Three C's

Total Ravioli Disaster

2008-06-01T12:17:00.000-04:00

It was, verifiably, a complete and total kitchen disaster. Food wise, that is, I didn't burn anything down or something like that. And the sad thing is, I had an opportunity to cut my losses at one point, but I kept pushing on, I kept telling myself, better press on. (willy wonka, anyone?)

It all started because Jeff was operating, not on a person, but on computers, or something. I'm still not sure I know what he's doing when he's "operating," all I know is that it's boring for me and we don't get to go have fun. So I decided since I was stuck not having fun, I should make something exciting for dinner. Something that would keep me occupied in the kitchen for awhile and something I haven't made in awhile and something that wouldn't be in the oven for like 3 hours (since it was so humid).

So I browsed recipes for awhile until I decided that I would make homemade pasta. yum! it's not usually that hard, and always tastes delicious. I found a recipe for ravioli that sounded great, and not too hard (the filling/sauce that is), and went to the store to pick up a few ingredients I needed.

I came back and got ready to rock in the kitchen. I had to decide between two recipes, one, which made more dough (and I kind of needed a lot for the ravioli) and was the traditional method (pile of flour, with a well in the middle where the eggs go). The second, which was a smaller batch and used the food processor. I decided to go with the first, even though I KNEW I always seem to have trouble with the flour/egg/well method. I didn't care, I was sure, since I've done it several times and in the end, always worked out, I would have either learned from my mistakes by now or at least I'd be able to pull it out like I had in the past.

So I piled up my flour on my cutting board, made a well, and started dropping eggs in. Three eggs in, two to go. The fourth egg started to break the flour wall and pour down the side, so in a flash of brilliance, I decide (instead of starting to mix in the flour), to add the fifth egg. at which point, you can only imagine what happened, eggs pouring all down the sides of my flour pile, onto the board and down the cabinets. I tried quickly to mix in the flour, but that only made the egg mess move faster, down the cupboards, all over my oven mitts, and started creeping dangerously close to the espresso maker. I called Jeff in to try and help me stop the egg madness, but he was "in the middle of something" - operating I guess.

So the only thing I could think to do was to wrap both my arms around the oozing egg mess to contain it. So I literally laid down on top of the flour/egg pile and put my arms around the eggs that were pouring all over the counter. At which point, I slid the whole mess into the sink. Thank goodness for that under-mounted sink we have, makes for an easy slide.

A few expletives later, I said, well, it looks like we're ordering Indian food tonight. The reason being, I didn't have enough eggs to make another batch and have eggs for breakfast the next morning, plus after a mess like that I wasn't sure I wanted to continue. Jeff said he didn't care what we did, order food, whatever. Then he said we could go out for brunch, so if I wanted to use the rest of the eggs, that'd be ok. And I love brunch, so the idea of going out for brunch the next day gave me the motivation to try again with the dough. So this would have been my out, I could have cut my losses, ordered food for dinner and been happy. But, not wanting to quit on the ravioli, and the prospect of brunch the next day, motivated me to try try try again.

So, after throwing a bunch of egg covered things in the washing machine and hosing down my egg covered arms, I pulled out the recipe for the food processor method. 20 seconds later, I had great looking pasta dough (note to self: NEVER make it by hand again, EVER EVER).

I was rockin' now. I made the filling for the raviolis, cooled it a bit and tasted it. Delicious! dinner was going to be good, I could feel it now.

I busted out the pasta roller attachment for my mixer and started rolling out the dough. I always get impatient with this step, it seems to take forever and I need go go gadget arms because it gets so long. But I kept cutting it in half and pushing forward. I was in the zone. I laid down several pieces I finished and started filling them. One of the problems I've often had when making ravioli is that they explode in the water. So I was trying very hard to get all the air out, but in doing so, the dough was breaking and there were all these holes in them. So I kept trying to patch the holes and keep going.

I'm not sure if the dough was dry and that's why it was getting holes in it, but they were just becoming huge dough balls. ugly huge dough balls.

So I went back and for the second half of the dough I tried to not roll it out so thin, because I thought that might be the problem, and then tried filling them. but they were kind of thick and weird. so with all the patching and different thickness doughs, I had some raviolis that were huge dough balls, some that sort of looked like ravioli but were really thick and then every weird shape in between. some flat, some round, some with 6 layers of dough, some with random pasta dough pieces hanging off of them. but I kept going.

I made the sauce (butter and mushrooms) and dumped the ravioli into gently simmering water. after double the amount of time the recipes said to cook them, I took them out, and some were completely overcooked and some were raw and some had exploded. I tossed them with the butter mushroom sauce, it was an ugly nightmare. more exploded.

Jeff came into the kitchen at this point (there were more expletives) and I said, please let's just order dinner. he insisted that we eat it. especially after the five hours I had spent in the kitchen (it actually wasn't that long, but it felt like it). So I served it up and we sat down. it was not good. it was as though a five year old made us dinner out of play-dough. I guess that's not entirely true, since the filling still tasted pretty good. it just looked like a mess and I felt like a mess, it was still hot and humid and the kitchen was a total mess (I had needed to use practically every piece of equipment, several pots and pans and there was still food everywhere). Jeff ate all of his, and went back for more. I'm pretty sure he was doing it to make me feel better, since I was being a crab-apple, but I can't be sure.

I have vowed to never make my own ravioli again. I will make pasta dough for lasagna or fettuccine or something and I'll make ravioli filling and make them with won-ton wrappers or something, but the combination of the two is a complete disaster, and I am done with lying in piles of eggs on my Saturday afternoon.

A Suburban Adventure

2008-05-26T09:42:00.000-04:00

This one's totally unrelated to food....

Given my four day weekend, I was itching for some kind of adventure, there were enough days to lay around and enjoy being off work, but if I had too much time I knew I would either bake (and we already have four tupperwares filled with oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate peanut butter chip cookies, and brownies, plus the pudding ice cream), or organize and re-organize the apartment.

We had been throwing around the idea of going to Target for weeks now, and brought it up again while at brunch with our friends on Saturday. they only offered us many words of encouragement, "you should totally rent a car" and "Target!?! yes!" (I may be paraphrasing, but that's pretty close). Jeff looked for cars for Saturday afternoon (at 12:30 on Saturday), but unsurprisingly, none were available. so we kind of dropped it, said we'd look again, but forgot by the time we got home.

Sunday morning I got a reminder email from one of my friends, so Jeff looked online again. there was ONE car available in the whole city and the only time it was available was from 2 - 6 pm. PERFECT. and it was a MINI COOPER! I immediately asked if it were a convertible, sadly no, but the sunroof was essentially the whole top of the car.

one afternoon trip to target in a mini coming up!

next came me AGONIZING over which target to go to. there are several in NJ, one in Queens and then bunches out further in Long Island. I had been to one in LI with a friend awhile back and it was fantastic, so I wanted to go there to make sure we had a good target experience, but it was a 45 minute drive, and we didn't want to have to rush at target if there was traffic. see the thing is, you want the target to be far enough outside the city so that its the suburbs (and you get the full suburban target experience) but not too far that it takes forever to get there. a fine line, a very fine line. so we decided on one in NJ.

there was a little apprehension over the size of the trunk, given that we were going to target and all, and the whole point is to buy everything, but I heard that the trunk is really bigger than you think it is, and with a leap of faith we piled into the car (three of us total).

rarin' to go, Jeff turns the key in the ignition, nothing. but all the lights go on in the car. it doesn't turn over, it doesn't try to turn over, but the air comes on, all the lights go on, everything except the engine. so it's not the battery, it seemed as though it was disengaged. could our target hopes come crashing down? I hoped not. Jeff was sure we were "being stupid" but got out and asked the parking attendant, who gently reminded Jeff he had to swipe his zip car card on the inside of the car to engage it. oh RIGHT! (actually, I had no idea you had to do this, but now we'll never forget). with only a few minutes lost, we set out for the suburbs.

we head out for the open highway (well, the very traffic-y west side highway) and headed to the tunnel. Also happening this weekend is Fleet Week in which Navy ships come into the piers in mid-town and you can check them out and there are sailors and such wandering around. anyway, the ships are close to the tunnel, so there's lots of people and LOTS of policemen.

having not often driven out of the city, we didn't exactly know the route, and we fell back into our normal routine where Jeff drives fast and I can't tell him where to go and then I yell that he did the wrong thing. aah, the suburbs. anyway, he ended up in the wrong lane, "wrong" because we needed to turn left to go to the tunnel and he couldn't get into the left lane because there were orange cones set up (set up with plenty of space between them so that a car, especially a mini could go between them). I said, "go through the cones" Jeff said "I can't, and there is a police man RIGHT there" (literally 15 feet in front of us). But, Jeff does it anyway.

cop looks up, and immediately starts walking to the car. he does not look happy.
"What are you doing? You want a ticket on Memorial Day? You saw me standing there and the cones, what are you doing disrespecting my cones? You're disrespecting me and my cones. The only reason I can think you did that was because you want a ticket on Memorial Day."
he took a breath and Jeff said
"No, but I can see why you think that. I'm sorry"
and he replied
"Get out of my lane!"

we got through the light and by the cop and all three of us immediately started laughing "disrespecting my cones" - did he seriously just say that?! but I would have been in HUGE trouble if Jeff would have gotten a ticket. however, it was very clear that he wasn't giving Jeff a ticket from the beginning, because he just would have asked for license and registration. but we were through the traffic, through the cop and his cones and on our way.

when we got to our exit and got off the highway, the area seemed, well, not what I had hoped for. I became very nervous that the target would not be everything that I had been imagining. but we made it inside, and it definitely met my expectations. we filled up a cart (literally filled up to the top), and headed to the checkout. we then began to worry about fitting it all in the car (especially since Jeff insisted we buy a mop). we took the cart out and just started piling the bags in, one on top of another, we kept piling until we had two bags left, which probably could have fit in the trunk too, but we had extra space in the back, so we through them back there. the mop, of course had to slide in the back and through the front two seats. but, it was pretty amazing, I'd have to say.

we headed back into the city munching on Goldfish crackers, happy suburbanites for a couple of hours.

The Return of the Puddin' Pop

2008-05-23T21:22:00.001-04:00

Raise your hand if you remember the frozen pudding pops. Raise your hand if you thought they were freakin' AWESOME. maybe I'm the only one with my hand in the air (or for that matter both hands in the air), but you're probably not raising your hand because you:
1. think it's silly to raise your hand while reading a blog
2. never had a pudding pop
3. don't have taste buds

Seriously people. pudding pops, or for that matter, the chocolate pudding pops, were one of the best things I remember eating when I was younger. I loved that crispy icy exterior and then the bite of the cold on your teeth, but still the soft texture as you bit into it. I used to slowly lick off all the icy exterior to get to the pudding goodness on the inside, savoring each and every lick.

So I recently re-purchased an ice cream maker (if I haven't told you the story of the first one that broke, it's a good one, but let's just say my freezer was covered in blue anti-freeze as the bowl oozed from a crack in the seam). with a new kitchen, a recent trip to Italy (and therefore a renewed obsession with gelato) and a Williams-Sonoma gift certificate, I felt it the perfect time for a new ice cream maker.

I hooked it up nearly immediately after the first bowl was frozen, and made a mediocre vanilla ice cream. I then remembered my frustration trying to make a fabulous gelato in the past, and I never quite got there without using all heavy whipping cream. I then decided to flip through the instruction manual (we were going to make margaritas, so I wanted to see if it had any hints). I stumbled upon some recipes, which all looked fairly typical until I flipped the page to "Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream." Could it be? Could it be like my cherished pudding pops? I remained very very skeptical.

Living in a "paperless" household, I threw away the manual assuming it would be online. so today I came home with my packet of instant chocolate pudding (I think it's the first time I've ever bought instant pudding) and hopped online to find the recipe. unfortunately cuisinart decided that it didn't need to post the manual online, but did have five select recipes which didn't include the pudding recipe. All I could remember was that it called for milk and a package of chocolate pudding.

so putting google to good use I searched for a chocolate pudding ice cream recipe. unfortunately I came up with junk. a lot of extra sugar, eggs, and other things that I don't remember in the original. so, I decided to wing it. I didn't know how much milk to add, but since most recipes had 3 cups of some combination of milk and cream, I just put in 3 cups of milk and mixed in the pudding package. I threw it in the ice cream maker and set it to work.

20 minutes later I ventured a taste. my school days on the playground came rushing back to me immediately. success! pudding pop ice cream! and it wasn't even done churning yet. I tried to let it go longer but I kept eating it. finally, I pried myself away and put it in the freezer for a bit, but I've already probably eaten half of the batch. it is delicious. probably not perfect, but next time I'm going to freeze it in an ice cube tray for a real pudding pop like experience. and it's still unbelievable that there were 2 ingredients. TWO!

ooh, the pudding pop goodness will definitely be an obsession of mine for the time being. I may even try another pudding flavor. I don't think it'll be as good, but I've got two freezer bowls, so I can go back-to-back rounds.

so here's the recipe. I still can't believe it. I'm in pudding pop heaven:
Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream
3 cups of milk (or any combination of milk and cream)
1 package of instant pudding

whisk the pudding into cold milk. prepare ice cream according to the manufacturers instructions on your ice cream maker.

eat pudding pops and love life a little more.

Highlight from Birthday Eating Extravaganza: Dad likes Indian Food!

2008-04-11T21:27:00.002-04:00

older....wiser...more tired, and VERY full. that's pretty much what it's like to be 30. oh, 30. so much to eat, and so little space.

so it all started like this:

MMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWwwww.
mmeoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW
meow?

"shut up Lola"
meow?
"LOLA!"
MMMMMMMMEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow

"Happy Birthday!"
"ugh"

then Jeff gets up to shut up the cat, since it was my birthday, which entitled me to be the one staying in bed and not feeding the cat. as Jeff went out to put the smack down on Lola (i.e. fill up her bowl with delicious tuna), I realized that we didn't have any milk. no, not for the cat, but for my birthday cappuccino that Jeff had promised to make me and I was SO looking forward to. I yelled into the kitchen that we had no milk followed by "this birthday already sucks." Jeff came back into the bedroom to console me, but I was inconsolable, no milk = no coffee (well until he went to the store and bought some). and then: KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK at the door. Jeff started scrambling around, whereas I knew it had to be birthday goodness (I was expecting a package or flowers or something). but EVEN BETTER! my sister and bro-in-law. I literally jumped up and down screaming for about 10 seconds. and then my b.i.l. offered to go get me milk too...what a day it was turning into! fast forward several more hours and my parents and aunt also showed up and surprised me.

the plan (before all the visitors!) for my birthday was a whole lot of eating...starting with Peter Luger for a steak birthday lunch. oh god. steak and burgers. it's really as good as people say it is. you can order BACON as your APPETIZER. "I would like one piece of bacon before my huge piece of cow comes please." I was in heaven. I split the burger with my sister and got some of the famous porterhouse as well. all good, very very good. so very good. mmm....beef (and bacon)...mmmm....

so after PL, we were meeting some friends for dinner at a smallish italian "small plates" place. italian tapas in a way. it was family style and I picked it because they had all sorts of panini. the food was great, so was the wine and the friends and family, but the best part of the night came when they brought the cake out.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN"
said the cake.

so, you may have noticed, my name is not spelled in the typical way. so Jeff was very very careful when he told them how to spell it. In fact (apparently), the guy on the phone at the bakery said "with a 'C', as in 'cat'" - to which Jeff answered in the affirmative. so, we were both kind of confused and made the waiter go back and make sure it was my cake (perhaps, we thought, someone else named Lauren was not going to get her cake). and the waiter went back and brought out the receipt "Jess Cox" ordered the cake. well, if I'm Lauren then I guess it makes sense that Jeff is Jess. my friend took some awesome pictures of my face and Jeff trying to explain to me what happened. If I can find the pics, I'll post them at the end of this entry.

overall, though it was a great day. but the weekend of eating was not over yet. Saturday we had reservations at Picholine. a "jacket required" restaurant. as we were getting dressed (correction, as I was getting dressed and everyone else was lying around, which was fine for everyone but Jeff cause they all had picked out what they were going to wear except him), and it got closer and closer until the time we had to leave, Jeff finally asked me what he should wear. Given that I was at t-5 minutes, I obviously couldn't think about his outfit. I said "a jacket" he said "jeans?" and I said "sure" - he totally didn't believe me, but my argument was that it didn't say you needed a suit, you just needed a jacket. so he got all fancified on the top half and wore jeans on the bottom half. I thought it was cool, in fact, later I said to Jeff that I loved his attitude towards the restaurant, I think what I actually said was that I loved that he went into the restaurant and "was like, whatever dudes, I'm wearing my jeans." of course, they didn't say anything to him. after all, he was still wearing a jacket.

the food, I thought, was really quite amazing. but what I really liked was that it was a fixed price menu, but priced by the number of courses you got. but you could order two appetizers or two main courses or three desserts or two entrees and one dessert or one appetizer and one dessert and so on and so forth. they would appropriately size your appetizer course as such...so I ended up ordering two entrees, but they made my appetizer "entree" small. I loved that. I ordered scallops as my appetizer, which were good, but not nearly as good as the mushroom risotto that I hijacked from my aunt. it was salty and creamy and delicious. so very delicious. but my main course was out of this world. chicken "kiev" - in quotes because instead of butter pouring out when you cut into it, molten foie gras came oozing out. pure heaven. I can't say I've ever had a better chicken dish. of course, the best part of the evening came when I ordered my dessert course and they brought me a 2nd dessert (for my birthday). and no, I didn't share, despite having two ENTIRE dessert courses in front of me (and they didn't make one of them smaller to be an "appetizer" dessert course). however, I didn't manage to finish both. I actually ended up liking the "bonus birthday" dessert better than the one I ordered. the bonus one was brioche thing, kind of like a mini loaf of brioche (very mini) battered and cooked, like french toast. I don't know exactly, but it was delicious. the dessert I actually ordered was a peanut butter souffle with banana ice cream. it needed chocolate...it was far to peanut buttery.

but really...the highlight of the food weekend came on Sunday. my parents were staying with us Sunday night, and everyone else had left in the early afternoon for their flights. I announced to Jeff and my parents that we would be ordering Indian for dinner. I then turned to my dad and told him he would be having leftover pizza or PL steak. he was cool with that...I was cool with that, but Jeff insisted that we order my dad some chicken tikka masala. everyone knows my dad is not the adventurous eater that I am (huge understatement). I mean, I guess I always thought he'd like it, but we could never get him to try it.

alas, the food arrived and Jeff prepared my dad's plate for him. some rice mixed in with his tikka masala, a somosa on the side and a huge hunk of nan. apparently, he'll try food that Jeff "prepares" for him. we all dug in to our dinners and kind of forgot about dad, until suddenly I realized that he was not complaining...and his food was half eaten. and right about then he announced "not bad...not bad at all. It's like tomato soup, but with chicken and rice." ha! I mean, the chicken tikka masala that we get from our takeout place is not spicy at all, so that helps a lot. Plus, I put a huge dollop of plain yogurt on his, which he loves, so that also helped. incredible. but now we know, we have to have Jeff convince dad to try things and make it all "dad-like" for him and familiar. the possibilities are now endless! it's totally going to be ethiopian the next time he comes.

so, who knew? I really CAN be surprised...PL really IS amazing (it's the aging!), no matter how many times you see you're name spelled wrong, there's always a new version, 2 desserts are better than one (and you don't need fancy pants when it's "jacket required") AND dad likes Indian food! what a birthday weekend!

PS - if my name was spelled wrong on my cake, does that mean it wasn't actually my birthday and I'm not really a year older? I think the answer to that question is most definitely, yes. :)

No Splitting This Split

2008-03-13T21:02:00.001-04:00

I have been reinspired to blog again. Many days and months have passed (a year even?), and I guess it's unsurprising to those who know me, that the thing to bring me back to the blog is my one true love. Ice cream that is. To be more specific, my absolute favorite the ice cream treat, the banana split. oh, how I love the banana split. There are variations that are better than others, and I've never really been a big fan of the pineapple portion of the banana split, but tonight, I had the banana split that beats all banana splits. Not only did it beat every other banana split, it KILLED every other banana split. It was the home-run touchdown of banana splits.

So I've been traveling for work and have spent the last two weeks in Washington, DC. I've had work to do in the evenings so for the majority of the trip, I've spent my dinners in the hotel room eating falafel sandwiches or peanut butter. Some nights I got some black bean soup from the Dean and Deluca down the street, but it's not been much high class dining (with the exception of one other night). So, last weekend my mother-in-law tipped me off to Frank Bruni's latest top 10 list (top 10 new restaurants outside of NYC). Since I was out of NYC and one of the restaurants on Bruni's list was in DC, I decided to check it out.

I went after work and settled in at the bar with a nice glass of wine. My treat dinner, I thought to myself, it being my last night here and all. I glanced over the menu, but I had studied it dutifully online and knew I wanted to order the burger. With bacon and cheese of course. And seriously, I am not a big believer in the fancy [expensive] burgers, but since this was treat night for me, I went for it. I did a little web surfing and emailing and before I knew it my burger had arrived…about three inches thick and with a sufficient pile of french fries on the side. I immediately dug into the fries and they were salted perfectly and peppered too. FINALLY. I don’t know why restaurants don’t always salt and pepper the fries, they’re SO much better with both. I mean, doesn’t everyone love the salt and pepper potato chips? It’s like that, but better because they’re hot and wonderful. Anyway, I managed to get my mouth around the huge burger and in no time I was half through it. Tender, juicy, and just delicious. Totally worth the $20 I was paying for it.

