and vanilla. The daily specials are displayed prominently on signage indoor and out, there’s a “flavor forecast” for the upcoming days on an overhead menu, and there’s even a site called Custardlist, which compiles the daily flavors at many frozen custard places in the area. The flavors of the day when I arrived at Kopp’s were butter pecan and chocolate malt. Had them both as a two-scoop on a waffle cone. (Pictured at top.)

the industrial interior of Kopp’s Frozen Custard

a photo of the chain’s late matriarch is framed front and center

It was a new sensation, like the rest of the place. Dribbling just a little onto the cone in the few seconds in which it had been passed to me, the custard was silken and soft in the most lickable way. (You know when you make a lick for a hard scoop of ice cream, and don’t lap much up? This would never happen here.) Its texture was complemented by whole — not chopped — pecans that were perfectly roasted and very lightly salted, and they were supernaturally crisp for being submerged in the creaminess. I’m usually wary of the flavor butter pecan for ice cream, because short of studding it with the nuts, there’s no way to get the flavor of buttery caramel-coated pecans steeped into the cream. So it’s “natural” flavoring all the way. Here, the flavor was mild, and obstructed in the most delightful way with the actual pecans. The chocolate malt flavor in the bottom scoop was equally appealing, though less showy. By my last bite of cone, I knew I was dealing with something seriously deep-rooted and religious here. I shied away toward the exit and backed out the door, holding my malt and burger bag hostage.

the interior of LeDuc’s Frozen Custard stand

a double-scoop of mint and chocolate frozen custard at LeDuc’s

The next day, I headed out for some fresh blood. The taste of Kopp’s frozen custard had stayed with me all night; it was neither too dense nor too light, a texture to obsess over. So when I walked into the one-shop frozen custard and you-name-it greasy food spot, LeDuc’s, I expected nothing less. I was majorly disappointed. I’d at first thought the place’s humble exterior and scribbled-by-hand signage to be charmingly simplistic. The sole flavor of the day, for example, was mint, and it was written in thin marker on posterboard placed before a front window. No more romance to its name — it was not peppermint, or mint chip. After one taste, however, the slacker ethos went underneath a harsher light.

you just can’t make these teethmarks on the other chains’ custards I tried

The custard had nothing of the texture of the day before’s binge: it was airy, and subtly grainy, rather than liquid-smooth and rich. While the pastel-colored mint flavor was nothing to get offended nor excited about, the chocolate scoop tasted dreadfully synthetic. My palate was unwittingly reminded of cheap plastic cups of chocolate and vanilla ice cream from the grade school cafeteria, which were consumed with a flat wooden pick instead of a spoon. The waffle cone encapsulating the custard here was also inferior, tasting and feeling like puffed-up rice starch. I didn’t try any of the food at LeDuc’s, but signs around me in the tiny space showed they had much variety — “family shrimp dinner,” one said, and “mini tacos” were advertised on another. Despite my underwhelming experience, this place was packed with people at 3pm on a Tuesday. The stuff floats many peoples’ boat, it seems, and I’m just a beginner here.

Oscar’s Frozen Custard in Waukesha, WI

freshly frozen custard goes into a vat

My next stop proved much more satisfying. I headed to Oscar’s, one of its two locations in Waukesha, WI, and braced myself for an artificial onslaught when I saw that one of the daily flavors was strawberry. But, one of Oscar’s claims to fame is that it pioneered the homemade waffle cone, and a stack of them behind a glass window did look pretty good. “Homemade” could also be found before many of the menu items on a neon-lit overhang, to my surprise, and I ordered a cup of soup not for best pairing purposes, but curiosity. I was skeptical about the strawberry flavor but the thick, goopy tower of pink-colored custard that was handed to me after ordering was clearly the real thing. Strawberries, softened to completely iceless submission, were so scattered throughout this scoop of custard that they almost fell onto the table without instigation. I sat down and ate; it was the best strawberry ice cream, frozen custard, frozen yogurt — heck, frozen dessert — I had ever tried. Not in the least artificial.

a scoop of strawberry frozen custard at Oscar’s

Oscar’s inimitable chocolate malt

But it wasn’t only the custard here that was awe-inspiring. A cup of chocolate malt (that’s milkshake, with malt powder) was richly distinct. At Oscar’s, malts come in two thicknesses: regular, or extra-thick. I tried the regular, and it was not only suitably thick, but deeply flavored of both malt and chocolate in a way that far surpassed the malt I’d had at Kopp’s the day before. You could even detect miniscule crystals of the malt powder with a slurp. And the homemade waffle cone here lived up to legend: it would have been perfectly fine to eat as a cookie.

