Cabbage: past, present, future

I am finding gift giving increasingly difficult. Between the recession and the fact that my family and I all have what we want, Chanukah felt challenging, until! One Sunday afternoon Steve mentioned a lost dish from his youth, his Grandmother's Hungarian comfort food--something with "egg noodles and cabbage."

A quick Google search revealed what mostly seemed to be called Haluska, a simple dish made awesome by copious amounts of butter. So, for Steve, for Chanukah (in addition to my annual potato latkes), a big bowl of Haluska.

Then, 2 weeks later, a fermentation workshop with the King of Fermentation, Sandor Katz. After an overview of the basics of fermentation, a lesson in basic sauerkraut, made from 2 kinds of cabbage, some carrots and some radishes.

Only problem is, cabbage now finally seems to be gone from the farmers market, goshdarnit, meaning the dead of winter is really totally finally here, and cabbage has to be shipped in from rosier climes. So, I am learning about sauerkraut now, so that next late fall I can preserve 09's cabbage Sandor-style.

Sandor Katz's Basic Sauerkraut

See his website and/or read his book, Wild Fermentation!

Haluska

1 bag egg noodles, cooked

1 large leek, white and light green parts only, well cleaned, halved lengthwise and sliced into half moons

3/4 head green cabbage, cored and diced

1 stick butter

several tbsp chicken broth

1 tbsp milk

salt

pepper

Melt the stick of butter over med heat

Saute leeks until soft

add 1/3 of the cabbage, and a pinch of salt, let it get soft

Add the next 1/3 and some more salt, let it cook down until soft

Add final 1/3 and a wee bit more salt and let it cook down

Then add the stock and the milk and let it cook a little longer, thickening and getting good

Then mix with the cooked noodles

Salt and pepper to taste but you really might not need any more salt

(you can make this with less butter and it will still taste good, but--is this too obvious to mention?--it's way better with all that butter).

More, with less

Happy New Year, ye few faithful readers. As a reward for your staying power, a few links and a recipe (for CJR, who has always asked for more recipes):

We are in a financial panic, underemployed and underfunded, finally ready to stop shopping and do more with less (or as my buddy Woody Tasch said in his New Year's poem over on powells.com "Let us imagine a consumer putting down the purse").

For me this means trying to make new food out of old leftovers, though I haven't quite perfected this--every dish I want to make with leftovers requires the purchase of slightly more food, and the cycle persists.

That being said, old bread is a marvel (oh and speaking of bread, do check out the travel blog of the newest employee at my office, who spent last year on a Watson fellowship studying bread around the world. For real.)

Savory Bread Pudding (a riff on 101cookbooks asparagus bread pudding)

You've got half a loaf of Grand Daisy filone petrifying on your countertop. And half a head of Savoy cabbage in your crisper, starting to sag. Enter, milk/eggs/cheese to the rescue.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Cut the bread into cubes (you might feel like Rodin, chiseling at stone)
Beat three cups milk and 3 eggs and a cup of chicken broth
Shred the cabbage and cut a few shallots into slivers
Toss the bread and cabbage and shallots into the egg mixture
Grease a casserole dish with butter
Pour the mixture in
Cover with a generous layer of shredded Gruyere
Bake for 45 minutes

Seems to me you can do this with just about anything, from kale to asparagus, to mushrooms to whathaveyou.

what i'd like to get fat on

My grandmother got fat on Stella D'oro cookies. Pictures reveal that in her youth she was svelte and curvy, with a thick mane of black curls and fire engine red lips. Stilettos, too.

By the time we met, in 1974, she was more grandmotherly, a tough shell with a warmth and devotion bubbling beneath. She was suffering quietly from a broken heart--the death of my grandfather 10 years earlier--listening to classical music on the radio and dunking Stella D'oros in Taster's Choice coffee.

I respect this--the choice to hunker down with sweets and pack it on; after all, at age 70 have we not earned it?  But I will not be getting fat on Stella D'oros.  At a staff meeting the other day, my bosses plied us with various croissants from my local fave Almondine bakery.  As I nibbled on a chocolate almond one, I thought: this is what I'd like to get fat on.

Heritage Bird

For a few years now, as part of my job, I have been preaching to others about eater-based conservation and the joys of keeping biodiversity alive by eating heirloom varieties, and heritage breeds. Conventional turkeys are not bred for flavor, don'tcha know; they're bred for big boobs and fast maturation, and ability to freeze well; and blah blah blah and yup sure, I hear ya.

Finally this year I myself cooked not just a free range bird but a heritage one--an American Bronze from Frank Reese's Good Shepherd Ranch in Kansas. Which for me is a bit like a football fan saying he ordered a football and it came from Brett Favre's backyard where Brett Favre himself stitched the pigskin together with his own two (giant) hands.

I proudly served the beautiful 9 pound bird at the Thanksgiving feast called by one enthusiastic guest "the most delicious, least emotionally complicated Thanksgiving I've ever had!" And I found that I was suddenly my own target audience; this bird was weird. There was no light fluffy, watery breast. It didn't taste like any turkey I have ever eaten before, and of course that was unnerving.

But by bite three I was won over by this flavorful, tenacious, lean meat, and finally understanding this idea of "real turkey flavor," that heritage bird proponents talk about. My initial dislike helped me understand how deeply ingrained our food preferences are--we like what we know, and what we know is a Butterball. If I am to be any kind of spokesperson at all for the importance of re-shaping our palates, I must begin with myself, no?

A few of my favorite things

First things first: for a piece about my stay on an olive farm in Italy, click here. Oh, and hi again, after all this time. It was a really busy fall that culminated in one big sustainable food conference in Italy, followed by one trip to a olive farm near Rome (see link to post above).

Now I realize we're all unemployed, and poor, and freaked out by the crazy economic, er, downturn, but I know I'll be writing a few small checks this year for my favorite organizations, and thought you might be looking for some suggestions. Sick of giving to the same ol' same ol' places? I am your gal; read on...

Youth Development through Agriculture:

• Added Value, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, employs neighborhood kids to grow organic food that is sold to community residents and local restaurants.
  
• The Food Project, in Boston MA, is the grand-daddy of all youth development through agriculture programs, teaching inner city and suburban kids how to farm, how to coo, how to sell stuff, how to speak in public, etc. and on and on.
  

Hunger:

• Food Bank of NYC: food banks are suffering, stocks are low. We eat lots, some have none.

Keeping good theatre alive in NYC:

• Brooklyn Academy of Music: They just rock.
• Target Margin Theater: My old friends, the prolific and smart and fun TMT.
• Miss Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant: Need I say more?

A Perfect Marriage

During the height of growing season, I like to make stuff myself.  It's easy to look like a superstar chef when you slice up a perfect tomato and sprinkle some sea salt on it.  However, I also like to take a break from that and let somebody else do a wickedly good job with summer's bounty.  I can't afford to go to Blue Hill more than once a year, so instead I hit up Franny's every chance I get.

Two nights ago EPW and I supped on this divine combo: Dandelion greens, nectarines and guanciale. This is so...Franny's.  

Salty, meet sweet.  

Sweet, meat bitter.  

This is how a good party works, right? There is someone there to introduce the disparate elements and help them figure out how they can go great together.  

Will Work for Food

So, there was this event you may have read about. For traditional highlights, you can read the Slow Food Nation blog; this page is for my personal highlights.

I mean, I did write about the American Raw Milk Cheese Workshop there (posted tomorrow I think), but there's other stuff.

Such as Jen's movie, "Pressure Cooker," which enjoyed a prime showing spot directly following preview clips of "Food, Inc." and a panel discussion with the heavy hitters: Le Pollan &  McSchlosser.  Jen's movie moved me, and I can't wait until it gets a distributor so you can see it too. Bring your tissues, I must forewarn you, and in the meantime you can read up on C-CAP, the program from which her subject was plucked. 

Or my two dinners at Zuni cafe, the old stalwart I had never actually been to.  Now, I have been there twice, because yo, that is a crazy good roast chicken and their Caesar salad reminded me what they're supposed to taste like.

Also, me likey meeting my heroes, like food security expert Mark Winne, new food writing superstar Raj Patel, and Northern California's amazing farmers, from whom I bought wheatberries, strawberries, peaches, jam, dried apricots, and pickles, etc. at the marketplace.

I am beat, but happy, and drained but full (the tamales and tlacoyos in the pic above were good stuff).

I am a restaurant critic

Check out my review of Hundred Acres in this week's Page Six magazine.

The fried green tomatoes, eggs and Berkshire bacon are seriously good.

The Ant and the Grasshopper

Each winter I wish I had been more ant than grasshopper the previous summer. The ladies I work with will tell tales of canned summer tomatoes, pickled July cucumbers, preserved lemons, and jammed fruit. I munch my onions, potatoes and carrots and nod approvingly.

Last summer I managed strawberry jam with Lesley (as reported here, circa June 2007) and am still happily spooning it onto p.b. and j's.

This summer I am doing corn--buying extra ears when I shop at the market, shaving off the kernels, freezing them on cookie sheets, and then scooping it into ziploc baggies with a spatula. Then, come February, I can pull it out and make corn chowder! With summer's best corn!

It's genius.

Keeping it Sweet

All day I write a blog for work that's full of politics, news, gloom, doom, etc. I'd like to vow to keep this one as a small, sweet spot of uncomplicated food goodness. My hope is that by writing that now, will make it so.

