So, last week, I launched a new site to start off a new chapter in my writing about food. Have you seen it yet? It’s called Lunch at Sixpoint, and it’ll cover gardening and growing food as well as cooking it at home. Or, not exactly at home. At the office kitchen of Sixpoint Craft Ales, a brewery in Brooklyn that was founded by my boyfriend. Lunches at Sixpoint began as a casual, occasional affair — I’d be at the brewery, helping out in the fledgling rooftop garden or doing some other work, and I’d make lunch. And share it with everyone. Sandwiches, stuffed with a smorgasbord of fillings set out on the long table, or pizzas baked in the oven with a smattering of toppings like a newly cracked egg from the chicken coop that morning. It was fun for me, as getting to cook for a hungry audience always has been. And it was fun for everyone who got to eat. It was also more efficient, having someone making healthy, nutritious and hopefully yummy meals for the group, with all the food grown right on the roof.
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It’s summer. There’s produce, plenty of it local. It’s coming to supermarkets, restaurants and Greenmarkets throughout New York City. But one place you won’t hardly ever find it at is a bodega, those convenient, often round-the-clock shops where you can get toothpaste and telephone cards or tonight’s dinner of ramen and chips. Unfortunately, this is the only type of grocery store that exists in increasingly more communities here.

That’s why the Healthy Bodegas Initiative was formed in 2005, aimed at increasing access to fresh food and improving the health of all New Yorkers through its bodegas. Targeting the most underserved areas, or healthy “food deserts,” the mission has partnered with many bodegas and local organizations, such as the Greenmarket of Grow NYC (previously called CENYC). Check out Kerry Trueman’s great interview with the initiative’s founder, Donya Williams, on Food Systems NYC. And read below for an interview with Justone Bossert, Director of NYC Operations for Red Jacket Orchards, an upstate, family-operated fruit farm that’s joined the cause.
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I’ve heard there’s long waiting lists to become a member of many CSAs around the city. Park Slope’s is packed, Greenpoint-Williamsburg’s maxed out, and Crown Heights’s, new as of last year, filled up so early that another CSA sprouted up in South Crown Heights this year. So if you’re on one of those lists, here’s some good news. Many CSAs in New York City still need members this season, and I dare say, you need to get in on this before the door’s closed.
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Just a year ago, I was the only kid at the SXSW Interactive conference without a smart phone; I wasn’t on Twitter; I rode a rusty bike to get around (at least until the chain broke), and I didn’t bother to bring my six-year-old PC laptop with me there, or anywhere, because it didn’t work unless it was plugged directly into an outlet. My philosophy was, “If it ain’t broke don’t replace it,” and my pride, making the best of what was already available. I was a “minimalist,” both in and outside the kitchen. Well, the times are changing, but that moniker still has significance. Because longtime food writer and author of my absolute favorite column, Mark Bittman, has teamed up with Culinate and Wiley & Sons to release an electronic application of Bittman’s classic cookbook, How to Cook Everything. I have it on my iPhone now. And soon, five of you can too, for free, by answering a question below.
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Skip the lines at the movie theater. Screw the trans fat-popped corn and jumbo packs of Junior Mints. Try this, once, if you’ve never done it before: hold a movie screening in your home, and have your friends and yourself make the refreshments. And what better time to do that than this Wednesday, because it’s the PBS broadcast of Food, Inc. That’s right, screw the DVD rental and cable, too — as long as you have an oldschool antenna on your telly, you can get this flick at home.
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I get off on people doing really bold, honest and active projects with the best of their integrity and muscle. When they happen to involve potlucks, bike riding and healthy, local food, I kind of go all apeshit with appreciation. So I’m very excited to share with you what Aaron Zueck and Robert DuBois are embarking on this summer. Bikeloc is what these two friends are calling their summer-long bike tour across America, in which they hope to connect with local communities through food. And in turn, help America become better connected with their food. They’re throwing twelve potlucks in various cities, where they’ll be cooking local farms’ food, and encouraging others to bring something to the table. Think the Eat-In initiative from Slow Food USA last summer, only a better name for theirs might be Eat-On-The-Road. To kick it off, Aaron and Robert are also hosting what sounds to be a crazy fun fundraiser right here in Brooklyn. Read on for the event info…
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Ditching the blizzard in New York and being delayed twice thanks to frost on the planes, I finally arrived in Madison, Wisconsin Friday evening, well-fed from my carry-on meal. I was picked up at the airport by Jonny Hunter of the Underground Food Collective, and from that point on, taken on a whirlwind tour of one of the most inspiring food destinations I’ve been. It was also at this point that I decided to let things happen as they may — to eat, out or in, whatever was on the menu, so to speak. To be sure, my trip had a few eaten-in missions: I would be cooking for a collaborative dinner between three supper clubs, and leading a guest chef menu at Slow Food UW’s Monday night dinner series, too. It turned out I was the only member of Hapa Kitchen who could make it to Madison, but I knew that I was in capable hands.
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That is the question. It is quite possibly the most perplexing thing about not eating out. We live in a culture that travels a lot — whether it’s just a twenty-minute commute to work each day in a car or perpetually being “between” two coasts, or countries, by plane. I wonder about our wandering if it isn’t the reason why take-out or fast food was created in the first place. Eric Schlosser certainly makes a causality seem logical in his tour of interstate highway development in Fast Food Nation: the more we hit the road, the more we press the brakes on preparing meals ourselves.
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photo courtesy of Goldilocks Finds Manhattan

I just love peeking into other people’s kitchens, see how they chop and dice and scurry about. This time my voyeurism has a very particular angle: to see how they cope with a Week of Eating In. And what I’ve seen from other folks doing that, at the blogs The Eaten Path, No Recipes, Relish Austin, Goldilocks Finds Manhattan and eating-sf, makes me want to come pounding at their door.
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Getting into the midst of the Week of Eating In, I figured it was time for a good gathering over (homemade) grub again. As I discussed in The Art of Eating In, everyone can use some time in the middle of their day to relax, sit down and eat. Especially with your friends, fellow workers or family. Just like we all need to sleep, this communal time is restorative and constructive in many ways, even if it’s not a business or “power lunch.”
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Let me confess: my first day of the Week of Eating In was actually Sunday, one day before it officially began. On that day, I managed to leaven two loaves of bread, which would later be baked, roast two trays full of root vegetables, which could be snacked on like popcorn or put into more formal preparations with a little warming up, simmer some tomato sauce from a can of whole plum, and make a pot of stock and some soup with most of it. And I went shopping, too, though the brunt of it was on Saturday, picking up bulk plastic bags of produce like apple and turnips at the Greenmarket. I did about enough to keep me going for two weeks of eating in, over the weekend. I’m still thinking that some of this bread may end up for the birds, or at least, as breadcrumbs.
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It’s the first day of the Week of Eating In challenge, and I’m taking it easy like Sunday morning. Only it’s Monday. You don’t start skiing by tackling the super giant slalom, no, you keep to the bunny hill for a while (or in my case, never progress from that point, because you find that you don’t like skiing much and have planted your face in the snow while getting on or off the ski left one too many times). So for a possibly frenzied week of cooking, in the midst of my book’s release no less, I wanted to start off real simple.
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The Week of Eating In is upon us! Cooks, budgeters, eco-foodies, and anyone looking to join in on this one for the fun, grab your utensils and get ready to not eat out (wherever you are) all week! Last week I listed some essential cookware I couldn’t live without; this time, it’s all about the food. Here’s a list of basic pantry and refrigerator staples to stock up one, the kinds that’ll keep giving, and giving. It’s a minimal list and keep in mind to adapt some items to your own liking (pick one favorite dried bean and call it a day). And I hope that even if you’re not gung-ho about cooking for a week straight, you’ll find something useful to your cooking routine, too.
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So, you think you can eat in for a week? Let me tell you, after two years of doing so, you can! Plus, you’ll have the support of many others doing so at the same time. The Week of Eating In challenge, hosted by Huffington Post Green, will take place from February 22-28. If you sign up to join, it’ll be a test of your will and home cooking know-how, but most importantly, it should be an interesting way of discovering what resources you might save besides your own money from cooking instead of taking out, and to become a lot more aware of your food.
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My bookshelf overrunneth. I used to feel this rush whenever my fridge was brimming with food, usually after a summer CSA pick-up, and the need to immediately bestow this farm-fresh goodness upon everyone I knew. I can’t give away all my books, however, and lending only goes so far. But I still want share this bounty of great food literature, somehow. They say that book publishing may be in danger, but according to Lynn Andriani, who moderated a panel on “The Future of Food Writing” last week at Housing Works Bookstore, food-related titles have actually increased in sales last year. And 2009 saw a great deal of really good ones. Here are some of my favorites, for what it’s worth. I’ve enjoyed reading and getting inspired by them, and it’s only fair to give credit where it’s due. I hope you find them fascinating, too.
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The perfect date meal, you name it, go! This has been one of my favorite questions of 2009 (happy New Year, by the way!). Until recently, I may have asked the same friends to describe their dream dinners way too many times, but now on nearly every episode of Let’s Eat In, I get the chance to put it to a great new pair of guests each week. From food writers, sex writers, musicians, and overall food fanatics, each awesome expert has had something equally inspiring to say. It’s a bit of a research project, for no good reason but fun. Two of the most commonly voiced food choices I’ve heard overall on this have been devilishly spicy, or deliciously sweet. So now, I wonder, what is the most romance-worthy flavor profile: spicy or sweet?
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If you’re anything like me, then cooking for someone is definitely an act of giving. And now that we’ve officially reached “the season for giving,” I can think of nothing better to give someone special than some home-cooked food. This is a rich topic, and one that never fails to fascinate me. So I’m curious, what foods do you like to cook for someone else… and specifically, for those of the male species?
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I’m back in the States just in time for the most American holiday of them all: Thanksgiving! Where’d I go? Please forgive the week-long break from blogging — I took off in a rush for Australia, to attend a very important friend (VIF) Jordan’s wedding in Melbourne. It was a blast. But now I’m ready to cook a grand Thanksgiving feast… another one, that is. Shortly beforehand, I got together with Rebecca and Max from Working Class Foodies for a great round of recipes all made from typical Thanksgiving spread leftovers. Here’s what they shot! And below, more on what we made.
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“I can’t cook eggs. My mother couldn’t cook eggs, either. I just can’t.”

