Oh the places I've been

Frank's Trattoria: the other night my buddy C declared herself in the mood for a good old New York slice. C is my old NY homeslice so this was a perfectly delightful and appropriate request. We used to eat NY slices together from age 6 on up, but these days we tend to hit more restauranty fare when we get together. We made our way towards one of my old childhood pizzerias on 1st ave just below 23rd street and headed back into the dining room, a place I hadn't been since about 1990. The pizza is classic perfection, and the best part was the 85 year old man who chatted us up and told us how he's been eating there for 30 years. "Me too!" I said.

Brucie: Soon my old neighborhood will be my new neighborhood again (and I'm super psyched). The other night I hit one of the newer places there, on Court street. Aesthetically it's pitch perfect, and the food hit several great marks. Awesome salad, and my friend's pasta was tops. Mine--tagliatelle with tomato butter & brussels sprouts-- was totally weird & totally off but I am more than willing to head back there and try more stuff.

Hecho En DUMBO: Boy was I pissed when I walked into my favorite after work taco place about a year ago and found out that I couldn't get guacamole. Not because they were out of avocados, but because the place had up and changed identities when I wasn't looking. I mourned the loss of Hecho en DUMBO and was thrilled when it reopened on the Bowery. The name is funny, since it ain't in DUMBO no more, but the food is as good as ever. Make a point to get the rajas con crema tacos. Or three of them.

The Big New York Sandwich (Book)

What is bigger than a NY Sandwich? Pretty much nothing. Think of a Second Avenue Deli corned beef sandwich that people under 150 pounds (me) usually need to remove 6 slices of meat from, in order to consume it. There's your proof.

There's a new book out called The Big New York Sandwich Book. It's got sandwich recipes from dang near everyone running a restaurant kitchen. It's even got a page on how to make a "slow" sandwich, penned by yours truly.

I leave you with this, a Socratic dialogue on sandwiches, from "Friends."

Happy Birthday, McDonald's!

Don't be mad but I didn't get you anything.

Here's my love/hate letter to McD's, that ran on the HuffPost on the anniversary of the opening of the first McDonald's franchise.

Supertaster

Reading this article about supertasters made me realize that I haven't ever blogged about what I call "my crazy tongue."

As a kid, when I would stick my tongue out at someone (not all the time, I wasn't a devil child, I swear) they would always remark on my super-textured tongue. When I got my wisdom teeth out the oral surgeon remarked on it, calling it a "topographic tongue." Cool--like a topographic map.

I started to notice that spicy food was pretty challenging for me, increasingly so over time. Certain chiles would make my tongue THROB. The taste is divine, but the sensation is murderous. The article on supertasters addresses this strange discrepancy, pointing out that spice is not a taste but a sensation--not sure I could have articulated that difference before reading the article.

I met a physician with a similarly affected tongue. She described it to me as the cracks and crevices of our tongues causing each taste bud to be more exposed to the food (more surface area) and therefore more sensitive. She confirmed that it gets more extreme with age. I forgot to ask her if she also sometimes tries to wrap her tongue in a flour tortilla as tears stream down her face. Didn't seem like Passover table conversation.

I'm getting older too

Re: the title of this post, I've got "Landslide" on the brain, probably due to a "Glee" episode I watched last night. And apologies in advance if writing about lunch coop all the time is getting old. But this post is about getting old(er) so maybe that's a good thing.

Last night, for lunch coop, I cooked up a spinach barley gratin (a riff on a Deborah Madison recipe) accompanied by Baked Miso Onions. I first had these onions at Laurie's house--in the first apartment she shared with Will, her husband of almost 15 years now. It was in Swarthmore, PA across from the ball fields.

I think the recipe is from "Laurel's Kitchen" a cookbook that seemed a little old and hippie even then. I fell in love with the onions, begged for the recipe, and have been carrying it around on a pink sticky note tucked into an old wooden recipe box ever since. I have brought that wooden box from apartment to apartment to apartment and every few years I pull out the recipe and make miso onions and marvel at their rich complexity and sweetness.

When I think of things like this I am acutely aware of getting older. Of having friends who have been my dear friends for 20, 30 years. Of being the kind of wise old soul who has a darn good recipe for every occasion. Of having a sticky note that is as old as my interns.