Speaking of sweet, I am sweet on sweetbreads. Now, the first time I finally tried them (at Tailor, a molecular gastronomic place on Broome) I thought I was eating brains, because despite my vast food knowledge, there's still--apparently--shit I don't know. They were breaded and fried and--as Stephanie on Top Chef declared last season--they tasted "like a really good chicken nugget."

Now, I am not a tripe eater, nor eyeballs, nor testicles, nor any of that crazy stuff. But after round 2 of sweetbreads, at Prune last Sunday night--I am a lover of the sweet goodness of sweetbreads. They are not brains; they are the thymus gland. I think.

They are tender, and in a subtle and wonderful sauce studded with capers. I actually fought my tablemates for the final bites, and I suggest you head over there and try 'em.

Beet this

Every week in my CSA, they're giving me beets. Big, small, red, yellow, white--they are delicious, and also beautiful, and I have been eating them the same way every day for a week.

Beet/Ricotta/Baguette
(In my head, this is tres francais. je ne sai pas si c'est vrai, mais....)

Scrub your beets, then wrap them tightly, one at a time, in foil
Roast them at 45o for an hour or more, depending on their size, until a knife slides in easily Once they've cooled, peel off them skins
Chop them into cubes (I believe the professionals call this a dice)
drizzle with olive oil, red wine vinegar pop 'em in the fridge

Next day, at lunch: Take a hunk of your favorite, freshest baguette
Rip it open into a sandwich
Smear fresh, amazing ricotta onto each half of the bread
Spoon beet mixture onto each side
sprinkle with sea salt or kosher salt grind some black pepper on top
you've got 2 open faced sandwiches

Spooey

Last weekend, in honor of the engagement of Joan and Andrew, I made a chocolate layer cake, one that I blogged about here, years ago (it's been years, people!).

There was an awful lot of frosting left over, as there often is, and as it sat in a bowl in my fridge I wondered what to do with it. My office mate suggested that I bring it in and that we dip pretzels in it. This she calls "spooey," and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it's gonna rock(et).

So today I brought in said bowl of frosting (cream, chocolate, sugar, butter and vanilla), and we have been dipping pretzels in it all day long. Say it together: spooey.

(another chocolate pretzel thing to go nuts over: Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby, FYI).

What's Real

I always knew there was a reason I didn't like Pringles potato chips and apparently it's because they're not even potato.  Last weekend everyone was reporting the news that a British court ruled Pringles "not potato," and therefore exempt from the tax on potato snacks (or, snax, heh).

It really raises the question: why eat imitation potato chips when you can eat really freaking good real potato chips?  

or

Why eat anything else BUT the dinner I made for myself last week? It's made from real stuff.

Orzo with Lemon, Mint and Peas

a large handful of shell peas from the farmers' market

one lemon

6 leaves of mint

fresh parmiagianno reggiano cheese

Vermont Butter & Cheese Co.'s Sea Salt butter, one knob

Shell the peas

Cook orzo according to instructions on box

for the last three minutes of the cooking, throw in raw peas and the mint

Strain, saving a tsp or so of cooking water

Put orzo, peas, mint mixture into a bowl, with the 1 tsp cooking water

Grate lemon zest into it, and the juice of half of the lemon

toss in the butter

sprinkle cheese on top

I swear, you will never eat snax again.

If I don't get my butt to a ball game this summer I will be very sad. Last summer I was all itching to go and it never happened so I really need to motivate this time around.

One thing that also makes me sad is the really awful food at ball parks. This hilarious (and potentially useful) interactive graphic from the NY Times is a peach, though.

Me and Meat

I am a city girl born and bred, with city needs and city habits. I have a strong memory of being six or so years old and wearing a puffy winter coat with a hood on a hot summer day in the backyard of our weekend house, so the bugs wouldn’t fly in my ears. There is a picture of me at camp riding a horse in jazz shoes. You get the picture.

My junior year of college, in the suburbs of Philadelphia (practically the country!) as part of my Religion studies, I took a course called “Religion and Ecology,” in which we read everything from the Jewish laws of kashruth to Heidegger’s “Technology;” from Buddhist texts about the distinction between sentient and non-sentient beings, to the eco-terrorist tract “The Monkey-Wrench Gang.” At the end of the course I vowed to spend time on a farm, to look a chicken in the eye as it died, to bear witness to the slaughter of a cow, something that would earn me the right to eat one of these creatures, one of these sentient beings-- a creature of this earth, like me.

When I graduated from college I moved back to NYC and hit the pavement running, my farm dreams something quaint and faraway (like my desire to have cats of my own someday). I became a vegetarian, thinking that if I could not come to terms with animal slaughter, if I could not find the time to go to the farm, between auditions and acting classes and the like, then I would refrain, altogether, from eating meat.

But what a terrible vegetarian I was, making exceptions for street food in Mexico, and sausage bites in Barcelona. Not to mention the annual NYC burger. This lasted for five years, on and off, until I gave up, gasping for meat like a drowning woman for water. And hadn’t my vegetarianism been the coward’s choice?, I asked myself. I had found a way out of my vow since it was, in a sense, a helluva lot easier than finding my way to a farm. I did not know any farmers. I barely ever saw a tree, let alone something edible growing out of the ground.

So imagine my sense of wonder, when four years after giving up on vegetarianism, and twelve years after graduating from college, I found myself on the farm, present for the slaughter of two sheep. I had traveled to Lopez Island, off the coast of Washington State, in order to visit the community of farmers who make up the Island Grown Farmers Cooperative. This collaborative is in possession of the first ever USDA certified mobile slaughter facility. The reasons for building a mobile unit on Lopez were very particular to their island status: farmers had to go off island to slaughter and then bring the meat back to the island. This wasn’t cost-effective, so most people just brought their meat to the mainland and then sold it there. The ironic result was that the island was having a food access issue; the meat was being raised there but not eaten there.

There is a need for mobile slaughter facilities all over this country because everything is being geared more and more towards the large-scale producers—this is both with grains and livestock of course—so that there are very few processing facilities for small farmers, making the market increasingly favorable to large industrial operations and less and less favorable to the little guy. All the little ones are gone, and in their wake? Large facilities that are geared for huge numbers of animals. Also, similarly to all the neighborhood Mom and Pop shops giving way to big box stores, this means you have to travel farther to get to them, sometimes prohibitively so.

In the wake of health scares and disturbing meat recalls, we are seeing an increasing demand for sustainably raised, grass fed meat, but if there isn’t an infrastructure to support these small farmers—i.e. if there aren’t processing facilities for them to use—then how will the demand ever be met? How will people, on a large scale, ever have a viable alternative to industrially-produced meat? In order to get product to the people, you have to have infrastructure to scale, and the mobile unit does just that.

Before I headed out to Lopez, I spoke to Holly Freishtat, who was hired early on to do a needs assessment of the island. I asked her what she learned as a result of this assessment and she said that “the issues this island community is facing, of farmers not having access to local infrastructure, and consumers not having access to the local foods they demand, is no different from what rural and urban communities are facing around the country. I thought they were unique because they were surrounded by water and now I have realized that it is a result of a centralized global food system. We have to build the capacity and infrastructure for our farmers and consumers to have local foods.”

Back to the farm: most people I know don’t want to hear exactly what I saw that morning, so I’ll keep it simple. I approached the farm (not the first farm I’ve been on in the past two years at my job, by the way, not by a long shot) with the jitters, and in the first moments I had to suppress tears. But those tears, those were the tears of a city girl who is so soft-hearted she cannot even train her cats to stay off the kitchen counter. Those were not the tears of a woman who tore into a burger the night before; I would not let them be.

Watching the farmer next to me, I was humbled by the fluid grace with which she understands the cycle of life. She raised these sheep, with tenderness, and she watched them die with tenderness. The parts of the animal that are cut away (the head, the hooves, the skin, the innards) are composted on the farm, eventually enriching the very soil that grows next year’s crop of vegetables. To see this is to learn more in 30 minutes than I could have hoped to learn in my semester-long “Religion and Ecology” class.

To see the IGFC mobile slaughter facility in action is to understand, in the deepest sense, what a successful venture this has been–for business, yes, in the ways that I described above–but even more, for the health and well being of the animals. The animals live quietly and well in the fields, then enter the barn they’ve known all their lives. They are processed humanely and the work is slow, careful, and meticulously clean. I watched it from inches away, and though it was challenging, especially at first, I watched it eyes open.

I left the island utterly convinced of mobile facilities as the next wave–to step in where small/mid-size infrastructure has crumbled away. It works for the farmers, and it works for the residents of the islands, who are able to eat meat that their neighbors have raised. It’s an amazing sensation to drive around the island and see the animals, and then to know–not just because someone told you, but because you’ve seen it with your own eyes–exactly where your food has come from.

i'm back (or: father's day 2008)

Father's Day and summer solstice often line up, if not always exactly. Summer solstice means longer days, a summer break from my second job, more fresh food available, and therefore...drumroll please....me, back at my blog, up to my old tricks.

where i've been

It's been a while. And not because I haven't had food adventures or things i've wanted to record and share. I ate my way through Puebla (ohhhh Mexico, I just don't know how to quit you). I explored the porky wilds of Brooklyn. I ate bison in Montana. I made chicken pot pie for 120 people--I mean, there was fodder, there was definitely fodder.

But what a busy fall it was, and in the meantime I started blogging for Slow Food USA.

I may come back, when things simmer down, but in the meantime, check out my less personal but still food and farm related posts at www.slowfoodblog.org

Happy New Year--here's to a delicious and sustainable 2008.

variety is the spice of life

Here in NYC, I can eat pasta on Monday, Sushi on Tuesday, Thai food on Wednesday....but nothing is better than eating those foods in their original habitats. For me, a large part of travel is to learn the place with my taste buds.