But this is a blog about the banana split…so we’ll move quickly onto that portion of the meal. I did eat the entire burger and left three fry crunchies on the plate, and was feeling full, but since the burger was so good, I figured the banana split had to be good, and really, how could I not order it? I really didn’t have a choice in the matter, the decision was completely out of my hands. Before I knew it I was ordering it. It seemed that the banana split took at least twice as long to arrive as the burger did, but perhaps that’s because I was so looking forward to it. Despite my clear excitement for the split, I really didn’t think it was going to be so good. I mean, I figured it would be good, but I had no expectation that it would be the best banana split ever. And I’m serious, best ever.

So the banana split arrived and my eyes must have grown to the size of the ice cream scoops; it was served up on an old school tv dinner type plate (you know the one, with four divisions, three small portions and one big one). The banana was served up in the main part of the plate (don’t worry, now that Jeff made me get that fancy phone, I take pictures), and it was snuggled between a pool of chocolate and a pool of caramel (for the record, I don’t like caramel). The banana was sliced in half lengthwise and covered with the following:

whipped cream
strawberry and chocolate sauce (duh)
crispy chocolate bits
freeze dried pineapple (they FINALLY solved the gross pineapple problem)
and just a nice sprinkling of chopped pistachios

The three ice cream flavors were: chocolate, strawberry (sorbet though, more about this in a minute), and caramel. I started with the chocolate ice cream (traditional choice for me, obviously) a bit of chocolate ice cream and a bit of banana (with all the banana fixins’) on one spoon. What surprised me immediately was the creaminess of the ice cream, I swear that the ice cream was made only out of heavy cream and chocolate. The banana with all the nibbly bits provided just the right amount of crunch, sweet, sour (from the freeze dried pineapple), creamy and good good goodness. I immediately ate about 5 bites in a row without thinking…I had to try every combination, chocolate ice cream with the caramel sauce, caramel ice cream with the chocolate sauce and so on and so forth. And despite my strong dislike of caramel, I found it not so sweet and just right with the banana and the rest of the deliciousness. I usually hate caramel because it oozes with gooey sweetness, which to me, is the mark of a bad dessert, if you have to cover the flavor with gooey sweet then it is just not good. But both the caramel sauce and caramel ice cream were LOADED with cream, so it was not so sweet at all.

So we now come to the strawberry sorbet. I had avoided it….I was so terribly disappointed when I first realized it was sorbet (sorbet is for cleansing your palate it is NOT a dessert…do you hear me Jeff? not a dessert). So when the rest of the split was so good, I had to give the strawberry a try. I reluctantly put my spoon in but only put a mere dab on the end of the spoon and filled up the rest with the banana goodies. But I took a bite and realized, this may be what all good banana splits were missing, it was SO refreshing with the rest of the dense creamy split. It was like an even better strawberry sauce. and I didn’t have faith, even after all the good food I had eaten.

this was the point in the split in which I had take a huge breath and I realized that my stomach was about to explode. I hade made it through about half the chocolate scoop (each scoop was probably about 10 oz of ice cream), half the caramel and a third of the strawberry (I know! but the strawberry came to the party too late in the game for me to get through that much of it).

I had about two bites left of the banana (in addition to the ice cream), and I realized I could not go on (so unlike me, one of my friends has already commented). Despite it being my celebratory night, I was not going to make myself sick (I have only once made myself sick from eating too much….aah, pound cake….and I still love it), so I threw in the napkin. but by that time I had already convinced the woman sitting next to me that she too must order the banana split.

Perhaps the joy also came from the fact that it was 60 + degrees here today, so I had that spring feeling in my step. PLUS, when I was younger spring meant the DQ, and that was my first experience with the banana split. but I’d have to say that 99% of the goodness in today’s banana split was from the fantabulousness of it, and maybe 1% could be attributed to the nostalgia. Regardless, this means that spring is here, ice cream season is officially upon us and there will be many many more banana splits for me this summer.

Even if I had gone to this restaurant with others, I would have not split this split.

Electrifying Butter

2007-10-21T11:31:00.000-04:00

So to preface this, I'm going to be very clear that what I'm writing is not based on any real knowledge I have about how microwaves and chemistry works, and it is 99% based on information I read on the internet from sometimes sketchy websites (the 1% was based on conversations I had with Jeff while he was playing Halo).

So here's the story:
When we were in Michigan we were sitting down enjoying dinner when my sister and brother-in-law told us about a butter sparking problem they were having with their microwave. About a year ago (I think) they were trying to soften some butter in the microwave in a Denby (microwave safe) dish. After about 2 seconds there was a spark that shot across the microwave. They took it out and it didn't happen again until several weeks ago when it started happening regularly, that is, every time they tried to microwave butter.

So the facts are:
- only butter sparks
- they used the dish in the microwave with many different foods without any sparks
- the butter is unsalted (salt is an electrolyte)
- it happens well well before the butter melts, generally after 2 seconds or so
- they didn't leave the butter in long enough to know if it would continue to happen after the butter was soft/melted
- they had probably done it with two different types of butter
- I don't know what kind of microwave they have

We sat at the dinner table and peppered them with questions for the rest of the evening, not able to find anything obvious (we had 4 young well educated people: chemistry, engineering and biology majors sitting at the table, so hopefully our minds were at least asking the right questions). No physics majors though.

So we left without any answers, but I promised to blog about it if my sister showed me. So we went back to their house and stuck a piece of butter in. After about 1 second there was a PPPSSSHHHT! noise but no spark, but sister immediately stopped the microwave, although she was sure it would have sparked if she would have left it going.

So, after a bit of research on the web, here's my own personal crazy theory.
Two things are fairly well documented on the web (life lessons according to the interweb are often dangerous, but keeps things exciting, right?):
1. Microwaves spark on a more regular basis than you might imagine. Usually when this happens it is because it is dirty. It sounds like there is some side panel which is what gets dirty and the oil/food on there burns and sparks. I think that can be cleaned or replaced to solve the general sparking problem. But their problem only happened with butter.
2. Others have reported a butter sparking problem or other one-food related sparking problem. To explain this issue, a little background. Microwaves work by heating up the water in food (more specifically, it's a factor of the polarity of the water - at least according to some website). Microwaves are well absorbed by water, but not well absorbed by ice.

So here's my theory, assuming they don't have a dirty panel (which could cause sparking generally), I think when they start the microwave one bit of the cold butter starts to melt, and the liquid absorbs way way way more microwaves than the rest of the "pat" of butter (this was documented, that it can happen within a second). This large absorption of microwaves in relation to the rest of the butter causes the spark or at least the PPPPPPSSSSHHHHT! noise we heard. In addition, butter itself is a dipole and can get very very very hot in the microwave, so it seems reasonable to assume that in one or two seconds one little bit could melt and start absorbing more waves than the surrounding butter.

How's that for an uneducated guess at butter sparking?

There is also the well-documented experiment of grapes sparking in the microwave (actually, flaming), which is due to some very long complicated explanation which I didn't have the patience to read. So it is also possible that whatever causes grapes to flame might also cause their butter to spark. I'm not sure though. I think the mystery still continues.

But if anyone knows why this might be happening, let me know!

(Almost ) burger paradise

2007-10-21T11:00:00.000-04:00

I've been a little behind with my postings, ok, well a lot behind. I'd like to blame it on the new apartment, but I think mostly I've just been lazy. Alas, I am back (hopefully, more regularly), so let's see what I can knock out here.

A few weeks ago Jeff's family was coming into town which usually means a uber-fancy dinner (per se, Jean Georges were restaurants visited in previous visits), this time, we were a party of 8 and decided to try a place down in Tribeca, which was known primarily for its low markup on its wine and its steak.

While I am a bonafide steak lover, and don't eat it very often, so usually am overjoyed about an opportunity for filet mignon (I think it's already well established that I have high food tastes and expectations, so does it really seem that surprising that I always go straight for the filet?). However, on this particular evening, I wasn't feeling the filet option. Surprised myself at my lack of interest, I browsed the rest of the menu to try and find something to suit my taste for the evening.

Which is when the hamburger option caught my eye. Generally speaking, if I'm at a restaurant known for some kind of specialty I'll go for it. Since steak was their thing, and I didn't feel like that, the hamburger seemed like the perfect compromise, and I am always in the mood for hamburgers.

So I ordered the burger and as a last minute addition I asked for blue cheese as well. Fast forward several glasses of wine, and the food arrives. So the restaurant is dark, I have had a few glasses of wine and there was this strange (what appeared to be) beige-ish very very thin patty on top of my hamburger. Confused and a little frightened, I gingerly stuck one tine of my fork in the patty-like thing, and to my great surprise it was the blue cheese....not too strong, (because an entire patty of strong blue cheese would have been terrible), but certainly not for those who don't like blue cheese. Like a kid in a candy store, I dug in to my blue cheese burger, and the warm oozy blue cheese melted into the ground beef. I knew I had one delicious burger on my hands.

I tried to savor every bite, but I think I really devoured the whole thing before anyone could even notice my burger. wow, it was one good burger.

Which got me to thinking, is the goodness of a burger (for me) dependent on the toppings? But I thought back to my favorite, the Red Coat burger, and that's just good burger meat. What I also thought about in terms of my burger enjoyment, if I have a burger that is not pink in the middle, I am immediately turned off. it's just too dry, and there's no flavor. So that seemed to lean towards a good meat = good burger theory.

And then, a couple of weekends ago we went to Michigan and went to Red Coat. And I always get blue cheese on my burger there. And there I realized it is clearly a combination of the toppings and the meat. At Red Coat the amazing sauce mixes with the blue cheese and the burger drippings, which is just plain delicious. But they also, ALWAYS cook just as you want it (probably a factor of the sheer number of burgers they cook every day). So many of the supposedly "best burger" places in Manhattan which I have visited in an attempt to find the best burger, do not cook it the way I want it. And that's because they see burgers being the new hot trend and got into this business but they don't actually know how to cook burgers.

However, the most important thing I realized is that it starts with the good burger meat and proper cooking. That can get you to a good burger. But if you have good toppings and sauce, that'll put it over the top into amazing status. Now, if I could only perfect this for home cooking, I'd be all set.

if only...

2007-09-11T19:00:00.000-04:00

this sad story begins with a series of "if onlys..." (and by the way, if you get sick when hearing about gory things, then don't read this)

if only I had not been in such a hurry...if only I had used the pre-chopped lettuce...if only we had ordered take-out...if only I had used proper knife skills as I always do, I wouldn't have had to go to the ER on Sunday night.

the story begins around 7 pm on Sunday night when we had the "ooh, take-out is so tempting" conversation. but we decided that since I had already made the tomato sauce and bought everything for dinner, I'd cook.

so you may have guessed the story by now (or heard about it).... I accidentally sliced off part of my finger on Sunday night while cooking. and I ALWAYS curl my fingers up to get them out of the way, like I've watched for hours and hours on end on the food network. I started screaming and screaming and screaming and Jeff ran in (I actually saw a little bit of finger on the cutting board). he grabbed my arm and took me into the bathroom and realized there wasn't anything he could do really. he was holding my arm up in the air but I wouldn't really let him put any pressure on it to stop the bleeding because it hurt so much.

he called his parents and said "she chopped off part of her finger" and I screamed even more. they said "call 911!" which he did. once those calls were finished we sat down and I started to calm down a bit because the blood was no longer pouring down my arm. but then I looked up and Jeff was completely white and there was sweat pouring down his face. he looked up at me and said "I think I'm going to pass out" and his head fell forward. I grab his head and screamed his name. he opened his eyes but he did not look well. after a minute or so, he said that he was alright and got up to change his clothes (we had just gotten back from working out, so on top of it all I was a smelly mess).

shortly thereafter, the police arrived and then the EMS. they reassured me that it wasn't so bad and that I would be fine, but I wouldn't let them run my finger under water. they re-wrapped in it gauze (it was still bleeding), and there wasn't much they could do so we went down to the ambulance and they drove us to the hospital. we arrived and they checked me in and assigned me to a bed. we plopped down and began to wait.

we actually didn't have to wait too long before a set of doctors (I think there were 2 residents and an attending or chief resident or something) came over. they asked me when I'd had my last tetanus shot (I didn't remember) and then took off the gauze. they realized there was really nothing for them to do either (I hadn't cut off "enough" for them to re-attach anything, and it wasn't a cut into my finger that needed to be stitched, I had just taken off most of the nail and part of the side -- I think, I still haven't looked yet). But they did need to stop the bleeding so they needed to go find some blood clotter gel thing or something. so then we waited for awhile more.

they came back and wrapped me up (the gel was incredibly painful because she essentially had to press it into my open wound). we then realized that we didn't have enough cash to take a cab home, so we were going to have to walk. which was unbelievably depressing for me, so I sent Jeff to go find an atm. we waited a bit more for the tetanus shot and then we were ready to head home. all in all it was about a 2 hour visit.

we arrived home, saw all the half cooked food on the stove and immediately ordered a pizza. I think Jeff threw out everything that was sitting out, including the cutting board. I vowed to never cook again.

if only I could really stick to that vow...

oh peaches, where art thou?

2007-07-29T20:57:00.000-04:00

So at Jeff's crazy cool workplace, last week there was a Farmer's market in the cafeteria. oh no, I'm sorry, I was just fact checking and apparently, the Farmer's market was on the balcony of the cafeteria. You would think that these things wouldn't surprise me anymore, but they still do. Now, I misunderstood this at first when he told me. I thought he meant that his cafeteria food was all made fresh from Farmer's market ingredients (like the "theme" for the day), but no, there was an actual market in which you shopped (but yes, they had to pay with real money) for produce and what not.

Anyway, I was out to lunch (i.e. the gym) when Jeff called me to ask if I wanted him to buy anything. So he took it upon himself to decide what looked good and what we needed. What he ended up with was about 4 pounds of peaches (but it was only $3). That's it. Just peaches. And a whole lot of them. I however, did not know how many peaches he had actually bought. (not that I'm complaining)

So this was last Wednesday. The peaches did not arrive home on Wednesday, because we were going out to dinner and he came straight from work to dinner. Thursday he didn't bring them home because he walked home from work. So on Friday he had to bring them home. However, he also received a 24" monitor from work that he had to bring home as well. Instead of taking a cab (which I understand because we were going to the UES that night and destined to be taking a cab both ways), he took the subway. Just imagine how big a 24" monitor is and then imagine how big the box for it is. HUGE.

To be able to bring the peaches home, he tied the plastic bag onto his computer bag (his computer bag is only big enough for his computer, not even room in there for a power cable). This arrangement was such that the plastic bag hit his side/leg every time he took a step.

So Friday he arrived home with mostly bruised peaches and monitor in tow. That's when I realized how many peaches we were dealing with. This was going to be no small task using them up (especially because I knew the chances were slim to none that he would eat the peaches on their own, the expectation was very clear that something would be made with them).

So here arrived problem #2 ... cooking/baking with peaches. Ugh. Of course pie pops into everyone's head. But peach pie (and every other peach recipe under the sun) calls for peeled peaches. double ugh. what an unnecessary ridiculous step in cooking. removing the skin. triple ugh.

I've also been in this situation before, where I think to myself, it can't be THAT bad if I just leave the skin on. But it's weird and gross every time. I don't know what it is. But when you eat a piece of pie, you don't want extra peach skin hanging out of your mouth attached to the peach piece.

After two days of half-hearted searching (and throwing away about three peaches a day because they were bruised and going bad), I stumbled across a recipe free-form fruit tart, that oddly enough, did not call for peeling the peaches. Especially strange since essentially it was a pie crust in which you mounded up peaches and blueberries in the middle of and folded the sides of the crust over "in a rustic manner."

Before I had to throw out all the peaches, I figured I'd give it a try. My kitchen, of course, is about 600 degrees when I'm making dinner, so I was sure the pie crust would be a disaster. Especially when I was rolling out the dough and there were only three bits of butter visible to the eye (it should be "peppered" so to speak, with bits of butter so that it can rise properly and be flaky).

I piled on the fruit, threw it in the oven and set the timer for an hour. Of course, what I happened to forget was that I had halved the recipe (I'm sure I've written about this problem before that I have with halving recipes). Luckily, however, I was also cooking our chicken for dinner in the oven at the same time. I went in to check in on the chicken when the tart was supposed to be about half way finished (imagine that), and found the peaches lightly charred, the crust golden brown and the blueberries bubbling away. I immediately pulled it out, but I was sure that it was yet more peaches destined for the garbage.

After scarfing down dinner, I turned to dessert. I had Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream in the freezer, so I knew that dessert would be recoverable if I piled on enough ice cream. To my great surprise, the crust was tender and flaky, the peaches and blueberries perfectly sweetened and no weird peach skin issues. I still managed to pile on the ice cream, but I mostly ate it separately, the free form tart was so tasty!

I got the recipe from Cooks Illustrated, but it was really a basic pie crust in which you piled on fruit (I'm not sure how well really juicy fruits would fare, since there's no thickener or anything), and gave the whole thing a sprinkling of sugar. a perfect way to use up peaches without having to take off the skin. Next time I'm going to advise Jeff to both diversify his purchases and maybe not wait three days to bring the goodies home. either way though, this time it worked out pretty well for us.

Dessert Karma

2007-06-24T08:33:00.000-04:00

Last week I went out to dinner to Del Posto with two of my friends to bid adieu to one of them who is moving to San Francisco. We actually selected the enoteca part of Del Posto, which appeared to have a smaller, less expensive menu, but still looked wonderful. We were kind of expecting to be seated in a dungeonous basement or something, but we had a great table, near the front of the restaurant (I guess they consider the dungeon the front).

Our waiter appeared almost immediately to take our drink order, one of my friends (the one moving, I'll call her SF) had a glass of prosecco so my other friend (I'll call her NY) and I ordered one as well. The waiter inquired whether or not we were celebrating something (all the prosecco being ordered I suspect was the reason why he was inquiring), and NY indicated that SF was moving away, so not really a celebration of sorts, but a fun evening nonetheless. The waiter returned with the bottle and filled up a glass for myself, NY, and then topped off SF's glass. At that point we knew that we'd be in for a great evening.

We decided that we would go for the tasting menu, which included five courses: appetizer, two pastas, a secondo plate and dessert. Each individual ordered her own appetizer, secondo and dessert while the table selected two pasta dishes and everyone got the two same pasta courses. I had announced that I was happy to share (it was a special occasion afterall), so we all ordered different things and selected the pastas. We did not, however, have to select the dessert options when we ordered the rest of the food. Which was good because selected the four other options was tough enough at that point.

Our food began arriving at the table, course after course of wonderful morsels of all sorts of things, steak, pork, pasta, fish, calamari, asparagus...it was all wonderful. We wondered why the restaurant wasn't busier, the food was great, and while the selection wasn't as large as the main restaurant, there was still plenty to choose from, and it was cheaper too. The service was impeccable, and we had no trouble making a reservation (they only take same day reservations). Reviews of the main part of the restaurant often indicate overpriced and poor service for what you're paying..clearly this would be the answer to all of those complaints. Perhaps now that I'm writing about it, the word is out...then again, definitely not (as much as I'd like to believe more than 2 people read this, somehow I doubt that enoteca will be mobbed anytime soon because of my post).

Once we started getting closer to dessert, the conversation slowly turned to what our dessert selections were going to be. Both NY and SF are very well aware of both my dessert infatuation and my unwillingness to share. I however, committed to sharing my dessert like a normal nice person would (it was either the alcohol talking at that point or perhaps I'm actually learning to share...maybe I'll graduate to 1st grade at some point soon...we could only hope). Once I had committed to sharing we agreed to all get different things. This was a much tougher negotiation, there were a couple of stand out items, but after a short round table discussion we came away with our dessert agenda:

SF was to get a chocolate almond cake thing
NY was getting a sorbet/prosecco
I was getting the chocolate pudding

I was excited and ready to order (and I'd have to say that I was most excited for the chocolate almond cake). The waiter came back and SF ordered first, and to my great dismay, after she ordered he instructed her to pick something else. but, but, the chocolate almond cake! How could they be out?! After my loud groan of disappointment the waiter replied that he was planning on bring one of those for the table! Happy with our stroke of good luck, SF quickly selected a blueberry cake thing. Next up to order was NY, and once she completed her order, the waiter told her that her selection was more of a palate cleanser, and he recommended that she too pick something else. She actually kind of was interesting in the palate cleansing dessert (we had afterall, just consumed four other courses), so she indicated that was ok with her, and the waiter replied, with what was now becoming a pattern, that he'd bring one for the table and she should pick something else. Shocked yet again, she selected a lemon thing (I don't remember it exactly, whether it was more of a cake/bar type thing or a custard/brulee type thing, or perhaps neither of those). I went to order my pudding, kind of expecting at this point to be ordered to select something different, but at that point we had pretty much everything off the dessert menu ordered for our table, so my chocolate pudding was accepted by the waiter.

And then the flow of desserts started, five in all were delivered to our table. It was dessert heaven for me (just in shear volume of sugar treats covering our table). My friends agreed that I must have dessert karma of some sort, as neither of them had ever been to a restaurant and been offered so many extra free desserts. I think that my experience at per se was perhaps on their mind, but per se wasn't even the first time that I received extra dessert (although the other places I can think of were either very high end, or I had poor service or something and requested a free dessert...like the time I was in Toronto with SF and some of our other friends and I got a MASSIVE banana split with SPARKLERS coming out of it, just to name one other time).