I needed a good comparison. The bar had been set in this ridiculously sparse survey by Kopp’s, and so I went back there, only to a different location in Brookfield, WI. The two flavors of the day then were cookies ‘n cream and midnight chocolate, and those stacked upon one another made for an impressive, fully-loaded cone. While I’m not partial to Oreo cookies in my ice cream, the first slurp from this spheric mess proved my memory correct: the texture of Kopp’s frozen custard was a cut above both the others. This location was not as swank as the Greenfield one I’d gone to earlier, but the visit served its purpose, as well as served to satisfy me of custard for months, and hopefully more. Oscar’s had this chain on the chocolate malt, however. The malt at Kopp’s was too thick, for having only one option of thickness, and its pale color in comparison to Oscar’s chocolately creation betrayed its far milder flavor.

Kopp’s Frozen Custard in Brookefield, WI

the final cone, for now: Kopp’s cookies ‘n cream and midnight chocolate (on bottom)

And what of the other amenities at all three of the businesses I visited? Yes, I only ate at four frozen custard joints, and didn’t try nearly all of their offerings. While I appreciated the homemade fast food at Oscar’s (and its half-eerie, half-cheery pink and blue neon signs that rendered everything David Lynch-lit), the potato soup I tried was nothing to write home about. It was not condensed, or full of additives, and that should be its crowning achievement, that it was actually freshly made. A fish sandwich ordered at Oscar’s was an unfortunate mistake, fried and flattened so that the breadcrumbs made up most of its mass. It was the hamburger at Kopp’s that sealed the deal for that joint’s superiority for me, once and for all. This was a $2.95 hamburger, ordered with a customized choice of optional toppings (pickles, sauteed onions, lettuce, tomato, mustard and ketchup). It was easily twice the diameter of a slider, which I’d half-expected at that price, and it had a distinct, freshly grilled deliciousness. This is another story, and fodder for an entire survey for the region on its own — hamburgers.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about an eating excursion. Because, for all my hammering about Reasons for Not Eating Out, there are some things that just can’t be produced at home, and a world of food that you wouldn’t think to either, because you hadn’t tried them. Frozen custard embodied both of those. And now that I’m sated with the stuff, I can be pretty glad that it isn’t easily made at home. Just think of the brownie points on the Health Factor.

In between panels at the South by Southwest Interactive festival, I found the chance to dig into the regional specialty. How could I not? Even during the live chat on Austin Relish with two of my fellow panelists last week, supposedly a sneak preview to some of the topics we’d be discussing on food blogging at the conference, there was a steady stream of recommendations throughout it regarding where to get the best barbecue. I was sorry that I couldn’t try them all. But the two places I did get to sample include the popular downtown Austin spot Iron Works BBQ, and, on a country retreat, the time-honored Smitty’s Market in Lockhart (“the barbecue capital of Texas”).

Knowing the notoriety of Lockhart, then, and the progressive culture of Austin, comparing two ‘cues from each location might seem a bit of an unfair fight. But let’s hear this one out first.

My first stop in Austin was actually Iron Works, where I met friends just after landing; I’d already eaten, so merely drank a cheap beer while the others were wrapping up. A couple days later a friend took me on a field trip from the four-day geekathon that is SXSW Interactive to Lockhart. There are four major barbecue destinations in this charming if timeworn historic town. Each has their own rich histories and secret recipes. Smitty’s Market changed hands from one of these competitors, Kreuz, in 1948. But the building that this market is located in has been smoking barbecue meats for over a century.

The brick walls of the smokehouse have about an inch-thick patina of wood smoke in some parts of the interior. Every inch of the place must have absorbed decades of delicious smoke, too. It’s this rare accumulation that gives the barbecue at Smitty’s such a deep, smoky taste. I found it almost too difficult to breathe while standing in the meat market (and felt too outsider-ish to ask why there were three open fires in seemingly random spots on the floor, just hanging out, blazing), though the novelty factor made it definitely worth the effort. While taking in the sights, I also had the chance to learn a bit about its history from the friendly owner of Smitty’s herself, Nina Sells, who we ran into three times while walking around Lockhart. (Small town.)

the smoky interior of Smitty’s Market

a wall of nostalgia at Smitty’s Market

After ordering a combination of brisket, pork ribs and sausage by the half-pound, a carver opened up a long pit to remove the meats, releasing a billow of smoke. Instead of placing it on plates, the carver next piled the sliced meats on a few sheets of butcher paper and crunched up the edges so that it could be handed over, as a sort of greasy origami boat. A stack of sliced white bread was tossed in for good measure, and once we got to the register outside the smoking pit area, we ordered a couple sides of cole slaw and potato salad. Plastic knives and spoons came with the bundle, but when I went back to the counter for forks, I discovered that these were never stocked. “Your hands are the fork,” the counter person said. Spoons took care of the sides, and knives, if you really needed them, the meats.

the “plate” at Smitty’s Market

the ribs

Let me pause and just say that writing about food that I didn’t personally cook is a tricky change of pace for me, because I don’t know the ins and outs of how it came into existence. I think I’m going to wallow in the mystery of this barbecue, and just say it was really good. Dry rubs, the Texas preference, suit me better than lots of sticky sauce, I decided. So does crackling firewood, which is the scent and taste I was basically inhaling the whole time there.