But then sometimes a funny thing happens: sometimes I go to a place and the monotony of the food starts to get to me. And then I feel silly! After 10 days in Greece, I was craving something besides feta cheese. Last weekend, after four days of New Mexican food, in Santa Fe, I was tired of chiles and tortillas (a thing I never thought I'd say!).

New Mexican food is not quite Mexican and not quite Tex Mex, it's somewhere in between. There is a lot of ground beef--something you'd never see in Mexico--and of course, a lot of the native green chile.



Walking through the wonderful Santa Fe farmers' market, one is hit by the complex, spicy and smoky smell of the roasting of green chiles in large spinning drums, being turned by famers' hands. The roasted chiles are then chopped and sold in ziploc baggies, and the smell is intoxicating. The market has a warm, lively vibe that probably can only be created by a community of people eating that level of spice day and day out (at the dinner the night after the wedding I attended, I watched a small boy ask of his mother, before every bite of chips and salsa, "spicy?").

We ate a lot and we ate pretty well, the highlights being huevos divorciados at The Plaza Cafe, and an excellent breakfast burrito with chorizo and tomatillo salsa at Pasqual's.



But in the end, I was happy to come home to variety, the thing I know.

i left my heart in south kakalakee

This post is long overdue, but chronicles the weekend I spent observing what's so great that it could draw my two friends away from NYC, possibly for good. It turns out that life in Columbia, South Carolina is full of lovely surprises, and it's hard to begrudge anyone's decision to leave the grit and grim and trade it for smiles and sunshine--I mean, if you're INTO that kind of thing.

Some food and farm (and other) notes from my travel:

1. Free refills of seet tea. it turns out they aren't kidding around with the "sweet" part (yowza!), but isn't that kind and generous? Eternal free refills offered with a big ol' grin?

2. Coca cola with ice, sitting by/in the pool. The pool right outside your apartment. Your big apartment, the one with a guestroom and room for your surfboard. The one with parking spaces out front for both of your cars. In South Carolina, no diet Coke, only regular coke will do.

3. Lizard's Thicket. A local breakfast chain that you cannot visit for brunch at 1 pm, because they stopped serving breakfast ages ago. And all the well-dressed church ladies, eating a late lunch will look at you sweetly, shaking their grey heads. But a bright and early brekkie of sausage, cheese grits, giant biscuit and eggs is a really marvelous thing. Cheap, too, i bet, but I have friends who are too generous to let me know what a "bill" in South Carolina looks like.

4. Chicken Salad. Apparently cafes around here are competing for the best chicken salad. Embrace the mayonnaise--you're in South Carolina now--and you might not regret it, 'cause this stuff is pretty tasty.

5.The farm. My hostess had the brilliant idea that Labor Day could best be spent visiting her new CSA farm outside the city. We drove to Five Leaves Farm, a very small and lovely operation run by a husband and wife named Kristen and Ben Dubard. Ben took time out of his day to give us the tour, ripping japanese cucumbers off the vine and breaking into crisp green chunks for us to eat, nipping basil leaves for us to smell, and grabbing one of the last of summer's melons for us to take with us. it's amazing to see how much food can be produced from a small plot of land, and it was cool to see the very soil that Cerry and Ethan's fall food will come from.

Come fall, they'll be all settled in, and here in NYC it will become gray and cold, and there, in South Kakalakee it will be bright and sunny. It might just be heaven on earth...

do any of us even know where we are?

My friend directed me to a bar I hadn't heard of, on Leroy and 7th ave, friend said. Leroy, yeah, I thought to myself, I think I know where that is. After all, I have lived in NYC since the first minute of my life. I know every inch of it like the back of my hand. Leroy, right.

I took the train from work to West 4th, planning to head downtown on foot. A flash of doubt: maybe Leroy is over there with Horatio and Jane, having a wacky name party up there in funkytown. I'll head uptown. Or not? I'll stop and ask someone.

"Hi, which way is Leroy?" I ask a young man smoking a cigarette.

"Who?"

I cross the street and hit the ATM. Inside, a cute, likely gay for crying out loud, guy.

"Hi, is Leroy uptown or downtown?"

"To be honest...I'm not sure."

I leave the bank, tentatively head downtown. I see a couple standing and waiting for the light.

"Hi, I'm looking for Leroy--is it uptown or downtown?" They look up and down, then down then up.

"Uhhhh...."

What the fuck? Why do none of these people know where the heck they are??? Why don't I??? My last hope, a middle aged guy and his daughter. They look like they live here, right here in ye old West Village. They are not tourists, not NYU students fresh off the bus.

"Hi, I'm looking for Leroy. Is it up, or down?" The father points downtown, and I walk about 4 or 5 blocks, just enough to find myself about THREE BLOCKS FROM MY NEW APARTMENT. A humbling moment for the native New Yorker, mitigated only by the discovery of a new, wonderful little bar, Little Branch, hidden behind a small, unassuming door at the corner of Leroy and 7th Avenue South.

je ne sais quoi

It's hard not to sound snobbish when you talk about "terroir." First of all, it's French-y sounding, and second of all, a lot of people don't know what it means. "Terroir" is a bit like "je ne sais quoi:"

I love this cheese, it has a certain je ne sais quoi.

Get a load of this honey, what is that I am tasting? A little...je ne sais quoi?

That sort of thing. Only, in truth, terroir is a way of discovering what exactly that "I don't know what" is. Terroir is the geography of a food, its location and environment that gets expressed through its taste. The je ne sais quoi in that cheese, is in fact the diet of the goat/sheep/cow that produced the milk for it. The je ne sais quoi in that honey are the flowers that the bees pollinated before going back to the hive. How cool is that?

Last Monday I attended a honey tasting at Jimmy's, an adorable basement bar on 7th street, that was hosted by Cecily and Amy. I had the pleasure of tasting an assortment of local honeys--the most interesting to me was to taste three batches of Roger Repohl's honey, harvested in a community garden in the South Bronx. Now you might think that the je ne sais quoi in South Bronx honey would be guns and grime, but noooooo, it's elder flowers and linden and all kinds of things, depending on what month it is. I tasted a honey from October 2006, from July 2007 and August 2007 and they were three distinctly different colors and three distinctly different tastes. Same bees, same location, diferent flowers. Terroir!

hello again, after all this time

There were so many things I meant to write about this summer.

Like the weekend that L and I went strawberry picking and then made jam, jam, jam up to our eyeballs. I was going to warn you, my reader(s?), that if you don't cook it long enough it will be strawberry sauce, not jam, and though it will still taste fabulous, and although it won't negate that you had a wonderful time picking out there in the field with your friend, it won't really be "jam," per se.

Or my trip to Greece with A, and our favorite dishes there. Highlights that included zucchini fritters, marvelous yogurt, tremendously rich and creamy feta, and more karpouzie than I could possibly eat. If still giving warnings, I would warn that those nescafe frappes can be surprisingly strong.

Instead, I write finally tonight to share the dish I created this evening with the ingredients I have here in my new refrigerator in my new house. Let's call it "heirloom tomato surprise." It is unbelievably, amazingly, summery good. This is the kind of cooking I love because:

a) it involves making do with whatever's on hand

b) it isn't something I can eat a month from now or 6 months from now. I'll next be able to have it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and then not again for about 11 months.

Heirloom Tomato Surprise

Orecchiete pasta
fresh ricotta cheese
toasted pine nuts
various heirloom tomatoes, cut into small chunks
baby basil, chopped
salt
pepper

Cook pasta
toss with large dollop of cheese, salt and pepper
throw on tomatoes and basil
shake toasted pine nuts on top
(good with a spoon)

god bless america

Some of you may have spent your July 4th swimming or surfing, biking or hiking. Me, I spent mine doing the most American thing I could think of, by which I mean the most passive, sedentary, voyeuristic thing I have ever done: I watched a guy competitively eat 28.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes. I mean, it’s not even like I did the eating myself.

On second thought, let’s not call it eating, let us call it something else. To me, eating is an act of pleasure, and an act of nourishment, and competitively scarfing down 28.5 hotdogs and buns in the presence of thousands of fans, and a few vegetarian protesters is not really pleasureful, nor is it nourishing. Hell, I am pretty sure these guys are throwing up a little, if not a lot, as soon as it’s over. Well, if they’re Kobayashi, five time world champion, then they threw up (“reversed”) during the contest itself—bummer! That’s two fewer dogs for you, my Japanese friend.

Yes, it’s true, on July 4th, 2007, through the good connections of my friend Julie, I was a judge for the Nathan’s hotdog eating contest on Coney Island. As I counted (and grimaced, and giggled, and groaned), it was Slow Food meets fast food, head to head at a vinyl covered table. I was nose level with five plates of freshly cooked franks, and at first, they smelled realllly good. After all, I hadn’t had lunch yet when the contest began, only half of a crushed-peanut-covered caramel apple.

When my contestant Hall Hunt ran out, I was charmed and surprised to see how young and cute he was. He had an ironic handle bar mustache, and a pair of aviators, and his slouchy shorts revealed a taut, muscle-y stomach. When he put his hands together for a pre-contest prayer, I noticed the two canvas bracelets he wore, one that read “Jesus,” the other, “WWJD?” Now, I am not particularly intimate with the thoughts and actions of Jesus, except in the most academic sense, but I feel fairly confident that Jesus would not inhale 28.5 hotdogs (and buns) in 12 minutes. He would turn the hotdogs into wine, or use them to build a beefy stairway to heaven, or something much more useful, and much less wasteful. Perhaps, in a very Christ-like move, he’d distribute them to the poor.