This was once stated by an old roommate of mine. Genetically handed down or not, we all sometimes have mental blocks with kitchen skills. I found that I don’t have the patience to fillet a fish property, opting to throw in the towel and just cook it whole after a recent fishing trip. “I can’t cook rice” is another commonly voiced one. But with something as open-ended as cooking eggs, this boycott is really too bad. It eliminates a lot of great foods to make with them, but most of all, crosses out one heck of a cheap, quick and easy to prepare protein from the time and money-crunched home cook’s repertoire. And that’s not cool by me.
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A while ago, I was asked by the New York Daily News to cook a “romantic” meal for two that cost less than $15, including the bottle of wine. When the story ran, the paper concluded that I had given special meaning to the term, “cheap date.” While this might sound a little so-so, at best, for a single in New York, I’ve decided to embrace that title ever since. And I hope to give it new meaning each week, by talking about cooking and dating with a number of guests. It’s my new radio show! And it launches today on Heritage Radio Network, from 3 – 3:30pm.
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A couple weeks ago, I asked food bloggers to participate in Just Food’s annual fundraiser party, Let Us Eat Local, by hitting their kitchens at home. The event, which takes place tonight at Prince George Ballroom, will feature small plates from many of the city’s most renowned restaurants, like Blue Hill, Gramercy Tavern and Jean-Georges. In celebration of Just Food’s mission, each restaurant was asked to present courses that showed off the local and seasonal harvest. But before they unveil their offerings, here are five food bloggers who did an exceptional job at just that. Including the judges’ chosen winner, Laena McCarthy, who made a pink pearl apple (above) jam and won a ticket to Let Us Eat Local.
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It’s been a tough year for everyone, and small businesses — farms, especially — are no exception. That’s why it’s so exciting to see more consumers and the media rallying behind them. Today, Serious Eats posted a wonderful video about farmers at NYC’s Greenmarkets, and how they’ve contributed to our food system. It’s centered around a trip the Serious Eats team took to Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, and followed them as they packed up their harvest and trucked it into Union Square one Saturday. It was a long day for the Serious Eaters, who drove up to Roscoe, NY that morning to begin shooting. But perhaps a shade emblematic of the everyday toil these farmers go through. As Ed Levine exclaimed in the video, “The risks that they take every day!”
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Since so many of us have joined the frays of small farm supporting by becoming new members of CSAs, I’ve noticed a particular syndrome going around this summer. The symptoms? Staying in to eat lettuce heads that have piled up in the crisper over some weeks, extreme guilt about going out to eat when there’s tons of food at home; passing up plans to make the weekly pick-up day and time, or feeling the need to schedule vacations around your CSA calendar. And then the danger symptom, indicating the illness has reached its next, undesirable stage: deciding to forfeit a few items from your share on a particular week, leaving them behind at the pick-up location.
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Imagine walking into the office of an industrial agriculture giant, the kind that produces 99% of the food we eat, and saying, “Hey, I’m really interested in learning more about agriculture. Could you tell me a few things about what you do?” Would someone jump up from behind the counter and say, “Sure, let me show you around. Let me take out valuable time from my day, put you on a haystack as we drive around the premises and I’ll tell you all about it — pick an asparagus stalk if you care!” I think you can tell I’m being facetious, but this exemplifies one of the many stark differences about small farms and farmers: that they’re often more than willing to chat with you, answer your questions and help you understand where your food comes from as that one degree of separation. And I was offered an extraordinary case of this friendliness while visiting Sang Lee Farms in Long Island.
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And what a food-filled weekend! On Friday, the Hapa Kitchen hosted its first dinner soiree; Saturday, I saw so many foodies and inspiring panels at the Brooklyn Food Conference; Sunday, I got to taste the weekend-long efforts of so many cook-off enthusiasts at the Park Slope Pork-Off, which was hosted by one of our terrific Hapa Kitchen volunteers, Laurel, as a benefit for Kamay at Puso (a recap coming soon!); and today, the Hapa Kitchen website went live. I feel so very alive.

To all the readers I met over the course of these events, and new friends made, so glad we crossed paths and hope to again at something fun soon! (Like the Risotto Challenge? A terrific judging panel and more details to be announced!)

Not so long ago, I tended to associate Long Island with being stuck in squawking traffic on the LIE and guys in wifebeaters who wouldn’t think to eat an apple if the tree plopped one in his hand. True, the eastern trail of New York City never exactly conjured an agrarian idyll, replete with rustic farmstands and coastal pastures producing everything from grass-fed beef to tasty wines. But perhaps that’s just the Jersey in me speaking (ironic as it may seem, New Jersey and Long Island kids have a long, stupid rivalry). Because after a trip out to Garden of Eve organic farm in Riverhead, I was introduced to a world of old-school farming values being led for the most part by young and fresh-thinking pioneers.
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It was only a matter of time before my love affair with small, sustainable farming would take me outside of New York City (yes, Melissa, I hope to visit Garden of Eve sometime!). No matter the rain, cold or wind we’ve been having lately. No matter the ice and snow that laced the rocky cliffs of the Catskills on the drive upstate — and up some 1,200 feet in elevation. It’s spring, at least on paper! And so I went to visit some sheep at Apple Pond Farm.
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How many times have you heard it uttered by chefs, food experts and on cooking TV shows to salt the water in your pot of boiling pasta water so that it’s salty “like the sea”? That’s one edict that everyone seems to agree on. But I beg to differ, in some cases (more on that below). Therefore, when an editor from the New York Times‘ new Room for Debate blog contacted me and asked me if I had a food myth that I’d like to debunk, I first offered a little diatribe on that. In the end, we realized that this wasn’t actually a “myth” at all — it was more common advice, not something you could really “debunk.”
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Spring is officially here, and to celebrate the first day of nature’s annual renewal, I took a field trip out to a farm. Only I didn’t leave the city. At the end of the E and F subway lines and a quick hop eastward on a bus lies the Queens County Farm Museum, the oldest continually farmed tract of land in the city, and now the site of a renewed agricultural program that’s growing still. But unlike Stone Barns or similar close-to-urban country idylls, entrance to this farm is free.
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Yesterday, I came across a scary article about a suspicious bill concerning food safety issues. “You May Be Arrested Soon For Growing A Tomato,” it warned, and spoke of the bill placing “wildly restrictive regulatory encumbrances on the average vegetable growing Joe-The-Plumber, small organic farmer, or anyone for that matter who may one day decide to grow a small garden.”

Today, I received a scary chain email explaining that the provisions in the same bill will require all farms (and homes) to use specific fertilizers and insect sprays in the name of public safety. It described the outcome as “the end of organic farms and virtually all organic forms of growing food in our country.”

What is going on?
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My brain is on BBQ. Smoked, slow-cooked meat has no doubt lodged itself deep into the heart of Texas. But until last weekend, it had never really captured the fancy of me, this New York-New Jersey girl with no Southern roots to speak of. Until, that is, I went to Texas.

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First of all, thanks to all the kind readers who voted for the panel, “Nom Nom Nom: The Secrets of Successful Foodblogging” to be presented at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival, back in the fall. Because I’m pleased to share that it is going to happen, in less than one week. Austin, here we come…
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Though it may not look like it after yesterday’s snowstorm, spring is right around the corner. And, more local produce is just a few weeks from sprouting through the soil. If you want to experience the seasonal harvest from an intimate perspective (i.e. eat peas in June, blueberries in July), then a great way to do so if you don’t have your own garden is to join a CSA. What’s that? Community Supported Agriculture, essentially buying a share of a local farm to ensure both their survival, and your constant supply of healthy, earth-friendly and fresh produce.
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This week on WNYC, the Brian Lehrer Show has been crowdsourcing for bagged lunch suggestions. I’m a great fan of the show’s crowdsourcing projects (remember the grocery store prices map?), and this one is no exception. No longer your grade-school sack filled with a cold cut sandwich, banana and note from Mom (okay, I never got those either… sniff), brought-from-home lunches are a trend in offices these days that can be as satisfying as the next-door sandwich shop — or, as I like to believe, more so.
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Even though we’re in the doldrums of winter, I’m feeling a tremor of activity and overall excitement about local and sustainable farms. The New Amsterdam Market, a nonprofit which promotes environmentally and socially responsible food and the people behind it, has just launched an auction this week. It isn’t chock full of knick-knacks, though. Really embracing the spirit of community, sharing and learning about sustainable agriculture, many of the “items” for auction involve the food purveyors, farmers and conscientious chefs, and include tours, cooking demos and bonafide feasts. This underlines one of my favorite aspects about the sustainable food community — that the people are very much out there, in the field (no pun intended), and eager to chat with you.
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There’s nothing that represents true love on Valentine’s Day better than two heart-shaped cookies joined in sticky matrimony with a sugary concoction between them. Even us singles can still look forward to this: stacks of heart-shaped, icinged, chocolate-dipped, powdered sugar-dusted, and daintily decorated cooookies.
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Why isn’t there a recap and recipe from Saturday’s ridiculously delicious Greenmarket fundraiser cassoulet cook-off yet? It’ll be coming up soon, and thanks to everyone who came to support the Greenmarket and, of course, cassoulet. But it’s because I’m in DC right now. I fought travel delays and packed plenty of layers (and food, but we’ll get to that in a moment) to come here for the biggest inauguration ceremony of all time. Yes, we can!
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What’s going on here?? Let me back up a bit. Last year, I contributed a recipe for a project by the non-profit organization the Neighbors Project, called Bodega Party in a Box. The idea behind the ‘box was to promote shopping within one’s community, and to put more fresh produce and healthier foods on the shelves of local corner shops by increasing demand for it. There’s a lot more to the project on the organization’s website. But from a local perspective, big supermarkets are dropping like fleas throughout Brooklyn and Queens, and in low-income neighborhoods especially, quickie convenience stores (aka bodegas) are the only places to buy food for several blocks. The need for better food in them is urgent; and the Neighbors Project’s incentive more timely than ever.
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I am not a pastry chef. I’ve only begun to work with yeast in the last two years, tinkering mostly with pizza doughs and a little lazy-cook sensation called No-Knead Bread. I’ve never attempted to make my own croissants. So, foolishly, I thought I’d skip ahead that French classic and try to make whole wheat croissants instead (which I have never laid eyes on professionally-made). Following that train of illogic, we come to the only logical conclusion: that they turned out pretty poor.
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I am such a fan of Tara Parker-Pope, probably because I don’t know very much about health and biology, so the way she explains these topics in such a relevant and easy to understand manner makes me think of her as something like a trusted doctor family member whom you can always call when something’s up.