Baked Miso Onions (a la Laurel's Kitchen?)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Peel and cut 4 Spanish/sweet onions into quarters
Mix 4 tbsp red miso paste, 4 tbsp olive oil, 3 tbsp tap water and 3tsp dried thyme in a bowl
Place onions in a casserole dish and pour the mixture over the top
Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes
Don't eat them now.
Put them all in a tupperware, pour the liquid from the pan over the onions and let it all sit in the refrigerator overnight.
Then eat them the next day, heated up, over brown rice, or noodles, or polenta, or...spinach barley gratin.

Lunch Coop update

As promised, I figured I'd check in about lunch coop and let you know how it's going. Mostly, it's pretty awesome. I go days on end without thinking about what's for lunch. I show up at the office knowing that someone will feed me, well.

But then there is that one day of scramble--and despite our google doc calendar, I have found it really sneaks up on me. Both times I stayed up way too late (and then slept in instead of making my morning gym journey) making food for myself and my coop buddies. We call this ACCOUNTABILITY. It is both the engine that drives the coop and the thing that is a royal pain in the arse.

I've cooked twice so far & both times I started my menu by thinking of my larder. First up was a giant batch of red lentils I had lying around. I picked a red lentil coconut soup from 101Cookbooks and then decided that would go really well with naan. Homemade naan. Because, hey, why keep it simple when you could keep yourself up til 1 am frying griddle bread and covering your entire kitchen with flour? Both were--dare I say it--delicious. I did struggle with portions though--7 is a very awkward number of mouths to feed.

Next time around I decided to tackle the bag of red quinoa I had. I was also inspired by a tweet from @MollieKatzen about a winter fennel/orange salad she made. Hence:

Fennel/Romaine/Ricotta Salata/Blood Orange/Pickled Onion Salad
and
Quinoa/New Potato/Roasted Carrot/Cumin/Shallot thingy

The salad is pretty straightforward (I made a vinaigrette with blood orange juice and white wine vinegar and nice olive oil); the quinoa thing went as follows:

I boiled the potatoes
I sauteed the shallots in olive oil and cumin
I roasted the carrots in olive oil with salt & pepper
I cooked the quinoa with water
I tossed it all together and added a little more salt

It was super simple but I actually liked it. And out of fear of not making enough, I basically drowned us in salad.

Lunch co-op

For years I have been tossing out this idea to co-workers: a lunch co-op in which we each make one giant pot of something just one day of the week and share it. That way I am doing same amount of cooking but instead of being stuck eating the same thing every day, I have variety. Even at my office, where nearly everyone makes their lunch and it is all very tasty looking, people balked.

Last week I published a piece (on both WellandGoodNYC and Civil Eats--spread the love) about my friend Christine. For five years now she has been making lunch with her friend Joanne. They get together on Sunday and make six servings of two different dishes. They shop together, cook together, split the cost--and they eat really well and really affordably.

Christine emailed me that she "hoped the piece would inspire some people" to follow in their footsteps. Well guess what, Christine: I reintroduced the lunch co-op idea to my now-entirely-new-bunch of fellow staffers, and they bit! 7 of us are launching our food-coop next week. The ground rules are as follows:

• Food must be vegetarian, though meat can be provided on the side
• No tunafish salad, please
• Food shouldn't be too spicy
• Food should be mostly from scratch
• use farm-fresh ingredients WHEN POSSIBLE
• There is a cost ceiling of $5 per person per meal (or $35). People should not feel they have to spend that much, but for now that will be the upper limit.

Updates to follow.

7 things I learned about food in 2010

Would I be human if I didn't create a round-up of 2010? If you prick me, do I not attempt to make bite-sized meaning out of the passage of time?

Here's my latest on the HuffPost: 7 things I learned about food in 2010.

Elephants

I just read that The Elephant--a small little Thai-esque restaurant on 1st street--will be closing its doors. I only ate there once, in 1998. It was a date with a man who had chased me down the street to ask me out. Seriously!

I was in grad school at the time, and went to see a production of "Waiting for Godot" at Classic Stage Company, starring John Turturro and John Goodman (wait is that even right?). After the show, I used the payphone in the lobby, because--hello--it was 1998. When I finished my call, I stepped away, the guy behind me approached the phone and I heard him say "shoot!" The guy had no change for the phone so I offered him a quarter. He gazed at me, as if in a trance, and silently took the quarter.