Which is exactly what Nathan’s did: a rep from City Harvest—after the “Save Coney Island” folk singer, but before the Clogtastic! Tap dancers—told us that Nathan’s had thoughtfully donated 15,000 hot dogs to shelters around the city. Let’s just hope that they were distributed evenly, one or two to a person, say, rather than 28.5 per homeless fella.

My partner judge was Ken, lovely, sweet Ken, who happens to be the sports commissioner for NYC. We made a mighty team, me counting dogs, and him flipping the pages on our counter so the official counting girl could record it. He even valiantly shielded me when Hall burped and spewed moist bun splatter. My job was no easy one, and the concentration it required kept me from watching the true spectacle further down the table—Kobayashi and Chestnut having an intense head to head.

But that’s the stuff you see on the teevee; what you don’t see is Hall Hunt cramming his once-cute mouth full of food, and doing a weird wriggly dance to help it slide down his throat. And you don’t see Julie’s contestant chugging Kool Aid with his dogs and then getting a mean case of the hiccups (he nearly reversed his pinkish red mush all over poor Julie, had to stop after 21 dogs, but still walked away with Rookie of the Year). Nor do you see the 63 year-old contender head back to the VIP section and eat an additional three dogs because he “wasn’t hungry per se, but he wasn’t FULL.” What you don’t see is how I simply could not look Hall Hunt in the face, because I was so repulsed by him, I feared I might have a reversal. Maybe the camera did show you the tiny Sonya Thomas, referred to as “The Black Widow?” She was a few people down the table from me, and while she may have looked pretty and dainty before the show, after the throw-down, her careful makeup was shmeared and she had the bleary-eyed, greenish look that all the contestants shared.

Is this our American food heritage? We created a nitrate-filled mystery meat capsule, with a refined flour and sugar bun, and we may not be able to win a Men’s semifinal at Wimbledon, but dammit! Americans are really, really good at stuffing this nasty food in our traps! And what did I do when the contest was over? I headed back to the VIP section with the 63 year old, and the burper, with the woman who was inside the giant frankfurter suit last year (too pregnant this year), and with Julie, and what did I do? I ate a Nathan’s hotdog of course (with fries).

God Bless America!

sustainable, fish?

For many years, eating fish has seemed like a no brainer: it's "healthy" and abundant. It turns out that factory raised fish is unhealthy (ever seen photos? they are as ghoulish as the photos of factory farm chickens and beef), and that many wild fish are being overharvested. It's hard to know which fish are sustainable and which are not. A few quick fixes for lack of knowledge/understanding include:

1. Go to the Monterey Aquarium's Seafood Watch site. I myself picked up a nifty wallet-sized guide to carry around with me as I shop and eat out.
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp

2. Check out Slow Food USA's most recent issue of the Snail, all about this topic. www.slowfoodusa.org

3. Read the book "The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and What we Eat," by Charles Clover.

4. Read this recent NY Time Editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/opinion/27weds4.html and think twice about how and how much sushi you are eating. Fashionable, yes. Sustainable, no.

red hook ballfields follow-up

In response to my panicked message to the city about opening up the food contracts at the ballfields to bidding, I received the following (a somewhat reassuring response):

Dear Constituent:

Thank you for your email regarding the food vendors at Red Hook Park in Brooklyn.

The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation has been issuing "Temporary Use Authorizations" to two separate groups to operate a food market at the ballfields in Red Hook Park. We began the process a few years ago in an effort to legalize the vendors at Red Hook, helping them become a permanent fixture in the neighborhood, and the park users have benefited from their presence. They enhance and diversify the Red Hook neighborhood, and particularly our ballfields, by serving great food at reasonable prices. Unfortunately, once it became clear that the Red Hook markets would regularly be open for more than 29 days a year, we could no longer legally renew their temporary permits without opening up the concession to the public solicitation process.

I would, however, like to correct a common misperception that we are offering the site to the "highest bidder." In order to comply with the concession regulations in the New York City Charter, we will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP). This will allow Parks to evaluate proposals based on qualitative criteria such as operating experience and planned operations. We plan on releasing a RFP shortly for the operation of vending markets at the various ballfields at Red Hook Park; the term of the license will be six years. This process will give the selected vendors the permanence and regularity that they deserve.

We have received positive feedback regarding the Red Hook vending markets and we look forward to the active participation of the existing vending groups at Red Hook in the proposal process.

I appreciate your taking the time to write.

Sincerely,

Adrian Benepe
Commissioner

recipe

It's been a long while since I've posted a recipe--a sure sign that it's been a long while since I've cooked a meal. This past weekend I finally got around to entertaining and made use of several recipes torn out from magazines, and recipes stored in the nooks of my brain. From start to finish the meal was full of brand new things, including this cous cous salad which I made up based on a delicious version I had in North Carolina:

Lemony Green Cous Cous

1 cup cous cous
1 1/4 cups water
3 lemons
olive oil
salt
pepper
whatever greens you have handy (I had green garlic, spinach and arugula)

Finely chop green garlic and cut arugula and spinach into ribbons (we call this "chiffonade")
Put cous cous in a bowl
Boil water and pur it over cous cous
Cover the cous cous and let sit for five minutes
Remove cover and fluff with fork
Add a few glugs olve oil, the juice of all your lemons, salt and pepper to taste
Toss in all chopped greens

So easy, and so good!

chapel hill, duma!

The best way, to learn a language, they say, is to immerse yourself in it. I spent the past few weeks learning Italian by traveling with a few, and sitting at dinners, and riding in cars, when the only words being tossed about were in a language other than my own. And it really works! I experienced the local, beautiful, delicious food of the Research Triangle (North Carolina) with una banda dei Italiani, and it was bene, molto bene.

In Chapel Hill, there is una piccolo piazza where all the food is terrific, "the corner of yum and delish," I like to call it. For breakfast, you hit 3 cups, local coffee haven, where coffee is shade grown, locally roasted and seriously good. For lunch, you can head next door to Sandwhich, where a sign prooudly announces that SLOW FOOD = GOOD FOOD. As you are sitting there eating your pancetta, mozarella and arugula sandwich, you can see one of the owners of the local Chapel Hill Creamery arrive with the day's delivery of fresh handmade cheese. Sit outside and enjoy the ridiculously good weather, then head around the plaza to Locopops, where they make a multitude of popsicles using local ingredients, with such flavors as Mexican Chocolate and Honeydew Balsamic Mint.

By now you'll be ready for dinner, and you'll head into Lantern Restaurant. Really, you are not allowed to eat dinner anywhere else, go to Lantern, go directly to Lantern (Do not pass go, do not collect $200). Chef/owner Andrea Reusing is creating completely local, seasonal, Asian infused American food. Every single thing on the menu is a homerun. I recommend everything, and since it's seasonal, the things I had won't be there when you go, but whatever is there will wow you. Start with a Junebug (it's a cocktail), and if you can, do like we did and share all of your appetizers. Don't be shy about taking the last boccone (bite) of the pig's head terrine shmeared on hot pane (bread) served wrapped in a banana leaf. And don't be scared of the sea urchin sauce on the scallops sashimi--I promise it's wonderful (taste the crack of sea salt as you bite in).

If anyone, Italian or otherwise, invites me back to this neck of the woods (I didn't even mention the pickled pig's ear salad I had at the BBQ, or the emu in balsamic and fregole (strawberry) sauce I had in Raleigh), I will say without hesitation: Si! Andiamo! Or as the Piedmontese say, Duma!

le pigeon

Going to a new city is a chance for reinvention. In NYC I often think it would be nice to go to a restaurant and sit at the bar by myself. To treat myself to a nice meal and a nice wine, and maybe eat in silence, and maybe become BFFs with the bartender, and maybe make a new friend. The reality is that if I am not out with friends, I try to eat at home--it's the thrifty thing to do, and it insures that I cook at least now and again.

With a few hours to kill in Portland, OR, I had the opportunity to be the eater I always mean to be but never get to be. I did some reconnaissance and scoped out a hot new culinary mecca called Le Pigeon. I sat at the bar, and watched the two chefs work their magic. Barely breaking a sweat as they danced around the hot grill, they flipped and salted and toasted and sprinkled with panache.

It was a terrific meal--innovative and delicious, both simple and new. I started with a raddichio salad dressed with a mustardy vinaigrette, follwed by a delicate and pink rabbit on a bed of wild mushrooms, and polished it all off with--get this--honey apricot BACON cornbread with maple ice cream and BACON. Dessert + BACON = : )

And I drank my Riesling and I had good conversation with the patron next to me (another local chef, a hoster of supper clubs, and a maker of his own salami), and I was fabulous. And then the cab took me straight to the airport and I arrived back in NYC rumpled and stiff-necked, and back to my old tricks.

eggstravaganza

Ever the symbol of spring, regeneration and new possibility, the egg is also delicious and versatile. You may not know, unless you attended the eggstravaganza at my office last week, that more than about 5 eggs in one sitting isn't a great idea. In an effort to showcase the turkey eggs my colleague got her hands on, we designed a potluck lunch centered on the theme of eggs. We had frittata, caprese with hard boiled eggs, deviled turkey eggs, egg salad tea sandwiches, bread pudding, meringues, key lime pie, homemade cinnamon ice cream, and flan made with turkey eggs. This induced a coma-like state in nearly everyone present; the office was very quiet that afternoon, and none of us have touched eggs since.

