Bits and bobs

1. I keep riffing off of Food52's grain salad recipe and the results are always amazing. I have been using exclusively quinoa but subbing in spinach for arugula sometimes, and adding roasted carrots or kabocha or whatever instead of the dried raisins and cranberries.

2. I am pushing myself to try new restaurants so I don't turn into a stodgy old coot. Mixed results: Masten Lake was a joke (a great story if I see you in person) and Acme was really not my thing (I was served a twee little dish on a bed of hay).But Bien Cuit is a terrific bakery, and Sottocasa wasn't terrible.

3. I made crepes the other day for brunch and that was such a good idea. I should do that more often.

4. Also--after declaring publicly that 2012 would be the Year of the Potluck--I finally had my first potluck. And while I gave myself a terrible knife wound just as it was starting (blood! fun!), it was great, and I promise to do more.

5. There is still no good coffee to be found in my work neighborhood. BUT! There is really good ramen at Terakawa ramen around the corner. The regular porky terakawa is great, as is this very interesting black garlic one. h/t @ninaeats

Bicep vs. Pinky, round 1

My latest on Huffington Post, in which I examine what power means when it comes to food.

I love my job

How awesome is this?

The story behind your food (or, what I’m reading lately)

Reading this article about bananas --and how they are stored green and hard in a big warehouse, then gassed to a soft yellow state, and then bought at a fruit cart, and then eaten by me on a peanut butter sandwich—is exactly the sort of food reporting I love. First of all, it’s damn interesting. You know on The Food Network how they have that candy show called “Unwrapped” and you get to see how Tootsie Rolls and Starburst are made? Even though it’s gross, it also scratches a very human itch to know the real story.

With candy, you know in advance that the story will involve wax and plastic and food dye and giant machines. What’s interesting about this here story is the complicated surprise of this simple fruit. This story is about bananas. Aren’t they just picked from a tree and put on a truck and then peeled and eaten? How much could they really need a whole article—or a whole “Unwrapped” episode to tell their story?

That’s why it’s my mission to help people find out the story behind their food. To help people develop critical skills and open eyes about where our food comes from and how it gets to us. Not to believe the simple story that is sold to us. To make informed choices. I still eat bananas (I try to get organic, I look for fair trade), even though I know they have a strange story, and that they have traveled millions of miles and hundreds of days before I eat them. But it’s so important to take the blinders from our eyes.

A few days after reading the banana article, I finally got around to the food issue of The New Yorker, and excitedly dove into the latest Calvin Trillin food piece (always a delicious treat). In his self-deprecating way, he talks about his limited cooking repertoire, how it consists of just a few items and in each case it seems to require little more than just buying or catching something really local and delicious and then just, like, cooking it or whatever. He mocks himself and in the process celebrates the great joke of it all: the simplicity of great, local ingredients and how they make the biggest of kitchen idiots into the most celebrated home cooks.

Neighborhood check-in

So it's been about 4 months in the new apartment, and I've paused to ask myself:

Why do you love this neighborhood SO DAMN MUCH. What have you been eating here? Where have you been hanging out?

To the first question: I love it because it is a neighborhood. When I wake up in the morning and look out the window there are people jogging, walking dogs, eating at the outdoor tables of the cafe across the street. There is a big tree outside the window and no UPS depot. When I move through the neighborhood, I bump into people I know and like. They are friends, and now neighbors. When I have the itch to go out spontaneously, there is someone nearby who is having the same itch. When there is a hurricane passing through, and everyone is bracing for the worst, there are neighbors--inside and outside my building--who want to hang out and drink and talk through it all.

To the second question: I have been eating at Hibino (so so delicious. the agedashi tofu is really special); Henry Public (so it's trendy, so they are precious and wear handlebar moustaches, so what; they are nice and they make great cocktails and a super burger and an awesome salad); Iris (we know how I feel about this place); Char No. 4 (bacon, bourbon); Mile End (brunch); Waterfall Cafe (Middle Eastern, cheap and cheerful); and my own dinner table sometimes, though less than I'd like.

To the third question: I have been hanging out at 61 Local (lurve), Floyd, and Building on Bond when Matt has a say in it.

It feels like a happy return.

I need coffee

In Barcelona I once got a perfect espresso from an airport cafeteria.

In Torino, any corner bar or cafe will make you a cappuccino to make your eyes roll back in your head.

In Cuba--Cuba! where food and drink are no luxury items--I was served a tremendous coffee in a tobacco farmer's kitchen. Plus we smoked hand rolled cigars, but that's a whole different story.

In NYC, city of gods (ahem), you can travel in a five block radius around your new office and be completely incapable of finding a decent espresso drink.

Blargh.

Inside my fridge

Ever wondered what's inside my fridge? No, I didn't think so.



Even still, you can sneak a peek and hear my deep thoughts on compost and processed foods. Check me out on Well and Good.