Ten blocks up I felt a hand on my arm and heard panting.

"I'm the quarter guy (pant, pant)."

"Hi."

"Sorry, I just ran 10 blocks to catch up to you."

"Um, thanks?"

"I promise I'm not crazy, but I noticed you during the show, and then you gave me that quarter, and....I just had to follow you and see if you would give me your number and let me ask you out sometime."

And so we went to The Elephant. Apparently it's been around for 17 years and my visit there was 12 years ago. So it was a five year old neighborhood staple at that point, way cooler and more expensive than places I would ordinarily eat. My date was "old" (35?) and looking for a wife, it was perfectly plain. Which seemed about as far away from my life as a person could be.

I love New York because every neighborhood, every corner, every restaurant that stays open or shuts its doors holds a story from my life. Some strange, some amazing, some perfectly ordinary.

Italian feast

In my suitcase back from Italy I brought several edible treats including one kilo parmagiano reggianno and one bag of Sicilian lentils. What I didn't do was save space in my bag for presents for friends. So I committed myself to use the foodstuffs I bought for myself to cook up dinners for my friends. I vowed to spread the love and tonight I got to make good on that promise for the first time.

Did I mention that my oil shipment arrived from Lorenzo last week?

Purva and David came over and I cooked up:

• this easy fennel/sausage/lentil dish I love
• a simple salad dressed with Lorenzo's oil, lemon juice and Maldon salt
• a bowl of Calabro ricotta drizzled with the oil and covered in toasted pine nuts
• a bowl full of cubed parmiagiano reggianno (oh lordy)
• a loaf of ciabatta from Grandaisy bakery
• a bowl of oil
• a bowl of Maldon

And it was very very good. It bears repeating: if the ingredients are amazing, you don't have to do much to eat like a king.

Perche no?

Back in NYC I don't ever eat out alone. Except maybe a slice at Joe's now and again as I make my way home. Not that I am so popular, but if I am alone, I stay home since I like to cook for myself and it's cheaper. I save my going out money for socializing.

In Rome, I was solo for most of my meals and I tried not to make them hurried little affairs. I tried to relish them. But I discovered that--in Rome at least--one gets mixed responses. I present case 1, at Da Lucia in Trastevere.

"Buona sera. Uno, per favore."

"Solo uno???"

"Si."

"Please wait outside." After 10 inexplicable minutes, the fellow came out and said "solo? ma, perche?"

"Perche no?" I asked, full aware of my larger metaphorical question.

"Lavoro? Vacazione?" He is still searching for some plausible reason. He seats me in a half empty restaurant and proceeds to rush me through my meal. Not only am I alone but I am not having 4 courses and I have ordered my water rubinetto (the word they don't want you to know: tap water. It's free! And tasty enough). He keeps coming over pityingly, trying to figure me out. Eventually I am given a bill with several incorrect overages (including aqua minerale). I leave not yet feeling the magic of eating alone.

Another meal is disastrous on many fronts. I headed to a pizzeria recommended by Amy (Pizzeria San Calisto). It was terrible. This made no sense since Amy is entirely trustworthy when it comes to food recs. It took me about 24 hours to sort it out; I went to the wrong place.

At this wrong place, I was pursued relentlessly by the waiter, who asked me out on a date and eventually was removed from my table by the manager. I had a magazine out. A glass of wine for crying out loud. His constant interruptions with questions asked in fast Italian I could not understand, were killing my mojo. I don't remember this scene in "Eat, Pray, Love."

I found the perfect solo meal at lunchtime one day--at another rec from Amy. It was a beautiful day but this place had no outdoor seating. I popped inside and it was quiet and cool. The other diners were all Italian--mostly businessmen, and one priest. The staff took good care of me but basically left me entirely alone to slurp down spaghetti alla vongole, verdure mista, fantastic focaccia and a nice little bottle of red (I asked for a bicchiero, I am sure of it, but....). I was not a pitiable mystery; I was not a woman looking for a man. I was a person, looking for good nourishment and some quality alone time.

Torino, Piemonte

I have spent a fair amount of time in Torino at this point but to suggest I know the city is a laughably incorrect statement. To suggest that I have eaten what it has to offer is also quite off the mark. In my two times there I have mostly been marooned in a southern corridor of the city, mostly behind a desk, on my feet, slowly dehydrating myself into laryngitis.