The egg salad sandwiches were mine, and they were made special (and tasty) by the addition of fresh lovage from the farmer's market. Lovage is an herb that smells a bit like celery, looks a bit like flat leaf parsley and tastes not quite like anything else I know.

Egg Salad Sandwiches

Hard boil 10 fresh chicken eggs
Peel off shells and chop eggs in coarse chunks
Spoon in several tablespoons of mayo, to desired consistency
Stir in minced red onion
Stir in one tbsp of coarse grain dijon mustard
Stir in chopped lovage, about a handful
Salt and pepper to taste

Use a whole grain pumpernickel type bread (something dark and nutty)
Watercress is a nice addition
Cut into rectangle or small square shapes
Eat with your pinky out, all fancy-like

roundup

There have been some new finds of late, and although one or two were in Chicago (props to Chef John Bubala at Timo!) there are some in NYC as well.

1. Takashimaya: When C suggested we go there for tea, followed by a visit to MOMA, I was suprised and delighted. Usually our weekend plans involve an EV or LES brunch and some good old fashioned retail. Nestled in the windowless basement corner of this jewel-box Japanese department store, Takshimaya's cafe has many charms. The first is that it brings you to this beautiful store. Not that I or anyone I know could afford a sock in this place, but it is one of those places that just knowing it exists and taking it in, makes your world a more beautiful place. I imagine I'll be 60 and dreaming: "when I grow up and become a millionaire...I'll buy this frock...." Anyway, it is quiet and serene down there and the bento box is terrific and I am happy to report that it goes well with champagne. The meal was so good, it comforted me through the sad surprise of hearing that my dear friend C is moving away from NYC.

2. Grand Central Oyster Bar: Do you have a friend who lives in Westchester? Do you struggle to find a place to eat together when she comes in to Grand Central Station? Does the thought of eating oysters in said station give you the giggles? or, the heebyjeebies? Well, get over it, because it turns out that this strange place, caught in time, is a really good place to get--yup, you guessed it, oysters. Crazy, right? Make sure to use the bathroom, because it affords you the opportunity to pass by the old school countertops and then through the saloon. Wacky.

3. Palo Santo: It's all well and good to drag my old friends on my food quests; they are mostly a game bunch, humoring me, and eating well along the way. But it is also fun to make new friends, people whose priorities line up more clearly with my own (1. food 2. wine 3. everything else). One of these friends brought me to Park Slope new-ishcomer Palo Santo, on a strange stretch of Union Street, just east of Fourth Ave. It's Latin-Mediterranean fusion, nestled in the ground floor of a refurbished brownstone. Counter-seating with a view of the kitchen is fun, but so is the back room with three communal tables and windows looking out on what appears to be a Zen garden. Go for appetizers and wine--the food changes almost daily but there are, according to my friend, a few repeat appearances. I loved everything, especially the pork belly with fennel grapefruit salad and the octopus with cilantro and jalapeno. Damn!

slow food mexico

It turns out, I really like spas. This might seem obvious--trite almost, like announcing one's love for chocolate, or...freedom, let's say. But it really suprised me how well I took to a life of leisure. It was leisurely, yes, in the way of lying by the pool, of lying in a hammock, of reading The New Yorker while in a hottub, yes. But also it was leisurely in a Trivial Pursuit kind of way; you know, the orange pie slice that stands for "Sports and Leisure."

I hiked. I yoga'd. I tennis'd. I pilates'd. I foam rollered. I worked my abs and back.

OK, but we are here to talk about food. I am fond of lists and so I will list for you the many miracles of food (and of slowness) that exist at Rancho La Puerta.

1. Chef Jesus Gonzalez: Slow Food devotee, miracle worker. A handsome, sweet and talented chef who turns fresh Mexican produce into healthy, low-fat, delicious gold. He even did a demo and J and I learned how to make a kickin' soba dish, and lowfat guacamole (there's a secret ingredient and if you ask, I will tell).

2. Organic garden: Rancho La Puerta has its own organic garden and it is a marvel. I don't know how they keep the bugs away but they do. The produce is lush and abundant. After a hike there, and a beautiful breakfast, the head gardener took us out into the fields, and as both a farm cat AND a farm dog rolled at our feet, the gardener grabbed stuff right from the earth, cut off hunks with his pocket knife and passed them around to the group. I can still taste that fennel...

3. You can make Mexican hot chocolate with butternut squash puree. Isn't that weird?

4. It turns out, that if someone cuts it up for me every morning and puts it out in a bowl, I can eat untold quantities of fresh papaya. I didn't even know I liked papaya before this trip.

5. Los Amigos: If you ever find yourself in Tecate, Mexico, and I hope you do, ask someone to take you to Los Amigos, the taco stand across from the McDonalds. The tacos con carne are excellent (especially after 6 days of spa diet) and the quesadillas are outstanding. We chickened out of the horchata (ice cubes...local water...) but I will attest that these treats taste great washed down with a Coca-light.

In conclusion, I urge you to save your pennies and get your hide to Rancho La Puerta. They open a cooking school this July and I think that will only make the place that much better. And should you find you need a friend to go with you, or someone to climb into your suitcase and make sure the airport workers don't steal your stuff, I would happily take that on.

the farm bill

Greetings, friends after a too-long hiatus. I am guessing for most of you, this meant you were holing up with a box of Lucky Charms, beacon-less in the world of food.

Well here I am, with a bit of edjamacation. I am here to tell you about The Farm Bill. Some of us like to call it the Food and Farm Bill, because this helps non-farmers realize that the issues covered in the bill pertain to them as well. The Farm Bill is a multi-year bill that gets reauthorized every four years--and that year is now. It covers everything from commodity crop subsidies to land conservation to food stamps. For those of you who have read Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" and are freaked out by the overwhelming dominance of corn in our food supply, then you might be interested in this here bill.

I recommend to you www.farmandfoodproject.org, which is a website representing the point of view of a coalition of groups seeking to press for policy change in this version of the bill. In their words: "This broad and growing alliance believes that by working together, it can make real progress toward supporting family farms and local communities, improving health and nutrition, ending hunger, and increasing biodiversity and improving the quality of our soil, water and air."

You can sign on to their statement "Seeking Balance," and then maybe even contact your local reps and let them know that you have signed on. You may think that if you live somewhere urban your reps won't care, but in fact they need to know that urban folks care just as much as rural folks about these issues.

OK, off the soap box now.

the single life

More and more I am coming to realize the best gifts are experiences--giving your loved one(s) an experience they couldn't have on their own. Sometimes that means taking someone to an out of the way restaurant, sometimes to your house in the country--providing them with respite from urban life. Sometimes it's taking your friend, a mother of two, out to dinner in the West Village, sans kids, but avec martinis.

Last Sunday, Laurie and I tried to eat at the Little Owl, but were boxed out by an eternal wait. We ended up instead at Blue Ribbon Bakery, where we accommodated her food allergies (though she missed out on their bread basket--a highlight of a meal there), and ate like kings. Marinated artichoke hearts, bone marrow, endive salad and duck confit. Everything was delicious, as it always is, and service was pleasant and generous. If I lived around the corner, I'd eat there a whole lot more.

And now, Laurie owes me an experience. She's got six months to cook something up. Tag, Laur, you're it.

roundup

I haven't done one of these in a while. These are my favorites from the past week.

1. lemony lemon: after a hot Mos Def concert at BAM, two girls were parched, so two girls went to Franny's and had homemade meyer lemonade. It was perfectly tart, and a little bit sparkly. And they wished they hadn't eaten earlier because the menu looked so damn good.

2. chat: Ever since this girl had samosa chat for the first time, as done by Mina, she was smitten. It turns out that the Indian Bread Co. on Bleeker, an unassuming and not otherwise outstanding grub shop, make a terrific aloo chickpea chat. It's that tamarind sauce, I think, that makes my tongue go wild.

3. chupe doop: Two girls go shopping. They follow it up with impromptu dinner at the service side of East 7th street's Caracas. In addition to the usual terrific arepas, they have the special soup, "chupe" something or other. It is a slightly creamy, chicken, corn, avocado soup. DIVINE.

meat lovers

Loving a person can be hard; loving a meatball is the easiest thing in the world. Sounds like some good new hallmark card text, no? Anyway, I have found love elusive at times, but love of meat is something I have never struggled with, even when I was a vegetarian.

On Tuesday, over at the Slow Food USA offices, we celebrated "meat lovers (and chocolate lovers) potluck," in honor of St. Valentine's Day. We had lamb kofte balls wiht meyer lemon juice, rice salad with bacon, turkey meatloaf, boeufs en bandeaux (a variation of pigs in blankets--beef hotdogs from letsbefrank.com, wrapped in homemade biscuit dough), chili, and meatball sliders.

Oh, and also beet and goat cheese salad with caramelized cocoa pecans and chocolate chunk brownies. THIS IS MY OFFICE, PEOPLE. Is your office like this? Finally, the lone man in our midst brought a platter of bagels and two jars of nutella, and the lunch devolved into people taking hunks of bagel and smearing with the chocolate hazelnut spread, and then...smearing nutella on chocolate chunk brownie. Erika declared it "unctuous."

The meatball sliders were mine, and I was proud. They came from the recipe in New York Magazine two weeks ago, from the new-ish restaurant. "The Little Owl," and are trad'l Italian meatballs, made with veal, pork and beef. I had never made meatballs before so this was a good way to break myself in and learn the basics.