Back in Austin, for one of the final meals I’d have during the conferences I couldn’t resist doing the ‘cue thing again. So my fellow food blogging panelist, Zach from Midtown Lunch, and I snuck into Iron Works BBQ for one last parting plate. Zach had done an impressive job scoping out the best, most authentic Austin eats while there for the first time himself, taking quick cab rides off the beaten path. This is because nearly everyone in Austin will tell you that to get good barbecue, you have to get outside of downtown. Except if you’re going to Iron Works.

From what I’ve gathered, the locals-approved, tourist-friendly smokehouse is authentic Texas barbecue. You get your choice of meat — brisket, beef or pork ribs, sausage, loin, chicken and more — by the pound in a messy pile of finger-licking-ness, with a few slabs of white bread, pickles and onion. There’s “plates” that come with baked bean and potato salad sides, combo platters, and even house smoking made to order a few days in advance. Atmosphere is a configuration of long cafeteria-like tables and smaller four-person ones, equipped with sauces and a roll of paper towel-like napkins. I’m no expert on these places, obviously, but I walked in and liked the feel immediately; it was cozy without being too dingy.

pork loin with sides at Iron Works BBQ

I ordered the pork loin plate this time simply because it was lean, and got to dip into Zach’s brisket, rib and sausage combo. The loin was just as lean as I’d hoped, though it naturally benefited from a squirt of the sauces on the table (two kinds — spicier or sweeter) for moisture and flavor. The ribs and brisket weren’t nearly as distinctive-tasting as what I had experienced in Lockhart the other day, though they were remarkably tender, the brisket near the point of falling apart at the touch of a fork. The homemade pork sausage, on the other hand, was less spiced than I’m used to, at both Iron Works and Smitty’s, though not in an unpleasant way. Must be a Texas taste.

Midtown Lunch’s Zach Brooks doing the classic food blogger pose

It couldn’t be more appropriate that this atypical dining-out post includes a meal with my blogging antithesis. It’s been a joke that Zach and I are “sworn enemies,” since Midtown Lunch is about finding good restaurant grub in Midtown Manhattan, and that activity happens to be one of the main frustrations that put me over the edge and begin “not eating out in New York” some two and a half years ago. In any case, we shared a common ground in Austin as clueless New Yorkers, both pretty new to these barbecue traditions.

I mused on how the reddish-tinged edges of the ribs reminded me a little of Cantonese char sui roast pork; Zach talked about the different way of treating brisket in Jewish home cooking (boiling or pot roasting). I found a new appreciation for the practically mashed, vinegary cold potato salad that seems to be standard in these parts of Texas; we agreed that the raw rings of onion didn’t suffice as vegetable sides, nor were they doing much taste-wise for either of us. I turned my nose up at the plain white, spongy bread that came with every order (why not upgrade to crustier bread?); Zach waxed poetic about how lovable it was. All told, we had a terrific time stuffing ourselves when we weren’t even that hungry to begin with.

Back in September when I decided to forego not eating out de rigeur, I wanted to treat restaurant excursions as something special — limited to special occasions, or special foods that I really couldn’t begin to make at home. As a consequence, every new prepared treat I’ve tried has been that much more sacred, keeping my imagination stirring long after the sensory buzz has worn off, especially in the case of this ‘cue. Needless to say, this was a memorable eating-out excursion, which I hope my inexpertise in hasn’t bored anyone by now. Unless I happen across a century-old smoking pit in the city, I won’t come close to making something like this. We’ll see. (Jewish pot roast, on the other hand, doesn’t sound half bad an idea.)

Let me tell you, it’s serious. After my prize weekend trip to the Copia center’s annual Death by Chocolate festival and private tour of Charles Chocolates factory thanks to Culinate, I estimate my blood is 72% cacao right now. I may not have died by chocolate, per se, but I think I consumed enough of it to experience the old wives’ tale that chocolate can actually give you a caffeine high (stomachache notwithstanding). And I couldn’t have planned a grander finale for the weekend than for my entire body, and all the clothing I brought on the trip, to be covered with a fine, powdery layer of deep brown cocoa due to a wee little accident involving a canister of cocoa.

As I was leaving the airport, I thought I smelled a whiff of chocolate – but of course, that was nothing unusual by then. When I reached into my backpack to investigate, my hand went into an empty cardboard tube. That’s when I remembered that, in the midst of Saturday’s festivities, Mark from Culinate had handed me a tall canister of high-end Dutch process cocoa. Sure enough, the first piece of clothing I pulled out of the sack released a billowing cloud of cocoa cumulus that settled, among other places, onto the snowy parking lot. I think there’s still some in my nose.

disaster by chocolate: Dutch process cocoa explodes in my luggage, scenting my clothes, my underwear… yeah.