There were short forays out, both in 2008 and now in 2010--which is a wonderful thing because Piemonte is a wonderful place to eat and an even more wonderful place to drink delicious, affordable red wine (Nebbiolo, Barbera d'Asti, Barbera d'Alba). They are my absolute favorite wines in the world.

We had our staff meal the first night at Tre Galli. The carne crudo, a specialty of the region, was a revelation. Yep, that's raw meat; this rendition had shaved truffles and sea salt on top and it was sitting in an egg-based sauce of some kind. It was terrific, as was the braised tongue. As was the vegetable tart. And basically everything else we had.

Its sister restaurant Tre Galline is also good--especially their pasta. The chestnut gnocchi was so so very good. It's a little fancier and required slightly softer voices (sotto voce).

I could not for the life of me find the neighborhood pizza place (near Corso Sebastopoli and Corso IV Novembre) that I fell in love with in 2008. That is what I get for having a bad sense of direction. But we did get farinate again from the lowkey place on our corner and it always makes me happy. Farinate = chickpea flour pancake. And we were directed to a very good Napolitano pizza place called Cammafa.

On the final morning, voiceless and exhausted, I headed to the rightfully famous Bicherin and alongside Jenny and Suzanne and Taylor (who has just launched Good Food Jobs) we sugar-bombed it with insanely light but rich zabaglione, the local specialty "bicherin" (a coffee and chocolate drink) and several other things but I am embarrassed to continue listing them. Pics of the bicherin and the zabaglione are up above.

Open Up

Last Wednesday on my way out of work I passed a man with a few bags of CSA loot and a giant vegetable tucked under his arm. It was a majestic sight. I blurted out as I passed, "is that a daikon?"

"I guess, yeah," he said, drawing it out and handing it to me. "I don't know what to do with it--you take it." And with that I was the proud new owner of a marvelous daikon radish. He headed to his car and I, chuckling, headed up Jay street to the F train. He pulled up beside me in his car and called out the window, "what will you make?"

"Slaw? Refrigerator pickles?" I shrugged, smiling.

"Well, let me know...somehow..." and then he was off. And I was off, on my daikon adventures that led me to Back Forty where C and I were the recipients of magical treatment including comped pork jowl nuggets and glasses of wine. People on the street stopped to gawk and then ask questions. My cab driver was mesmerized by it.

I tweeted: "Am thinking I should bring a giant daikon radish with me everywhere. It really starts conversations."

Once home I turned it into Asian refrigerator pickles (per a recipe from Sherri Vinton's new book "Put em Up!"), and today brought one of the jars to the CSA pickup with a note for the guy that read "Did you give your daikon to a young woman last week?"

I got a high from the street conversation that led to my funny radish adventure. It made me think about how closed i can be, especially on the streets of NYC, but other places as well. I realized that there are ways in which I have lived my life closed like a fist, protecting something in its palm.

The last of the very good stuff: corn

A week or two ago, on twitter, I bragged that the corn zucchini pancakes I'd made the night before were equally good, eaten cold the next day for lunch. Then I promised I'd write up the recipe. As time dragged on, I worried that I was missing the window for a post about corn to be relevant, but it looks like the last dribs and drabs of corn are still showing up at the market (and last night I had an amazing corn dish at Momofuku noodle bar--with miso butter. Yowza).

So here goes--I grabbed this easy little recipe off the internets because it didn't require buttermilk. The first time I made it I even substituted water for the milk (didn't have milk either, sad to say). Even without milk they were tasty, but they improved when I added milk the second time. Also I had some zucchini in the fridge and had just recently discovered how easy they are to grate on a box grater (oh yeah I should blog that raw zucchini salad I made up).

And so, here you have 'em, corn zucchini pancakes. Can I get a hallelujah?

1 cup all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar (scant or less)
1 tsp kosher salt
4 ears corn
1 small or medium zucchini, skin on, grated and drained
3/4 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and 1 tsp salt in a medium bowl.

Cut kernels from cobs and use the back of a knife to scrape the pulp from the cobs--this is a marvelous technique that I can't believe I only started doing this summer. Add grated zucchini. Whisk in eggs, oil, and butter. Add to flour mixture.

Heat a griddle over medium heat until hot, then melt butter to grease the pan. And then make pancakes, you know what I'm saying? Wait until you see bubbles in the batter, that's how you know you're ready to flip them.