The basics are:
Mix the ground meat (equal parts three diff kinds) with a few eggs, some panko or regular bread crumbs, chopped parsley and salt and pepper.
Form the meat into little golfballs
Fry them in a half inch of vegetable oil until they are browned on all sides.
Drain them on a plate, do them in batches
They will fall apart a little; my officemates assured me this is normal
Use the fat and meat drippings as the base for a sauce
Sautee Spanish onions and garlic in the meaty oil
Add whole peeled tomatoes, fresh basil and some water to create a sauce which you boil and reduce for about 30 minutes
Add the meatballs back in and simmer for another 30 minutes

They are extremely delicious and very easy to love, eaten on a mini brioche roll smeared with dijon mustard.

spring awakening

there was a time when it was theatre, not food, that made my pulse race. it was the houselights going down and the curtain raising that gave me shivers and made me weep, feeling pleasure and warmth, and the sense that all things are worthwhile and possible.

over time theatre has left me less and less sated, a meal that always sounds better on the menu than it does in execution--both onstage and off. today it was a complete repast for me at a sunday matinee of "spring awakening." i felt 12 again, mouth agape at what can only be called (no avoiding the cheese) the magic up under the lights in front of me. raw and electrifying, surprising and exciting.

lobster five ways

The perks of the job started rolling in last week; I was able to snag an invite to a dinner at the James Beard House, hosted by wisconsin chef/proprietress and slow food supporter Tami Lax. She and Justin Carlisle, the chef from her Madison restaurant, Harvest, prepared lobster 5 ways, with a wine pairing.

The Beard House is an awkward space, ill-suited, it seemed to me, to host the sort of dinners they are trying to host. That being said, it was one of the top 5 meals of my life.

amuse: lobster financier, uni, micro shiso
paired with: tempier bandol rose, france 2005
[very interesting lobster flavored pastry like base with uni cream/foam]

first course: sashimi of spinny lobster, vanilla, wasabi, fine herb salad
paired with: moon rabbit sparkling sake
[astonishing! raw lobster--a first for me. smooth and strange, like tasting sushi again for the first time.]

second course: lobster and salsify tapioca
paired with:zind-humbrecht pinot d'alsace 2004
[absolute favorite, surprised me since i didn't think i liked tapioca balls. a chowder of sorts, rich and toothsome. the wine was musky and wonderful, a perfect complement.]

third course: roasted lobster tail, truffle spaetzle
paired with: fevre chablis champs royaux, france 2005
[straightforwardly delicious. huge truffle slices]

fourth course: lobster and pleasant ridget reserve fondue
paired with: belrondade lurton rueda blanco, spain 2002
[rich and cheesy, with a hunk of lobster of a skewer]

hard not to be drunk as a skunk after 5 glasses of wine. not too drunk to realize lobster is good all ways and any, but especially good as prepared by these talented folks from Madison.

avant garde

Those of you who know me have probably wondered when I'd get around to fusing my two passions. When would I write a play about pea soup or cook a meal in three comedic acts? Perhaps you wondered these things with a bit of dread. Connie, and her illustrious band of pranksters have provided that venue-- a delectable evening of food and, um, theatre. As of now I am on board as resident menu planner and co-cook.

I don't want to say too much about this venture, because the joy of attending as an eater and audience member is not knowing what to expect. However, please save the date --March 17-- for the next installment of Avant Garde Restaurant. New Year's Eve Eve's show had a menu of

Assorted Appeteasers
Curried Butternut Squash Soup
Celery Root/Green Apple/Walnut/Gorgonzola Salad
Wild Mushroom Quiche and Swiss Chard Quiche
Make your Own Sundae

We seek to use seasonal ingredients, and make food that tastes good. And to make you eat and drink until you plotz. Also you will laugh, maybe dance maybe make a few new friends.

The three keys to a good quiche:

1. Buy a good crust (unless you are a gifted crust maker, which I am not).

2. Buy a good cheese, such as gruyere or smoked gouda. What's nice about smoked gouda is that it gives a smoky taste that convinces the eater that they are eating ham or bacon. A great vegetarian trick.

3. Use cream.

And so:

Saute your vegetables in butter, garlic and generous seasoning (salt, pepper, thyme)
Grate the cheese and line the bottom of the crust with it. It provides a shield from the wet ingredients so your crust doesn't get soggy.
Beat about three eggs with some whole milk and some cream. Salt and pepper the egg mixture.
Place vegetables over the grated cheese.
Pour in the egg/cream/milk mixture.
Cook at about 375 until quiche is firm and golden on top.
Eat hot, cold, room temp, whatever.

See you on the 17th.....

village

My job is in DUMBO, and I have come to find that DUMBO is its own little village, a kind of urban industrial waterfront arrondissement, replete with a French chocolate shop (Jacques Torres) and neighborhood bakery, the almighty Almondine. In Paris, there is this wonderful certainty that on every corner you can find a terrific baguette and a darn good croissant. In New York City, there is no such guarantee (in Ohio you are up shit's creek without a midwestern paddle).

It calms me to know that four short cobblestone blocks away I can find terrific baguettes, outstanding pretzel bread, financiers, fresh quiche, daily soup specials, sandwiches--with ingredient lists that read, for example, "prosciutto, butter, artichoke hearts(!)..." and a variety of cookies, pastries and cakes.

For Thanksgiving, I bought a pumpkin pie, and was corrected in my previous belief that pumpkin pie isn't worth eating. The pie, sadly, could not save Thanksgiving, but that wasn't the pie's fault. A pie can only do so much.

For Chanukah I bought a traditional German Christmas stollen, which may seem sacreligious, but our Chanukah parties need all the icing sugar they can get. A stollen is a light airy fruitcake made with yeast, water and flour, and usually dried citrus peel, dried fruit, nuts, and spices such as cardamom and cinnamon. The finished cake is sprinkled with icing sugar, and though it too cannot save a family dinner, it can provide you something with which to stuff your face and avoid conversation. Plus it is good for days and days and makes for a nice breakfast. Why Almondine is in the business of making German fruitcakes, I do not know, but mine is not to reason why, mine is only to eat the darn thing and then sing from the moutaintops that this limited edition loaf of loveliness is a MUST HAVE.

coming home

Waking up from a three week stint as someone who resembled me but wasn't me was like coming home. Suddenly back in my own skin, feeling my own rhythms (quick, muscular, motivated), seeing my true face in the mirror, it was like emerging from a chrysalis after too much time.

In the name of homecoming, I write about two newcomers to my neighborhood--one I love, the other left me underwhelmed.

Bocca Lupo ("in the mouth of the wolf," literally; figuratively it means "good luck"), on Henry and Warren is just what my 4 block radius needed: a wine and panini bar that doesn't seek to be anything other than what it is, which is a good neighborhood place. The salads and panini are really solid, and the atmosphere is warm, and the wine keeps flowing and is very delicious.

Lunetta on Smith between Pacific and Bergen left me wishing we'd gone to Noodle Pudding instead. I had a great glass of Valpolicella and delicious fried artichokes, but we followed the waitress' suggestions and ended up with three mediocre dishes. Orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage lacked seasoning but had cream. Cream? The penne with braised lamb was a little dry, and probably should have been tagliatelle, or a noodle, not a tube. The cripsy friend chicken was extremely tasty but seemed better suited for a Chinese restaurant and came with nothing on the plate except the many large chunks of deep fried chicken. Hmmmm....odd. Probably will not go back. With such good Italian in this city, there is no reason to eat anything less than something excellent.

round-up

1. Pasha: As the children of NYC pounded the pavement dressed as genies and princesses and slutty fairies, Z took me to Pasha, home of the Turks on West 71st street. She ordered everything, and everything was good. Little "ravioli" in a yogurt sauce, filled with chopped lamb, a soft artichoke heart, excellent olives (firm and salty), zucchini cakes, lamb, etc. For dessert, 2 milky, cream-based confections whose names I have forgotten. I always find that with Turkish food, it is the appetizers and the desserts that excite me the most. In this case, it was the company that excited me the most; it is a rare delight to get quality face time with Miss Z.

2. Flatbush Farm: haven't had the food yet at this ParkSope/Prospect Heights newcomer, but the bar is lovely--spacious, and feels like it's been there forever.

3. 5 Borough Ice Cream: From a tip in "Edible Brooklyn," I sought out this small batch ice cream at Forager's in DUMBO. I bought "Soho," which is cappucino ice cream with hazelnut biscotti crmbles and espresso chocolate chips. It rocks. it resides in the freezer at work, and is making the perfect afternoon snack.

4. Sugar-covered apple cider donuts:not just for people! Brought back a few from the farmer's market this morning and Seymour, the cat, got her way into the bag. She emerged with sugar crystals on her nose, purring like a fiend. She stumbled around, high on sugar, rolling on her back, snuggling my ear. No surprises there, I mean sugar is delicious; it makes me roll around too.

fast food nation

I read Eric Schlosser's book "Fast Food Nation" in 2001, the year it was published, and the year it began its 2 year residence on the NYT bestseller list. Joan handed it to me and said: "you must read this." I was a vegetarian at the time, and fairly health conscious, so I hadn't been in a fast food joint in several years. After reading the book, I felt strongly that:

a) I would never, ever set food in a fast food joint ever again.
b) I was against the industrialization and commercializtion of the food supply.
c) There are a few, a very small few examples of compassionate capitalism; it is possible, if only greed weren't so seductive, so slippery and delicious (like a Big Mac, or a large fries, washed down with a supersized Coke).

That book was the beginning of my journey into the world of food and food politics.