I'd like to believe I have dessert karma, what a great thing! Of course, my mom would tell me, like she always used to, that I'm going to give myself diabetes (which, I didn't actually ever believe was possible, I thought she was just trying to scare me...turns out she was right, you can get diabetes from eating too much sugar). It's really not a bad thing to have going for you, dessert karma, despite the sugar infestation that will most likely one day take over me. I'm going to ride it out as long as I can!

Farmer's Market Salad

2007-06-23T13:16:00.000-04:00

I haven't really had the opportunity yet this summer to hit the farmer's market. Last weekend I really started to get the itch to go as all the fruits started appearing en masse at the grocery store. So I planned to devote this Saturday morning to the market. Despite my overwhelming excitement, I slept in (so I probably missed all the good stuff), and only managed to drag myself out of the apartment after downing a cappuccino.

I love the farmer's market. Especially in the summer. Especially when it's 68 degrees and sunny. Especially when it's overflowing with fruits and veggies and flowers and bread and cheeses and jams and honey and everything else under the sun. It's not only that I'm getting fresh delicious things, but I think I also feel a sense of well-being because I'm helping the local farmers. I'm sure that some of the stands are not small farms, but no matter, I always come away from the market with more bags than I can carry, a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a glowing feeling.

Today was a perfect day for the farmers market (you may have guessed that it was 68 and sunny with a light cool breeze). I finally arrived close to 11, a little late by the farmer's market standard, but there was certainly still a ton of fresh goodness to pick from. I started with cherries, which must be in season because every stand had an overflowing amount of them. I grabbed my little pint and went to pay. The gentleman asked me if I wanted the pint basket and I said no and he thanked me and threw in a couple more handfuls of cherries into my bag. This is why I love the farmers market! Everyone is friendly, no pushing or shoving, everyone walks away smiling. I paid $3 for a sizeable bag of cherries, and last weekend I paid a RIDICULOUS $10 for cherries that didn't taste nearly as good.

My morning continued...we lapped the market and took a break in the shade once I had finished. I had bags filled with blueberries, cherries, strawberries, lettuce, eggs, herbs, tomatoes, all sorts of goodies. It's safe to say that I was incredibly content at that point...there are very few things that make me feel as happy as either an incredibly well stocked fridge or having bought all the things to stock my fridge with deliciousness. It's the best feeling to open the door or walk into the kitchen and have all sorts of fresh options to choose from for a snack or to make a meal.

I arrived home ravenous and asked Jeff what he wanted for lunch. To which he replied, with his standard reply, "what d'ya got?" (yes, he was an english major). I realized I didn't actually really have any food for a meal. I bought lots of things to complement a meal (veggies and things), but after thinking for a minute I realized that I could make a pretty darn delicious salad with all the ingredients in my bag. So I offered a salad with fresh berries and goat cheese and pecans. I didn't think he'd bite (literally ... figuratively), but I think he was hungry enough, so he was in.

I went into the kitchen and started making the salad, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, goat cheese and pecans. Easy and simple. I rummaged through my bags to find something else, and I pulled out the basil and chopped that up and threw it in too. But the real breakthrough came when I decided I wanted croutons too, but the only bread I had bought was a cinnamon raisin bread (for french toast tomorrow, yummmmm!). Of course that would work! It's a fruit salad anyway! So I made some cinnamon raisin croutons to top it all off..oh boy, that was good stuff.

I just added olive oil, salt and pepper to dress it with and dug in. Unbelievably fresh and delicious, it's amazing what fresh ingredients can do. The strawberries and cherries were so incredibly juicy and sweet, their juices kind of mixed with the olive oil to make more of a berry vinegrette. oh dear, it was good. The perfect way to top off my morning. This may have to be my new Saturday morning tradition, go to the market, buy a bunch of yummo ingredients and try throwing them all together...hopefully they'll all be as good as this one.

(June) Farmer's Market Salad
I'm just going to list all the stuff I used, obviously you can use as much or as little as you want. Plus the whole idea is to buy whatever's there and make it. But if you happen to have all these ingredients on hand, it's a pretty darn great salad.

Blueberries
Cherries
Strawberries
Goat cheese
Pecans (toasted in a dry pan for a couple of minutes...NOT BURNT!)
Lettuce
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Basil (mint would be good too)
Cinnamon raisin croutons (see below)

For the croutons, the best way to do it (I think) is to use the ends of the bread (especially if you're making french toast with the rest of the loaf, because you won't use the ends). Cut up the ends into bite size pieces, and heat up some butter (or olive oil, but I used butter since it's a sweet bread) in a pan over low heat. Add the bread and let cook for a couple of minutes until one side is golden brown. Toss around in the pan and add more butter if necessary until all sides are golden brown. Add to salad. Dig in and enjoy!!

rice three (maybe four?) ways

2007-06-04T21:22:00.000-04:00

I've never really been able to make rice. Maybe it's silly, but it's true...I always have all sorts of problems when I try to make regular white rice. I've had better luck with brown rice (except the time when I burnt an entire cup of brown rice to the bottom of a pot). When I was in college I would make (the only thing I actually "cooked") the boil-in-a-bag, which worked fine. But now that I'm all grown up and should make adult white rice, I can't seem to get it right.

So last Saturday, while breaking out a serious sweat playing the Wii with some friends, it quickly approached dinner time (well for Jeff it was WAY past dinner time, being 8:30 pm it was well past his usual early bird special). I had found a red curry recipe that I wanted to try, well, in reality, I found a red curry recipe that I wanted to completely change around and replace most of the ingredients with other ingredients, but I did want the red curry to remain the same. This, however, required making rice. I confinded into my friend that I was village idiot when it came to rice making, but she was no help either, apparently I'm not the only one who has this mental block when it comes to rice making.

So I pulled out the Uncle Ben's (the first time I have even ever bought uncle ben's, I usually get the fancier stuff) box, and to make matters worse, they had instructions for making rice for 2, 4, 6 or 12 people. so I immediately looked at the recipe for 6 naturally (we had 4 people), but this recipe only called for 1.5 cups of uncooked rice, which didn't seem to be like a whole lot. My sous chef (not that I'm a better cook than my sous chef, she just happened to be reading the ingredients to me) agreed, and there was no way to double the recipe for 4 because the water/rice ratio varied for each serving size. Clearly, what made the most sense was to make rice for 12.

When the timer alarm went off, I refused to lift the lid because I was sure there was hard uncooked and mushy grains in the pot. When I finally did open the lid, what awaited me were glorious perfectly cooked rice grains. rice for 12 is clearly the answer!!

So after making our way through a lot of the rice for 12 (and we did eat a lot because the red curry was SPICY), I still had oodles and oodles of rice leftover.

what to do with rice leftovers?

well the first option that I came up with, was rice pudding. I actually thought of it when I decided on making rice for 12 (I think I said "well, I can always make rice pudding with the leftovers"). So last night after dinner (we had hamburgers, nothing at all related to rice), I whipped up a batch of rice pudding. It was tasty and delicious, but only used up a small amount of the leftover rice.

So tonight for dinner I was determined to come up with another use for leftover rice. Again, the choice seemed obvious, fried rice. I threw together a pan of fried rice, which was also delicious, and also did not use up all the rice. never again will I make rice for 12! (one of the funny parts of this whole thing is that the amount of rice that I had in leftovers was probably $1 worth...even funnier if you are reading this after reading the per se entry, in which no single bite of that entire meal probably cost less than $1). It had become a challenge at this point (clearly).

So I e-mailed my friend who got me into this predicament in the first place, and she came back with great ideas! Rice salad, rice stuffing, tomato rice soup (coincidentally that was also the soup in the cafeteria today), stuffed peppers, the list goes on and on. I have, however, been lectured over and over again from my mom and grandma that I must not ever make stuffed peppers with cooked rice. They have only ever made it with uncooked rice and it appears to be the proper polish way. I have yet to make any stuffed peppers because I keep forgetting the recipe (mom, can I get that again from you?). So I won't be making the stuffed peppers, but I will be making yet another rice dish tomorrow for dinner.

anywho. rice for 12. now that I have offered up so many options for leftover rice (well, stole a bunch of ideas and then posted them to my blog as though I came up with them), everyone should be making rice for 12. it may just be the only way to make rice come out at all, unless, of course, you use Toshiba's new $800 rice cooker.

oh god I'm never eating again [dinner at per se]

2007-05-19T09:36:00.001-04:00

FYI...I started this post the morning after dinner and I just finished it (a week + later)

It's 9:30 am post per se, and I am overcome with the feeling of never wanting to eat again. Mostly I feel this way because I had a nine course dinner (plus little extras) starting at 10 pm last night. What struck me by dinner last night is that it was the first really fancy dinner that seemed like real american food. No hamburgers or anything, but a salsa/goat cheese course?! Dessert wasn't some fancy french pastry thing, but a heavenly chocolate/hazelnut almost ganache-like thing (but believe me, I will get to dessert in a minute).

When I asked Jeff what he thought of dinner, he paused for a minute and then said "yeah, it was pretty good." Pretty good, huh? Every course was meticulously designed and crafted for flavor and texture combinations. I admit there were some that had me feeling like they were just dressing up some veggies from the corner store. But overall, the meal was incredibly impressive, clearly, if I felt like I never wanted to eat again, I certainly got enough good food to make me want to explode.

So let's start at the beginning...10 pm, Friday night (two Fridays ago). We were seated and quickly ordered a bottle of champagne (it's hard not to when they come up to your table and ask "so will you be starting with champagne?" really impossible to turn that offer down). Then a waitress came up to me with a little stool. Slightly confused (but not wanting to show my confusion), she set it down next to me (I really really really wanted it to be a foot rest so I could stretch out my legs under the table), I quickly realized it was for my purse. A seat for my purse. A seat....for my purse. ha!

We started browsing the menu and were informed that we could "mix and match" off of the vegetarian tasting menu and the regular tasting menu. We put together our dinner selections while they brought us these heavenly cheese balls. Cheese balls raised to the infinite power. I think it was brie, surrounded by a delightful pastry dough, which provided just the right crispiness to match the melty cheese. I could have eaten a hundred, but thankfully I was only given one because I definitely would have thrown up after dinner if I had more.

We ordered our dinner, and shortly after our food descended to our table (we hadn't however, received any bread yet, and were DYING, so we had to ask for some, slight point deduction, but not much). The first course was an oyster/caviar course. Jeff opted for some green soup thing (he REALLY must hate oysters if he opted for the green soup). All I have to say is that the oyster dish was my favorite of the night and the green soup tasted like garbage. Literally, spinach garbage. I was worried for a moment and then I went back to my oysters and melted away to caviar heaven. It was this creamy dish, almost like cream cheese, with the caviar providing little bursts of salty goodness. Amazing. A-maze-ing. Definitely the best course (besides dessert, but we'll get there) of the night.

I'm not sure I remember the order of all the courses (but I did write them all down so I would remember them), but I'll highlight the good stuff.

There was a red mullet fish dish, that was good, for what it was. I'm not a huge fan of red mullet, but the skin was perfectly crispy and had delightful accompaniments. That ended up being story of the meal for many of the courses (except dessert...we'll get there). While the main part of the dish would be good, it was always paired with a bunch of little accent tastes that enhanced the dish to levels not imaginable.

Foi gras was delightful, one of the best I've ever had. Unfortunately, I hate to admit it, but I very much enjoy the fattened duck liver. It's horrible, but it's not like I eat it every day (I've probably eaten it 4 times in my life -- although 3 of those were in the last year). But it was extremely creamy and had a rich wonderful flavor. As we started to eat the foi gras (I actually think it was right before we dug in, the waiters came out and brought us fresh warm brioche toast (we were served brioche toast when they served it to us originally). Apparently the first batch of brioche was no longer warm and therefore needed to be replaced. We postulated that they just did this to really make us feel like we were eating at a fancy place. Maybe it did taste better with warm toast, but they literally had just set it down, so they must have brought it out cold (or cool or whatever). They just wanted to show off their warm toast.

And then came the veal brain. Yup, that's right, little baby cow brains. Jeff opted out of this dish too, which was probably a good idea. In my defense I didn't really know what I was ordering when I ordered it, but I have to admit that I ate the whole thing (it was only one little piece). Jeff remembers it actually looking like a brain (all nobby and such), but my piece looked smooth to me. My mother-in-law, who is a medical examiner (and therefore sees brains on a regular basis) could not finish hers because it hit a little too close to home. But here's the kicker, I bet you're wondering what cow brain tastes like, right? It tastes like sushi. Yeah, that's right, cow brain tastes like sushi. I'm not sure if it was the texture, or there was some kind of salty crust or something on it (wow, that sounds disgusting, a salty crusted cow brain), but all I could think about was how much it tasted like sushi.

The last truly memorable course was the beef course (real, cooked beef). It was perfectly done, perfectly tasty and perfectly accompanied. Yes, it's true, a steak is only a steak, and I agree that they can only be so good, but when put with a perfect little onion and a potato puff thing, it becomes a whole different meal. Bites of onion and potato that are soft and tender but providing just the flavor punches needed for the steak.

There was a "cheese" course, which was goat cheese with a tomatillo salsa, moderately forgettable. It was just as I have described it. Then, blueberry sorbet, which again, was good, but had this crispy caramel thin pancake thing with it that I could stop myself from eating once I started, it was totally addictive.

So let's move quickly onto dessert. So the menu said something about chocolate and hazelnut torte or something. I was excited (because I LOVE LOVE LOVE chocolate and hazelnut), but I was not prepared for how crazy good it was going to be. It was really just a chocolate hazelnut mousse in an egg shape (like reese's easter peanut butter egg size, those big ones). But it was this airy, delightful, chocolately, hazelnutty treat. It melted away into my mouth and I didn't want any bite to end, but I soon came to the end of my dessert. Disappointed, my mother-in-law fended off Jeff's grubby hands and gave me hers. I plowed through her dessert before the waitress came back. When she did, she commented that it looked like I really liked the dessert and noted that I finished two of them. I was a little embarrassed but then she asked if I would like more. I turned a little red, but my father-in-law quickly answered in the affirmative for me, and off she went.

She returned with not one but TWO more chocolate hazelnut mousse dessert delights. oh, how I love thee (both the dessert and the waitress for bringing me more). This time, I didn't even try to savor them, I just devoured them. It probably would have been a good idea if I tried to savor them, then I would have thought about how full I was. But I didn't...I just kept eating. I pushed through. Then they brought out truffles: chocolate, coconut, etc... Well, I had to try those too...until I didn't feel so well anymore.

Just as I was started to feel like I REALLY overdid it, the waitress came back, and I started to get a little nervous (if she had more chocolate hazelnut then I'd HAVE to eat it, but I might have exploded if that were the case). She approached the table and began with an apology. She explained that the kitchen had thrown out the rest of the desserts (although we read that as: chefs and wait staff claimed the rest to take home, which is fine, they deserve it), but they did have some brownies leftover, which she handed to me all wrapped up in an extremely fancy goody bag. Twelve mini brownies all together PLUS they had given us these packages of meringue cookies. oh god. this is when I really started to feel like I OD'd.

I really had wanted to take a taxi home, but when I got up I knew that I had to walk home or I would simply fall over and die. We walked slowly home and each step I took I thought I was going to throw up. It was almost worse than drinking too much, except that I got to enjoy each bite with delight. We got home and I immediately had to go right to bed (I know that probably wasn't the best idea, but I could not stand being awake and feeling that way any longer).

All in all, an amazing dinner. I'm pretty darn lucky to have had the chance to go. Although, if you ever go, do NOT eat four desserts, even if you want to.

A Tale of Two City Chickens

2007-05-10T19:30:00.000-04:00

The last time I was home, my mom, aunt, grandmother and I were sitting around the kitchen table discussing cooking and recipes (in classic 50's television show fashion). Somehow we got on the topic of city chicken. I may have brought it up as I had recently been thinking about making it, but had no idea how to make it (nor did I even know what meat was in city chicken). Now, I know it sounds silly, it IS called city CHICKEN. But I was sure that it wasn't actually chicken. And I was right. City chicken is actually pork (which is very deceiving, hopefully no one ever went over to my parents house on city chicken night who didn't eat pork). How a pork product took cover under our poultry friend's name, I'm not actually sure. I think I asked once and the answer was something like, the people on the farm didn't have a lot so they tried to make their pork taste like chicken like the rich city folk.

Now no one in my family has ever lived on a farm, so I'm still not exactly clear on whether or not that was a BS story, but believe it or not, wikipedia has an entry on it. I'm stunned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_chicken
..it says nothing about farm folk, but the idea is the same, so maybe it wasn't entirely a BS story...

So if you're still wondering what is city chicken exactly, essentially it is cut up bits of meat (my mom always made it with pork, but wikipedia seemed to think it could be any meat nugget) skewered on a stick, breaded and pan fried. Sounds simple, easy, and not really high class dining (obviously). But I remembered that it was always one of my favorites, so I really wanted to make it and see if it was really that good.

Which brings us back to my mom's kitchen table discussing how to make city chicken...

My mom and grandmother got into a HEATED debate over this, which was one of the funniest conversations ever, because the differences in their methodologies were very small. My aunt and I giggled about their argument for a good 5 minutes or so when finally my aunt cut them off and said that she thought they were really saying the same thing or something close to the same thing. Unfortunately I mostly remembered that they fought about it and not actually how they said to make it...but I did remember enough to make it tonight.

A few weeks ago I bought the skewers (I needed the shorter ones, although the long ones would work, I wanted it as authentic as possible), so I'd be ready whenever I wanted to make it. Tonight was finally the night. I pulled out the pork tenderloin to cut it up for breading. (yes, I realize this defeats the whole purpose...cheap meat made to taste good, but my mom said she uses tenderloin now) That was when Jeff walked into the kitchen and asked what was for dinner. When I explained to him what was for dinner he had a sad disappointed "what is she doing to my pork tenderloin" face, even when I quickly added that it was a childhood favorite of mine. He was definitely skeptical.

It was at this point that I realized that it would have been helpful if I would have listened to what my grandmother and mother said. Was it milk and then breadcrumbs? eggs and breadcrumbs? milk and eggs? flour first? no flour? all I could remember was that my mother would put them on the skewer first and then egg/milk them and then throw them into a bag with bread crumbs and let them sit, while my grandmother would put them on the skewer after breading and not let them sit. I guess that makes this a tale of three city chickens since I proceeded to do it my own way.

Not having a clue of how to actually make it, I decided to use one egg, a very hefty spash of milk and soak the pieces individually in a bowl (simply because that was easier than pulling out a large pan big enough to soak all of them already skewered) and then skewer them and then into a baggie with breadcrumbs. I didn't have time to let them sit post-breading, so I skipped that step.

I heated up a pan with olive oil and then realized this is probably a recipe that would be better with butter so I threw some of that in the pan too. I knew that my mom always sauteed them in a pan and then put them in the oven, so I cooked them a few minutes on each side and threw them into the oven in the pan. I checked them after a couple of minutes, they felt about medium so I took them out.

We dug hungrily into our dinner (city chicken + roasted sweet potatoes + salad) and I was afraid to try the city chicken (I think Jeff was still pretty skeptical himself) so I ate everything else off my plate. I was sure that it wouldn't be nearly as good as I remembered it. But I took my first bite and it was amazingly just as good as I remembered it. Jeff gave me his "this is good" look as he took a bite of the meat right off the stick. I reiterated "a childhood favorite" as he went for the third and final skewer from the kitchen. He was relieved to hear that this would become a more regular dinner meal for us.

Who would have thought that I could pull it off? So rarely do these kinds of meals taste just like I remember it as a kid, mostly because I think those types of favorite childhood recipes are primarily nostalgic. I'm also guessing that it doesn't actually matter how you make it, as long as there is breading and there is pork (at least if you want it to taste like the way my mom made it)...so mom and grammy: unfortunately, I think your argument was all for naught.

So it's not much of a recipe (clearly, you can do whatever you want to it and it'll taste good), but here's what I've got:
1/2 pound pork tenderloin, cut into ~1 inch cubes
1 egg
somewhere between 2-4 tablespoons of milk
~1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 T olive oil
1 T butter (or 2 T butter, no oil)

Sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper. Somehow get the pork into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs (put it on a skewer first, then egg, or not, whatever, it doesn't matter). Heat oil and butter in pan and pre-heat oven to about 350 deg. Add the skewers to the pan and brown the pork on all sides (maybe 1-2 min per side) and then put the pan in the oven (make sure it's an oven safe pan) for about 5 - 10 minutes, until the pork gives just a touch for medium or is very firm for well done. I actually prefer it at room temperature (which may have actually been why it tasted so good, because it was the last thing I ate for dinner so it cooled significantly), so you can serve right away or wait until cooled a bit.

...and enjoy the chickenless city chicken!

Can I have a bite?

2007-05-03T19:49:00.000-04:00

NO!

For those who know me and my eating habits well, know that I do NOT share my food. ESPECIALLY if it's a dessert. Good luck getting a fork in there. Not going to happen. Actually, that's not true, the ritual goes something like this:

1. Everyone's food arrives
2. I survey everyone's food and see what I'm missing and then dig in to my own, sometimes asking for a bite of others
3. Someone will ask to have some of my food (before I'm done)
4. I respond in the negative, and indicate that I'm perfectly willing to share when I've eaten as much as I want and if there is still some leftover (if it's a dessert, there won't be any leftover).
5. The questioner doesn't believe me and tries to eat some of my food. It never ends well when this happens.