In her “Well” blog, Parker-Pope reblogs from another wellness-centered site, Divine Caroline, to discuss the Healthy Foods for Under $1. In this kudos-giving spirit, I wanted to regurgitate that article, too, which is terrific, and also drop in my favorites that were missing from the list. I encourage you to chime in with some of your own, too.
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Oh my god. My stove and oven won’t work. I’m dying — I’m going to die. Any second now. I’m sweating. I’m pacing around the kitchen like Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters when he realizes that he’s eventually going to die. Is there no saving grace in the universe, to make our miserable time on earth worthwhile? If I pray hard enough, will the little ring of fire suddenly blare on when I turn the switch, just like it always did before? Should I be down on my knees, not just to check for a pilot light? How does one live without fire, anyway? What would our ancestors have become, if man had never learned to tame the flame? Would he have dwindled into extinction, or evolved into a morbid race of raw food enthusiasts and never have invented footwear beyond sandals?
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‘Tis the weekend to get some gifts! It seems like no media outlet can resist offering their two cents on budget-friendly holiday gifts this season. (I’m listening to Sound Check right now doling out their musical gift picks.) And this year, neither can I.

I usually don’t dish about gift-giving, or other modes of culturally forced buying on this site (alright, come and give me the Scrooge speeches!), unless it’s about giving to charities. But there’s one little reason I’m making an exception: the troubled economy. So here are a few ways to spread your generosity and cheer without troubling your bank account.
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Get ready to drool at all the made-at-home marvels on Bon Appétit today. They’ve just launched their first-ever Blog Envy feature, a slideshow of holiday recipes from food blogs all around — and my cranberry Thai curry duck breast (a few posts below) made the cut! My envy of the moment among them — and this is due to the fact that I *believe* I tried nuts exactly like these at a crowded holiday party last Saturday (Sarah, were you there??) — are the Spicy, Sweet & Salty Rosemary Nuts from the blog Pink of Perfection. Plus, they look so easily transportable I might think of sending something like these to faraway friends and relatives as gifts.

What are your envious cravings on there?

And don’t forget: Monday, December 15th is the last day to submit your Reason #27 for Not Eating Out in New York! Get scribbling! (Big thanks to those who’ve sent me your papers so far. A-pluses for punctuality.)

Wednesday, November 26, 9:00 am: Cathy triple-bags a thirteen and a half pound free-range turkey pre-ordered from DiPaolo Farms via the Greenmarket and tucks it into a camper’s backpack. Heads off to the subway, gets off at Midtown. Explains something to startled co-worker as she takes turkey out of backpack, and stuffs it into office refrigerator. Tradition raises eyebrow.

3:15 pm: Cathy hoists turkey-stuffed backpack onto her back and trudges through the thickly crowded ten blocks to Penn Station, just in time to catch the utterly cramped 3:27 NJTransit train. Tradition shrugs.

8:00 pm: Cathy fills a bucket with salt and sugar solution and dunks the bird inside to brine overnight. Tradition (which would have preferred some generic store-bought, genetically mutated, cooped-up-indoors turkey for this) shakes fist and concedes defeat. Point one for Cathy. Tradition: 0.
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Since I’m a little behind on my recipe-writing and photo uploading for this week’s eaten-in pleasures, I thought I’d direct you to something I did manage to accomplish: this Brooklyn Based piece on where to find the most clever, crafty, kitschy and most importantly, NOT disposable dinnerware that you can be proud to serve with at your next party.
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Next month, I will be both turning 27 and posting the 27th Reason of the Month for not eating out. (Pretty neat collision of life and blog, isn’t it?) Yes, if you can believe it, you’ve suffered for twenty-six rants from the often irrational, at times delirious, and petty tirade-prone mind of this blogger. I thank you humbly.

This time, I thought I’d try something new. I’d like to invite anyone to submit their own “Reason For Not Eating Out” essay. I’m sure you have juicy tales to tell, or are itching to rid yourself of some restaurant-induced angst. Please send me your best Reason in 500 words or less by December 15th. I’ll post my favorite one shortly afterward as the 27th Reason For Not Eating Out, with a very special thanks to the winning guest blogger. Write to me at cathy[at]noteatingoutinny.com.

Mixing things up a bit — why not? Can’t wait to read your rants.

I can’t over-emphasize the surprise I had last year when biting into my first bit of free-range, organic, all-natural turkey that I’d stuffed and roasted for a Thanksgiving-like feast with friends: Savory. Succulent. Abundantly flavorful. These are words that you seldom think of when you think of turkey breast meat, right? That’s why we traditionally smother it with things like pucker-sweet cranberry sauce and overpowering gravy, and why homes across the country have taken up the turkey brining trend with such fervent approval, right? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I did not even brine this beast. Still, it had to have the best turkey meat I’ve ever tasted. I simply cannot overstate this reality, and furthermore, what it means for humane animal raising practices and the small, local farms that support them when you purchase this type of meat and poultry. That’s why I wrote a piece for Brooklyn Based all about where to get your “gobble gobble.”
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Hi. Perhaps you’re here because you’ve managed to navigate away from Pollster for five seconds, to allow time for some updates to set in. Maybe it’s close to lunchtime, but you don’t have an appetite because you’ve gotten yourself into such a stressful tizzy that your bodily functions are not working quite right, and you’re trying to regain an appetite by checking here for food porn. Or perhaps you can no longer bear to read “real” news, and would simply welcome instead the soothing words of the food-obsessed to take your mind off the matter at hand today, the most important, defining election to take place in decades.

That’s okay. I don’t mind.
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As a child of the Mister Rogers generation, it always makes my heart melt a little to hear the word “neighbor.” That’s why I was thrilled to receive an interview request from Neighborbee Blog, and to discover the blog itself. Informative, fun and most of all friendly, this site regularly posts about New York City-based stuff that I want to see, hear, eat or hold hands with as we cross the street. (Plus, they also interviewed my personal blogging heroine, Ganda, recently.) It’s a beautiful day for a neighbor.

Well, I’ve just completed a little experiment I’ve begun to call Opposite Week. Following a week’s worth of not eating out – the usual course – I threw myself into a strict diet of only restaurant-prepared foods for one week straight. It was fun, weird, nauseating and wonderful all at times. I tried to plan my days and nights eating more or less like an average working twenty-something, and not go out to nice restaurants all the time. I did, however, end up making a few dinner arrangements, and some of my friends seemed to get quite a kick out of seeing me sit down in a restaurant, order something, and staring as I took a bite. Some of these meals were great, some were so-so, and some reminded me of why I began my little boycott in the first place (i.e. a particularly poor Chinese take-out lunch; all manner of Midtown lunches).
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A big, virtual blog hug to Ms. Lucinda Scala Quinn, Executive Editorial Director of Food at Martha Stewart, co-host of Everyday Food, cookbook author and overall veteran champion of home cooking. Lucinda chose NEOINY as one of her “favorite blogs” in a lovely round-up of editors’ picks. Wow! (Thanks to fellow “favorite” Zach from Midtown Lunch for the tip!)

In case you missed it, you can also watch clips from Martha Stewart’s recent show all about blogging on her blog. It featured a panel of friendly food bloggers like Matt from MattBites and Deb from Smitten Kitchen.

Now that I’ve inundated you with the word “blog,” I’ll just end by saying that I’m so glad to see more dialogue and discussion on the online universe of self-publishing in a diary-like format. Now, back to doing that.

If you’ve been watching the Food Network lately, you may have seen a teaser for a new series called Ask Aida. Its premise is that home cooks pose a question to culinary expert Aida Mollenkamp — how do you make a roux? Quick weeknight supper? That sort of thing. Then Aida goes on to reveal her secrets to making the dish/technique a success. Word on the street has it that my likeness appears briefly in a commercial for the show preview of upcoming episodes (thanks, Yvo, for the tip!). Let me tell you why.
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Do you like food blogs? Maybe have thought about starting one yourself? Do you wish someone could tell you everything you always wanted to know about food blogging (but were afraid to ask)? Well, cupcake hero Rachel Kramer Bussel (of Cupcakes Take the Cake) has decided to round up a variety of bloggers to address these questions as a fun, free food-filled panel presentation at the 2009 South by Southwest Interactive Festival. But it can’t happen unless the proposal gets enough votes by August 29. So if you’d like to help us out — as I am so there as a panelist if this gets chosen — please sign in to the SXSW panel picker site and give 5 stars for “Nom Nom Nom: The Secrets of Successful Food Blogging.”
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You’ve been seeing it all over the news, but there was probably one moment in the last month when you felt the reality of it the most: Food prices are at their worst inflation in 17 years. For me, this occurred when I was comparing flour in a grocery store aisle. Peeking at the pricetag on a five-pound bag of King Arthur brand all-purpose flour and seeing that it cost almost $6, I nearly jumped back in fright. That’s more than $1 a pound for… flour.
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co-worker S: You know what I really feel like having for lunch? Homemade lasagna.

co-workers (chorus): Ohhh…

co-worker J: If you go to Duke’s, I think they usually have that in the buffet… the place downstairs?

co-worker S: (aghast) That’s not homemade lasagna.

chorus: Yeah, that totally doesn’t cut it… What are you thinking… That crappy place downstairs?… Not the same…

me: That’s really funny, because I brought homemade lasagna today for lunch. It was leftovers…

chorus: What?? Really?