The other night I attended a preview screening of the film of "Fast Food Nation," which is not a documentary but rather a narrative feature film written by Schlosser (and the director Richard Linklater of "Dazed and Confused" fame), inspired by the book. It is an ambitious and important and strange and ultimately (I think) unsuccessful movie. I am eager for it to come out so you all can see it and we can discuss it, because my head's in a bit of a muddle about it. In the meantime, for those of you who have not yet read the book, it is never too late. It only becomes more and more relevant; and if you are looking for a way to break yourself of your occcasional fast food habit, I guarantee this book will do the trick.

(in related news, I have not had a Diet Coke in 6 days, and have not used a pack of Equal in even more. Adios, fake sugar, we're through!)

baking cakes

In the book (and movie) "The Joy Luck Club," there is a painful scene in which a woman, separated from her husband and unlikely to get back together with him, bakes him a cake. He will come over that afternoon and the cake--the result of much effort, a manifestation of the love she feels for him and the lengths she will go to for him--remains uneaten and unappreciated.

At age 22, after watching the movie, Mara and I vowed that we would stop "baking cakes" for guys. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we did not. Mara bakes cakes now, but she does not "bake cakes." When you're married to someone who would do the same for you and more, it is no longer a metaphor, it's just a cake.

When I visited Mara and CJR at their home (their first one, not the new fabulous one) last year, Mara baked me a cake. It was what I have always dreamed a chocolate layer cake could be. Mara is a very good baker, so I had no way of knowing if its excellence would be easy for me to repeat. I finally attempted it this past weekend for Mom's birthday. It was pretty easy and amazingly good. It looks like the Duncan Hines cake on the box , but actually tastes good, moist and rich.

Mom's Chocolate Cake
Food and Wine, March 1990

2 c all purpose flour
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
2 c sugar
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
6 T butter
1 t vanilla extract
2 eggs lightly beaten

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 8 x 1.5 round cake pans. Line bottoms with wax paper (I used parchment paper).

2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt. Set aside.

3. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar with 2 c water. Bring to a boil over high heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Pour into a large mixing bowl. Add chocolate and butter and let sit, stirring occasionally, until melted and slightly cooled. Stir in vanilla. Or if you're me, forget to do this part. Whoops.

4. Beat the eggs into the chocolate mixture using hand mixer until combined.

5. Add dry ingredients all at once and beat at medium speed until smooth (It will be liquidy).

6. Divide batter evenly between pans and bake for about 25 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed or a cake tester comes out clean.

7. Cool cakes in their pans on a rack for 25 minutes, then invert onto the rack to cool completely.

Chocolate frosting:

1 1/3 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cup sugar
6 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1 stick and 2T butter
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
pinch of salt

1. In a medium saucepan (you can use the one from the cake), bring sugar and cream to a boil over moderately high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally until liquid reduces slightly, about 6 minutes. Pour mixture into medium bowl and add chocolate, butter, vanilla and salt. Let stand stirring occasionally until butter and chocolate are melted.

2. Set the bowl in a large bowl of ice water. Using a handheld mixer, beat frosting on medium speed scraping the sides occasionally with a rubber spatula until thick and glossy, about 5 minutes. Use at once.

3. Put frosting on top of the first layer, cover one cake layer with the second. Then frost entire outside of cake.

growth

personal growth is good, if it's of the metaphorical kind. when it's a literal, physical growth, you go to the doctor. here i am, post-surgery, and lovin' my growth-free life. my first meal was a chocolate milkshake, and as i slurped i wondered "why the taboo against milkshakes for dinner?" it felt so darn good, i'll definitely be doing it again.

the growth i love the most is the growth of good stuff by the farmers who supply my CSA. tonight i made string bean salad with the lovely yellow beans i got last week.

string bean salad

trim ends off of raw beans
boil water, heavily salted
cook beans for 4-5 minutes
drain

in a small bowl, mix a few glugs olive oil, a few glugs white wine vinegar and a tbsp of dijon mustard
salt and pepper the mixture and add a pinch or two of dried tarragon
whisk

dump in the warm beans and toss, using tongs
enjoy immediately, although also good after a few days in the fridge, i bet.

bon voyage

"bon voyage thyroid! though we hardly knew ye...i guess we'll miss you," toasted c. and then we ate ourselves silly at al di la. heirloom tomatoes, grilled calamari, corn tortelloni, pork ribs, risotto, saltimboca, affugato, and on and on.

because "it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other's cooking and to say it was good."

what would you do for a klondike bar?

How far will I travel, to what lengths will I go for the perfect meal? You and I both, I think, know the answer to that question. Now and again, though, I take a look at myself making some ridiculous pilgrimage in the name of food, and I think: "woman! get a hold of yourself."

Last week I took a cab, a plane, a train, and then another cab to make it to Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA in time for my 9:15 pm reservation. Well, I wasn't on time, but I did make it. My heart racing, my gastric juices churning, my imagination running wild, I showed up and breathlessly handed to the hostess my overnight bag, and my dress for that weekend's wedding.

First we ate bread. Really really good bread, and excellent butter. And olives. Oooh, I loved those olives.

Then began the set meal for the evening:

Green bean salad with farm egg and pancetta. Which doesn't even mention the teeny, explosively delicious cherry tomatoes. And doesn't even begin to suggest that the pancetta was in thin little delicate strips, salty and crispy. or that the egg was soft boiled with a yolk the color of sunshine.

Salt cod ravioli with yellow tomato coulis and basil oil. If you've ever had salt cod, you know it's a bold choice. I liked it, despite its intense fishiness. And the tomato sauce was basically hot, pureed golden tomatoes, with chiffonaded basil. Excellent.

Grilled Wolfe Ranch quail, with figs, corn, wild mushrooms, onion rings, and stone ground polenta. A moist, succulent little bird plopped on top of all kinds of good things. The figs were especially delightful, as were the thin thin thin red onion rings on top. A surprising touch.

Then we did the unthinkable--ordered the optional cheese course. In an effort to eat ourselves to death, apparently. The cheeses were good, but not transcendant, and I wish I'd taken a pass on them.

Dessert was amazingly, unbelievably good, even though there wasn't a lick of chocolate in sight (well, unless you count those truffles they brought at the end of it all). Roasted Red Cal peach with raspberry granita. Which doesn't even mention the creme anglaise. Or the whole raspberries. Or the sinfully good almond tuile-type cookie that accompanied it. WOW!

This is excellent cooking, but simple, so simple. But one is struck by the basic truth behind a place like this--if the ingredients are excellent, and if they are each chosen for being at their absolute peak at this moment in time, your meal will reflect that. It will be wonderful. And it was.

on the farm

On the urban farm, the sun crisping my neck and shoulders, crouched over, grabbing leaves of dinosaur kale, cursing the bugs who are enjoying the lack of pesticides, I look up at my surroundings:

Roxbury, inner city Boston, apparently a hard part of town, segregated, isolated, bleak? Not to me. Here lies the urban farm of the Food Project—the oldest, largest, most successful example of youth development through agriculture.

I’m surrounded by teenagers, both “urban” and “suburban,” harvesting cranberry beans and swiss chard and helping neighbors to remediate their soil to address its high lead content.

And tomorrow we’ll head to the suburbs and in the pouring rain we’ll plant lettuce and the 16 year old next to me will give me agricultural tips while she explains that she’s been held back in school. Her mom died last year and she missed too many days of school. We talk a little bit about that. We plant more lettuce. We get very wet.

I leave my 3 day institute in love with The Food Project, in love with their mission and their ideology, yes, but even more so with how damn good they are at execution. How easy to dream up something like this and how rare and amazing to realize it and keep it going strong and vibrant for 15 years.

slow

My very first blog entry, about a year and a half ago, was a call for change. Change has been slow for me, sometimes not deliberately so. But it makes it all the more fitting that my new job--finally--is at Slow Food.

Going to work each day feels oddly sinful. Sitting in a room with ten or so food-obsessed compatriots, thinking, talking, planning, writing, all of it in the service of a movement devoted to the preservation and enjoyment of food.

For more on this very cool new job of mine, check out the website www.slowfoodusa.org.

how to order well

At an excellent restaurant, one assumes, every dish on the menu soars. Yet experience has shown me that there is variation, a gap between the best items on a menu, and the worst.

On a glorious sunny Sunday—hot and bright—six of us met in Pocantico Hills, NY at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. The interior, a refurbished dairy barn, is a study in coolness, a respite from the blaze outside. It is not a place to curl up and get familiar, but I appreciate the crisp elegance; it feels like a special occasion. Most of the food comes from just outside the windows, and the kitchen is run by experts. When the runners bring your food, they circle the table, six at a time, silently and synchronized, placing plates.

The winners: the culinary student among us notes that, if something as mundane as meatloaf is on this elegant menu, it must be something special. She is correct; it is outstanding. The panzanella with seared tuna freaks me out in description but in actuality is tremendous. The secret weapon: heirloom tomatoes, perfectly in season. A lesson duplicated by the unexpectedly sublime green bean salad—they, too, also at their natural peak. The pasta was apparently a disappointment. Lesson 3: it had nothing in its description that was perfectly in season and no meat to wow or lend favor.