I have begun to tell others this fact when I'm eating with them. Often to the point that they think I'm moderately crazy. Someone will say "wow, that looks good" and I'll respond "I'm sorry, I don't share." Or, someone will offer me their food and I'll say, "I'd love to try some, but I won't share mine"

There are certain circumstances in which I am perfectly willing to share, as long as I know ahead of time when I'm getting into. Fondue, for instance, definitely a share food. Ethiopian, Thai, Indian, pizza (obviously)...all foods that I actually like to share. But I must know before I begin eating my meal that there will be sharing involved.

So I have speculated this crazy behavior stems from my childhood (what doesn't, really?) when my sister would take usurp my food from under my fork. AAAAAHHH! it was SO annoying. And my parents wouldn't do anything about it (the issue was that everyone knew I wouldn't finish my food, but still..) We finally worked out a ritual in which she was allowed to partake in my meal only after I had finished (which, I admit is kind of annoying, because if you just want a french fry, you do not want to wait until I'm done and then they're cold and gross). This is the ritual that I continue to this day. Jeff knows the deal, and has lovingly accepted my non-food sharing idiosyncrasy. And he will even share his food with me knowing that I won't share until the bitter end. That is, until this weekend.

We went out to brunch Sunday morning and agonized over our decisions on what to eat. We finally decided and I went for an Eggs Benedict of sorts: the base was a popover, (we were eating at a restaurant called "Popover Cafe"), with smoked salmon, eggs and a lemon hollandaise. It was everything I love in a breakfast, runny eggs, smoked salmon and saucy goodness...and, as it turns out, everything Jeff dislikes. He ordered a "flopover" (I told you the name of this place was Popover Cafe), a pancake like thing with some sweet yummy fruit filling.

So our food arrived and mine looked and tasted DELICIOUS. The lemon in the hollandaise was a perfect match for the smoked salmon. But Jeff's too, looked very very yummy. Recently, I have fallen into a weekend breakfast routine in which I crave both sweet and savory things. So, I clearly had the savory covered, but I really felt like I needed some sweet to round out my brunch. I obviously turned to Jeff's breakfast and very politely and sweetly asked for a bite of his breakfast. He looked up at me with my outstretched fork with a pained look on his face. And then, all of a sudden the pain in his face melted away to a smile and he responded "No."

What?!
And he then said "See? it comes back to bite you in the [expletive]"

What?!
My friend that we were eating with got a good chuckle while Jeff continued to clean his plate. I quickly offered some of my food, which he took a look at and nearly threw up all over. He then started a discussion of how runny eggs are the most disgusting thing ever.

Needless to say, I was shocked. I began to understand how it feels to be rejected at the food request. However, it was definitely not enough for me to change my ways. I definitely will never ever learn to share desserts. I tell myself that no one could possibly enjoy the dessert as much as I, so I would really be doing a dis-service to the dessert if I shared.

I am hopeful that this wasn't a sign that Jeff is going to share his food less, that would just simply, not be fair!

pre-party cinco de mayo style

2007-05-02T21:06:00.000-04:00

I'm not exactly sure what Cinco de Mayo is all about (last year it was about me drinking WAY too many apple-tinis and "soiling" my sister and brother-in-law's neighbor's lawn on Seis de Mayo), but it's certainly a superb excuse to overdose on Mexican food. Plus, it happens to fall about 4 months after I get back from Mexico (where I eat Mexican food morning, noon, and night), which is right about the time when I'm craving it again.

Regarding the history of May 5th, Wikipedia says: It commemorates the victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin over the French occupational forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. It also says that it is NOT Mexico's independence day. It also sounded like it is celebrated more in the US than Mexico (not sure about that one)...clearly everyone else wants an excuse to eat Mexican food too.

Miraculously, this year I forgot that this Saturday was Cinco de Mayo, and planned for tacos one night this week (actually, I mostly just felt like tacos tonight so I made them). Somewhere between deciding to make tacos tonight and actually making them, I remembered that Saturday was the national celebration of Mexican food and drink, and thought for a brief moment that I might not want to have tacos three nights before I most definitely will be eating Mexican food again. I re-assured myself that I love Mexican food enough to have it twice in one week, after all, I eat it every day for 10 straight days every year (although that's real Mexican food, not the fake stuff I make).

So I got home late (went to the gym first) and went straight to the kitchen for taco night preparations. I chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic (for beans) and lettuce; I got out beans, tortillas and the meat. All of which took about 10-15 minutes. Jeff got home and I threw the meat in one pan and onion, garlic and beans in another pan. In about 5 minutes the meat was done, I mashed the beans and dinner was ready! I definitely surprised myself on this one, we don't have taco night very often, but we definitely should. Dinner is ready in 20 minutes! That's crazy! Why isn't every night taco night? It's SO good, and SO fast! I know that my "tacos" are not even close to those tacos we get at the taco party every year in Mexico, wow, those are great, but still it's a delicious meal that is super quick and super easy. Plus, we have no good real Mexican places around us, so we can't even get delivery that easily.

Tonight's taco "pre-party" merely wet my appetite for Saturday's feast. I'm not sure what I'm going to make yet, but there will definitely be margaritas (NO apple-tinis). I think every year I should do a pre-party for Cinco de Mayo, just to get excited for the food I'm going to eat. Or, maybe I should just eat Mexican food more often and I won't have these silly epiphanies anymore.

I'd put a recipe in here, but really, who needs a recipe? Tacos are as easy as pie (actually much easier than pie, infinitely easier than pie). hmmm...what about a taco pie?! That would be great! But for the regular (non-pie) tacos, all you have to do is throw some meat in a pan, add some seasonings (I used cumin, chili powder, oregano and salt and pepper or you can just use those silly packets, if you must) and it's ready. Although, you really don't need me to tell you that...you just need me to remind you to make tacos often (actually, you probably don't even need me to tell you that, you just need me to entertain you for a few minutes while you're bored at work).

For the beans, I added garlic and onion and red pepper flakes and sauteed those together for a few minutes before adding black beans, about 1/4 cup of broth (depends on how dry you like them) and salt and pepper. After a few minutes I used my potato masher and mashed it all together. Delicioso.

Egg House

2007-04-28T09:48:00.001-04:00

During my weeks of very exciting travel, I made my way south of the Mason-Dixon line for a week. It was much better than the weeks I spent far north staring across the border at foreign lands (well, just one not so foreign land). While I was south of the Mason-Dixon line, I was in the midst of yet another real estate nightmare crises, and I did not manage to explore the town much. I was able to explore the room service menu (good selection, reasonable prices, but they get you every time with the delivery fee plus the standard included 20% tip). Although, I was only there a couple of nights thanks to the monsoon that hit NY the night I was supposed to go down there.

So really, my only food experience in the southern lands was the Apple Bee's in the airport (BARF). HOWEVER, while in the taxi on the way to the airport I passed a Waffle House, followed immediately by a Pancake House. Which left me wondering, why no Egg House?

It's true, you always see waffle and pancake houses, but never an egg house. I confirmed my suspicion with Jeff who agreed he'd never seen an Egg House (perhaps he was agreeable because we were running through the park and he wanted me to stop talking). Realizing Jeff may not be the expert on the existence of egg houses, I did a search on google. No egg houses. But the 2nd result was "How to wash egg off a house" - good to know.

So, then, why no egg houses? One assumes that you'd be able to get eggs at a pancake or waffle house, plus you can do a million billion different things with eggs. WAY more than you can do with pancakes or waffles. Let's see..omelets (obviously), regular eggs (any way you want 'em), fancy frittatas with smoked salmon and goat cheese, or perhaps chorizo and avocado, baked egg casseroles, plus technically, eggs are in waffles and pancakes, so you'd have those. And crepes, those are actually mostly eggs, and french toast. Not to mention the egg sandwich, the best thing since sliced bread (get it? ha! sliced bread is needed for the egg sandwich...so it wasn't invented until...never mind, if I have to spell it out for you it's not going to be funny anymore). You can serve cake and cookies and meringues and any breaded meat dish; you can have lots of challah, and ice cream...seriously, the possibilities are endless.

Perhaps the issue is that no one has been able to narrow down the options and that's why there are no egg houses. Maybe it's just the simple fact that "Pancake House" sounds a bit more appealing than "Egg House" - it does kind of sound like you're going to egg a house (like google suggests).

If I ran an "Egg House" I would definitely have the egg sandwich as the center piece of my menu. It celebrates the egg but enhances its goodness with a porky accent (any good egg sandwich has ham or bacon). Plus, again, the possibilities are endless...you can do the standard BLT&E or an egg wrap with ham and cheddar, or for something fancier, fried eggs with prosciutto and pesto and goat cheese, or if you're in the mood for an egg sandwich with mexican or spanish flair, chorizo and manchego with roasted red peppers. Plus, you can vary the bread options tremendously, bagels, rye, wraps, you name it, you can do it. Wow, I could go on and on...this may be my hidden talent, discovering new egg sandwiches...I bet I can't sleep tonight while I am discovering all the new possibilities.

While I never discovered why no Egg Houses exist, I certainly found a way to pass the time while I waited on the airplane for 3 hours to take off.

...italian sausage and mozzarella...chives and cream cheese and smoked salmon (hey, there's one without pork)...feta and tomato (there's another)...grilled onion and peppers with prosciutto and parmesan...

the babbo post

2007-04-13T08:12:00.000-04:00

I've gotten many requests for the babbo post and for a variety of reasons (mostly that I was in Buffalo) it's been delayed and delayed. But here it is in all of its glory. It's long too (good thing it's Friday so no one wants to work anyway, so you have plenty of time to read it).

First of all...the reservation getting. As everyone knows, you must call one month (to the day) at 10 am to attempt to get a reservation. I have tried this approach before and called for 4 straight hours before I got through and then, of course, they were booked. Jeff did a little investigating, anticipating the difficulty in getting a reservation and found out that if you call like a minute in advance and get the recording "it's too early, blah, blah, blah" then you hit '0' (I think, maybe it's #) and you'll cycle through the menu and then when it's 10 you'll be fed right through to the reservation lady.

So armed with this information (I didn't actually know Jeff had a secret for getting through at the time), at 9:50 on March 4th, Jeff was busy talking on the phone with his brother when he looked up at me and said "we need to call!" - which TYPICALLY means, "you need to call" (plus, Jeff was already talking on the phone, so I assumed he wanted me to do it) So being the selfish birthday person I am, I said "I'm not calling, it's my birthday." In this case, he actually did, in fact, mean "we" since it's so hard to get through, so he thought, we both should try calling. So we worked that out and both started dialing in. Of course, Jeff dialed in a minute early and was able to get through by his secret button pushing plan and got us a 7:30 reservation! Still kind of annoyed at the whole "we" confusion, I was outwardly not jumping for joy, but my heart MAY have skipped a beat with excitement (after all, one of my New Year's resolutions for this year was "Have dinner at Babbo").

I immediately got online and started checking out the menu; they have an a la carte menu, a pasta tasting menu, and a regular tasting menu. I knew immediately that we MUST get the pasta tasting menu. Now I only had to wait a month.

So I waited, and waited and waited. Then the week before my birthday I went on a "no pasta" diet so I would be extra super duper excited for the pasta tasting menu. Jeff made fun, but no matter, I wanted to be as ready as I could be. I also began to think that there was no way that it could possibly be as good as everyone says, I mean really, how good can pasta really get?

So Wednesday night Jeff and I both finished earlier than we thought and decided to meet at the restaurant about a half hour early and get a bottle of wine at the bar. Of course we didn't anticipate that the restaurant would be full to the gills on a Wednesday night (clearly, not using our head, since we both knew how hard it was to get reservation, DUH). It was packed, but we checked in and squeezed our way into a spot that was almost out of the way of all the waiters walking by and almost close enough to the bar to actually attempt to order something. Clearly, getting a bottle of wine was not going to happen. But I still managed to order a glass of Prosecco, which was delicious (there was no getting between me and some birthday celebratory bubbles).

We were seated a bit before our reservation, and to our horror, when the maitre d' (who happened to be one of the guys that's always on Molto Mario) took us to our table, we found that the place settings were on the SAME SIDE of the table. GASP! But we always make FUN of the people that sit on the same side of the table! But there was no way anyone could sit on one of the sides of the table, because it was too close to a set of stairs and on the way to the kitchen (even though that description makes the table sound like it was in a horrible location, it wasn't actually, the table location was actually good, we could see the whole restaurant). So we gave each other nervous looks and slid into our seats.

They gave us our menus, but I had already decided for us (that's what I get to do on my birthday, decide what Jeff's going to eat too, well maybe I don't always do that on my birthday). So I instructed Jeff we were getting the pasta tasting menu and asked him if he wanted to do the wine pairing too (which was an additional $50 per person, which probably ends up being a bottle of wine per person). We agreed to just get a single bottle for about $50-60 and that would certainly be enough alcohol for us (especially since I had already done a shot and had a glass of prosecco).

We ordered and sat back and waited for the pasta to start flowing. The pasta tasting menu consisted of 5 pasta dishes and 3 dessert dishes, so we were in for a marathon dinner.

Course 1: Black Tagliatelle with Peas and Pecorino
Jeff's reaction, "I don't even like peas, and I love this!" and I finally understood what "perfectly al dente" meant. There was a bright burst of fresh peas with the sharpness of the pecorino. I don't remember exactly, but I think there was just a light drizzle of a pea puree for a "sauce." Definitely two thumbs up.

Course 2: Asparagus and Ricotta "Mezzalune" with Spring Onion Butter
My reaction, "I don't even like ricotta and this is fabulous!" This dish was essentially a ravioli stuffed with the ricotta cheese with a butter sauce. There were a couple of small pieces of whole asparagus and then some shaved pieces of asparagus stem. The ricotta wasn't strong (which is why I liked it), but creamy and wonderful and the light crunch of the asparagus complimented the richness of the butter.

Course 3: Garganelli with "Funghi Trifolati"
This was a basic pasta with a mushroom sauce. There were shaved mushrooms and it was light and delicious. The mushroom flavor wasn't overwhelming, and again the pasta was perfectly al dente. I was actually surprised at how light a mushroom dish could be, and creamy (I hate that word, but it's really true in this case).

It was probably at this point that Jeff and I sheepishly admitted to each other that we very much enjoyed sitting next to each other while dining. At least in this situation. We were able to hear each other well (it was kind of loud in there) and we could point out funny people or other things more easily because neither one of us had to turn around to look. Plus, we didn't have to stare at each other for 3 hours (not that we don't like looking at each other, but it can be weird to stare at a person for that extended period of time). But, we concluded we will never request to sit next to each other (and NEVER do so in a diner), but you know, if it's more convenient then maybe we could do it again.

Course 4: Fernando's Pyramids with Passato di Pomodoro
Essentially this was little "pyramids" of pasta (just what it sounds like) with a basic tomato sauce. The tomato sauce was so fresh tasting, and yet still had a depth to it that is inexplicable. However, it was at this dish that we took a sip of our red wine and both understood how important good wine pairings can be. None of our previous dishes had a tomato sauce, they were all butter based (or essentially non-existent). It actually really surprised me that our red wine didn't go (at ALL) with the tomato sauce. I think the wine was maybe too dry for the tomatoes? I don't know, clearly I know nothing about wine and even less about wine pairings, but now I completely understand the importance of good ones.

Course 5 (last pasta course!): Pappardelle Bolognese
Bolognese is one of my most favorite sauces, so I was pretty darn excited about this course. But I was also wondering (yet again), how good could it really be? I should have learned from the previous four AMAZING courses, that, of course, it would blow any other bolognese out of the water. Which it did. The meat was SO tender I couldn't believe it. I slowly savored each and every morsel on my plate. I should have asked for more (I bet they would have given it to me...at a price, of course), but after 5 pasta courses and with 3 pending dessert dishes, I knew better.

Course 6: Toasted Sesame "Sabbiosa" with Blood Orange "Marmellata"
I honestly don't really remember this course (clearly, not a good idea to wait 10 days to write about it). I think it was mousse-like; I remember a light sesame flavor in the background.

Course 7: "Fiore di Latte" with Figs and Vin Santo
This course was a delightful sort of "intermezzo" it was like a panna cotta, very very light with a touch of fig on top of it. I was really mostly looking forward to the next course, which was chocolately, so I didn't pay too much attention to the first two dessert courses. I think actually, in my head I combined the first two desserts into one.

Course 8: Chocolate Polenta Cake with Espresso Gelato
YUM. yum yum yum yum (to be read in the tune of the organ played at a baseball game). They actually brought each of us a different dessert, and we couldn't hear what they said, so we never really knew what the second one was. Like an apple cake almost with (I think) cinammon gelato. I was just glad I didn't get that one (I would have made Jeff switch with me even if I did get that one). The chocolate polenta cake sounded weird, but it had wonderful chocolate flavor and a very very slight crunch from the polenta (still sounds weird, I know, but trust me, it was great).

I finished off the meal with a cappuccino, and sighed in delight. The meal took somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours, which was perfect. The courses were spaced just right; once we had finished one course we had just enough time to digest a little, chat a little and get ready for the next one. I was full at the end but didn't feel like I wanted to vomit, which is very important after finishing dinner.

So we wrapped up and headed out, and on our way out I wanted to check with the maitre d' on a rumor that I had heard. I heard that if you have dinner there one night, you could make a reservation for a month from that day. (which I really couldn't understand, would they reserve tables for this? didn't seem very efficient). But as it turns out, you can make a reservation, but you don't get any priority, you can make a reservation only if there are tables still available (since the phone lines opened at 10 am). So all they had left was an 11:30 pm reservation for May 4, which seems like a horrible time to start a 3 hour dinner, so I passed on the reservation. But that did allow me to speak to the guy that's always on Molto Mario!

So in the end we spent about $240 (including tip) on the dinner. But there was mucho money spent on alcohol (the pasta tasting menu was, I think, $59 per person). It was definitely definitely money well spent. A wonderful birthday present, I'd have to say. I really didn't think that a "pasta dinner" could ever be that expensive, that I wouldn't mind paying it, and that I would enjoy it so much (even after it had built up so much). Although I really had convinced myself that it couldn't be as good as everyone said (just like I convinced myself they would never really call my name on TPIR), clearly once I convince myself that things aren't going to be as good as I think then things turn out better than I thought.

So when I got home I e-mailed my mom giving her a quick de-brief of the meal. And at the end I indicated "we spent more than $100 per person on dinner, so don't tell dad" - we had recently had a conversation with my parents about spending $100 per person on dinner. So guess who called me the next day? My dad. Guess what the first thing out of his mouth was? "How was your expensive dinner?" Clearly, my mom is not to be trusted with secrets.

But anyway, now that I have revealed the secret for getting a reservation, YOU ALL MUST GO! Call tomorrow (or today, is it still before 10?)! HURRY TO THE PHONE LINES! It really is as good as they say.

Hangin' on

2007-04-09T19:19:00.000-04:00

So last Tuesday I was having a pretty good day, it was warm out and I was enjoying the spring weather. Plus, I was still 28 (clearly, I have learned to appreciate the small things). While it was my last day as a 28 year old, I wasn't really thinking about it too much, it was too nice out! That is until everyone had to keep reminding me I was no longer going to be 28 for long.

I had a doctor's appointment that day, and the first thing they asked me when I walked in the room was "how old are you?" which is weird, because I can't ever remember that they have asked me this before. I mean, my birthdate IS in my chart, is my age REALLY the thing that needs to be on the top of the piece of paper, perhaps more important information should be there, like my blood pressure or something? So I emphatically answered "twenty-eight" and then whispered under my breath "twenty-nine tomorrow" (wow, that still sounds old, even though I've had a whole six days to get used to it). The nurse smiled and laughed (at me, I'm sure), but wrote 28. I felt relieved that I still had one more day and walked happily home. On my way home I saw the girl from Little Miss Sunshine, which was nifty too as I hadn't had a celebrity sighting in awhile.

I continued walking home, enjoying the city, the weather, and trying to think on the bright side. After a 20 minute walk, I again became content with becoming older, mostly because I forgot about it. Later that night, however, we went to the gym and the damn elliptical machine asked me for my age. First the nurse, now the workout equipment, WHY IS EVERYONE SO CURIOUS? Can't I slip into 29 without anyone noticing? Why, oh why, does everyone need to know so badly? I love birthdays, I always have, but I do not love getting older. Getting older is stupid. So now at this point, I was annoyed because I was at the gym, and I was annoyed because of the nosy workout equipment. Usually, what happens at this point, is that I get mad and then have a good workout and forget about it.