Chocolate is great, don’t get me wrong. They say it’s the perfect substitute for sex. Maybe they weren’t thinking of clogging your hair follicles with it, or substituting it for self-tanning powder, too. But let’s just say that with any hedonistic pleasure, there are dangers associated with overabundance.

fruits of temptation from Go To Chocolate, one of the numerous chocolatiers on the floor

For me, this lesson in excess climaxed in a sweaty five minutes or so while I searched for water at the festival on Saturday. I had just stumbled onto the main floor after being interviewed for an internal Copia video, and for a short clip for Wine TV. The room was hot and teeming with bodies clustered around the various chocolate and wine vendors’ tables. The adrenaline from eating fifteen or so different chocolate morsels, truffles, ice creams, mousses, and whatevers, combined with the dehydration from having tasted fourteen different wines in the valley that morning before arriving to the show was catching up to me. I was parched. I didn’t have a glass. I’d put down my finished wine glass somewhere, and couldn’t find it. In fact, I couldn’t find anyone, but that wasn’t what bothered me. My eyes scanned the room, dizzily. Everywhere they focused, I’d see abandoned but half-filled wine glasses. Or empty ones, with dark raspberry stains on the insides that could only be created by tannins (and the occasional ones on the outside caused by lipstick). Where were these people who were done with their wine going to get some water? It was a secrecy. Water was reserved for VIPS. Frantic now, and hesitating every four paces to consider tasting that genmai chai and chile-flavored dark chocolate, my eyes finally settled upon what seemed at the time the purest, most fluid substance in the room: a white chocolate fountain centerpiece surrounded by dipping crudité. I took a strawberry from the table, bit down on it and sucked. I ran another one under the milky stream and lapped it up as it dribbled down my chin. So much for water.

Georgia O’Keeffe might have done well with cacao beans

But I get ahead of things. (Random aside: can that last segment constitute a push for the continuation of Susie Bright’s Best American Erotica?) My weekend began with a delayed flight leaving New York in a snow shower; my mom and I arrived in Oakland with just enough time to make it to the walk-around tour of Charles Chocolates. Though groggy, our spirits lifted instantly while Chuck Siegel, founder and proprieter, shared his enthusiasm for all things chocolate — and natural. As we walked around the boutique facilities, Chuck lifted the covers of industrial-sized vats and mixers, crumbling the wall between the what you see and the what you get of consumer goods. “I don’t usually do this on regular tours,” he explained, passing around rubber gloves. “But since there’s a kid on this one, I will,” he nodded to Katie, Mark’s niece. We each took turns dipping our fingers into molten chocolate churning in a large machine. At its molten stage, Chuck explained, you can taste every note of the chocolate, whereas with solid chocolate, your mouth will never reach 100F, and therefore never allow this full expression of the chocolate on your tastebuds. I licked my finger ’til I got pure rubber.

peanut butterflies are passed around by Chuck Siegel of Charles Chocolates

the ultimate chocolate sampler

Over the course of the next hour, we continued to dip, nibble and peer our way through his signature confections, like a rich fleur de sel caramel. At the end of the tour, we sampled a menu of eight unique handmade chocolates. The peanut butterfly, made not with peanut butter but a more toasty, grainy and fluid natural peanut paste, was a certain improvement on an old classic. Though a jasmine tea-infused ganache audibly knocked my socks off (and threw me a momentary reverie of Taiwanese sweetened milk tea), my favorite treat was probably the raspberry fruit jelly chocolate “ice cream cone”: a thin, cone-shaped chocolate shell filled with raspberry ganache and plugged up with a jammy raspberry jelly drop. All of it was natural, the jelly made of fruit, sugar and pectin.

my next runner-up: fleur de sel caramel robed in dark chocolate

two ingredients you don’t see together every day: lichee tea-infused ganache

hard-working confectioners at Charles Chocolates

After the tour, my mom and I bid farewell to Chuck and company for the day and sped off for San Francisco. There, we ate a belated and very necessary late, late lunch in Chinatown of shrimp wonton soup and congee at a noodle shop. The night was filled out by an exceptional dinner (which I’ll get to in a separate post), followed by an hour-long drive to Napa, where my hotel room was equipped with a surprise care package of chocolates, chocolate books and other sweet treats thanks to my gracious host, Copia.

just-rolled truffles dipped in tempered chocolate

The next afternoon, after the whirlwind that was Saturday’s Death by Chocolate festival, I attended a class on truffle-making. Through the guidance of a friendly pastry chef, we learned the basics of truffles, which were just that: basic. Nothing more than an emulsion of chocolate and cream with optional flavorings, rolled in balls and dipped in more chocolate or flavorings, a dozen were produced by each member of the class to take home. I also learned why a truffle takes its name from the prized rare fungus: when irregularly shaped and dusted with chocolate powder, it more or less resembles a moldy black truffle.

house selection: milk chocolate with chocolate nib-studded truffles, ginger truffles and lavender truffles

This box, as well as my mom’s, were donated to my co-workers the next Monday at work. I survived the chocolate weekend, perhaps. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t suffered. I can say from experience that the threat of chocolate is real; and yet tempting all the same. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that now, at least for a while, I’ll be immune to the powers (and calories) that it holds.