co-worker S: (icy glare)

fin

Isn’t it wonderful to discover blogs and websites that are so up your alley you almost want to inhabit their space-as-virtual living room? The feeling must have gone both ways when I was encountered by Sarah McColl, who writes from a like-minded crafty, clever and budget-savvy point of view at Pink of Perfection (even though she’s happily engaged – bah!). She may have beaten me to running a profile, but I had such a nice girl talk for it that I wanted to share it here. In the meantime, I picked up some bok choy recently to whet my appetite gained from her baby bok choy and tofu recipe. So simple, yet so right…
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I’m going through a problem here. At the risk of revealing myself crazy, I must admit to some eating-related fault; somebody help me out. Today, for instance, I just finished a decent-portioned lunch. Homemade pesto, whole wheat pasta, with shards of asparagus throughout. Totally filling — the carbs not lacking, the flavors satisfying. Everything was fine.
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Ever since I’ve grown chummy with the fine folks at the Whisk & Ladle supperclub, and especially after reading the investigative work into recent Brooklyn speakeasies in this winter’s issue of Edible Brooklyn, I’ve been fascinated with supperclubs. (More than enough to toss out the space between the two words for good.) Who knew that homes were the new hot spot for fine dining? Oh wait, I did. I just didn’t think there were so many other people who seem to agree. And in my own backyard, to boot. This week, I was welcomed to the beautiful Fort Greene kitchen of Kara, who along with Adam operates Ted & Amy’s Supperclub.
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Since going green has become the hot new scene, there’s probably one place to check out the best action this spring and summer: public parks. As cities nationwide prepare for their biggest brouhaha over Earth Day in years, it almost feels like the upcoming weekend before Tuesday, April 22 were a genuine holiday weekend.
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In the current “Dirty New York” issue of The L Magazine, I let loose with a mini-tirade on Jamba Juice. But along with stopping slurping up styrene, I strongly encourage you to check out the New York “Green Villain” in the article just before that one: FreshDirect. I didn’t write this blurb, or any others for that matter, but who could have put it better than this:

“Dear New Yorker who supporters idling, double-parked, bike-hitting trucks by forking over the money for the luxury of having to take time out of your very important day to walk to the market to buy food: Why don’t we just float boxes of produce down the street on rivers of oil?” [Excerpted verbatim from here]

I’m sorry to put this to many friends and neighbors, but FreshDirect subscribers, read it and weep. Big, bulky cardboard boxes are no more environmentally friendly than tons of flimsy plastic bags that so many of us have thankfully already traded in for reusable (and totally cute) tote bags.

On the other hand, I did manage to move my entire belongings into my new place last month thanks to the plentiful, folded-up-for-recycling FreshDirect boxes I collected from the doorsteps of Fort Greene brownstones. So I suppose the company is good for something still.

There’s a new home base for not eating out in New York: my new place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I don’t know if I could say this transition went less smoothly than the last time I moved, since I’ve had a working gas stove at my new residence since Day One. But it was a frantic one. Alright, so New York is essentially frantic, chaotic and crazy all the time, but it’s probably reflected in real estate matters more than anything else. One minute I looked at an apartment that I liked, the next minute I was feeding my application through fax machines at work, the next, I was signing a lease, then — to my shock — they expected me to begin the lease the very day after I signed it, catching my keys in the air as I left the office. But now that it’s all set and done, I’ve got a new home all to my own. And they can’t take that away from me.

I’ve also got a sweet vacation to attend this weekend, and some Internet fuss to take care of upon my return. So, if you’ll please excuse the absence of new posts for the next few days, I promise to make up for it with a killer kick-off recipe/ode to a new kitchen — and new outlook? — afterwards. Thanks!

There’s a silver lining to every cloud. Rainy, stormy, freezing days are cooking days for me, spent tending a fragrant simmer, in the warmth of a oven breaking blisters onto the crusts of bread. There’s an acute feeling of physical and emotional nourishment that comes with even the simplest of meals, in the worst of weather.
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Is more chocolate! Because thanks to all of you who voted and the esteemed chocolate experts who judged the top ten entries, I’ve won Culinate’s Death by Chocolate blogging contest, hence a weekend trip for two to Napa to attend Copia Center’s chocolate festival and a private tour of Charles Chocolates‘ factory. What?! I’m still getting used to this hallucination. I hope I didn’t pull a Hillary on you guys by doing the blogging equivalent of crying on camera to get your votes! But it is personal. This contest is very personal to me.
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Off and away. For the next ten days I’ll be traveling Morocco by foot, bus and camel, drinking mint iced tea and engaging in lots of sinful eating out. In the meantime, if you’ve a hankering for intimate, expert coverage of all things Marrakech, I encourage you to check out a blog that I’ve been loving lately: My Marrakech. Sadly, I won’t be able to meet Maryam “of Morocco,” as she is traveling outside of the country the exact same week I will be there. But hope you enjoy reading about her travels, too.

And South Africa, Ireland, Taiwan, Bangladesh, San Francisco and parts of Alaska and Australia?

Should we ban free plastic shopping bags, that is? Because that’s what they do. Or in some cases, apply taxes or extra charges for them — as Ireland did, cutting plastic bag use by 90 percent. And by “we” I mean New Yorkers in particular, because if we look around us for an instant, we’d be hard pressed not to see a plastic bag on any given block. The Sierra Club even reports that, “In New York City alone, one less grocery bag per person per year would reduce waste by 109 tons and save $11,000 in disposal costs.”
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Congratulations, Christine! You won my apron, thanks to your charitable donation to Menu for Hope.

And thanks so much to everyone else who voted but unfortunately did not win the raffle. (I didn’t win anything either, though I had my heart pretty set on the “fully-loaded shelf” of books from Serious Eats.) I am so glad to discover that food blog readers are such a generous, caring, noble bunch. Chez Pim raised $91,188 for The World Food Programme, 50% more than last year’s Menu for Hope — what a spike. I’m not sure how many people that sum will bring more food to, but if you ask me, cost calculator-wise, that’s a lot of food! So thanks again, everyone. Christine, shoot me a line and I’ll get the apron out to you. It might even come with a surprise in its pocket…

Despite hopping to or from three different apartments, four different employers, and countless grocery stores and markets, my last three years have seen such an unhealthy dearth of completely pointless, privileged third-world globe-trotting. You know the kind I’m talking about. The before-you-hit-thirty-or-oh-my-god-enter-your-late-twenties global spin. Or in my case, just a diminutive version of it. I won’t be gone for very long (10 days), but in a week I’ll be headed for Marrakesh with my well-traveled pal Jordan. For no reason.
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I’ve been eating a lot of strange post-holiday snacks this week. After the festivities were over, I found myself in an apartment full of ribboned and confettied food products, like cookies, chocolate, and this giant tub of stuff from the Popcorn Factory. At first I was excited about the prospect of finding inside different varieties of gourmet kernels, but no such luck; instead it was filled with bags of neon-colored prepopped corn and other odds and ends. Disgusted as I was, I still have to give them credit for the surprise factor — who’d have thought of bright red cinnamon-flavored popcorn? Or ranch? And “spicy” flavored peanuts instead of just roasted peanuts? Good for them.
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Luckily for those who eat in like me, the cult of the celebrity chef is never far from reach. With an ebullience similar to when the first Michael Jordan sneakers were released, manufacturers are creating line after line of chef-approved kitchenwares. There’s Joan Chen brand woks and bamboo steamers, Gordon Ramsay fine china and crystal, Emerilware, Martha Stewart everything, and recent years have seen the Batali and Ray empires expand into cookware as well (and “EVOO“). For Christmas I was given these two Mario Batali mini cast iron Dutch ovens(?) or covered casseroles(?). Something of that nature. Its manufacturer, Copco, didn’t have a very specific name for it — a “2 cup Italian Essentials Pot,” they called it, in line with their larger capacity “Italian Essentials” pots. But aren’t they cute?
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It’s all over, those of you — and there are many of you out there — who missed the third installment of the Manhattan Chili Takedown. Fifteen chilis, two judges, one unpredictable host, a swank club called The Plumm, a motley crew of both carnivorous and vegetarian chili-making characters, their friends, one small child, and it all came down to two champions: one, for the judged contest, and another for the audience’s choice. No, my chicken, pumpkin and hominy chili didn’t win either honor. And this time, neither did the entries from anyone I know. But such is life, and not eating out.

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If it’s the season for cuddling up with hot toddies and passing family reunions by in a drunken haze, then I’ve just sampled two very merry ways to embrace the holiday “spirit.” Local author and cocktail expert David Wondrich paid a visit to Lenell’s liquor store last Saturday, and I was not alone in imbibing. The quaint, small store was transformed into a a lively cocktail hour as David offered drinks featured in his latest book, Imbibed: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to “Professor” Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar. As its title suggests, it pays tribute to the modern father of making sousing look swank.
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My co-worker proudly marched down the hall yesterday with a bag of Burger King “Ketchup & Fries” Flavored Potato Snacks (for lack of any more specific word such as “chips” or even “crisps”).

“Look what I got from the vending machine!”

Look we all did. Two whole aisles of us emerged from our pod-like cubicles to take a look at the fast food-inspired snack. Though from the minute we heard his announcement, we could already faintly smell it.
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Want to give a gift that counts as a tax write-off? Sick of seeing Old Navy commercials and glossy DeBeers ads? Just because nonprofits can’t buy ad spaces in major magazines or prime-time commercial slots doesn’t mean you can’t throw your money at them this holiday season, too.

I know, I know – if your mailbox looks anything like mine these days, charity solicitations are coming in by the bundle. All the papery mess can get overwhelming. How many organizations do people expect me to give to, anyway? And which ones do I feel most strongly about? It’s been all too easy for me in years past to solve the frustration with a simple, Scroogelike answer: None. But that’s just terrific, isn’t it? The earth is exploding with hungry people and the oceans are eating up shorelines and villages, and I’m going, man, I have to bring down the paper recycling again??
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A few weeks ago my friend Sam decided she could no longer take care of her yogurt cultures and kombucha colony. So she offered them to me. When I went to her apartment, she was bent over a pad of stationery writing down step-by-step care instructions for each group of live microorganisms, which were bundled away in tight-lidded plastic containers next to sheets of cheesecloth and other paraphernalia on her counter. After a few demonstrations of these steps, Sam packed everything into a brown shopping bag, careful so as not to let the containers tip, and handled them over to me. I felt like I two babies had plopped on my doorstep.
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This post goes out to Jennifer of one of my latest favorite food blogs, Slices of Me. Jennifer asked me point-blank in an email just how I manage not eating out, every day. Of particular interest was how I maintained a social life when I couldn’t eat out with friends. So, just a few random habits I’ve picked up from winging it in this neck of the food world:

1. Buy fresh veggies often, and many different types. I go to the Farmers’ Market each Saturday to load up on whatever strikes my fancy. This will not only lead to creativity (sweet potato and pork stir-fry? Why not?!), but you’ve just inherited a perishable presence in your refrigerator, and if you have any heart for the hardworking farmers who brought you this quality produce through sweat and toil, and respect for the earth’s bounty in itself, you will — no, you must — figure out a way to cook them before they rot. (You will.)
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the Ugliest Gourmet winning dish (albeit with parsley), Aubergines in Spicy Honey Sauce

Food is everything about the holidays to me, and I’m thankful this Thanksgiving for having a family who understands that. This year’s feast in New Jersey was a smaller production than previous years but you wouldn’t have known it from the type of emphasis placed on every aspect of the meal.
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You know that change is in the air when The New York Times‘ restaurant critic claims that the latest bauble of legendary restaurant family Cipriani’s gourmet empire “exists to affirm its patrons’ ability to throw away money” on the same day that eating-out bible New York Magazine’s hourly restaurant blog covers a home cooking contest using only bodega ingredients. If you catch my long-winded drift, that waft I smell might be something along the lines of, oh… not eating out.