But on this particular Tuesday evening I did not forget about it. STUPID machine. At the end of my workout I slowly climbed off the machine and met Jeff at the stretching area. I cooled off and was standing up to get ready to go when I noticed a poster on the far wall, not wearing my glasses or contacts I couldn't actually see it, so I walked over to it. The poster had information on it like what your optimal heartrate is, etc... It also had the optimum number of push-ups given your age, well, given your age group. And the groups were by decade (20 - 29, 30 - 39, etc..), which I didn't notice at first, but Jeff did (since he was no longer in the same age grouping as I). So as we looked more closely we realized that the optimum number of push-ups for him and me were the same! ha! Given that he was male, his optimum number was naturally higher than mine, except that he was now in the "thirty" age range so his body is presumed to be on the decline. poor guy. Good for me though, I'm not thirty! Of course now that means I need to practice my push-ups so that I could actually do as many as Jeff, but no matter, it reminded me that I'm still in my twenties! For one more short year!! even if I wasn't going to be 28 anymore like everyone had reminded me, it didn't matter, I have one more year! one more year!

details to come on the big birthday dinner...I promise!

fresh, give or take

2007-03-26T19:32:00.000-04:00

Today I was waiting in the gargantuan line at Whole Foods that forms every day at dinner time. They are very smart with their marketing and placement and I'm always tempted with cupcakes and rice pudding and fancy chocolates and two-bite blueberry scones (which I have succumbed to the temptation before) and all sorts of other goodies. It's quite difficult to wait in that line without buying anything. Who wouldn't want a cupcake in its very own plastic cupcake carrying case?

While I was waiting in line today, my wandering eyes fell upon the parmesano reggiano display. Nothing exciting going on there (no chocolates exploding out of the display or anything) and just as my eyes were going to wander to something more interesting I saw the sign: "freshly grated parmesan."

Huh. That's funny, I had the impression that freshly grated cheese meant that it needed to be grated as needed. Like, for instance, if a recipe called for "freshly grated parmesan cheese" they meant, that you stop cooking, you pull out the block of cheese and the grater and you grate it. It does not mean GO TO THE STORE AND BUY PRE-GRATED CHEESE. Even if the sign on the cheese display says "freshly grated." At some point this must be false advertising, but I'm guessing the FDA does not regulate the time between cheese grating and putting it on display. Even if there was someone actually standing there grating the cheese, it would NOT be fresh by the time you used it. Even if you somehow managed to breeze through the Whole Foods line and ran out the front door. Hmmm...unless I guess you lived in Columbus Circle, then you're essentially home already, so it would be fresh (but you'd also have so much money that you probably also have a chef that would freshly grate your cheese for you). But that's only if there was a guy/gal standing there grating it. I can guarantee it was at the very least HOURS since it was grated.

So I went to the dictionary to see if maybe there was another definition for fresh that would explain this sign. Let's see...
"retaining the original properties unimpaired; not stale or spoiled" - no, definitely not. it's definitely been "impaired" in the grating process (fresh or not fresh).
"looking youthful and healthy" - nah, don't think so
"not tired or fatigued; brisk; vigorous" - hmm... maybe, but how can I tell if cheese is "not tired"?
"forward or presumptuous" - ha! maybe this is it. at the very least it's presumptuous to advertise the cheese as being freshly grated.

Anyway, all I really have to say is that the point of freshly grated cheese is that it actually tastes better. Plus it's just a big fat lie if they say that it is freshly grated, when clearly it is not. But I have to hand it to them, they are definitely capitalizing on people's stupidity.

Uncorned corned beef

2007-03-21T22:57:00.001-04:00

I am a big fan of the corned beef, Jeff, well, not so much. Not that he doesn't like it, per se, more that he doesn't like to eat it. And one of the meals that I very much look forward to every year, next to Thanksgiving of course, is corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's day. Now last year I was an ambitious, do-it-yourselfer and made the whole thing start to finish. It was fantastic, but we ended up with about 4 pounds of leftover corned beef. So this year, I decided that perhaps it wasn't the best idea to spend a week corning beef and $30 (or whatever it is) for the meat, only to eat a half a pound of it.

So this year, I decided on Shepherd's Pie for St. Patrick's Day, much easier and quicker and simpler, and I didn't have to be on top of my game a week before I wanted to actually eat (to start the preparations). But somewhere between Monday and Friday I was watching a Food Network show, Everyday Italian, and she made an Italian pot roast that looked so delicious that I had to make it as soon as possible. I figured that I could make Shepherd's pie with the leftovers and that pot roast was kind of like corned beef in that it was slow cooked meat that was tender and delicious. It's almost the same, right? So what if it's a different cut of beef, not actually brined, and that we didn't actually eat it on St. Patrick's Day.

So I headed to the store for a four pound block of chuck roast, an unfamiliar cut of beef to me. Jeff asked me where it came from (to which I replied "the cow"), and all I knew was that it is a tough cut...that is, best cooked for a very long time. Which usually means it's from the shoulder area or some other part that gets a lot of exercise. I found this terrible diagram which lays it out, and as it turns out, it is from the shoulder (I sang a little "I am so smart, s-m-r-t" song in my head ... Simpson's anyone??). The diagram is terrible because it has things on it like "ground beef" and "stew" as if those cuts of meat come off the cow directly in their ground or chopped form. Anywho, back to the pot roast.

So I'm not exactly sure what a "normal" pot roast consists of, apparently because according to my mom "you didn't eat used to eat pot roast" - so not ever have really eaten it, I wasn't sure what to put in it. The one I saw on Everyday Italian was obviously Italian-ized and I wanted something a little more traditional. In typical fashion I found a few recipes and then made up my own. I think, however, the real success of this dish (those who tasted it feel free to contradict) was the sauce. And this was pretty much my own pure genius (not to toot my own horn or anything). After the pot roast finished it's 3 hour marathon braise, I took out the meat and surveyed the surviving ingredients left in the pot. It didn't look terribly appetizing, mostly mashed up vegetables and herbs floating in fat (I told you it didn't sound appetizing). Determined to make this into a sauce, I skimmed the fat and then surveyed the fridge. Wine and broth. Perfect.

I added some wine and some broth until it had enough liquid that I could use my handy-dandy immersion blender. I whizzed it up and gave it a taste...dee-freakin'-licious. So it wasn't corned beef, but it certainly hit the spot for my longing of tender slow cooked meat, plus I didn't have to do it a week in advance. Of course, we ate almost all of it and there was no hope of Shepherd's pie with the leftovers...maybe next year.

Pot Roast
1 3-4 pound chuck roast
2 T of olive oil
1 large onion, sliced
3-4 stalks of celery, chopped into big chunks
6-8 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1 cup of mushrooms
2 sprigs of rosemary
4 sprigs of thyme
1 cup of chicken or beef broth
1 cup of the juice from canned tomatoes and a couple of the tomatoes too (or you could probably use 1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes)
1/2 cup red wine
broth as needed

Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat until hot (not smoking). Liberally salt and pepper the meat on all sides and put into the pan. Brown the meat on all sides, and as tempting as it is to either a) move the meat a lot or b) not let it brown for very long, resist the temptation! The total browning time should take about 15 minutes, about 4 or so minutes on each side. Remove meat from pan and add onions and garlic and saute for 3-4 minutes and then add the celery. Cook until vegetables begin to soften, a couple more minutes. Add the 2 cups of liquids - broth and tomato juice, and scrape down the pan, getting all the luscious bits off the bottom. Add the herbs (whole, on the stem), the mushrooms and the meat and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper and turn the heat down and cover and simmer over low heat for about 3 hours until tender (knife should go in easily). Remove the meat, stems from the rosemary and thyme (all of the leaves should have fallen off) and the mushrooms and set aside. Skim fat off the top and turn the heat up. Add the wine and let it reduce for a couple of minutes and then add enough broth to be able to use the immersion blender (or alternatively, if you're putting it in a blender, add enough to make a thick gravy-like sauce). Taste it and add salt and pepper (or more broth or more wine) as needed. Let the meat rest for 15 minutes, cut, smother with sauce, and enjoy!

First outdoor run of the year...

2007-03-13T20:44:00.000-04:00

...SUCKS. But you don't think it's going to suck, and that's why it sucks even more. This is how it goes.

You're at work, it's nearly 60 degrees outside and it's sunny. Daylight savings time came early, so it's light later. You think to yourself, "wow, it's so warm out and it'll be light for many hours after I get home from work. It's a perfect day for a run in the park. I'm so smart." All afternoon you check the weather and it looks like perfect running weather, not a lot of wind, cool, but still warm enough. You fly out the doors like a school kid leaving for summer break, nearly dancing in the street.

You get home, pet the kitty and pull out your fancy new shorts that you got at the trendy new workout/yoga apparel store down the street (thanks to a fantastically smart Santa who got you a gift certificate). You put them on and wonder for a moment whether or not your legs are in appropriate summer shape (especially in the new shorts that are on the short side). Who cares! It's running outside time! You grab your keys and your iPod and head down the stairs.

You get to the park and realize everyone has the same idea as you, it's crowded and they all appear to have been running all winter long. You, alas, have not, but you have good music and you're in the park! Then you start running and things feel creaky. And then the memories of running begin to trickle back, the pain, the misery. But by now you're rounding the bottom of the park, but that's when the horse sh*t smell starts, and it's not even that warm out. You start to think you're not actually going to make it home again.

And that's when the hills start, and your chest feels like it's the size of a pea, afterall it's not THAT warm out. And you realize that only your right earbud is working. But you press on, running slower than some are walking. Finally you make it up to the reservoir loop, taking a moment to stop running and trudge despairingly up the stairs. It's packed...with tourists...taking pictures, oh and couples that are walking slower than a snail in their "workout" clothes, carrying a water bottle and holding hands. Well, just one of those couples, but STILL! That does not a workout make, you do not need a water bottle if your workout involves holding someone's hand.

Finally you make it around the reservoir and head back out to the main road of the park, so close, so close! And just as you come down the very last hill you see four teenagers/college kids walking in a line shoulder to shoulder across the entire walking/running lane and the bike lane. You don't make a move, because to avoid them you would have to run in the middle of the street, so you keep running straight...now it's a game of chicken, they're not moving, you're not moving until, WHAM! Just kidding, you don't actually hit them but you have to STOP while they decide to make a 6 inch space between their shoulder so you can get by. But it's over, and you go home and the kitty is excited because you're stretching on the floor and she gets lots of pets. At least someone felt good after the first outdoor run of the season.

Gravy, Alfredo and Ranch Dressing

2007-03-12T21:39:00.000-04:00

So this past weekend we made an unexpected trip back to Michigan for my great-aunt's funeral. I actually prefer to think of it not as a sad funeral but more of a celebration of her life, seeing as she lived to be 101 years old. Aunt Stel was a rockin' lady and a fantabulous cook and baker. World reknowned for her paczkis (or at least reknown in our family). She also made sure to tell Grammy that I needed to use fresh poppy seeds for my poppy bread, so I will try the bread again with new fresh poppy seeds and see how it turns out. I therefore made it a point to at least get some new recipes when I was back in Michigan celebrating her life. Of course I managed to forget them all at my parents house (mom, can you bring those with you next week?). But none of this has to do with gravy, alfredo and ranch dressing.

In typical fashion, after the ceremony we go for lunch at a hall type place. It was a buffet lunch and we were informed (immediately after grace) that we would be having roast chicken, salad, penne pasta in a cream sauce, mashed potatoes, meatballs and "chef's extras" (which mostly included random salads: bean salad, potato salad, lots of pickles and olives and things). Seeing as I never make real meatballs, I was uber-excited for those.

Our turn FINALLY came when our table got excused to go up to the buffet and I made a bee-line for the meatballs...well, after filling my plate with salad (with ranch dressing), about 2 cups of mashed potatoes and a pile of penne alfredo. I balanced the meatballs on top of my mashed potatoes, poured on the gravy and headed back to the table. My mouth was watering like Water Works as I dug in to my lunch, and in typical fashion I started with the salad. I made my way around the plate ending up with the pile of meatballs on the mashed potatoes. I went to town on those bad-boys and found myself left with nothing left on my plate except all the remaining saucy juices. And since the food was so good I knew I needed to get every last nugget of fatty goodness. Luckily, I was thinking ahead and saved half of my roll (that was oozing butter), for just this occasion. I wiped my plate clean, pulling a "kurt" as we call it (or I guess, as I call it), for my brother-in-law who notoriously cleans his plate such that it doesn't even need to be washed.

Just as I finished wiping my plate with my roll my aunt looked up from her plate and commented how well all of the various sauce components of the dishes went together. I couldn't have agreed more. The beef gravy, the ranch dressing and the alfredo sauce mixed in perfect harmony on my butter oozing bread (although we agreed it would be better without the pickle juice). And I'm not even being sarcastic, I'm 100% serious. It was delicious! It's funny how well some of the most unexpected things come together. I'm not sure I'll ever make a dish with a beef gravy, alfredo and ranch dressing sauce on top, but it's a good lesson, you never know what combination of things is going to work well together!

Another lesson learned thanks to Aunt Stel.

The answer is Kosher

2007-02-25T21:16:00.000-05:00

I have recently discovered the delight in roasting whole chickens (well, maybe about 2-3 years ago). It started with just the chicken breasts, I'd roast one or two at a time, which was great, but you definitely don't get the same rush pulling two measly breasts out of the oven as you do with a whole chicken. I pretty much mastered the chicken breast (bone-in, skin-on, the only way to go if you're roasting it), producing moist tender chicken every time. I mixed it up, adding different herbs, stuffing different cheeses under the skin, etc... I'd roast a whole chicken every once in awhile, but not that often.

I had a bit more trouble with the whole chicken. Although it seemed it should be so simple, I mean really, how much harder could it be than just the chicken breast? Not that it didn't taste good, it was just inconsistent. Which kind of infuriated me because roast chicken is really a very simple meal that you can dress up or dress down depending on your mood (kind of like a great pair of jeans, which I am still searching for as well). I love that it has very little prep and you just throw it in the oven. You can make for lots of people or, like for us, have lots of chicken leftovers for things like chicken pot pie or chicken enchiladas (my favorites with leftover chicken). The inconsistency drove me a little crazy, I can't deal with things like that. So I started making it less and less often, until tonight, when I had my break-through moment.

Actually I think it was probably a couple months ago when one of my friends mentioned to me that you must must (I do believe she actually did use two musts) use a kosher chicken because it's salted. At least I think that was the reason, but I could definitely be wrong. So yesterday when we went to the grocery store and I was staring blankly at the meat department trying to come up with something for dinner tonight, chicken caught my eye. And I almost forgot about the kosher chicken rule, but I was having trouble finding a good looking chicken so I thought I'd try the kosher section and then I remembered that I was supposed to get a kosher one anyway.

So as you can imagine, I made roast chicken (from a kosher chicken) for dinner tonight. And, if I do say so myself, it was AWESOME. So, yes, the first argument one might make is that perhaps this was just an "on" night for me and my roast chicken. Since my issue in the past wasn't that the chicken was always bad, just inconsistent, perhaps tonight was just one of those good nights. BUT, if you were to make that argument, then clearly you've never had a kosher chicken.

It was more tender, more juicy and more flavorful than any roast chicken I have ever made. By far. By hundreds of miles. Well, ok, maybe that's a stretch, but it was really good if I haven't mentioned that already. Perhaps it was made better by the sweet potatoes that I roasted along side the chicken that also had the chickeny goodness. A total overload of awesome chicken flavor. Holy cow. I had to stop myself from picking up the carcass and gnawing the remnant chicken bits left on the bone.

Even Lola wanted to get in on the chicken action. She is pretty much the pickiest eater in the household, often times not even eating salmon. She rarely, if ever, eats my chicken (even when I think it tastes good). She too, wanted to attack the chicken carcass, I had to wrestle it out of her little paws (she's strong!).

So, I'd love to give you a recipe, but it doesn't matter what recipe you use, just use kosher chicken! Also important though to cook it to the right temperature...I did 170 deg taken in the thigh at the thickest part. And let it rest for 15 minutes after you take it out of the oven.

I think what I did was cook it at 375 for about an hour (I was aiming for 400 but well, my oven sucks) and then at 400 for about 15-20 minutes for maybe a four pound chicken (maybe it was more, or less, I really don't remember). I also brushed the skin with about 1-2 tablespoons of butter, added salt and pepper and stuffed the inside with onions and lemons. But seriously, pay no attention to the cooking temperature or the other extras, just make sure that you get the chicken temperature right and make it kosher! I'd also highly recommend roasting some veggies or potatoes or something inside the pan with the chicken, because it tastes so darn good (you just have to monitor it a little more closely and pull out the veggies if they are done before the chicken). Don't forget like I almost did, buy kosher!

Fondue for the February Blues

2007-02-17T09:49:00.000-05:00

It started to overcome me in much the usual manner. First it was intermittent grumpiness, then cravings of rich foods (every night) which all culminated into the whining from the couch one Saturday afternoon, "I'm soooo bored...I don't want to do anything...I want to do something, but I don't know what...what can I dooooooooooo?" Jeff, at which point dragged me off to the gym and pointed to my favorite elliptical machine and insisted I get on it.

Of course it didn't help me feel better, we both knew it wouldn't, especially after Jeff said in an unassuming manner, "It's February." That was it. February. The longest month of the whole year. It sucks. It always has. Every year I make the rule that we must do SOMETHING in February and we always forget, then I'll hit the mid-February wall and we look at each other and wonder how we forgot once again. I have now named this condition I have, it's officially called "Mid-February F-ing Sucks Disorder" or MFFSD.

Aah, so you're curious now as to where the fondue comes into all of this, aren't you? So it was a connection that I would have never made in my mind. But independently one of my friends suggested that we go out for fondue at Artisanal (famous for fondue). We set the date and on a very very very cold February eve we met for our fondue.

Everyone knows fondue, right? Classic is the Emmenthal (at least as far as I know it is), all melted and gooey in a pot. We ordered two pots, a bottle of wine and all the fixin's (including the totally untraditional but most delicious kielbasa! yum! what polak wouldn't go for that!) Who doesn't love cheese, and even more so, melted cheese. So we indulged to our cheesy hearts content and topped the evening off with cheesecake. A perfectly cheese-filled affair. Wine, cheese, cheese, and cheesecake; good friends and conversation too. We even scraped down the pot at the end of the meal and ate those delicious golden cheese bits stuck to the bottom. Thank goodness we had a real-swissman with us to show us how to properly extract every bit of goodness from that pot. (is someone from Switzerland called a swissman? doesn't sound right to me, but I don't know how to search that one on google) I was absolutely perfectly satisfied after the meal. No February blues at all, in fact there was even a hint of happiness, or at the very least, contentness. Did the cheese have a magical potion freeing my February bruised soul? Perhaps....

So my theory goes something like this: it's cold and sad outside, cheese is hot and gooey inside, the bread even transforms from a sad hard nugget to a delightful warm soft morsel. The cheese can transform anything! Maybe all I'm saying is that February makes me a hard piece of bread, but I don't care, because Fondue Saves All! So I did a little research on this (well, just fondue research in Wikipedia) and it all started in Switzerland in the winter out of necessity, food was scarce in the winter so they had to melt cheese to make it edible (seems like you could just eat the cheese hard, but whatever). Perhaps I'm just getting back to my swiss roots (of which I have none), or maybe everyone has a little bit of swiss neutrality in them, clearly the swiss knew what was up when the winter time blues hit. This is how the swiss stay so peaceful all the time, they have fondue when the bitter winter sets in. Those smarty pants swiss.

I have yet to make my own fondue, mostly for lack of a fondue pot (and lack of a place to keep a fondue pot in our itsy bitsy kitchen), but all you out there with the means to do so - please, dig in to the fondue pot! Solve the MFFSD once and for all! Or head to Florida which is warm and sunny, that'd do it too.

Not so special sauce

2007-02-06T21:18:00.000-05:00

There is this most delicious hamburger joint in Michigan that is a must whenever I'm there. Last time I was back there I wasn't able to go, so this time I made it my #1 priority. After arriving at 8 am (and being awake for 4 hours), the first thing that I said when I got in the car was "wanna go to Red Coat for lunch?" followed by "can I get some coffee?"

After forcing three others to join me for lunch (they have the luxury of going whenever they want, so it's not so fun for them), we met there around 1 pm. I wanted to go there for lunch thinking there would be no wait...no such luck. We only had to wait about 15 minutes, but I still couldn't believe it, there isn't a whole lot of offices around there, so what did these people do that were congregating at the bar for a 3-hour lunch?

Anywho, the reason their burgers are so very delicious is because of this "special sauce" that they use. For the past few times that I've been there I have wanted to get a side of the sauce so I could taste it and try and figure out what was in it so I could try and make it myself. Of course I always forgot to do so. So this time my mom ordered her sauce on the side and I got super excited because that meant I could try it.

I always knew that it was some kind of mayo based sauce, but I could never figure out what else was in there. The moments ticked down until the burgers arrived. I could not contain my excitement, not only was I about to indulge in my favorite burger but I also had the opportunity to taste the sauce all on its own. So I first went in for the sauce..dun dun dah....

...mayo and, well, it just tasted like mayo and onions. That's it. There were definitely no other flavors in there that I could discern. Nothing. Maybe a bit of salt, but I really and truly believe that it was just mayo and onion. Totally disappointed I bit into my burger, and you know what? It didn't even taste as good now that I knew what was in the sauce. A sad, sad day.

I managed to finish my burger and lick the plate clean, but it certainly wasn't my usual Red Coat experience. I actually think my burger didn't taste as good because it was cooked a bit more than I like, which is almost always a deal-breaker for me and my burger enjoyment. Any bit darker than medium rare and my enjoyment exponentially falls off.

So maybe it was good because of the mystery in the sauce, I'm not sure. But I'm going to try and make my own onion-mayo sauce and see if my burger is any bit as good as I remember of the Red Coat golden years. I'm hopeful that there's more to Red Coat's burger than just the mystery of the sauce.