]]> http://noteatingoutinny.com/2008/02/25/girl-in-a-chocolate-coma/feed/ 15 http://noteatingoutinny.com/2008/02/02/eating-out-in-essaouira-and-the-road-to-the-sahara/ http://noteatingoutinny.com/2008/02/02/eating-out-in-essaouira-and-the-road-to-the-sahara/#comments Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:44:55 +0000 Cathy Erway http://noteatingoutinny.com/2008/02/02/eating-out-in-essaouira-and-the-road-to-the-sahara/

Leaving Marrakesh, Jordan and I boarded a small bus with ten other travelers from around the world. The destination? The dunes of Erg Chebbi, near the border of Algeria. On the way, we’d be passing through the Atlas Mountains, notably Ouarzazate, with its scenic kasbahs often used for location film shoots. I’d been informed that Berber cuisines of the mountain and desert regions we were crossing were milder and more simple than the rest of Moroccan food. Well, I should tell you that the bar for flavor is quite high in these parts, as evidenced in this savory Berber omelette.

A Berber omelette, sizzling hot, moist and infused with spices

Something in between a frittata and steamed eggs, these scrambled eggs were cooked in a tajine with tomatoes, onion, cilantro and a hefty dose of cumin. Note to self: Do try this at home.We ate humble fare on the road to the desert, more vegetable couscous — which got better each time I tried it — and more tajine chicken. Perhaps I ate like a peasant the entire trip, but to me there seemed to be less distinction between “peasant food” and upper-class food in Morocco, probably due to the fact that people rarely eat out but for tourists.

medium-grain couscous, cooked in a savory vegetable broth

But our final meal of the trek, spent huddled over little round tables on a wool blanket under the stars in the desert, was the nomadic crème de la crème. Our Berber desert guides had cooked for us a steaming pot of stewed chicken with potatoes and carrots. We were given bread to eat with and no utensils, plates or napkins. But by the time they had served us, after 8pm on a long day of traveling, camel hiking and climbing the dunes at night, we were starved. There is something soothingly barbaric about the interaction of one’s hands pulling meat straight from an animal’s bones. And there’s also a human bond that comes with sharing a big pot of food with others, all eating with one’s hands. Well, afterward we were pretty happy that someone had brought wet tissues. But while we ate, shared, and talked about ourselves, those concerns had all been forgotten. I forgot to mention that our group was diverse: Two were from Barcelona, two were from Sydney, two were from Montreal, one was from Japan, one was from Seoul, one from London and one from Italy. And two from New York.

clusters of the French pastry diaspora

Okay, time out from the more traditional Moroccan fare and let’s talk about their pastries. Never have I tasted such good French pastries than from the many little bakeries throughout Morocco. And so inexpensive — three delicate morsels cost me 9 dirhams when weighed together ($1.15). I don’t eat pastries often in New York, as I can’t find it worth the exorbitant price and calorie count. But trust me, I ate plenty in Morocco. Many tasted of freshly roasted peanut, toasted coconut and sesame, like the one pictured below right, a sort of nutty paste rolled into a delicate truffle-like ball.

peanut, toasted coconut, sesame, oh my!

After our return to Marrakesh, we put on our backpacks again and headed West — for the coast. On our way to Essaouira (pronounced “essa-weera”), we passed several groves that looked to be raising goats. A word on one of the signs caught my eye: “H’uile d’Argan.” Argan oil! The latest and greatest thing to happen to skin and salads that puts olive oil to shame. (The New York Times proclaimed it “liquid gold.”) What am I talking about? Well, you should probably click on that article to get the full scope. Random odd fact, though: Goats’ stomachs essentially process the hard shells of the argan trees’ nuts before they are pressed into oil. Traditionally, workers must extract the nuts from the goats’ feces. One of those things that makes you go, now who’d ever think of that first?!

the oil is now produced almost solely by women-run cooperatives

In Essaouaria, I bargained hard and scored a little travel-sized bottle of this miracle oil along with a bar of soap for 40 dirhams ($5.20). I intend to use it solely for eating, of course. The fragrance alone is startling. Indeed the color of gold, in between honey and amber, the oil smells potently nutty, almost like Asian sesame oil. But a little bit fruity and floral, as well. I dipped a tiny drop of it on my bread, and am now a believer.But let’s get to the seafood. Because that’s the real reason any tourist really goes to Essaouira. Yes, there’s a nice medieval fort there, and there’s a scenic medina or town square. But the true business of the city is and has always lied in its waters.

cleaning (and bargaining for) the latest catch on the wharf

A fresh seafood feast was grilled before our eyes at a ramshackle grill stand along the shore. With long communal tables, the experience was much like the coastal version of the Djemaa el Fna food stands, only it was intensely bright under the hot afternoon sun, and it was all seafood.

grilled sea bass

grilled sardines and shrimp

a fried fish stand apparently popular with locals

a seafood panini at an Essaouira medina restaurant

After stuffing ourselves with our fair share of omega-3 fatty acids during this lunch, but dealing with the then-overwhelming frustration of having to bargain heavily for a fair price, Jordan and I relinquished our next meal to the hospitality of the guest house in which we were staying. What followed was by far the best meal of our trip. We stayed at the Dar Afram guest house, a small riad with a resident female cook/housekeeper. She prepared for ourselves and several other guests a five-course meal beginning with a creamy vegetable soup, then a cold salad and a warm eggplant dip which I do not dare call Baba Ghanoush simply because it’s never come close to being that good, and for the main course, an incredible tajine with succulent, juicy white fish fillets cooked in tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, herbs and spices. Just the potatoes alone, seeped in the dish’s flavors, could compete for one of the best things I’ve tasted. Because I didn’t want to spoil the memory of it, I decided against taking photos of the meal — it was dark in the dining room beside.