Just do it: a zucchini story

1. What to bring to office potluck? Just take those zucchini in the fridge, grate them with the box grater; squeeze all the water out; add the zest and juice of a lemon; add several glugs of olive oil and one of white wine vinegar; add salt & pepper and some chopped mint from the windowsill plant I keep forgetting to make use of.

2. What to do about the fact that I haven't volunteered in several years despite my desire to? Just sign up to be a volunteer at God's Love We Deliver, even if it is a 6:30 am shift.

August Dinner Party

For my latest post on WellandGoodNYC I wrote all about a dinner party I threw and how you can do it, too.

It features the terrific recipe web site Food52, as well as some serious seasonal produce. And some glam shots of me sweating it up over a hot stove.

What I learned on my summer vacation

Each summer, in an (albeit abbreviated) Italian tradition called Ferragosto, my office closes for one week. I had big plans to go to Turkey. When those plans fell through I tried to create a week full of mini vacations along with some down time. I had a long wish list, and as I sit here typing on the eve of my return to the office, I feel happy and relaxed. And I learned a few things, too.

1. When you go away for a week in summer, you miss one week of peak produce shopping. Doh!

2. I don't see Mara enough. In addition to her other qualities, she is a wonderful cook.

3. Cape May is beautiful, with lovely beaches and charming architecture full of old farmhouses, beach bungalows and Victorian homes. Everyone grows tomatoes, making them the zucchini of the area. Roll up your car windows or people will leave some on your front seat. If you're a visitor from up North, be a good guest and you might get sent home with a small cardboard box full. Score!

4. Go off the beaten path there, to a local bar called Mayer's (Meyer's?). They are known for their scallops but I will remember them for the dude who tried to pick me up by offering me a plate of gravy fries. Also memorable was the weathered fisherman who explained how much less fun fishing is now that the fishing stocks have disappeared. He also told me that I am "beautiful," that I "look like Chelsea Clinton." Hmmm.

5. Leaving a buffer on the back end of vacation is a great idea. It leaves time for farmer's market shopping (corn, eggplant, ground cherries, peaches, nectarines), hanging out with bro/sis -in-law and nephew, painting the livingroom, laundry, yoga, birthday drinks, Brooklyn Flea, La Colombe coffee, etc.

6. There are so many delicious things you can do with tomatoes. BLT was terrific (Grandaisy bread, mayo, Dom's bacon, Cape May garden tomato); roasted tomatoes (with parmesan cheese, spinach ravioli and pesto) are also a great idea; snacking on cherry tomatoes is never a bad idea.

6. I said I would do some work, and I didn't do any work. i think this was probably a very good idea.

Easy breezy

I headed out to Breezy Point last weekend for a day of wave watching and hanging with friends. The food Google map in my head went off: taco alert!

Rockaway Taco (and environs) made me feel like I was transported to Southern California, in a good way. And while I made the mistake of getting only one fish taco (the carnitas could not compete), I was a very happy camper. The elote (corn) was also perfect. And the watermelon juice was a delight. There were other things to be tried but--despite nightly wishes to be transformed into a cow--I have only one stomach. We pulled up to the curb, spilled onto the grass and got covered in crema and guac.

I will go again--next summer, certainly, when we return to Breezy, but maybe before then, too.

Freekah

Check out my post about freekah, the serious grain with a silly name.

Emperors Need Mentors, too

Oh dear, where have I been? Things got nutty, and blogging for pleasure went bye-bye.

In the meantime, I wrote this piece for Civil Eats, a sort of review, I guess, of a new book called My Empire of Dirt. It's about what it takes to learn to grow things. Last summer I learned to ride a bike, and this summer I promised myself I would learn to grow things.

As I wrote about earlier, I started with basil, anise hyssop and sungold tomatoes from seed. The anise and the tomatoes, sadly, didn't make it. I liken those losses to my early failed cooking & baking experiments.

So I bought a beautiful organic heirloom cherry tomato plant and a neato mint plant at the farmers market. I re-potted them with organic soil. I staked the tomato plant. I left town. I returned. I smelled something funny.

Soooooo my cat peed in the tomato plant (that damn pot was big enough for her to climb into. Blargh.). But the good news is that the mint plant isn't quite dead and the basil plant is thriving! I offer this night-time photo as evidence. I really am bursting with pride.