Opiates everywhere and not a drop to eat

2007-01-29T19:45:00.000-05:00

So if you're Polish, or know a Polish baker, or maybe been to a Polish bakery then you may be familiar with the most delicious poppy bread. OMG, so unbelievably good. It's this challah like bread that is filled with a sweet poppy seed filling and rolled up in a jelly roll form of sweet opiate heaven. Perhaps it IS the poppy that makes it so good, but whatever makes it so good is indeed drug-like.

So not having a cooking adventure in awhile I decided to take on the poppy bread. Jeff's cousin was coming over for brunch on Sunday so I thought it might be a nice treat to have in the bread basket. Not wanting to wake up really early Sunday morning for the three risings that the recipe called for, I decided to start the bread on Saturday.

Early afternoon Saturday after having tucked Jeff in on the couch to continue his ear infection recovery and just having finished cleaning a week's worth of dishes (what happens when Jeff is sick and I don't do the dishes), I was ready to begin. I managed to scrounge and find a package of yeast, although it's alive-ness was questionable. The bread itself took many various steps (and this is from the old red Polish cookbook that never really quite explains what in the world it is talking about): heating milk, creaming butter and sugar (still not sure why that was required), along with the usual of "waking up" the yeast, plus making the poppy seed filling mixture.

I managed to get through the first questionable step, whether or not the yeast was alive, and it appeared to be, so I happily continued through all of the bread making steps (there still remains some question though whether or not the water I used for the yeast was too hot, there was definitely a response, but it didn't rise as much as I would have expected). I plopped the now smooth ball of dough into the oiled bowl and let it to rise. In the meantime I went ahead making the poppy mixture which was simply 1 cup (yes a whole freakin' cup) of poppy seeds plus some milk and honey and an egg. I failed to follow the directions, and ended up with more of a poppy soup. I think I heated the honey up too hot (questionable whether or not that actually did anything), but what I didn't do was heat the mixture with the egg. Luckily I had my head on straight and wondered how such a liquidy mixture could possibly be a filling and I also wondered when exactly the egg that was called for in the mixture would be cooked. Luckily I put 2 and 2 together and was able to recover. Whew!

After the bread had sufficiently risen I was to punch it down and allow it to rise again. This was the point at which I was going to throw it in the fridge and pull it out in the morning and let it rise then. I have seen recipes where you can let things rise overnight, so I thought it was possible that it might do the rising overnight which would be fine too. Of course, what I didn't do when I originally threw the dough in the bowl was to make sure the whole thing was oiled so as to not form a skin. Well, form a skin it did. I poured extra grease in and let it rest for the night.

Sunday morning when I got up I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did in fact rise overnight, which was (hopefully) going to cut down on the time going forward. So I rolled it out, filled it with poppy goodness and rolled it up. Looked perfect. My mouth was watering. I then set it for it's last rising. Unfortunately what I hadn't counted on was that this last rising would take forever because the dough was still really cold from the fridge. Darn. So what was supposed to be an hour rising took about 2.5 hours, but I had the time, so no big deal.

Since the last rise took so darn long, I had oodles of time to pre-heat the oven. I set the dial for 350 and when it was finally ready to go in, I checked the temperature in the oven. The thermometer read 300 deg. So fine, what a normal person would do (since I like to consider myself normal), is think to herself: "the oven has been pre-heating forever, so clearly the oven temperature is running 50 deg lower than it should (it has had plenty of time to get up to temperature, so that's not the problem. I'll set it at 400." Which is exactly what I did (if you hadn't guessed that yet).

I then set the timer for 30 minutes (15 minutes shy of the what the recipe said) and headed into the living room to finish watching a terrible movie that I started the night before. The movie finished exactly after 30 minutes had elapsed so I headed back into the kitchen to check on the bread. I opened the oven and I found two things:

1. an oven that was exactly heated to 400 degrees
2. a very dark loaf of poppy bread

I believe there were tears. I had been SO excited about the bread and I TOTALLY screwed the whole thing up. A two day adventure all wasted. I tried cutting off the bottom (which was burnt), but it still wasn't good. I gave it to Jeff to try and he then tried to hide half of it under the carpet (that's not really true, he did try it, but he simply chose to donate the second half to the trash can). Then I tried to cut off the top of the bread, which was dark, but not burnt. That's when I realized that even the inside of the bread (the totally white fluffy and full of poppy part) was gross. The recipe was bad. This was NOT NOT NOT the poppy bread recipe that I was so fond of. I don't know what it was, a dirty imposter, but it was not good and the reason was NOT because I cooked it at the wrong temperature. The flavor was all wrong. It wasn't nearly sweet enough. Too much poppy flavor. It was all very very wrong.

I was all ready to share the recipe from my poppy bread delight, but I will not subject anyone to the imposter fake poppy bread recipe. I will find the right one and I will do it right and I will share that one. Sorry, you get nothing .... for now.

I promise you this: I will get you next time my poppy bread....

oh, and if anyone has what they believe to be a real Polish poppy bread recipe, PLEASE send it my way!

How dumb am I?

2007-01-22T21:53:00.000-05:00

It's a "long" week for me, as these 5 day weeks have become known to be know as in our household. So Sunday morning I didn't want to get out of bed in anticipation of the impending 5 day week. Perhaps the prospect of all those days in which I have to work in a single week drove my brain cells to strike.

So even though I had a three day weekend, I did not really do any grocery shopping nor did I actually attempt to figure out what we were going to be having for dinner this week. Not even a little bit of thought as to what we even had in our fridge. Which, for some people isn't really a big deal, but to a control freak such as myself, these things must be planned far far in advance. Actually, I don't mind those dinners where I look at the fridge and then throw a bunch of stuff together, those nights can be a little bit fun. But those are NOT fun when you get home at 7 pm and everyone is hungry and you don't even want to think about it. Have you ever seen me when I'm hungry? Not nice, not nice at all. I will take your head off.

So you're beginning to see the picture here. It's Monday, I left work at 6:30, oh wait, did I mention yet that Jeff has been feeling under the weather for the past few days? So what USUALLY happens in these situations is that we order dinner. But clearly I was not running on all my cylinders at this point in the day, so I decided that I was going to stop at the grocery store and pick up some things and make a quick dinner. But here's the dumb part, the dinner that I came up with to make? Black bean soup and salad.

Did I ever mention Jeff doesn't like soup? Yes, I believe that I have. I actually thought in a moment of weakness that he would like the black bean soup because who doesn't like soup when they are sick? Plus I was going to blend it all up and make it thick and rich and yummy. Sauce-like one might say. Yeah, so that was a no go when I called and proposed that to Jeff. Duh. And then he surprised me and said that he wanted a sandwich for dinner (have I ever mentioned that he does not like sandwiches for dinner? well he doesn't, and I always want them). So fine, that was easy enough. Except that I had this oily mess of a sandwich for lunch which leaked out of its packaging, through the bag and ALL OVER my pants (did I mention that I had a meeting with some senior management today? yes, the oily mess was on my pants at the meeting. I am so very professional). So for the first night practically ever I did not want a sandwich for dinner. But whatever, Jeff wasn't feeling well, plus it's so easy to make.

So I stopped at the grocery store, bought a bunch of stuff and headed home. It was late, the bags were heavy and by the time I got home I was hungry and SO not in the mood to cook. But I pushed through and made dinner. However, I still didn't want a sandwich and I did want black bean soup so I ended up making two dinners, and they both actually turned out really well. I wanted to make a chipotle mayo for Jeff's sandwich since it's his favorite, but we didn't have any chipotles (can I make that plural? chipotli? I don't know). So I ended throwing a bunch of stuff in the food processor and making him a delicious spread and then I threw a bunch of crap in the pot and made a delicious black bean soup.

Maybe tomorrow I can convince Jeff that leftover black bean sauce is delicious. We'll see, but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed and I'm definitely going to plan tomorrow's dinner today.

Here's the goodies:

Roasted Red Pepper Mayo

1 garlic clove
1 roasted red pepper
2 tablespoons of mayo
2 tablespoons of goat cheese (I used some flavored queso blanco or something that we got from the farmer's market, but it's pretty much goat cheese)
salt and pepper

Whiz it up in the food processor and slather on your bread.

Black Bean Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, diced
3 garlic cloves
~ 1 teaspoon of cumin
~ 1 teaspoon of hot spanish paprika (make it the good stuff)
half of a glass milk jar of chicken broth (probably 2 cups)
1 can of black beans (with about 1/4 can reserved)
1 cooked chicken breast
salt and pepper
yogurt/sour cream, lime, avocado, cilantro, scallions for serving

Heat olive oil in dutch oven until all shimmery. Add onion, a bit of salt and cook until slightly softened. Add garlic, cumin, paprika and cook until fragrant and then add the chicken broth. Scrape the bottom of the pot, add the bean and bring up to a simmer. Let it simmer for a bit, add some salt and pepper to let all the flavors blend together (you could probably poach a chicken breast in the soup at this point if you didn't have a cooked chicken breast, which I happened to have in the fridge). Add in the beans, bring it back up to simmer and turn off. Using an immersion blender or a regular one, blend it almost all the way until it's thick and delicious. Add in the reserved beans and cooked chicken, garnish and serve! So very easy and so very good.

While at the beach: any ingredient goes

2007-01-13T09:51:00.000-05:00

The food we typically eat (when we go out) while in Mexico is almost always fabulous. It's mostly americanized, so I don't have fears of finding terrible surprises in my food (like anise in my donuts), but what IS always a wild 'n crazy adventure is what we make in our little kitchen in the condo.

Since we don't have access to a full grocery store, or most of the ingredients that we're used to (or don't want to buy because we'll be there for only a week or two) we bring some of our own food and we buy some, but it gets good when we try to make breakfast or lunch sometimes. Here are my favorites from this trip:

The good:
Both of these were my ideas which is mostly why they fall under the good category.

Peanut Butter and Dried Blueberry sandwich (One thumb up)
To me, this makes perfect sense. We didn't have jelly, but we did have dried fruit. Who wouldn't put the fruit in the sandwich? Some in my family (my sister) was horrified with the prospect. It was delicious. If you put enough on it was like the jam made with whole fruit which is mostly chunky anyways.

Tuna fish and guacamole on french bread (Two thumbs up)
So we had canned tuna and we had mayo, but I typically don't find this enough to satisfy me in a tuna sandwich. So I raided the fridge...the only thing that was condiment-able was guac. So we threw some of that in there and it was perfect! It had everything we needed to complete the sandwich, a little more flavor plus tomotoes and onions, which is a definite must on a tuna sandwich.

Individual ingredient victories: Bimbo
I can't attest to this one, I never ended up trying it, but the vote in our villa was two enthusiastic thumbs up to Bimbo! What is Bimbo you ask? A brand of bread, of course! Like wonder, but bimbo! But the type of bread we got was this pre-toasted bread, like melba toast, but not so crunchy. Apparently Bimbo microwaved for a bit is delicious, I'm still not convinced that microwaved toast is good, but that's what they say.

The bad (one thumb down):
Egg sandwich with chorizo on regular bread (sorry mom! and I'm still very appreciative of your work and dad's delivery service to me on the beach)

The idea of this sandwich is actually not revolutionary. In fact, I'm sure you could find the exact same thing at hundreds of restaurants in the city. However, where this one went wrong, was the MASSIVE amount of chorizo in the sandwich. There was maybe a half an egg on the sandwich and a half a pound of meat. And I enjoy chorizo (especially the spanish kind, this was the mexican kind - difference (among others: spanish is smoked, mexican is raw), but at 9 in the morning, I'm not hoping for a half a pound of meat. But really where this one went wrong (and yes, this sounds terrible) was that the bread was termendously soggy. Why soggy? Because my dad delivered it to us on the beach, so it sat for a minutes we ate it. Half a pound of meat on soggy bread, does not a breakfast sandwich make. I do appreciate the effort, and I'd rather eat it than make it myself while at the beach, but the culinary experience is purely what I'm investigating here.

Individual ingredient disasters: Smoked almonds
Ever seen smoked almonds at the grocery store? If you do, don't buy them, they're terrible. End of story.

The ugly:
Margaritaville (three fingers):
Ok, so this wasn't really cooking or anything that we concocted, but man was it ugly. Happy hour, every day 3 PM, we did NOT miss it. It included pretty much any drink you want, but three fell victim to the power of the large margarita.

Here they are in decreasing order of magnitude -

Victim 1: The aunt
I wasn't there to witness this one, but my aunt was the first to fall to the large margarita. Even the waiters were coming up to her the next day asking if she wanted more margaritas. Word is on the street that she had about 2 large margaritas (maybe more but the records are fuzzy after the first one). Let's just say there was no dinner for her and she definitely caught the worst case of the margaritaville attack.

Victim 2: The pops
My dad tends to eat one meal a day. This has really been true for as long as I have known him. But this causes a bit of consternation being in Mexico and happy hour typically occurring before his one meal of the day. The count for him on the margaritas was two. No food. He was down and out for the night after that. Grammy luckily got him to eat some cheese before he headed off to bed.

Victim 3: The blogger
So I had many days of happy hours and two previous days in which I had large margaritas, but this particular one was especially strong. Like I said, 3 pm is when happy hour starts. So I sipped my way through the next hour or so (they are LARGE I say), and giggled my way through the next 5 hours. We went back to the room, got ready for dinner, went to dinner, came home, hung out for a bit .... I was still drunk. Perhaps it was all in my head, but man, was that strong!

Here's a shot (get it? shot? like a shot of alcohol, ha!) of me with my SMALL fruity girly drink after the margarita night:

The anti-victim:
Special Mention goes to my mom who defied all odds with the margaritas by bringing down her own EXTRA shot of tequila and adding it to her margarita at happy hour. Pretty impressive stuff.

And...The birthday (one finger right down the middle):

Aah, yes, Jeff's 30th birthday. Not really a culinary experience to discuss, but a picture is worth a thousand words, and I needed to share.

Actually the cake was great (traditional Mexican Dulce de Leche, which is a yellow layer cake with dulce de leche in between the layers), and the party was fun too. Jeff, maybe not so excited about the whole 30 thing.

Overall, great trip, great food (with a few exceptions) and drink (maybe too good) and great friends and family!

Addendum: day 15 and shave free

2007-01-13T09:33:00.000-05:00

the waxing story continues...

We arrived in SUNNY Mexico, and being the loud mouth that I am, it didn't take me even a day before I had shared my waxing disaster story with my whole family (here a tip though for all my readers: brother-in-laws and fathers don't really want to hear about waxing disaster stories). Most in my family thought I was crazy but at least sympathized with the annoyance.

So a day after we arrived, irritated and armed with my razor and shaving cream I shaved then...and waited. Day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4....you wouldn't believe what happened (or maybe you would), no hair was returning!

I jumped for joy! Maybe it WAS worth it! I was so excited that even for a brief moment I thought to myself that I would never shave again, I'd ONLY get them waxed. I quickly reminded myself that was a costly silly proposition, but it at least indicates how happy I was.

So I'm on Day 15 and shave free, and I feel great!

One more before vacation

2006-12-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

Here's my fair warning ... this entry is slightly more personal, centering around leg waxing (although there are no gory details per se). I would say it would be slightly more interesting to my female reader(s). Those not wanting to read further may stop here. See you next year!

Vacation prep...it always consumes my mind for about a month before we go. At least for the bigger trips. So this year, since my mind was not especially filled with exciting work things, I was really focused on the vacation planning. Well that and Christmas presents. But with nothing else consuming my mind I decided about a month ago (since we are going to sunnier climes), I would try leg waxing for the first time.

I am fairly new to the waxing fad that is currently consuming women. Let's just leave it at that. But I hate shaving every day or every other day when I'm on a vacation in which I am wearing a bathing suit every day. It's a pain... It seemed to just make perfect sense to get them waxed.

So back in early December I started growing out my leg hair to the acceptable waxing length. The first week went by without incident, and week 2 rolled around (and this will come as a real shocker to those who knew me in high school and college) and I COULD NOT stand it. The hair was long, itchy, etc... I'm not going to go into details here, but I used to pretty much wait from October until April to shave so this reaction of mine was a surprise even to me. I was very ready to abort the mission but I stayed the course.

Every day I would count down until my appointment (it was like my own personal Advent calendar). Clean, smooth, legs was all I could think about. And I was planning to get my whole legs done, not just stopping at the knee.

So yesterday was the day, I was so excited (well, as excited as you can be about getting hair ripped out of your body), and then I looked down at my legs. I thought to myself "in the context of leg waxing, my legs are kind of long." and I began to doubt my decision. It seemed like a whole lot of hair coming out.

So I set off for my appointment (after downing 800 mg of motrin), nervous, excited, nervous. I got there and pestered my waxer with questions about the painfulness of the leg waxing. She said that she'd do the lower half first and then I could stop if I wanted to.

I nearly cried the first time she ripped the wax off. And it's not like I've never gotten anything waxed before. Immediately the sweat began pouring from every pore in my body, I was happy I at least remembered that I reacted this way to waxing and wore a short sleeve shirt. 10 painful minutes later was go time on the full leg decision and I voted two very emphatic thumbs down to full leg waxing. I flipped over, and this is the disgusting part, I was sweating so much that the paper on the table was sticking to me. Talk about embarrassing. And I'm not even a person who sweats a lot, even at the gym.

I made it through the rest of the waxing and I cringed when I put my jeans back on. oww...

So, obviously the first thing I did when I got home was put shorts on. Which is when I realized that my legs weren't even smooth. They had that "day AFTER you shave" feeling! Not that "I just got them waxed" feeling I had expected. I'm sure if I were a "regular" then they would have felt great. But I wasn't. That's when I decided I never would be either. I had to go through 3 painful weeks of itchy dry long haired legs, one extremely painful appointment and I'm STILL going to have to shave on vacation (not to mention the money I blew on the appointment itself). Uh-huh, no way, this is one job that I will continue to do myself at my own leisure.

Talk about a crummy commercial.....never ever again. Someone, please point me to this entry when next year the same "good idea" pops into my head. Inevitably it will.

Sauce, good. Soup, bad.

2006-12-13T21:15:00.000-05:00

What's better on a cold day (or on a spring-like day in December) than a good cup or bowl of soup? I would argue that there is nothing better. I like most soups, chicken noodle, tomato, chowders, stews, creamy, not so creamy, I'll go for most anything. You can even have cold soups in the summer, melon soup, gazpacho, etc.. It's also a secret way to get in more liquids if you're sick of trying to drink your 8 glasses of water a day for "feeling good, clear skin" and all the other BS. Love 'em all.

Jeff does not agree with this sentiment. After years and years of trying, I had given up on Jeff ever liking soup. I've tried all sorts of different recipes, always thinking that they just weren't tasty or spicy or chunky enough. But I had officially given up. I was done with the soups. I would still make them, but I wouldn't even attempt to serve them to Jeff. (I imagined that if I did put a bowl of soup in front of him, he would react much like Randy in "A Christmas Story" -- and it's just not funny to plan the "little piggy" game with a grown man)

About two months ago we were having a dinner guest over but it was a "school night" and I wouldn't have had enough time to cook dinner after getting home from work. So the only thing that I could think of to make was a stew, because supposedly those "get better if they sit overnight" and so I could make it Sunday night for Monday night dinner. I don't know if it's true, but it would certainly be easy. I didn't care at that point whether or not Jeff would eat it (it was his co-worker, so he could suffer for the cause). I figured he could pick the beef and potatoes out and eat them.

But, to my great surprise, he dug right in to the stew, broth and all. When questioned on this point, he said "this is not soup, this is stew." I understand that things are a bit chunkier in stews, but come on, same thing. So fine, stew was back on Jeff's list of "yes, I'll eat it."

So then, shortly before Thanksgiving I wanted to make my own mini-Thanksgiving dinner. I made a butternut squash soup because it just sounded so darn good and would go great with turkey and all the fixin's. I filled my bowl up to the top and brought Jeff out a salad. He sort of looked longingly at my bowl, as though he was missing out. Everyone knew he would not like it, but I put some in a small little bowl and watched him cringe a bit as he ate it (not because it wasn't good, it was delicious, I would argue one of the best soups I had ever made). He set it aside and filled his plate up with turkey, potatoes and all the good stuff.

I continued enjoying my soup and looked up just in time to see him dumping his entire bowl of soup all over the food on his plate. Classic.

I wasn't exactly sure how to react, but I think my puzzled, smiling, furrowing brow face said it all. To which he replied "soup...bad, but it's great as a sauce." What?! How can it be good on the top of mashed potatoes but not good with a few croutons floating in it? Curried butternut squash soup on top of green bean casserole? But not good on it's own?!

So I told this story to a friend of mine, we agreed that this was crazy and chuckled about it for awhile. She had us over for dinner a few weeks after later and she made us grilled cheese and tomato "sauce."

As long as we referred to it as tomato sauce throughout the dinner, Jeff would eat it. Someone please tell me how funny that is. He doesn't really have an explanation either, except the non-descript "It's a texture thing." Except that the texture doesn't change if you pour it over your turkey or dip your sandwich in it.

Anyways, I've learned to live within Jeff's definition of soup, I'm sorry, I mean sauce. In fact this morning I mentioned that I had asked my mom to send me the recipe for shrimp soup. To which he replied "it's a double whammy" (because he obviously doesn't like soup and he doesn't like shrimp). I quickly backtracked and said that I didn't need to put the shrimp in and that it was actually a chowder. He was relieved and it was then an acceptable menu item for Christmas Eve.

Semantics. It's not a texture thing, it's a semantics thing. I will now refer to anything he doesn't like as something else. You don't like shrimp, well, actually it's salmon that's rolled up to look like a shrimp. No, it's not broccoli, it's actually lettuce bunched up really tightly.