I did however snatch photos of olives at a small market stand

and the all-too-common butcher stand

You might be asking, after the last paragraph’s praise, whether I’m a convert to eating out once and for all. But tasting a meal as mind-blowing as this — once, even — is enough to fuel perhaps another whole year of not eating out as I see it. I’m already dreaming up versions of seafood tajines (or skillet recipe, or even foil wrap) inspired by the experience. After all, that’s what traveling is all about, when you’re a food fanatic at least.

in Moroccan society, genuine hospitality comes with a glass of hot mint tea

Before one goes giddy at the prospect of rivers of free Vitamin C as I did though, beware. All those tall orange trees that line the busy streets throughout the city? Those don’t have oranges on them. They’re bitter oranges. Let me demonstrate, invoking my inner Peter, Paul & Mary:

Orange tree, very pretty, and the orange flower is sweetbut the fruit of the poor orange (plucked from a tree on a street in Marrakesh)

is impossible to eat.

Just so you know, I tasted this, the sourest orange in the world, before handing it over to Jordan, and had my camera poised for the moment. At least photo-op success is still sweet.Moving on to the so-so: After a few days of eating in restaurants and stands in Marrakesh, I was able to identify three classes of flavors that most dishes fell into. These consisted of intensely pungent, salty and/or spicy (i.e. chicken tajine with preserved lemon and olives, pictured at top), super-sweet (i.e. lamb tajine with raisins and couscous, bastilla) and subtle bordering on bland if not properly executed (i.e. vegetable couscous, harira).

Harira, aka “Moroccan soup,” made with saffron, rice, beans and bits of meat and thickened with flour and tomato paste

a typical Moroccan salad

This breakdown, however, does not include all the salads, or first-course vegetable dishes. In Morocco, a salad can be served hot, cold or anywhere in between, just so long as it consists of vegetables. Unlike the main courses I sampled, salads also range wildly in variety and were never spiced too heavily or sparsely. These could be anything from dressed chunks of cold beets to a warm roasted green pepper and tomato dip. My favorite one from the trip were thick slices of eggplant, cooked (possibly fried?) until its surfaces were golden and crispy and its purple skins thin and crinkly as nori. When cut into, the warm eggplant flesh was just the color and texture of pudding. Joy.This was eaten at a typical food stand in the Djemaa el Fna, the main square of the city’s medina, which alights every night with the sounds and sights of drummers, storytellers, snake charmers, magicians and food stands — rows and rows full of them. Often offering the same fare as its neighbor, each stand has a long, communal table for casual dining by tourists and locals alike. (Although, if you’re a tourist, the experience is likely to be much different than the local’s.)

where the magic happens: the Djemaa el Fna

salads, roast chicken and bastilla (the sugared flat-looking pastries in the center) at a fully-loaded stand

If I’m making this all sound like a pretty magical fairy tale, well, it was. But here’s where the sinister troll rears its ugly head. Or should I say, the boiled-to-death, de-eyeballed sheep’s head. I kid you not.By the time Jordan and I decided it was a good idea to try the other signature dish of the Djemaa el Fna culinary repertoire, we were on a relative food high, and hungry for more flavors. So we sat down at one of the sheep’s head stands and waited for our main course, which we smartly decided to share. As we nibbled on bread, we watched the cook lift a massive head out from a vat of steaming liquid and plop it onto a butcher block. With one deft swipe of a cleaver he broke the head into two clean halves. It must have been boiled for the better part of the day. From this steaming mass he pulled out the animal’s jaw and tossed it into a nearby bucket — nearby us, that is. He then began to chop little bits off the head with a corner of the knife. Our plate consisted of a thorough sampling of these parts. There were some brains. To add to our disenchantment, this meal — like many in Moroccan cuisine — is meant to be eaten only with bread and no utensils, so we were hyper-aware of every minute particle that ended up in our mouths. Yes, some of it looked and tasted more or less like falling-apart stewed lamb meat, which was fine. But in my opinion, so not worth it. When I turned over a strip of meat and saw a greyish, thick and blubbery skin I was finished.