Okay, call my suspicions giddy, reductionist crap — a result of flush from being mentioned by New York mag’s venerable Grub Street editor “Mr. Cutlets,” and smugness for never having to worry about falling into the trap of an alluring, yet mediocre restaurant. But let’s just say I have an extra-sensitive nose for all things eaten in. It wasn’t too long ago when eating at and talking about restaurants as quickly you could produce the saliva for seemed like the only thing people were interested in. And now — is it just me, or does The Times‘ food section have more recipes than restaurants in its average weekly ouevre?

Maybe it’s a seasonal thing.

Also on the topic of food shopping, I couldn’t help but share this brilliant project devised by public radio’s The Brian Lehrer Show (is anything they do not brilliant?).

Introduced this month, the “crowdsourcing” project forgoes statistical evidence and cuts right to the vox populi in discerning the costs of basic supermarket items in the New York City. This is a land of diversity in many ways. But prices for a single quart of milk? You’re talking differences of dollars. Alas, this is no surprise to any fellow New Yorker. But now, with the help of their price-hounding maps, we can actually pinpoint the closest market to go to for the cheapest commodity on our shopping list.
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The UK has been making impressive headway in isolating what makes us eat what. Namely, it’s our genes.

“More often than not, our genetic make-up influences our dietary patterns.”

So said Tim Spector, a Professor at London’s Kings College, in this BBC News article about a study he led that suggested identical twins shared the same eating preferences. Among these preferences, coffee and garlic turned out to be strong indicators of the genetic link. (But who doesn’t like garlic or coffee?)

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needs more peas, according to Bittman

It seems (belatedly) that I am not the only one with pasta on the mind. Mark Bittman’s recent article in the Times offered hoards of recipes for pasta lore that I can’t wait to try out sometime soon. But he also touched on a point that I found interesting, and struck at a deeply embedded piece of cultural wisdom that I had never thought to question before: The ratio of grains to delicacies.
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I enjoy tea a lot. All kinds of tea. I haven’t taken this passion to the next level of home DIY experimentation, drying out leaves and whatnot, but lately it’s crossed my mind. Typically at around this time of the year, I return to the comfort of tea. Having a propensity toward being cold all the time, I like having hot drinks to sip on much as a fish likes to have things to fill its gills with. As temperatures began to inch toward the mild fall range yesterday, I found myself with a craving at work. So I opened my office kitchen cupboards and was delighted to find a nice assortment of individually-wrapped teabags. Lemon… no. Peppermint, not today. Mandarin Orange Spice?

Naturally, I’ve seen this trademarked tea blend from Celestial Seasonings with its Mandarin princess on the box countless times throughout my life. But today I actually felt like drinking it. So I did. Yet as I sipped, instead of being soothed, I was more and more peeved by this:

Her eyelids are lowered in a sultry glare. She offers a bounty of oranges, but you know there’s more.

For me it’s a well-known, almost accepted fact that tea marketing clownishly fetishizes Asian cultures. Perhaps more so than any other not-necessarily-Asian product. From Tazo’s ugly packaging and fourteen-year-old-getting-high-for-the-first-time pseudo-spiritual “The Art of Tea” campaign to Snapple’s “lovably” clueless tourist reacting to grizzled sages in their commercials for white tea, it’s clear that American tea companies are not exactly vying for the Asian American market. Fine, then. But I draw the line at this image. And this copy, from Celestial Seasonings’ website:

“Deliciously spicy and teeming with flavor, Mandarin Orange Spice Herb Tea embraces the essence of an oriental paradise. At your fingertips, the flavor of luscious oranges mingles with piquant cloves to create an exotic and 100% natural feast for your palate. Mandarin Orange Spice Herb Tea is a medley of aromatic flavors with the allure of the mysterious Far East.”

Hey, guess what? The mystery’s been cracked! We’ve already opened the vault to the secrets of the Far East. I think it was on Indiana Jones’ getaway raft in The Temple of Doom.

Now, I might be the only person in the world offended by Madame Mandarin over here and if that’s the case, then I’m prepared for and okay with it. The problem is, I really like this tea now. I like that the product is all-natural and I find this blend of herbs delightful. But I can’t stand the packaging. Can’t I enjoy my drink without being reminded of the sexualization of women of my heritage? Also, let’s not forget that the tea is not exactly “Mandarin” in any non-imagined sense – the blend of warm cinnamon, cloves, herbs and orange peel riffs on Christmasy mulling spices more than anything else. Or those oranges stabbed with cloves that I once made from a craft book as a child. So what the hell is this “oriental paradise” all about? I am so not in it.

Now, a good rant come off me, let’s start talking homemade tea.

In this month’s Harper’s Magazine, Mark Schapiro explores the tremendous oversight of 62,000 chemicals in manufactured consumer goods that the U.S. has never tested for safety. His research finds in the blood of a 19-year-old Italian woman, “brominated flame retardants, which are potential liver, thyroid, and neurological toxins that are used to coat many electronics; the pesticides DDT and lindane… perfluorinated chemicals, known carcinogens that are used as stain- and water-repellents on clothing, furniture, and nonstick cookware; and artificial musk aromas… that scientists claim can reduce the body’s ability to expel other toxins.”
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a fuzz-free steamed fuzzy melon stuffed with turkey appetizer — works well with zucchini, too

A few months ago, I posted a recipe for a Thai-inspired stir-fry of shrimp ‘n okra and received among other comments, this one, from Matt:

“Where can I actually get thai basil? When I go to Chinatown, I usually don’t find anything remotely resembling basil. As a matter of fact, I hardly recognize most greens when I’m shopping in Chinatown”

This blogging platform doesn’t seem to allow me to reproduce it, but Matt’s original comment was followed by a sad-sack, little yellow frowning face. This international symbol of distress became the ultimate kicker in my next decision: To do something about this. (I think it must have set off some alarm nestled deeply in my conflicted half-Asian, half-American psyche.)
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Ah, the smell of musty haystacks and wood smoke. The crisp bite of tree-ripened apples. The taste of sweet corn slicked with pure butter. There’s nothing like celebrating the end of a fruitful harvest like an all-evening barbecue at a sustainable farm with your local farmers. Oh wait, I’ve never been to one before. It’s funny how comforting pasttimes can forge their way into one’s memory.
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excerpted from “My Empire of Dirt,” this week’s cover story in New York Magazine:

“Inspired by the coop design in Nick Park’s animated film Chicken Run, I was using the table saw to mill eight-inch plywood into strips to make footholds for the entrance ramp when the blade of the saw tagged my right pinkie, destroying the second knuckle.”

Okay… we’ve all had our shares of blunders in the kitchen, no doubt, and of seemingly ingenious crafty ideas that have gone awry. But reading this story by Manny Howard made me want to bang my head against the subway pole with nearly every sentence. How many wrongs does it take to supercede any possible right you might be doing for the world? Howard could hold a world record for surpassing that number, whatever it may be.

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Is there something wrong with me? Does anybody else suffer from this problem? Let me back up. Throughout my entire life, I have eaten and enjoyed eggplant. I recall one day at my old apartment, I proposed cooking an eggplant dish with then-roommate Erin. She said she was allergic to eggplant — “It makes my mouth itchy.” Well that’s unfortunate, I thought. Then today I made this baked eggplant, sauteed spinach, fresh mozzarella and sundried tomato crostini, and found myself smacking my mouth afterwards, annoyed by this fuzzy, tingly itchy feel on my tongue.
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This weekend, I answered the question, “What do you get when you have four pounds of white bread, two kinds of meat, and a propensity for non-traditional picnic food?” Easy. Thai chicken satay and Vietnamese pork banh mi tea sandwiches.
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the closest I’ve gotten to Napa

The excitement I had yesterday afternoon. I had just taken some napa cabbage slaw leftovers from Sunday’s picnic out of tupperware from the fridge to snack on, gone back for some tangy sriracha sauce just to kick it up because leftovers, as good as its predecessor may have been, are never quite as exciting as they were when you were first exploring its flavors, and returned to my desk — when lo and behold! An email materializes onto my screen. If I could have seen it like regular piece of snail mail, the postmark would have proved it was from Portland, Oregon, and it would probably have a business logo or stamp on company stationery indicating that it was from a one Mark Douglas from Culinate (who?) — Mark Douglas, from Culinate — and it was announcing that I had been nominated for the GrillMe Contest in which one food blogger (and one reader) wins a trip to Napa Valley to attend a grilling class taught by two masters of the grill, Andrew Schloss and David Joachim! I couldn’t think of anything more thrilling in the world. Then again, my palate was dancing from a strong mouthful of sriracha.
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For a city congested with new film festivals that crop up each summer, this one actually sounded like a novelty: The first-ever New York City Food Film Festival takes off this June, screening independent features and shorts by filmmakers from all over the country. The event seems to be the brainchild of Schnack co-conspirator Harry Hawk and George Motz, a director who’s screening his documentary, Hamburger America, in the festival.

If I’m understanding correctly, the festival takes place over three weekends, offering a virtual three-course meal in theme: Part 1 is Hamburgers and Asparagus; Part 2, Hot Dogs and Sausages; and Part 3, Barbecue. Films being screened include fun food docs like American Beer, Asparagus (the Stalkumentary), Living on the Wedge: Wisconsin’s Artisan Cheesemakers, and Best of the Wurst, a doc about Berlin’s currywurst that’s directed, interestingly enough, by Grace Lee of The Grace Lee Project.