Here's where I want to put my mom's shrimp soup/non-shrimp chowder recipe (a classic in our household), but she hasn't sent it yet. MOM, I'm waiting!!

Rule #1: Respect the imprints

2006-12-12T22:28:00.000-05:00

Jeff and I have had numerous conversations in the past few weeks about the subway and commuting to work. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Jeff: It feels like I'm in a cattle car every morning, there's no space and I'm pressed up against strangers.
Me: I don't really notice, I put my headphones in and imagine that I'm in my own personal space.
Jeff: There's no reason to be crammed into small cars and the subway should run more cars more frequently!
Me: Yeah, well it's better than driving. It's not so bad. I can always find a seat after Times Square anyways. Plus there's such thing as a comfortable tightness on the train. It's going to be tight, but you just have to realize that sitting or standing shoulder to shoulder isn't that big of a deal.
Jeff: Hmph. I want my own space. I don't want to feel like an animal for no reason.

Or something to that effect...

So the other day I was going to work, and I'm in training so we start every day at 8:30. This is later than I usually go in, and happens to be the worst commuting time of the morning (or so it seems from my little experience). I leave the apartment at 7:45 and am therefore catching the train between 7:50 and 7:55 (depending on what shoes I'm wearing and how fast I walk to the station), which should normally get me to work by 8:15/8:20 (yes, I'm the big loser that gets to training early -- but there's free breakfast and all the good bagels will be gone quickly).

Being the worst time of the morning to try and catch a train I had to let one train go by because I simply could not get on the train, literally, the doors closed on one guy's coat...nothing else would have fit on that train. Typically though, when a train is that packed there is another one following close behind that usually has fewer people. That was the case on this fine morning. So I get on the next train, and got a seat at Times Square.

So I sit down and open my paper (always the joyous reward for being able to sit is that I can also read the paper). I was feeling most happy because I was on the lesser packed train, had a seat, and could read my paper. Even better was the fact that it was one of the trains with the seat imprints, so it's obvious where the seats are (as opposed to one big long bench). PLUS, the seat on my left was open because the guy two seats down was sitting such that his leg was hanging on the seat next to me. That meant that only an adventurous subway rider would take the seat next to me. I may have even had a smile on my face I was so pleased with my situation. Aah, how quickly the tables turn.

So we head to 34th street and on comes the aforementioned adventurous subway rider. So this particular subway rider would not have normally fit in the space allotted as a "seat" on the subway, and certainly not fit when the guy had his leg hanging over. So, what the adventurous rider does is proceed to sit on me. No, not on my lap, but essentially on my left leg. This prohibited my paper reading as my elbows were now pressed into my rib cage.

Now, as shown through my previous conversations with Jeff, I'd say I have a pretty high tolerance for loss of personal space on the subway, but when someone sits on me? That is where I draw the line. But I couldn't really get up and I didn't really want to either, I was there first. So I rode the next 4 stops with adventurous on top of me and I had to kind of shimmy out of my seat (well, not really, but it was weird getting up).

I am not judging, and adventurous rider probably needed the seat more than I did, and I probably should have gotten up (I usually do), but that's when I decided: Rule #1 on the subway: Respect the (seat) imprints and Rule #2: KNOW YOUR (size) LIMIT! If you don't respect the limits, I am not going to cede my space. If you're not going to fit in a seat without sitting on top of someone else, you're just going to have to wait. Please don't punish the innocent on the bottom of the pile.

The best excuse ever to not workout

2006-12-12T22:19:00.000-05:00

We all know how much I hate working out. I hate it. HATE IT. The workout machine wants to know my weight, my age, AND to add insult to injury it makes 50 minutes of my day purely miserable. I think there are many a blog entry on my hatred of it, so I won't belabor the point. So today, as most days, I headed to the gym after work. Jeff was working out by walking home (to supplement the workout he had earlier in the day - Dodge Ball, yes, while at work and yes, it was mandatory that he play) and we were going to meet at home for dinner.

Super. Working out is even worse when I have to go by myself. But I was ready for a good workout because my thoughtful employer provided a Holiday Lunch today which included delectable desserts and chocolate truffles which, unsurprisingly, I couldn't resist.

So - I stopped home, changed, and for a few minutes listened to the cat screaming about not having her litter scooped in an appropriate time frame or something, and headed to the gym. I hopped onto the elliptical machine which is my equipment of choice when I want to focus on the calorie burning and not so much on the getting in shape. I set it to my normal stupid workout and started at my usual stupid pace. The woman on the machine next to me was going at warp speed which added to my existing feelings of workout inadequacy.

At about 22 minutes into my workout the warp speed lady got off the machine and went over to grab another towel (given all the sweat being generated while going warp speed). When she got back on her machine she made some comment about some smell. I couldn't smell anything and dismissed her mysterious scents...I figured she was working out too hard so she was probably going to faint soon, and it was that "right before you faint" smell.

At about 25 minutes into the workout the firemen appeared.

Real firemen. With axes, hats and all the get-up. They indicated to me and my fellow tortured hamsters that we needed to go downstairs. Not evacuate...just go downstairs. So I grab my stuff and go down intent on finding another machine since I had eaten the chocolate goodness for lunch. I hop on another machine and about 5 minutes into my new workout the cleaning lady came over and told everyone they needed to evacuate.

No alarms, no lights, just the cleaning lady. Which was a little strange given the fact that everyone there had ear phones in their ears. But by then there were three fire trucks outside, the number of firemen had quadrupled, and they had hauled in the fire hose and completely blocked the main entrance. I figured there is really no better excuse to not working out than "my gym was on fire."

I really wanted to call Jeff and say "so the good news is...I'll be home early, the bad news is...the gym is burning" but he never answered his phone. Darn! It would have been hilarious.

Hopefully I never have to workout again because my gym burned down. That would be the best.

Halfsies

2006-04-13T10:27:00.000-04:00

I often like to cut recipes in half, sometimes it's because there's only two of us, sometimes it's because I want to try the recipe (usually for desserts) before I waste a whole bunch of expensive ingredients (chocolate, nuts, etc....). WithOUT fail I will inevitably forget half way through the cooking process that I am halving the recipe and start following the recipe as written. It's typically not a problem if I'm cooking and I add too much garlic or something, but it's a big problem when I'm baking and it's important to keep the measurements exactly.

So yesterday I was trying a new gelato recipe. The other day I went to the bookstore and jotted down a few recipes from a book since I had trouble finding recipes online. I'm not sure if that is exactly against the rules, but two employees walked by me while I was doing it and didn't say anything, so I don't feel too bad about it. Anyways, I was trying a chocolate hazelnut recipe. I started out a-ok, I halved the hazelnuts and the milk. I "measured" the chocolate (the measured is in quotes because all I did was guess how much I should use since the recipe called out ounces of chocolate for which I had no way to measure - I need a scale) and then I put the sugar in a separate bowl and was adding the egg yolks when I realized I had done it again. But I realized that I had a larger problem on my hands. The recipe called for 3 egg yolks and I would therefore need 1.5 egg yolks. Shiiiiiiiit. Clearly, I didn't think through this one.

So I had 2 egg yolks and 6 tablespoons of sugar in the bowl and I needed 1.5 egg yolks and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Nice. So I started randomly spooning the ingredients out of the bowl until it looked right to me. What a mess!! I had egg yolk goop everywhere: the floor, counter, my arm, why is it that when I screw something up it always involves egg yolks being everywhere? And how did it get everywhere? All I needed to do was take it from the bowl to the sink (which were next to each other). Perhaps it was because the counter was completely full of bowls and pans and dishes because I had baked a batch of cookies in the morning and had not yet done the dishes. You may begin to be imaging the mess in your head. It was a disaster zone.

I continued on with the recipe and finished it. When it came to the tasting, I was a little unsure. It looked good, but how would it taste? Remarkably though, it was quite tasty. WAY too chocolatey, but that's probably because I didn't actually measure the chocolate at all. But, overall, pretty darn delectable. But it seemed like there was a touch too much sugar. I think next time I'll make full recipes, it's not worth all the egg yolk mess, for all the "savings" I get for not using as many ingredients I get much more heartache with trying to fix what I messed up.

So today is my last official unemployed entry, no Fieldtrip Friday tomorrow, and my postings may not come as frequently. Hopefully though, I'll be posting at night now, so there should be a new one bright and early for you, I'm still aiming to post close to every day, but we'll see how it goes.

Yankee Fans

2006-04-12T10:49:00.000-04:00

So I'm about to make some very large and sweeping generalizations, and I am very well aware that this does not apply to all Yankee fans, as I certainly have some very good friends that are Yankee fans, but alas I will proceed at my own risk.

So I come from a big baseball family. For any who attended either my or my sister's wedding can attest, from the "Chrovian sister toasts," there's a very deep rooted history of baseball in our family. We'd always go to opening day, plus many a visit to the ballpark during the season. Unfortunately for us, with the exception of the 1984 season, we only had the Tigers to root for. Bummer. So as I got older, I watched fewer games on tv because I think (unless it's October) that it's nearly as dull as watching golf, or watching grass grow, but I still love going to the park.

Anywho, back to the Yankee fans. So yesterday afternoon I headed to the gym. I am very very selective about my workout equipment (like most things in my life), and there is only one brand of a certain piece of workout equipment that I'll use. So I hopped on it and started my workout. I noticed two things as I began sweating to the oldies:
(1) my iPod had the last sliver of battery showing, kind of mocking me as I started the workout. This is serious bad news in the workout world as it means I would be forced to watch some nameless, faceless awful daytime show they have on the tvs which were directly in front of me
(2) two of the tvs in my direct line of sight were showing the same channel

So I was very careful about choosing my fast forwards, as I believe this quickens the drainage of the battery (I don't know if it's true, but the backlight comes on for a brief moment - I know I can change that setting, but once you've realized you're on low battery I try to not make any sudden moves around the pod). I still got the battery of death symbol about half way through the workout.

Right about the time when the battery of death popped up, I saw a guy making hand gestures in front of the tv and the channels started flipping on the tv in front of me. So, he's changing the channel. Fine, I realize that two of the tvs are showing the same thing, but this was the one RIGHT in front of me. No polite "do you mind if I change this" or "are you watching this" which is pretty standard protocol. Especially if it's right in front of someone.

So, as you may have guessed, he wanted the Yankee game on. Not only did I now have no dreamy workout soundtrack of my choosing blaring in my ears keeping those legs pumping, but I had to watch baseball. And not just baseball, Yankee baseball. Yankee baseball is what is wrong with this country, it's like silver platter baseball. Like the 20-somethings who feel like they deserve everything and really already have a whole heck of a lot, or really, everyone who is given everything on a nice silver platter. Not that I've really had to claw my way up, but at least I never felt like I expected everything, and I'd have to say I've put in my fair share of blood, sweat, and tears. Any questions on that can be referred back to my sister and brother-in-law whom I lived with last fall (for one recent example).

Anyways, Yankees, right. It's the team that's always good, so even if you're a fair weather fan, there's always something to cheer for. I would describe myself as a fair weather fan for many sports, but I think those seasons of poor performance give you a chance to rebuild your love for the team when they come back strong and you love them even more when they're good again. It's way better than buying your way to the top. So I strongly dislike the Yankees and I strongly dislike Yankee fans. I won't say hate, that's a strong word.

I especially dislike Yankee fans who change the television station at the gym (without asking) while I am forced to watch it. I also dislike the Yankee fan who changes the channel at the gym and then WALKS AWAY. I even more dislike the Yankee fan who then comes back to check the score 20 minutes later and cheers audibly and claps at and INSTANT REPLY FROM ANOTHER GAME. I also dislike the Yankee fan who gets his weights, brings them back and stands in front of the tv (and me) lifting the weights AND who bends over in his white shorts while I'm trying to work out. Speaking of white shorts, I dislike the Yankee fan who wears white shorts, black tank tops, white wrist (sweat) bands, black gloves and a white bandana with black accents. Who matches their outfits for the gym?

I think I'm going to cheer for the Mets. Unless the Tiger's get good again, of course. My sister always told me that I liked to cheer for whomever was going to win. She was right, for the most part, but I'm not sure I'll ever cheer for the Yankees.

By the way, I don't really hate all Yankee fans, I don't even think I can generalize this experience to one other Yankee fan, but it sure was funny. I don't even hate the Yankees, I don't even think about them enough to hate them (or strongly dislike them).

Back to the Basics

2006-04-11T10:20:00.000-04:00

So yesterday, with about three hours on my hands to make dinner, I decided to go for the easiest simplest dinner, one which would take very little effort and time. One of those "let's see what's in the fridge and what I can make with it." Well, obviously, since I was the one who went to the grocery store and picked out everything I had a pretty good idea of what was in the fridge and what I could actually do with it (or at least I had thought briefly about it when I put the groceries into the cart).

Anyways, I wandered into the kitchen and started pulling everything out of the fridge. I decided on simple roast chicken breast, yukon gold potatoes (preparation was not initially defined), and something with green beans, asparagus and tomatoes and maybe edamame. So I started with the chicken, because I knew that would take the longest. Onto a pan, a little olive oil, a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper and into the oven at 375. I had about 35-40 minutes until that was done so I focused on the potatoes. Since I like my roasted potatoes crispy I usually cook them at 425, and the oven was already in use at a much lower temperature, so I decided to just saute them. But, I don't always like pan sauteed potatoes because I have found that I have to use more oil because they need to cook for awhile (although I suppose that I could put a lid on and partially steam them), I decided to par boil them and finish them off in the saute pan. Then I could add some garlic because it would be a quick cook and the garlic wouldn't burn. I freakin' love garlic and potatoes.

Chicken and potatoes done. Now onto the vegetable. Since I had some boiling water (from the potatoes), I decided to blanch some green beans, asparagus and edamame. I chilled them and sort of looked at them trying to decide what to do. Back to the fridge/pantry. Out came: dijon mustard, feta cheese, onion, red wine vinegar, olive oil and tomatoes. So I made a dressing with the mustard, vinegar and olive oil. Sliced some cheese and tomatoes,diced the onion and tossed it with the greenies. With a quick taste...mmm...delicious!

I also grabbed some thyme from the fridge and threw it in the pan with the potatoes, again with a good sprinkle of salt and pepper. Chicken came out and everything was done. All at the same time even, which is always a big big problem for me. To my great surprise this very simple, quick dinner was delicious. Jeff even ate the green beans...a rare feat. I think feta cheese helps him to digest it, or maybe he was just starving and I gave him no choice.

Then, last night was the first night in which we had an ice cream craving and didn't go get some after the gym (actually I had an ice cream craving...but then again I'm usually the motivation for the post-work out ice cream treat), but that's because we had strawberry "gelato" at home. Although it isn't my perfect gelato, it still tastes awesome after the gym.

Soooo...recipes! I haven't posted any in awhile, but here's the recipes for my super simple recipes from last night (if you couldn't have figured them out from my descriptions):

Roast Chicken Breast
2 chicken breasts, skin on, bone in
olive oil
salt and pepper

Pre-heat oven to 375. Put chicken on pan and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Put in oven for 35-40 minutes until skin is crispy and juices run clear (I think the internal temperature should be 165 but don't quote me on that).

Garlicky Delicious Pan Sauteed Potatoes
About 4 handfuls of Yukon Gold Potatoes (enough for two)
1 T olive oil
1 clove of garlic
thyme (or any of your favorite herb, fresh)
salt and pepper

Put potatoes (whole) in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add salt to the water. Cook until the potatoes are almost cooked through (knife goes in with a wee bit of force). Keep the water on the heat if you're also cooking the veggies. Cut the potatoes in quarters (I like keeping them whole while I boil them because I think, maybe it's not true, that when you boil the potatoes already cut they get a little water logged) Heat a saute pan over medium heat, and add the olive oil when hot. Add the garlic and immediately add the potatoes. Add salt and pepper. If it looks like the garlic is going to burn add a LITTLE white wine or broth or something (it will reduce the crispiness of the potatoes a touch, but at least you won't have burnt bitter garlic), then reduce the heat cause it's too high. Cook until the potatoes are done and add the thyme towards the end of the cooking.

Green Bean, Asparagus, Tomato, Edamame, Feta Salad
Any combination of green beans, asparagus, tomatoes and edamame to fit your taste
2 -4 T of finely chopped onion
~ 1/4 cup diced feta
1 heaping teaspoon dijon mustard
splash of red wine vinegar
1 T olive oil
Handful of parsley

Blanch the greenies in boiling, SALTED water. Chill in an ice water bath. Chop the tomatoes into large-ish pieces and cut the feta into cubes. Whisk together the mustard, vinegar and olive oil. Toss everything together and add some salt and pepper. Taste and make sure it's delicious.

The Early Rounds

2006-04-10T09:01:00.000-04:00

This weekend I decided to break into the ice cream attachment and see what I could do. I wanted to start slowly, with a sorbet, and seeing I had strawberries in the fridge, I decided to shoot for a strawberry sorbet. I found a recipe (I wasn't going to go it alone for my first try). After making my strawberry puree I realized that I didn't even have a quarter of the amount that I needed to make the recipe, so I started rummaging through the fridge.

I came up with a partial bag of frozen blueberries and a frozen banana, and in they went. Adding a bit of sugar, a touch of milk and a splash of freshly squeezed orange juice, I thought to myself that this was incredibly simple, and I hoped for the best. I had to chill the mixture for a couple of hours before putting it in the ice cream maker for 20 minutes. After that, into the freezer for a couple more hours. Hmmm....maybe this is the annoying part of ice cream making, and I am NOT a patient person.

After dinner Saturday I busted out the strawberry, blueberry and banana sorbet. Boy, did it taste good. It was however, very strong on the banana flavor, in fact it was mostly banana sorbet (which sounds disgusting, although it was quite tasty) with a hint of blueberry and a touch of strawberry in the background. The texture was great though. Not bad for the first try. Motivated by the results, I stuck the freezer bowl back in the freezer for round 2 on Sunday.

I scoured some of my cookbooks and a few websites for a gelato recipe for Sunday's attempt. In one of my Italian cookbooks I found a recipe for a strawberry gelato and zeroed in on that one. The recipe had three ingredients: strawberries, sugar, and cream (I know, gelato is not supposed to have cream, but it only called for a quarter of a cup, so I went for it). It was, again, super simple to make, although, again requires a few steps which is kind of annoying. Although, I have to say, it is a fantastic weekend activity.

So after our tasty ragu bolognese dinner, we certainly needed an Italian treat for dessert as well, so out came the strawberry gelato. I would call it "gelato," it was tasty, but lacked that characteristic creaminess I love in gelato. Maybe it was because I don't actually really like strawberry ice cream, but I don't think so. So, this isn't going to be as easy as I would have hoped. At least all these trials have been pretty darn tasty. Keeps me motivated. I think I'm definitely going to have to go for a hazelnut trial next. I am having some trouble locating gelato recipes though; I found one that included corn syrup and powdered milk - I'm not sure that gelato, which prides itself (if an inanimate object can pride itself) on having all natural ingredients, is supposed to have corn syrup. Gross. I think I may have to take a trip to the bookstore and see what I can find.

I'm not giving up yet, you can't break me this easily Mr. Ice Cream Maker.

Fieldtrip Friday V: The End of an Era

2006-04-07T15:38:00.000-04:00

Today's a big day, as it revolves around my favorite morning soap opera/news show. So in order to continue with today's posting, I must reveal what my favorite trashy morning show is to my four loyal readers; it is The Today Show. I'm a loyal fan. Every morning I tape it and watch it. Granted this only started happening once I stopped actually having to get ready to go somewhere, but in the past whenever I haven't needed to go to work or school I was also dedicated to the show.

Since this week Katie Couric announced she was leaving the show after 15 years, I decided that my fieldtrip today would be to go down to Rockefeller Plaza and try to get some pictures of her on the show (no, I was not trying to get on tv, but that did happen to be an unintended consequence, I guess I'm two for two for the past two Fridays). I actually had to set an alarm this morning; 6:45 my phone/alarm went off. I had somehow convinced Jeff to walk with me to get a bagel and then walk together down to his work/Rockefeller (they're relatively close, or at least one is mostly on the way to the other). So we both rolled out of bed before 7 this morning and got out the door just after 7. And, YES, I did remember my camera AND I put fully charged batteries in before I left as well. Although I was feeling slightly under the weather (what I fondly refer to as "the day before you're sick" feeling), I pushed through for the sake of Fieldtrip Friday.

Since I am a freakishly loyal Today Show fan, I knew they always headed outside around 8 AM, so my goal was to get there by then. I walked up around 8:05 and saw Matt Lauer and Al Roker "out on the plaza" but no sign of Katie. I was desperately hoping that I hadn't missed my chance. I snapped a few (not so great) pictures of Matt and Al and hoped for another appearance. I positioned myself so that I could see them when they came out from inside, so no matter where they ended up taping the segment, I would at least get a view/shot of Katie if she came out again. LUCKILY, I had my chance about a half hour later. I saw Al and Matt come out and, gasp, stand right in front of a group of Ohio University students (Matt's an OU alum, see I AM a freakish fan) which happened to be standing right next to me. I was disappointed, no Katie. And then, at the last minute she ran out (literally), and I think my heart actually sped up a little. I didn't actually think I was that big of a fan, and I'm terribly embarrassed to admit it, but alas there it is. I'm usually not so excited when I see famous people either (in fact I mostly think to myself, "huh, there's so and so").