“everything is consumed except for the eyeballs,” my Lonely Planet Morocco book informed

proof that sheep aren’t the cleverest of animals

our plate

As if the whole sheep head/brains/teeth spectacle weren’t uncomfortable enough, the food here was almot as creepy as the guys at the table who were leering at us the entire time. So after putting a few dirhams on the table, we left for the safety of another stand we’d visited the night before, and ordered a pile of french fries and kebabs. Pretty good ones, too.

grilled mixed meat and veggie skewers with a few merguez sausages on the side

So I guess that takes me full circle with my little survey of Marrakeshi eats. But really, it was all good in terms of culinary exploration. My first recipe inspired from the journey is likely to be a warm winter salad. I like the broad application of the word salad here. It makes me realize that I don’t need to have expensive, highly perishable, shipped-from-California little greens to get my vitamins in the dead of winter when I can just cook up some squash and perhaps mushrooms. Can’t wait.

But first, the oddyssey continues: Eating out in Essaouaria, the Berber mountain villages, desert, and my cooking class at La Maison Arabe are soon to be posted!

the pink clay city at sunset

Ah, vacation. A little respite from the heat, the smog, the whiny, cosmopolitan attitude that had been pressure-cooking in me all summer long. Though it was only two days in total and a whopping five hours drive from New York City, this weekend I escaped for a holiday up north. And it was just in the nick of time, too. A change of pace on Labor Day weekend is simply the only thing one can do to rid the mind of the reality that this is the weekend that changes everything: No more summer Fridays, no more wearing sandals, white or seersucker, no more “it’s summer” shrugs and excuses. No more shrugging, period.

A little vino helps one swallow this considerably. There’s still time left this Labor Day evening to exalt in a little freedom, and to that end this post is all about eating out in New York — upstate New York, in the nation’s second largest wine-making region, the Finger Lakes. Beware, an opinionated and irresponsibly under-researched account of my 48 hours in Watkins Glen, Hector and surrounding towns along the Seneca Lake wine trail follows. So here I go food blogging like one of those pesky little camera-toting self-declared restaurant critics that Mario Batali despises!

Wine tasting was interspersed throughout these two days in no particular fashion or order of importance. However, I didn’t sample enough of these wineries to rightly compare or offer any good advice outside of what is offered on most travel sites or brochures. I do want to warn against a type of wine that is so popular in this region, the “sweet” wine with words like “breeze” and “mist” in their names. They exist, is simply all. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you next time.

the action at the wine tasting counter at Red Newt Wine Cellars in Hector

Unlike the wineries, I fully researched the food before diving in. My first and favorite meal of the trip was lunch at the Stonecat Cafe in Hector. I had the cornmeal-crusted catfish sandwich on a ciabatta roll with chipotle and sweet red pepper mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. That tender fish nearly spurted with juiciness when I broke its crisp helmet of cornmeal batter with my fork. Both parts were delicately seasoned and the fish was fresh and piping hot.

Stonecat Cafe’s cornmeal-crusted catfish with dill coleslaw and green beans

a diner at the Stonecat Cafe tucks into a house-smoked pulled pork sandwich on the outdoor dining porch overlooking a lakeside vineyard

This trendy, vegetarian-friendly and seasonal menu was also priced surprisingly friendly. My seafood lunch was $9, not to mention that their local Finger Lakes wine menu ranged in price from $4.50-$6.50 a glass. Ben and I almost wanted to come back again the next day.

Dinner was an underwhelming trip to a new Watkins Glen hangout, The Wildflower Cafe and Crooked Rooster Brewpup, known for their home-brewed craft ales. Ben ordered the Hefeweizen, which held true to its promise of tasting (and smelling) like bananas, and was bright and hoppy to add. I ordered a lager called “Mystery”; its description on the menu explained that it was so uncannily complex that no one could presume to know what its taste resembled. I took a sip and thought I had it figured out, though — it tasted like a Brooklyn Lager! Uncannily so.

After beer, we placed our orders for burgers, soup and salad. Now, instead of getting into how the soup was lukewarm and served alongside a narrow triangle of garlic bread that seemed to have been buttered and left out yesterday, and the balsamic vinaigrette seemed comprised of 95% vinegar and 5% oil, and a “medium”-cooked burger came out well into the well-done range — instead of all that, I’ll just note that this is an upbeat family-style restaurant with an extensive pub menu and energetic craft ale culture. No plate was more than $20, and plenty of dinner options like individual pizzas, sandwiches and Mexican plates were even under $8. (Wildflower Cafe, if you have any hard feelings, here’s my mugshot.) And with that, Day One was done.