But there’s one catch: while the film screenings are supposedly free, you have to “buy tickets” by ordering your food online first. Doesn’t look like there’s an option for people who don’t eat out. I’ve never been out to Water Taxi Beach, where the festival will be held and Schnack’s official summer luau. But it does seem as if it operates very much like a restaurant since you can’t bring in outside food or drink and you have to pay a small fee to get in at night.

Okay… so no movies if you don’t want to eat Schnackburgers? That doesn’t seem to make any sense. Well, I wasn’t sure how I felt about hamburgers with asparagus anyway.

open face: roasted red pepper, basil and swiss cheese tops a homemade no-knead slice of bread

I can’t express enough what a good grilled sandwich-making bread the No-Knead Bread recipe makes. It’s just meant to be: the perfect crackling, lacy froth of bubbles around the bread’s crust that crisp up to a delicate network of texture, the chewy, slightly moist and yeasty taste of the bread’s core that perfectly soaks up a sandwich’s flavors.
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Excerpted from “Easy Riser,” currently in newsstands the May 2007 issue of Vogue:

“… most contestants at the bake-off at the Brooklyn Kitchen flavored their breads heavily; I’ll admit to enjoying one made with cracked pepper and potato water… ”

That would be mine! Wow — I feel incredible. (Does my hair look okay?)

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Thanks to Meredith for spotting this and forwarding it to me: outside.in, the blog that reports on blogs, issues and events in your neighborhood, has ranked Clinton Hill, Brooklyn the “bloggiest” neighborhood — in the nation. In fact, the only other neighborhood in the state of New York that made its top 10 list was Harlem at #8. The rankings were determined by “a number of variables: total number of posts, total number of local bloggers, number of comments and Technorati ranking for the bloggers.”

Oddly, they only mention one local blog in the short caption on the neighborhood, Brownstoner. Sole case in point? It is a terrific blog, but, um… who else is out here?

Speaking of Brownstoner, the blog recently reported that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s foodie Ted Allen recently moved to Clinton Hill. He and his partner bought a 4-story brownstone on Washington St. Sounds like he’s still demonstrating good taste. Could Clinton Hill also be the up-and-coming “foodiest” neighborhood? (If so I hope they don’t stick with this cutesiest wording.) Maybe Ted Allen should start blogging. Hey, you gotta represent…

In the wake of the tragic event at Virginia Tech, I’m feeling a little less than enthusiastic about food right now. There’s no knowing how all the ramifications of the tragedy will pan out, and until then, I’ll move on with my humble food blog. However, when you attach a memorable feast to a humanitarian cause, as the Glass Contraption theatre company did, good times are definitely a little easier to swallow.

Last weekend I had the opportunity help raise money for the troupe’s sojourn to South Africa to help children affected by HIV through the Topsy Foundation. The Glass Contraption is one serious group of clowns. For consecutive summers they’ve used their professional clowning skills to help brighten the lives of orphans, collaborating with the children of Topsy on performances. My role? I made brunch. Hosted and co-chefed by my friend Bob, we served thirty-some people for a gospel-themed brunch in the midst of a stormy April Sunday.
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If you see me on the street, folks, turn around and walk the other way. I’ve been a germ-ridden monster these past couple days, armed and ready to pass on the flu like a hackeysack. But oh, have I been making myself some good eats to treat sorry self.

It all began with a bottle of love; not wine, but Newman’s Own Sockarooni pasta sauce. Everyone has a favorite jarred pasta sauce, even if you usually prefer making your own sauces like me. Identical in taste and texture throughout the years despite who knows what harvests, production changes and nutritional fads have stepped in, it reminds me of the days when I couldn’t pronounce its name. So after a few nights of eating low-key like this, I moved on to other simple, soothing main courses that I can always rely on being able to make with my eyes closed. Of course, eating fresh fruit and veggies are a must for getting back into health. But along with them, a few more satisfying, savory solutions:
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Have it your way. Or mine (above): a beef patty pre-seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, minced shallot, salt and pepper with sharp white cheddar cheese, sliced mushrooms sauteed with sherry vinegar, micro greens, fresh onion and tomato, garlic-parsley mayo and a dollop of Dijon mustard on a homemade egg wash-brushed roll. Only a suggestion.
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Who would dare question a cooking commandment passed down from Julia Child? Hooray to Julia Moskin in the New York Times for making one pretty promising case for something we were all too embarassed to fess up to doing: cooking with cheap wine. Cream of the crap wine. “Two-buck Chuck” wine, as referenced in the story. Or my personal fallback, too-tired-to-care Yellow Tail.

In the story, she gives taste tests of several dishes cooked with prestigious, expensive wines versus cheap stuff, and the results were indiscernable in most cases, with the cheap stuff winning tasters’ favor in others. The only rule of thumb about cooking with wines in general, she warns, is to watch out for tannins. (I once cooked with a wine that was very tannic, as I recall, and my coq au vin turned out thick and somewhat sticky.) Other than that, it’s a new playing field.

My only regret, now, is that bad wines don’t keep any longer than good ones. What are you supposed to do with the rest of the bottle not used — drink it? My problem already is that I’ll buy a nice drinkable bottle of wine, drink a glass one night. Have another glass the next night. And by the third night, the wine is not at all what it’s supposed to be. That’s when I cook with it — very much aware that old wine isn’t good, and now it isn’t even as good as cooking with bad, but fresh, wine. (They should make more wines in smaller bottles.) But at least, for the time being, I’ll rejoice in one smashing point for the earnest, cost-conscious cooker. Rest in peace, Mr. Ernest Gallo — can we say “business boom”?

I nominate Culinate.com for this. Sure, there’s Gothamist for local news and gotta-know-about-it-but-not-really-go-to-it events, there’s foodie sites like Serious Eats and Chow where you’re encouraged to chime in on things like creative authentic Mexican uses for icky black banana goo and who makes the best pita in the world. There are always, always blogs. But a refreshing foodie site (and one that happens to be based — though not editorially-focused — in Portland, which I just so happen to idealize as some sort of mecca to all that is good and just about food politics)? Check it out.

Plus, it’s me and The Hungry Cabbie pitted against one another in this week’s column, Blog Feed. Let the hungriest prevail…

I got an ice cream maker. I was watching the episode of Good Eats all about premium ice cream and how simple it was to make, and the next day I ran out to buy an ice cream maker. For $50 I’ll never have to go to the corner bodega to grab a pint of Haagen-Dazs again — sweet.

The first batch, a basic vanilla ice cream made from the recipe in the Cuisinart machine’s instruction booklet, was refreshing, sweet, and tasted so much like Breyer’s vanilla it scared me. Who knew it was just cream, milk, sugar and vanilla? Immediately, fresh pineapple ice cream sounded tempting, green tea tickled my fancy (as did other teas, like what about Earl Grey?), but there was one question that had been lingering in my brain since middle school, and that was: White pepper ice cream. Sweet or spicy?
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Right, so last Sunday. Oscar night. Did you see all the people who were expected to win win? Check out the lovefest of Al Gore (remember when we used to think he was too stiff to appear in public?), see any antics from Sacha Baron Cohen? I didn’t. I was at a potluck party instead. We ate a lot of food.
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Just a friendly tip for all those who are dying to learn more about pickling from three of the best people around: check out Serious Eats this week (the most fun, informative and friendly site for those serious about noshing) for my story and you’ll see what this concoction is all about.

And have a great Monday!

My friend Sean, an avid cooker, served up one mean lamb and cranberry meat pie last weekend that he’d done a fair share of hunting for. Well, the lamb meat itself came from the Farmer’s Market in Fort Greene Park. But the hunt for the recipe was a twisted road. A few months ago he’d purchased a glazed earthenware English pie dish at an antiques store in New Hampshire. He decided that the best meat pie he’d had was at Tea & Sympathy, a longstanding neighborhood favorite English café in the West Village.
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Warning: this post contains graphic images not suitable for children under 17

Who had time for Valentine’s Day in the middle of last week? Not I. I’m not the only person I know who’d opted to postpone Valentine’s Day to a more convenient night this year. But even though I had a long weekend, things kept popping up; people from out of town kept coming to town; there was nothing romantic about Chinese New Year; and then the whole thing was put off until practically a week later. And yet my Netflix queue still hasn’t caught up–I’d meant for Chocolat to get here in time.
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At the festivities on Mott St. on Sunday
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What am I going to do with you, good-looking?

How do I treat myself? Let me count the ways. Trudging my way from the camp of the kitchen toy have nots to the enviable haves, this week I made a soaring leap with the purchase of a double-pronged sword—er, blade: this Cuisinart food processor and blender.
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As a Christmas gift, I was given a one-night class at Camaje cooking classes. The course for the evening at the West Village French bistro that my benefactor chose to enroll me in was “A Taste of Thai.” This was the first cooking class I had taken since seventh grade home economics, and I couldn’t wait.
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“Unlike an earlier wave of food blogs focused on home cooking, recipes and basic restaurant recommendations, the new breed is gossipy and competitive; it trafficks in pointed restaurant criticism and tidbits of news — Craftsteak has installed a new stove!”

Whatever, New York Times. I’d rather be cooking at my tiny stove than trumpeting the most hoity-toity restaurant news, and reading the other article in the Magazine section on the American-Taiwanese-Hunanese roots of that ubiquitous dish “General Tso’s Chicken” anyway. (sniff)

Last Sunday I spent a couple of hours making sauce, dough, preparing the toppings and putting it all together in a cheesy, sausage and jalepeno pizza to share with a couple of friends. We all had a great time. Then afterwards, I got really sad when I realized, thinking about the cost calculator section of the blog post that would be, that I probably would have spent just the same if I’d just bought a large sausage and jalepeno pie at any of the pie joints down the block. Such highs and lows are the life of the home cooker.
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Not much to report from my little Brooklyn kitchen this week, since I’ve been living off dinner party leftovers. But I noticed a familiar phrase while biking down Smith St. in Boerum Hill the other day: a corner storefront under renovation (I think around Baltic St.) amongst a busy restaurant row, which had tall glass windows that showed signs of a soon-to-be-restaurant, or maybe market, and a new awning with the words written in stylistically childish font: “Jessie’s Brooklyn Kitchen.” I bet I can almost guess what kind of food they’ll serve: fresh, rustic, down-to-earth New American cuisine. Or perhaps not.