It helped me start to think about how to navigate menus, and how to make the right choices. At Blue Hill at Stone Barns, however, it is hard to go too terribly far afield. Even the losers were winners (like corn soup with a crab cake), and the desserts--thanks ot our man Tony in the kitchen--can right any wrong.

hillary

Many of my favorite meals have been prepared by or with Hillary. After college we lived together for a year and I have fond memories of big burrito meals, and even of meals made entirely of cheese and crackers (good cheese. Good crackers). I have eaten very well at buffets at her mom’s loft. I remember the summer after my father died, going to visit her at her dad’s country house. We sat together in the evening light outside, eating one of her trademark delicious salads, a hunk of Vermont cheddar and a big beautiful bread. Since then there have been many happy times in Millbrook, with corn, sausage, lasagnas, apple crisps, and butternut squash soups. Up in Cuyler, at Cerry’s parents’ house, she made the best peach and corn salsa (ok, maybe the only peach and corn salsa) I have ever eaten in my life. For my 30th birthday, she made platters of heirloom tomato salad that made everyone’s jaws drop.

Like many things she is good at, Hillary does not present herself as a cook. Her style is simple, fresh, and abundant; it is impossible to go hungry at her table. So it was only fitting that this past weekend, her wedding to Kofi, I had some superlative meals. Hillary and Kofi, it seems, not only make good food themselves, they attract similarly gifted cooks to their sphere, including Andrew and Jennifer. My first night in Chatham, I was greeted by Andrew’s grilled ribs, collard greens, fried green tomatoes (from the garden) with buttermilk dipping sauce and fresh mac and cheese. For dessert? Jennifer’s blueberry tart made from freshly picked blueberries. Eaten with white wine at an outdoor table as the sun set. Absolutely one of the best meals of my life.

The wedding was a feast in every way. A feast for the eyes—Hillary and Kofi, beautiful and radiant, weeping and smiling, the most beautiful brew. A feast for the ears—their voices as they read their vows, the sound of the rawest, truest emotion, voices that knew the depth of what they were saying. A feast for the heart—love, love, love, all around me love.

And of course, a feast for the stomach. The buffet looked like it could have been in Hillary and Kofi’s home: grilled asparagus, tomato/mozzarella/basil salad, and corn. The highlight was our take-away; each of us got a jar of jam, made by Hillary and Kofi with fresh-picked berries from the Hudson Valley.

As I danced my heart out all night long, I was filled with the most electric sense of sheer joy, for them, of course, mostly for them, but also for me—to know these two beautiful people, and to eat with them, for the rest of my life.

reviews

I have some shout outs that are long overdue.

1. Franny's. Joanie Joan finally gave me a reason to get my butt over to Franny's on Flatbush several weeks ago. I didn't socialize much at the birthday party. Instead I holed up at the bar, chowing down on their organic, sustainable, local, amazing menu. The bruschetta with ricotta cheese and fresh peas was so good tears came to my eyes. The bartender saw, and he understood; he works there for chrissakes. The zucchini fritto was delicate, crispy, summery. The pizzas were perfection. And Joan's boyfriend showing up to surprise her as a birthday treat? Well, that was the icing on the proverbial (organic, sustainable) cake.

2. The Good Fork. Well, you know how I feel about Red Hook. This place is one more jewel in Van Brunt's crown. It is very cute, very good, and the service (though problematic the night we were there) is friendly. I had their signature "steak and eggs and kimchi" and it was weird and wonderful: slices of flavorful juicy steak, nestled into a ball of kimchi rice, topped with a fried egg, eaten with chopsticks.

3. Queen. If you have ever walked down Court street, from Borough Hall to Atlantic, you know it is a gastronomic wasteland. There are some bad delis, a few pizza joints, Wendy's, McDonald's, some tacky looking Italian joint...wait! That tacky looking Italian joint is a FANCY RESTAURANT! And, wait, are those REVIEWS in the window??? It is so very unlikely, but Queen is an excellent Italian restuarant masquerading as a mediocre, suburban mall restaurant. And although few people I know have been there, it was full the night I was there--a Thursday, by the way. The maitre d' is adorable-knowledgeable and friendly. The menu is extensive, and everything we had was terrific. The focaccia they bring to the table is soft and fluffy. We followed it with a fritto misto (calamari, zucchini, lemon) that was so flavorful, red dipping sauce was unnecesary. The arugula, mozzarella, pesto salad was perfect. We had three main courses, one better than the next, with scallops stealing the show.

sorrel

I love my CSA. I paid for my share, but that was weeks and weeks ago, so when I enter the church on Court street, sign in, and start grabbing beautiful produce to take home, I feel like I've won the produce lottery. Last week I got, peaches, cherries, lettuce, radicchio, onions, fava beans (!), and a choice of rosemary, dill, or sorrel.

I had never seen sorrel or tasted sorrel, so I grabbed a bunch figuring I'd learn something. It turns out that sorrel is somewhere between a green and an herb: lemony, earthy, and unique. If used in salads, people suggest mixing it with other greens, because its flavor is very strong. I found several internet recipes for a Jamaican favorite: sorrel soup. I tweaked them some, made my own, and was pretty pleased with the results.

Sorrel Soup

3 cups veggie broth
2 handfuls basmati rice
1 bunch sorrel, washed and de-stemmed
1 tbsp half and half
salt and pepper

Boil veggie broth, add rice
Let rice cook for 8 minutes, stirring now and again
Add sorrel, stir for 1 minute, turn off heat
Use immersion blender to puree the soup
(Rice pieces may fly out at you)
Add half and half and salt and pepper
Stir.
Eat.

i love ditch plains

I’m not sure why, but I think I can count the number of new restaurants I have been to in the past year on one hand. Ack—maybe even on 2 or 3 fingers. I read about restaurant openings, but it is so hard to keep up; they are cropping up like weeds. A few weeks ago I made a short list of places I intended to try this summer, and on this past Monday night, I checked off my first one.

I love Ditch Plains.

Named after a surf area on the North Fork of Long Island, this place purports to be a beachy fish shack, but it’s a bit too clean and classy for that. It serves the ubiquitous NYC $23 lobster roll, clam chowder, mussels, oysters, salmon, burgers, fries, etc. But the food is elegant and excellent, and if it was served in paper baskets and brown paper cones, I really didn’t notice. I remember white porcelain; I wonder if that’s the case.

P and I had:

1. Friendly service. We stayed for nearly 3 hours taking up a huge booth and we were treated with nothing but smiles, and languorous generosity.
2. Good white wine.
3. A spicy fried calamari salad that was unusual and delicious: chopped romaine and radicchio with battered and fried calamari and a spicy red chili salad dressing.
4. Oyster shooters: basically bloody Mary shots with a raw oyster at the bottom. Fantastic.
5. Steamed littleneck clams with our chosen sauce of shallots, white wine, parsley, and butter. They were tiny and flavorful. My only complaint: no bread to soak up the marvelous leftover sauce at the bottom of the pot. We used spoons (classy).
6. A lobster roll that certainly rivaled, if not surpassed, Mary’s Fish camp, served with excellent sweet potato chips.
7. Mississippi Mud Pie, served with our own bottle of whipped cream. Awesome.

So, my dear readers, surf on over to Bedford and Downing, in Manhattan, and if you can walk by ‘ino without being sucked in there first, pop into Ditch Plains.

ireland

There are people who are not very interested in food. A friend of mine in grad school used to eat cup o’ noodles every single day for lunch, and it was clear to me that food, to her, was merely sustenance. There was no pleasure taken in the eating of it, no disgust with too much sodium, no boredom with eating the same thing day after day. The truth was, I think she barely noticed what went into her mouth, and though I pitied her, I was also envious. If I stopped thinking so much about what to eat and when, or how to find the perfect lunch, or fondly remembering the perfect dinner, think how much brain space I would have for other things! Also, nota bene, she was skinny.

The past two weeks I spent in Ireland, and I discovered a nation of cup o’ noodles eaters. When I went to eat in Dublin, I checked two different guidebooks, and the paucity of food recommendations was my first clue that, although a pretty cool city, Dublin is not a place you go to for the food. Things I ate a lot of in Ireland: bacon, sausage, mayonnaise, scones, brown bread, chips and crisps. For two weeks I was hard-pressed to find a vegetable. Chicken curry was served with rice and chips (that’s French fries). It was like “side of vegetables” was never invented. A side salad could be found with some searching, but it was iceberg lettuce with a tomato wedge, some canned corn and “salad cream” on top. Once, my salad had olive oil AND salad cream. One salad, two forms of fat. Very efficient.

But enough negativity; let me mention the few fabulous things I did find. And let me also say that Ireland is a lovely country, full of friendly people, beautiful countryside and amazing history.

1. Sheridan cheese mongers. Right off of Grafton street, in Dublin, this place was a small haven, filled with wheels of cheese from all over the world. I asked a saleswoman to help me with some local Irish cheeses. She guided me through a tasting, based on my likes and dislikes, and I left the store with three wedges of excellent cheese, and a recommendation for a nearby bakery. With cheese that good, why was I having such bad food experiences?
2. La Maison de Gourmets. This French bakery, on Castle Market, was the bakery to which I was directed. I sought it out hoping to find the best scones in the city but discovered when I got there that it was—as the name suggested—strictly French. I bought a traditional boule and an almond croissant, and both were excellent.
3. Angela’s Coffee Emporium. In Clonmel, a small rural city, I struggled mightily with finding decent food. I found it finally here, at Angela’s, an organic sandwich and coffee bar where I could rely on getting good cappucinos, very good scones, and even (gasp!) fruit salad.

Rather than focusing on the worst sandwich ever made, at “The Gourmet Store” in Kilkenny, or the kebab in Dun Laoghire that gave me food poisoning, I will remember those cheeses, goat’s milk-tangy, richly cheddared….