Day Two

Of course, breakfasts are taken care of when staying at a bed and breakfast. I’d chosen the Idlwilde Inn in Watkins Glen, a quaint Victorian mansion situated at the top of a steep hill overlooking Seneca Lake. The included meal was good enough to pay for — both mornings a different breakfast entree was served, along with a bar of fresh fruit, cereal, juice and coffee.

an elegant free breakfast at Idlwilde Inn in Watkins Glen

I was a little perplexed when, on my first morning, I was served a plate that exactly resembled the one pictured above only without the sausage links. Everyone else in the room received theirs with. I didn’t make a peep to anyone else, but had to wonder if the innkeepers who served us assumed I was some type of granola crunching girly-girl. I get this a lot.

a glimpse of the circa-1897 mansion-turned inn

A few hours and some wines later, another lunch was in store. For this, we went to another up-and-coming newcomer to the Seneca Lake scene, the Red Newt Bistro in Hector.

a sunny outdoor table at Red Newt Bistro awaits a lucky party


like Stonecat Cafe, the Red Newt Bistro reveres its seasonal local produce; their peach sauce-topped phyllo dough triangles with chicken confit appetizer stood tasty testament

I ordered one of the specials, a “turnover” stuffed with smoked turkey, ricotta, sundried tomatoes and baby spinach and topped with a parmesan cream sauce. I cannot, nor will not now try to, make puff pastry the way the chef at Red Newt does (whom I shall informally refer to as the Puff Daddy). It was tasty and delicate, perfectly crisp brown on top and cooked through enough to safely cradle its hot, creamy filling, like the most delicate Shanghai-style soup dumpling’s skin. The comforting mixture of ricotta, smoked turkey squares and plummy sundried tomatoes inside wet each flaky layer of dough as the meal went on. And went on it did. This great big turnover was so rich and filling that I was stuffed until an 8:30pm dinner.

glutton for reward

That said, I may attempt to make their pasta. Ben ordered a delightful lunch of cheese tortellini surrounded with fresh sweet corn, carmelized onion and cherry tomatoes drenched in olive oil. It was seasonal, unassuming and beautiful.

And just what I was in the mood for the next evening. I’d gotten back to Brooklyn a little before dusk, hauling back two bagfuls of vegetables from a roadside produce stand. Using some of this fresh corn and ripe tomatoes along with some overgrown basil plant leaves, onions and a box of shell pasta (eh, who needs tortellini?), the dish was done in a pinch. (Recipe soon to be posted.)

That’s pretty much it for the interesting culinaria of my weekend in Seneca Lake. But last and certainly least, I dined at a place called the House of Hong, in the heart of Watkins Glen. I don’t know, there’s something about the triumph of Americanized Chinese food uniformity — whether you’re in rural country or New York City — that fascinates me. As soon as we sat down before a neon-lit fishtank, it was clear that this was no exception. The laminated menus were sticky from overuse. The menu items were a limited offering of four or so dishes per meat substance: Would you care for your beef, chicken or pork with broccoli, with mixed vegetables, with snow seas, Szechuan, sweet and sour, or Hunan? It was as if someone had devised the restaurant menu with an abacus, and instituted a smattering of take-out staples.

Reliably cheap and not too crummy, it was the perfect send-off for my weekend upstate eat-out-a-thon. Now back to whine with an “h” and your regular urban cooking-on-a-shoestring program.

two of the aforementioned

It’s easy to pig out on the eve of the year of the pig. But eat out?? Wasn’t my idea. Since my family couldn’t all decide on where to go and whose place to cook in, we settled on meeting up in Chinatown for this New Year’s Eve. Torn between not eating out in New York and being an impossible family member, something had to give. But the next day, I made a humble New Year’s lunch for some friends to make up for it.

left to right: pan-fried turnip cake, potstickers and fried rice for lunch

It was an easy meal to pull off, since the dumplings were bought frozen, the turnip cake pre-packaged. Apparently, the common dim sum-style turnip cake is not such a difficult thing to prepare from scratch, but I’ve never given that a try. When you buy them by a large, vacuum-packed brick from Asian groceries, all you need to do is slice it up and fry with a little oil on a skillet. My friends, encountering the dish for the first time, remarked that it was similar to a latke, only made with turnip instead of potato. A pretty accurate estimation.

a semi-ravaged steamed whole fish at Sing Wang

On a holiday when families traditionally come home and make a feast, we instead waited for a table in the crowded streets of Chinatown, finally getting one at Sing Wang, one of the many Cantonese restaurants on Mott St. The restaurant itself was unmemorable and generic, though it was enough of a treat to enjoy a meal together out. I ventured into the same streets the next day to see the dragon dances and teeming masses of confetti-popping people clogging the street. I nearly didn’t make it out of the street in one piece. To my surprise, I noticed there weren’t any firecrackers going off, the kind that come in long strings of red paper-wrapped little tubes and that litter the streets with red papery pulp for days afterward. There must be a new law in effect this year, because the only explosions I heard on Sunday were the non-gunpowdered pops of long, thin canisters of multicolored confetti strings. I also headed down Mosco St., just off of the east end of Mott St. to grab a bag of frozen dumplings from my favorite, hole-in-the-wall dumpling house. I encountered this line of freezing sightseeers, patiently awaiting cardboard cups of freshly pan-fried pork potstickers which the restaurant has sold for some time now at 5 for $1. Word must have gotten around. Luckily, I got to skip right through the line to pick up a bag of the frozen variety.

Naturally, I’m a bit uneasy talking about eating out on a night in which you’re not really supposed to, on a blog in which the whole point is to avoid doing so. It’s put me a little at a loss for words, as if some strange karmic result were taking hold of this post. So I’m going to bail, with a final happy new year wish to all.