What’s really interesting though, is the small-scale scramble over the two-word term “Brooklyn Kitchen,” a name which seems to me to convey the everyday, the homely, and most intriguingly, the subtley anti-establishment feel of “not eating out”–set amid the urban landscape of Brooklyn.
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Isn’t it a pity New York seems to have a relative dearth of really good cajun restaurants? There’s tons of barbecue and even soul food spots, but New Orleans-style cajun cookin’ is hard to come by. Menupages.com listed only 25 restaurants in the “Cajun and Creole” category, and from just eyeballing it I noticed some that were definitely not. I wondered about this after visiting Portland last summer and eating at a great, cute restaurant called Montage which served an extensive cajun-inspired menu and was crammed with locals every night. They even served dishes with gator meat; this was Portland, about as geographically far from New Orleans as you could get in the continental US. So why have I never seen gator meat in New York before?
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I just loved this article by Seth Kugel in the NY Times Real Estate section. This guy is like my antithesis-turned possible doppelganger by the end of the article. Swooned by all the multicultural restaurants and street foods of Jackson Heights, he gets a nagging urge to create and then discovers another fascinating food “find”: his own kitchen.

I haven’t lived in Jackson Heights before, but Kugel makes a pretty compelling case for it. Perhaps when I’m priced out of Brooklyn…

A few things I ate recently: burgers, pizza, and lasagna. I guess the abundance of Chinese food over the holidays has left me craving the good ‘ol stuff. And none of them very creatively executed, with perhaps the exception of the burger, because I swung by by Amy’s Bread on Bleecker St. and picked up a couple of “mini” sourdough rolls. Well, they were far too big for one burger. In retrospect I think my original idea of making one giant burger and slicing the whole thing in half to make two normal-sized burgers would have made for a better photo op than what I did: grill the burger patties separately, and place each inside a hacked-down-the-middle Amy’s sourdough roll.
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The meal my family eats on Christmas Eve, a stark contrast to the all-American holiday meals like Thanksgiving, is usually an all-out feast of 5-10 Chinese dishes cooked by my uncle and my mom, a roast duck or chicken from the store added on, and a dessert of some type that we’re too full to eat. This year, we decided to do something different and serve hot pot. I’ve seen some places refer to this communal meal as “Chinese fondue,” while others go with the Japanese word for it, Shabu Shabu. Basically, it’s the type of meal that Scarlett Johannsen and Bill Murray are befuddled by in that scene in the restaurant in that hideous movie, Lost in Translation.
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A quintessential plate of 4-way chili at Skyline Chili: that’s cheese on top of chili on top of spaghetti. Yes, spaghetti.

I was pretty sure that Ohio wasn’t the cheese state. But what did I know? It was my first trip to anywhere in the midwest, not including airport layovers. I found myself there last weekend because my college buddy Aaron had gotten married to a Japanese girl while teaching English in Japan, and had brought her back to his home base in Cincinnati. Instead of having a formal wedding, they threw a weekend-long celebration with friends from across the country, and me and fellow Brooklynite Jordan booked flights for Saturday and Sunday, packed a light bag, and went. And so I learned that Cincinnati is very fond of bad, processed cheese in great quantities.
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Good-bye, Park Slope. Hello, Fort Greene. It’s been about 2 weeks after moving into my new apartment, two days since I got the gas stove working, and before the cooking begins, a good assessment on my former and current surroundings.

After some thought, I present the culinary pros and cons of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, and Park Slope. Two neighborhoods that vaguely border one another in Brooklyn, one definitely larger and more developed, the other up-and-coming and containing a block that Time Out New York recently called the “Best Block” in all of NYC to live on, very well may have much to share in the way of culinary tastes. But you won’t be hearing any of that from my highly unscientific, first-hand account of their respective pros and cons to the busy not eating out foodophile. I feel confident that my expertise on the Park Slope area is quite fair, having lived in north Park Slope for two years. But if I am leaving anything out about the Fort Greene and Clinton Hill area, which I have lived in for two weeks, I would very much welcome any corrections and suggestions from discerning experts or enthusiasts of said neighborhood.
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In case you haven’t checked out one of my favorite blogs, which also happens to be written by a young female foodie living in Brooklyn, it’s a fine time to begin. Eat Drink One Woman hosted by Ganda Suthivarakan has a Q&A with me on it, but there’s plenty better stuff on the site to read.

In other news, the gas has officially turned on in my apartment, so you’ll probably be seeing a series of very quickly written recipes in the next few weeks as I reunite with the stove.

Long frustrating story, but the bottom line is: Keyspan sucks. There’s still no gas in my apartment. The good thing is, my friends have been offering me their delicious home cooking, and in one instance let me use their kitchen to make them dinner. It’s been a harmonious transaction.
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photo of The Cherry Tree’s backyard courtesy of Meredith–thanks!

Over the weekend, I celebrated my 25th birthday with a few friends by bar-hopping around my old streets in Park Slope. Little did I know you can now bar-hop on Fourth Avenue. We began at Sheep Station, at 4th Ave. and Douglass, and I was dismayed to discover it had changed overnight into primarily a sit-down restaurant (no doubt thanks to the NYTimes review), and there was no room for us to just drink. So we headed a few blocks up to The Cherry Tree on 4th and Bergen, hung out in their beautiful backyard, which was well-heated thanks to the warm brick pizza oven back there (Adam, you might want to check this out if you haven’t already–my friends were raving about it and they’re generally picky about pizza), and a warm WHOLE PIG that happened to be roasting in the middle of the backyard. We’d stumbled into the place on the first Saturday of the month, which according to head chef Patric, was free roast pig night. He informed us the thing had been killed that morning in New Jersey and had been roasting and smoking for a good part of the day, though he was disappointed he didn’t have as much time to marinate it as he would have liked.
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Despite barraging into every type of major media save for perhaps a Hollywood film, Rachael Ray still manages to lack the one thing that goes together with foodies like pears and chocolate: a truly interactive website.

Serious Eats (www.seriouseats.com) is just that. A collaborative project by an all-star cast of food bloggers and writers, it’s sure to trump many other food websites with its creative and far-reaching combination of notes from food blogging world, and the high profile food literati (the newly launched site features a video with Jeffrey Steingarten). If there is a considerable distinction between the two these days.

I’m not a PR manager for Serious Eats (and I apologize to Rachael Ray’s), but I strongly suggest you frequent this site and get more serious about your internet food addiction(s).

Some things I’ve eaten lately:

Steamed frozen pork gyoza and steamed frozen edamame.

Steamed eggs.

Bread, croissants, fruit, cheese, vegetables, salad…candles.
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Winter is upon us, and what better indicator of it than bushels of sunny, orange miniature citrus fruits?

Like many people around my age, I was introduced to clementines as a lunch bag accoutrement some time late into grade school. Rather, I should say I was bombarded with them in multiples of twos and threes–they seemed to appear everywhere, not just in lunch bags anymore but in my gifts, Christmas stockings, and were tossed at me like hackey sacks every time I tried to leave the house. At first I may have guessed that my parents were so enthralled by the fruit that they decided to buy barrels full of them (and no doubt the novelty of the crates made this true to some extent). Then it occurred to me that clementines were sold only in bulk, and came in a flaky birch wood crate holding about 25 of the little seedless juicy nuggets.
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This has to be the worst week for not eating out in New York so far. After giving thanks to all the home-cooked food and leftovers of the weekend, I returned to Brooklyn to begin the task of moving into my new apartment. This time, I decided to do it using only borrowed vehicles and not-hired friends. I have to say, it was a pretty bad move (pun intentional). I’m still pretty sore all over, but the worst part about it is that the construction on my newly gutted kitchen isn’t complete, along with other odds and ends in the apartment. Apparently my landlord thought I wouldn’t mind cans of paint and tools in the middle of the living room floor and wet paint on the walls. We managed to haul everything into the place by midnight, but even if I had the means to cook something, I probably wouldn’t have the energy. I retrieved a canister of mixed nuts in one of my boxes and lived off that for a night.
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I tried balancing cold semi-sweet chocolate morsels on a salty cracker and was rewarded with the perfect quench for my salty/sweet craving.  Cost calculator?  Both items were free thanks to my roommate and the gratuitous back of the freezer.  (Health factor = bad.)

Conversation with self:
-Which do you prefer, salty or sweet? For instance, if you had to choose one over the other to eat for the rest of your life?
-Salty, probably.
-Well in that case, how come when luck goes your way you don’t exclaim, “Saaalty!!”
-I don’t know. Should I?

Hopefully many people reading this blog who don’t know me personally will have sensed that my culinary tastes are quite various and international in scope. But what I haven’t disclosed for this long and would feel irresponsible about withholding at this moment, is the fact that every Thanksgiving dinner I’ve attended has served the same traditional, no-nonsense all-American spread favored by the senior Erway clan of upstate New York.
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For any of you foodies living in or around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, there’s finally a place where you can go and everybody knows your name. No, it’s not a bar, it’s a kitchenware and specialty foods shop called The Brooklyn Kitchen. I had the pleasure of watching the shop’s first gathering this evening on “A Different Way to Bird”: how to de-bone a turkey, just in time for Thanksgiving. I’ve noticed in magazines and cooking shows how popular this method has become as an alternative to roasting a whole turkey with bones. It takes a bit of skill with the knife, but after a quick informal session like the one The Brooklyn Kitchen offered, pretty much anyone can give it a go.
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There’s nothing that spells cute to me more than a bunch of baby bok choy. The tenderest and most mild of cabbages, the contrast between leafy green parts and white stems has never been more appealing. When boiled, the fibrous whites turn translucent and practically melt in your mouth. The greens hold true to their shape and are delicate as a floppy bunny’s ear.
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I’d like to pause briefly for a political moment. As we all know, this week has been immensely significant for the Democratic Party and for Bush opposers, rippling throughout the world. Never have I gotten so many mass emails from Moveon.org since the weeks leading up to Election 2004. There’s a local Moveon.org organized party up the street from me that I hope to snap a few shots of soon. Would it be too presumptuous of me to hope for a time when Moveon.org will change its name to Keep It Real?
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I recently stumbled upon a site called FoodCandy.com, “where foodies meet.” We can all look back a mere few years ago and recall the humble beginnings of a site called Myspace, which targeted a younger crowd than existing networking sites. Before it took over the world of music, film, and young(ish) people in general. FoodCandy may or may not aspire for such loftiness, but its focus is sure-footed: it’s only for self-proclaimed foodies. All around the world. So you can stop talking to utter slobs and start meeting other food-smart urbanites who are too busy to interact with anyone in person. Seriously, though, who doesn’t wish they had more friends with similar values?

More than a networking site, FoodCandy also publishes interesting articles and interviews–most interestingly enough, one about me.

And if you happen to check this out, could you please sign up and then be friends with me? I look like El Dorko.

Why doesn’t New York come up with nice food store mascots like South Carolina? This logo is so cute, I can’t stand it. Here, I’m stuck with “Associated” or “Key Food” or “C-Town.” Even the fancy grocery stores and organic ones don’t have cartoon characters ripped off of Disney like South Carolina does.

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Sam and Richard had me over on Thursday for some hot toddys and sweets in honor of Day of the Dead. Or night of the dead? It was about 10:30 p.m. when I got there. The drink of choice was toasty hot chocolate made with Mexican dark chocolate and Kalhua.
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Or 4:00 p.m. Or 5:00. And you’re stuck, and want to run outside and grab some chips. My solutions?

I know this sounds incredibly kindergarten-ish, but I often have carrots with me. On my person. In my fridge. I even stopped getting the peeled baby carrot kind because I found that they get slimy when you crumple them up and keep them refrigerated for a few weeks or so. Or that one little carrot on the top will have a bit of slimy sheen on its surface, maybe a little darker-colored, and you have to throw out the whole bag. So I hack a whole carrot into thirds. And maybe if I’ve got them, same with celery stalks too.

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The lovely Ganda of Eat Drink One Woman was kind enough to sit down with me for an interview and a good cup of green tea before taking off for a tour.  You can check out the interview on Chief Magazine, or better yet, try to catch her on tour with Miho Hatori.  Today’s the happy release of her new album, Ecdysis, which rocks more than I can attempt to write about.

Entrees Reach $40, and, Sorry, the Sides Are Extra

Need I say more?

I ate out. But it was in Providence, RI, and I’m quite certain there’s no way I’ll ever be able to make my own array of bite-size dumplings and other tasty traditional dim sum dishes just for lunch (ever). So I made good use of a family trip to visit my brother in Providence, where he’s studying for a PhD.

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Thanks, Cube-Side, for naming Not Eating Out In New York “Blog of the Week”! And for this nifty crest, which I get to keep on here for a week. Or forever.

I meant to mention this cute article that was in the NY Times a week or so ago called “In Search of Grocery Gems.”  In it, the author Julia Moskin discourses on a full cart-sized selection of packaged food products, finding most of them to be unsatisfactory, unhealthy, but a few of them, “gems.” 

Moskin does an admirable job of filtering out items with high fructose corn syrup and dismissing them–some surprising culprits including most of the cracker shelf.  The items that she applauds, however, such as McCann’s Irish Oatmeal, Walker’s Shortbread, and Rao’s Tomato Sauces, are surely not surprises to any New York gourmand.  In the end, I’m left with a cautionary tale: trust no one, and you get what you pay for. 

I enjoyed this article because I think it defines a culture of fear that New Yorkers, especially the eaty-outy ones, have toward their local grocery stores.  As if examining its products were a dangerous task, one to be left to experts, and buying groceries alone were a last resort, not easily trusted.  The way she dissects these products reminds one of taking stock of evidence at a crime scene.  

I’m sure there will be a direct correlation between the sales of Morkin’s recommended products and the aftermath of the article.  Even I’m tempted to spend $8 on one jar of Rao’s sauce if it’s supposedly worth it, and I don’t even buy jarred sauce, only canned tomatoes to make it with.  But I think that the Times is right to assume that so many city people are nervous buyers of “regular” or “grocery store” food that they need a trusted guide to hold their hand with them through the aisles.  Many of my friends, you know who you are, included.

Now, if only there were someone daring enough to venture into the bodega stock . . .

My friends Richard and Sam are my only local friends whose apartment has an actual yard with grass, a pretty spacious one, too. So naturally, they host barbecues all summer long. The last one I went to I was so busy preparing not one but two trays of homemade dumplings–veggie ones and pork–that I ended up getting there late, tired, and in the middle of a hot July, not even hungry. This weekend, I brought to their place the least exotic party food I could think of, and also one of the easiest, deviled eggs.

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I didn’t think it was going to be that difficult to travel without a laptop, and post blogs. But the west coast didn’t prove to be as cyber-friendly as I had hoped. That, and I wasn’t trying too hard because I was on vacation, and was very, very busy eating out. For the record, I didn’t go out there to check out Kerry Simon’s new LA restaurant or the Wolfgang Puck Express, but I went to LA to visit my grandfather, and to Oregon, for friends.

In the end, such as my last meal at the airport between flights, I was reminded of how not fun it can be to rely on whatever food options are available at a certain area. But in between, several highlights are pictured in this belated photo essay below.
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I’ve had this theory that most people prefer chicken to beef, at least on an everyday, low-key, or eating just-by-yourself basis—but that it’s a really close call. Think of it, when you were a kid, you probably preferred poultry. It’s milder, and less variable to the cut, preparation, etc. Now that Tyson is the nation’s largest beef producer in addition to poultry producer after their acquisition of IP Beef about a year ago, beef now trumps chicken in their overall profits, which could be an indication of the meat preferences of this country, at least. (But don’t you, between you and me, have a sinking suspicion that this is mostly due to fast food chain buyers, who need fewer amounts of actual chicken than beef because they add so much water and who knows what to their chicken products? Gelatin, perhaps?)
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ackee fruit

My brother just came back from visiting his girlfriend who’s interning in Kingston, Jamaica for the summer. It sounds like a pretty groovy way to build your resume, but considering it was in the city’s public health administration, it may have been a little more involved than buying shell necklaces and lounging on the beach listening to reggae. I wish I had more to tell about an area I find really fascinating, but since I wasn’t there I only managed to glean these tidbits on Jamaica and its food:

Beef patties are commonly sold at two chains owned by Chinese shopkeeper families, Juici Patties, and Tastee Patties. Both entrepreneurs of these chains have won accolades for bolstering the economy in Jamaica, while Juici Patties has successfully entered the Canadian market (for some reason).

Jerk originated at Boston Beach in Portland Parish, Jamaica, and was largely unknown outside of Portland until the 1950’s. The dry rub mixture includes allspice and Scotch Bonnet peppers, and the meat is traditionally wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over Pimento wood. Today, most people tend to think it’s the most Jamaican thing ever beside Red Stripe beer.

The Jamaican national dish and common breakfast is “ackee and saltfish.” The ackee is the crazy fruit pictured above, related somewhat to lychee nuts, and to eat it requires taking out the poisonous big black seeds and de-veining the “bready” sections. It has a strange taste and a texture “like scrambled eggs.”

Other weird fruit native to Jamaica and the Caribbean include breadfruit (which tastes like bread), sweet sop (or custard apple), ugli fruit, guineps, and sour sop.

Mangosteen, all praises to flavor aside, you are totally yesterday’s elusive fruit.

(for more info on Jamaican dishes check out this tourism page on food)

More on the topic of eating rays and shark-like things, Yao Ming recently stepped up to the plate (darn, wrong sport!) on the topic of wildlife preservation, vowing not to eat shark fin soup. He joins environmentalists who condemn the overfishing of sharks, whose fins are mainly prepared in the traditional, highly expensive delicacy in Chinese cuisine, shark fin soup. Eating shark fin soup has, for thousands of years, denoted a status of wealth and prestige, commonly served at weddings and banquets. It is a clear, glutinous, and delicately-flavored soup with strands of shark fin meat throughout each spoonful. Bowls of this soup have been known to cost as much as $400 in Hong Kong. But increased affluency (and an increased desire to be affluent) has made shark fin meat and fishing much more ubiquitious in the past two decades in China.

Because of how lucrative the return for fishing shark can be, the species’ numbers have dropped considerably; erstwhile many unscrupulous fishermen have turned to the practice of “finning”: cutting off the fins of the shark, then throwing the incapacitated animals back in the water for them to die. “Finning” has been officially banned in China, however, as common sense would tell one, as long as the demand for shark fin meat persists, they will be fished.

So far, trying to dissuade the public from eating shark fin soup is almost like saying they can no longer eat moon cakes. Natural substitutes for shark fin include clear mung bean noodles, and spaghetti squash (which both sound much better to me as I try to rid the image of a shark without a fin from my head). Hopefully the face of Yao Ming toward this cause will put even more legislation in motion, not to mention influence popular tastes. My idea: just get the 7″5-inch basketball idol in front of a shark fisher, have him boom out something to the contrary, and it should be as good as the word of god.

8.13.06:
Another article featured in the Times, further examining how food and status is often linked for the Chinese.  The only thing I wish they might have explored a little are the various medicinal benefits believed to be associated with eating shark fin, just for curiosity…

I’m still counting down to officially not eating out in New York (or anywhere else, for that matter), pending on my creation of the real website for this blog. So in the meantime, I succumbed to having a dinner out, more or less to escape the heat we’ve had this weekend and eat in a climate that I actually feel hungry in. I went to Dumont with two friends, who both ordered the skirt steak. I wasn’t particularly craving a heavy meal and went with the skate dish. Wasn’t expecting quite so heavy a fish dish, nor as tasty. The thin sauce that circled the colorful, impressive pile on my plate was a classic herby, white wine reduction dotted with softened whole cloves of garlic and briny, purple nicoise olives. A few chunks of stewed tomato were infused with both these flavor-packers. The fish was crisped on both sides to a satisfying ochre, and the meat looked as if deeply scored because of how naturally defined the grain of the fish was. I realized then that I was eating something like a small shark.

On a similarly unnerving note, I learned that what defines a skate in the ray family is that it doesn’t have a stinger. This could be the reason why I’ve never heard of eating other types of rays. And like sharks, it excretes the chemical urea throughout its skin, and if skate is not handled properly after capture, the meat becomes contaminated. This can be detected if it smells of ammonia. It’s all good information to know, though I’m glad I did my research after eating the skate. And it’s also probably a good thing I chose this dish as one of the last meals I’ll eat in a restaurant for a while, because I don’t think I’ll be cooking a skate myself anytime soon.