Anyways, I got two pretty darn good pictures, one of Matt and one of mostly Katie with a random OU student.

Pretty exciting stuff, huh?

So, anyways, it was a pretty exciting morning for me. But, today's title, "The End of an Era" not only refers to Katie, but unfortunately it also refers to my Fieldtrip Fridays. Some of you know, I'll be starting as a Sales Associate at a major national retailer next week. While I still plan to go on many fieldtrips (I'll be off at least one weekday a week), they may not be appearing exclusively on Fridays, I'm really just trying to keep you guessing. I'm sure though, with this position, I'll have many an exciting story to tell, it may just provide enough material to launch this blog to prime time (highly doubtful).

Stay tuned!

Leader of the Pack

2006-04-06T10:12:00.000-04:00

No, no, no, the leader of this pack is not me. No, not Jeff...yes it's absolutely our crazy cat. Seriously, crazy. She'll follow us around and then bite us (fine, nip us) when we pet her (which we'll only do after she gives us the squeak which we have interpreted as wanting to be petted, perhaps we need to refine our cat language skills). She has the most energy of any 3 year old cat that I know of, perhaps it's because we feed her kitten food? Somehow I doubt it. She's either sleeping or running wildly around the teeny apartment, it's like she's a goldfish, she forgets that she just ran through the living room and does it again.

She has been especially spoiled since I arrived without work to this great city. Tuna for lunch, sometimes turkey...prompt feeding times in the morning, hours and hours of head scratching and petting, and pretty much all the attention she wants, she gets.

So in return, we ask little, maybe a little purring every once in awhile, and for pete's sake, if you see a bug, KILL IT! Don't watch it run by and go under the sink. Don't wait for us to half kill it for you to finish the job. You have one instinct, and that is to chase birds and bugs, so come on little kitty, we've held up our end of the bargain, now it's your turn. You chase your little stuffed bear around the entire apartment for hours. Think of it as training for you.

As you may have guessed, we had a little buggy visitor last night, and the cat was interested in it, but not enough to actually get it. She camped out by the sink after it ran under there, but I'm not sure that counts. So after the bug debacle we went to bed, only to wake up in the middle of the night to the cat pushing both Jeff and I completely out of bed. She had taken over the middle section of the bed, lying sideways, pushing each of us to our respective edges of the bed. And, of course, she got all sorts of head scratching all the while she's pushing out of bed. Wait...this is her reward for not killing the bug? Hmmm...sounds like we're the enablers.

And then, this morning after her morning ritual (kick us out of bed, get breakfast and going back and sleeping in our still warm bed) she wandered out into the living room while I was "housewifing it" (read: watching morning crap tv), meowed at me until I made room on the couch for her, jumped up, flopped down on top of me and then proceeded to bite me until I got off the couch. And that, my friends, is the last straw. I'm not sure what kind of recourse I have, perhaps next time I won't make room for her, maybe today she'll only get 1 hour of head scratching.

Yeah, if I think I'm lucky, it's nothing compared to our little show girl. Yeah, fine, so we got her de-clawed, but I think she leads a pretty good life, right now she's got the whole couch while I'm in the crappy chair. Maybe if she weren't so furry it would be easier to kick her off her throne, unfortunately the furry little face is irresistible. But I swear, if I'm pushed out of bed again tonight, I will not pet her in the process.

Day of Ice Cream

2006-04-05T09:25:00.000-04:00

So to "indulge" and treat myself yesterday on the big day, I decided, that instead of sitting home all day feeling old (which I felt), I would seek out the best ice cream place in New York (at least best according to 2 sources). Not just an ice cream place, but a gelato place.

Now I have very very high standards for gelato, which is why I have been eyeing the KitchenAid ice cream attachment for my stand mixer (so I can make it myself). When we went to Italy in 1989 (see, I am old), I was introduced to gelato and even at that age I instantly appreciated its creamy texture. I fervently talked about the goodness which is gelato until I was able to go back to Italy two years ago. It was February when we were there two years ago, but that certainly didn't stop me from feeding my gelato obsession. I made a beeline for the gelato shop as soon as we arrived. I was a little nervous that I glorified it in my memory, but it was just as good as I remembered. So anyways, I'm always a bit nervous about eating gelato in the U.S., because I never think that it's going to be as good, just for the sole reason that it wasn't made in Italy. Zingermans, however, pretty much has nailed it right on the head, unfortunately we don't live walking distance from the Creamery anymore (maybe that's a good thing).

So anyways...I found a gelato place in NY, lower east side, pretty close to Chinatown, and I decided to make that my indulgence for the day. I was actually saving it for a Fieldtrip Friday, but I figured it would be appropriate to enjoy a sweet treat while I was feeling old. The shop, Il Labortorio del Gelato, offers 12 new flavors every day, and I was lucky enough that the classic (well my classic) flavor, Hazelnut, was available. They also had some very non-traditional Italian flavors, including red bean and black sesame (red bean is a very traditional Chinese flavor, and I'm not sure about black sesame). I decided to be a bit adventurous and a bit classical and went for hazelnut and black sesame, and they definitely lived up to my expectations. The black sesame was a gray color (it was kind of gross looking, a little like squid ink) and tasted sweet with a hint of sesame seeds. Quite and unexpectedly tasty.

So what makes gelato so much more tasty than any ice cream ever made? What's the line between gelato and ice cream? Things I had heard through the grapevine...fresh ingredients, less (!) cream, more eggs, but I decided to investigate...

According to Wikipedia, it does have less cream, does use fresh ingredients (should be made and eaten in the same day), but doesn't use any eggs (or maybe it can, but it's not necessary). It contains about 4 - 8% fat (vs. 10 - 18% for ice cream) and is made with whole milk. The big difference is the freezing technique. For gelato, a forced air freezer is used not a regular freezer, to hold the entire product at the same temperature, and it is super cooled as it freezes and ice crystals are broken up as it cools (I'm guessing this is why it's so creamy) and also has less air than regular ice cream. It is served in a semi-frozen state, again unlike ice cream. So what does this mean? That I can't make it myself, DAMNIT! I guess I have to wait until I open my restaurant/store so I can buy myself a special gelato freezer.

But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try...with my new ice cream attachment for my KitchenAid...getting older does have its benefits.

What you can find on a 9 mile walk

2006-04-03T23:02:00.000-04:00

Lesson learned...it is not nice to take your house guests on a 9 mile walk through the city. There was a groin injury and countless blisters suffered by our guests, but there were some good things. We certainly saw lots of the city, especially lots of the east side. It would have been a bit shorter if my 2006 restaurant guide was indeed up to date. Alas, it was not, and we were forced to back track to a new (and undeniably better, even though we didn't actually taste any food from our original choice of restaurant) restaurant. The "new" and "second" option for lunch on our hike from hell (actually, I'm not sure anyone would characterize it as such, but I felt really bad since it wasn't really advertised as a 9 mile walk) was Katz's Deli. We were on the lower east side and we wanted a deli, so we were in the perfect place for the best deli sandwich, EVER. EV-ER.

Apparently, we were the only ones in the dark about the deliciously unbelievable deli gem. I had actually heard of it, but it was not what I had thought of when I had heard of it previously. And with all of my Zagat grazing, I'm surprised I hadn't made a bee-line for Katz's 6 months ago. Regardless, I made it, and I'm in love.

It's a much different deli experience than I have ever had in the past. You walk in the door and get a ticket, much like a raffle ticket, and told not to lose it (if you do, it's a $50 charge). There's a bunch of tables, a huge long deli counter and lots of guys working behind it. You can get in line at any of the "carvers" - which was a little confusing although there were signs everywhere. We also found that there were a few tables that had waiter service, but I actually think I kind of liked the do it yourself nature, plus we didn't have to wait long at all. The carver then marks your ticket with what you ordered and you pay as you walk out the door.

So my absolutely favorite deli sandwich is: turkey, corned beef, cheese (preferably muenster or provelone), cole slaw and russian dressing on rye. Not seeing it on the menu, I just went to the counter and ordered turkey and corned beef with russian dressing (that too was not on the menu, but I figured it would be reasonable to expect they could make it, which was true). I'm not sure why I didn't get all of my favorite ingredients, but I figured I'd test the waters, you never know, too many things and your order may come back wrong or if you're not familiar with the restaurant the flavors may compete too much with another (if they don't have it on the menu, there may be a good reason why). While the "carver" is carving the meat for your sandwich he cuts a little taste nugget for you while you wait. To wet your appetite I guess, at least that's what it did for me. The most tender juicy turkey (warm) that I had ever had, and a corned beef that wasn't too corney and just perfect (also warm). The dressing wasn't mayo based (I don't think at least) and I was a little afraid I wouldn't like it. But turns out that was fan-freakin'-tastic too. Anyways, there were three of us and we got 2 sandwiches and an order of fries. The other sandwich in our party was their famous salami.

Now, I've always been a salami fan, one of those things that (in the words of my dad), "I like so much I can't eat." And this is one of the best salamis ever, I think it was because there was a hint of garlic in it. Regardless of what it was, it was delicious. And apparently everyone else knows how good their food is, because there are a million pictures on the wall of all the famous people with Mr. Katz (I'm guessing it's Mr. Katz in all the pictures, but I'm not really sure who Katz is). It is also where the famous scene from "When Harry Met Sally" was filmed...you know the one..."I'll have what she's having."

So the food was awesome, but unfortunately, I thought sadly to myself that it's so out of the way for us, that I'm afraid it's only going to be a "when we have visitors" type place. Which makes me very sad. It was the perfect food to feed our bellies through the trek through the city. Next time I promise to do a little more planning ahead of time, although, this time, we found the best deli ever (and yes, it's way way better than the Carnegie Deli). Maybe I shouldn't be in charge of plotting the route. Just finding the restaurants.

Pay a lot for dinner...get breakfast too

2006-04-03T10:52:00.000-04:00

Don't worry, I'm back. After a week of fun filled adventures, and preparing for fun filled adventures, I'm here to write about them. I'll begin with Saturday night, we went to Gramercy Tavern, the #1 rated by Zagats for 2006. We arrived at 6 PM for our three course prix-fixe menu, unsure of exactly what to expect. After a false Simon Cowell we settled on some delicious cocktails to start. And then the bread man came, the first of at least 5 visits to our table. No, you don't get a basket of bread, a waiter comes and puts the bread on your plate each time the last morsel of bread is gone. I love that. Especially when they're on top of it and always there with the next piece when you're ready. It helped that the bread was really really good.

It became clear very early that this was going to be the 3-hour meal for which I was hoping. Shortly after we selected our first and second courses (or perhaps it was right before), they presented us with an appetizer, yes, that's right, presented to us. Simultaneously, two waiters came and gave us each the appetizer at the exact same time. That would continue for each course throughout the meal, I think that was my favorite part of the meal. The appetizer (not included as one of the courses) was the teeny tiniest bruscetta, or maybe crostini (I'm still not sure I know the difference) that I've ever seen. Smaller than bite size, but still quite delicious. We got three of these bonus mini courses, the second one coming after our first course (that sounds weird) and the third coming right before dessert. Each was just as small as the first, but all very very yummy.

So if you include all the itsy-bitsy courses, it was a six-course meal, which took about 4 hours. The wait staff had an uncanny ability to know when we were ready for the presentation of the next course, we were left alone just long enough before each course, which I probably appreciated the most about the meal...or maybe, it was the fact that they gave us breakfast for the following morning. What? Yes, that's correct, a nicely packaged muffin for our enjoyment after we left the restaurant. It's a whole new realm out there...go for dinner, get breakfast. Maybe that's why it's so expensive, if you just divide the price of dinner by two (because you're getting two meals "for the price of one"), it doesn't look so bad. I'm definitely a fan of this trend. No more chocolates with the bill; it's like going to a wedding and getting to take a piece of cake home. I think it's a trend that should definitely be adopted. Thumbs up for the breakfast with dinner.

Definitely a few firsts for me. Bonus courses, bonus breakfast, all very very good. So good in fact, I had to come home and go straight to bed. I got all worn out from the marathon eating. Actually, the amount of time we spent at the restaurant was about the same time it might take someone to run a marathon (not me of course), isn't that crazy? I'll take eating at a fancy restaurant over running any day - a big thank you to my eating buddies for the indulgence!

Fieldtrip Friday IV

2006-03-24T15:13:00.000-05:00

I decided since I absolutely did not need any new cook or bakeware, or really, anything new for the kitchen, that today I would go and visit two cooking supply stores. Often times I not the most logical person, I should go to a supply store when I actually need something (mostly because we all know that it would be very difficult for me to leave the store without buying something). But I had my mind made up...kitchen supply stores it was.

Desperately hoping for a beautiful spring day, and feeling awfully defiant, I wore my spring coat for the adventure (yes, that's as rebellious as I get). It's funny though, really, I was the only one who was going to suffer if it wasn't warm out, it's not like I would hurt Mother Nature's feelings or get something in return for taking a stand. As it turns out, it wasn't very warm today, but I didn't freeze to death (I did bring a hat and gloves, I told you, I'm not that rebellious). It was trying very very hard to be warm, but it was cloudy. I did, however, see a few people wearing flip flops or shorts or tank tops, so I guess I wasn't the only one feeling the need for spring. Definitely not warm enough for flip flops.

Anyways, I checked my route with google maps and headed out the door with neither a map of my route, or hand written directions, a first for this anal Fieldtrip Fridayer. I did however, take a map (like previously mentioned multiple times, I am both anal and not crazy), so I guess I wasn't being too wild, although it felt that way. It was a 6 mile walk (I did take the subway home, only so I could write this before all three of my readers went to bed), so I planned for a couple hours of fun. The first place was on the east side, in midtown, so it was a nice stroll through the park, and like a typical new yorker, I chatted on my cell phone almost the whole walk.

When I got there (Bridge Kitchenware), I think my heart skipped a beat. From the outside you could see piles and piles of cookware stacked up. The place was pretty tiny, but it had everything a cook could dream of. All the things from Williams-Sonoma that they stock only for holidays (heart shaped things and leaf shaped things and Christmas papers and things), plus every other pot and pan and utensil in every possible size imaginable, holy cow! It felt a little old and dusty in the place, but everywhere you turned there was a new discovery. Not actually needing anything, I wasn't looking to buy, unfortunately I left the store with a wine foil seal breaker thingy (we actually did need one of those and I never knew where to get a new one) and a biscuit cutter, as I had been wanting one for awhile. What I really wanted but was able to restrain myself was a cast iron sandwich press, it was a pan the exact size of a slice of bread. Perfect for grilled sandwiches. But for $8.50 I decided to wait on it (I would have needed to buy two anyways to press down the sandwich with the 2nd pan or to make 2 sandwiches at once).

So it was on to my next stop, which was down in SoHo, my new favorite neighborhood. To get there I went through Washington Square Park where I hadn't been since last summer, when Jeff and I wondered through after a 10 mile walk of the city (the big arch that's in the Friends opener that resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris). I like it there.

As I approached SoHo the sun began to shine and it solidified my new obsession with SoHo. I really feel like the sun always shines there, or maybe it was just my imagination...or maybe I was in a movie and it was a little pathetic fallacy. Anyways, I made it to stop 2: Broadway Panhandler. I was expecting sort of the same thing, and from their website, I was kind of expecting weird stuff, not well organized, again, kind of dusty and old. But boy, was I surprised. Yes, it was kind of a cramped store (although probably double the size of the first store), but every where you turned there was a new treasure. It was also better displayed than the first store as well. They had all the stuff as the first place, and more! Every Le Creuset and All Clad pot and pan you could imagine, more knives than I ever thought possible, plus all sorts of cool dishes and mugs and cups and napkins and you name it. Very cool and eclectic stuff plus all the basics. I was sure, by the second I walked in that I would definitely not be leaving empty handed. After one stroll through the store, I didn't want to leave, I wanted to keep wandering around, but I knew the more time I spent there the harder it would be to leave with nothing. So the first thing I picked up, not very exciting, were a couple of candles (we have these candle sticks that I've never been able to find replacement candles for), and then I found new latte mugs!

We always always have our eyes out for mugs for lattes, it's a difficult thing because most mugs are huge, even a normal coffee mug is too big for a latte. We currently have two mugs which are absolutely perfect but we're so afraid we're going to break them, so we're always looking for new ones. Anyways, there was actually a large variety of mugs that fit our bill and I carefully selected two. And the last thing I got was (not terribly exciting to most, but exciting to me) was a can of Baker's Joy. Flour and oil in an aerosol can so you don't have to butter and flour your dish when baking, which I find to be one of the most annoying things about baking. I know Pam has recently come out with a similar product, but I've heard great things about the Baker Joy brand.

So, not too bad, I made it out without breaking the bank. All very good purchases. However, I did find the Panhandler was a bit more expensive than the Bridge Kitchenware; they too had the cast iron sandwich pans, but for $11.50. Quite a markup. I didn't check All-Clad or any of the Le Creuset stuff that I knew the price of Williams-Sonoma, but I'm guessing it's probably pretty comparable. Although, I've heard the Panhandler has a blow-out sale every June and August.

I'll definitely be going back again, maybe next time when I actually need something. But it certainly was fun wondering around those stores. Another Fieldtrip Friday success (maybe too successful with the un-necessary purchases).

Oh, by the way, coverage next week is going to be spotty. I know you'll all be very sad. I'll write when I can, but it probably won't be very often. Back in full force the week of the 3rd!

It never tastes right

2006-03-23T08:24:00.000-05:00

I have tried over and over and over again to make good Indian food. And it's never right. I've tried buying the best curry and garam masala (or I guess, what I thought to be the best, which still didn't come from an Indian food store or spice store, so it probably wasn't the best). It's always ok, but not nearly as good as what you can get from a restaurant. It's very frustrating. I'm starting to get mad.

I didn't even like Indian food until probably 5 years ago. And yes, I had tried it. Although I don't think I had tried good Indian food from a good restaurant.

Part of the issue is that I was always kind of afraid of those recipes that had a ton of spices, I was convinced that I could make a good recipe just by using garam masala or the curry spice mixture that I bought from the store. Either I wasn't doing it right or didn't have the right recipe, either way, not good.

So one day I decided to buy every Indian spice that I could find from my local grocery establishment. Including cardamom, I'm sure I'll never use it, but I can't ever blame my lack of spices anymore. Then I tried another recipe with all my new spices and it was too "spicy" - not hot, but just too much stuff. I think the issue there was that the recipe called for whole spices, and it's not nice to bite into a whole clove. Maybe I should have tried toasting and grinding them. It's always something.

Another issue is that we prefer our Indian food to come in a sauce. Nothing better than mopping everything up with some Naan and rice. So that's also slightly limiting. Maybe the problem is that I'm just too picky. But everything from restaurants is good and nothing from my kitchen is good.

So last night we went over to a friend's house for Indian food, and all of my theories of good Indian food were blown out the window. We had a spinach and lamb dish that had neither a sauce nor a ton of spices, and it was delicious. So, back to square one. I got the website from which the recipe came (http://www.kabobandcurry.com/recipes.htm) so I'm definitely going to try some things out.

I have no recipes for you today. I can't make Indian food. It's never good. So if you have a good recipe, let me know. Maybe next week will be Indian food week.

The long walk to the gym

2006-03-22T08:10:00.000-05:00

You could describe us as "worker-outers" - we go to the gym, if for nothing else then to be able to maintain our food gorging habits (see Shake Shack). Every night it's our ritual: dinner, chat/read/watch tv for an hour or so and then begin the "I don't want to go to the gym" conversation. Inevitably, one of us will yell "come on get up, let's go." It then takes us about another half an hour to get dressed, pet the kitty some more, get a last minute sip of water and actually get out the door.

So the overpriced gym that we go to is only about a block away (maybe as far as a block and a half), but when you're walking so slow you're practically going backwards it always feels like it takes 15 minutes. Maybe because we have lead feet in anticipation of the torturous activity in which we are about to embark.

Last night the conversation on the walk to the gym was "when are they going to have a pill for this? I'll totally buy that shit." No, but seriously, it's so odd to me that people go to the gym (myself included). It's so hamster-like, run around on your little wheel for awhile; the only difference is that it's probably fun for hamsters. No one really likes working out, and if they do, they're lying. Or, they're not actually getting their heart rate up high enough for it to be a cardio work out (aka "torture").

FINE! Maybe I am a cynic. I really only work out so that I can eat more ice cream. No other reason; not to be "in shape" or "be healthy." Pshaw...give me more ice cream! In fact, nearly every night after we go to the gym we go to Tasti-D-Lite, which, I know, is not real ice cream, not even close, but sometimes it's the only thing that'll get me out to the gym. In fact, most of the time while I'm on the hamster wheel (aka treadmill) I'm thinking about my next meal. Maybe it's a little coo-coo, but hey whatever gets me through those 45 minutes.

We thought that maybe since we pay too much for a gym membership that it would make us want to go more. Free snacks, water with cucumber slices, fancy juice bar...unfortunately none of those things make me want to go to the gym more. However, Jeff figured out the per day cost of our gym membership, so what sometimes works in motivating us to go to the gym is reminding ourselves how much money it is if we don't use the gym that day. Guilt...works every time.

Maybe one day there will be a pill, but for now the best part of working out is still hitting the "Stop" button. Plus, it always means that ice cream is just around the corner.

Shakin' it at the Shake

2006-03-21T15:20:00.000-05:00

Wow. What an adventure! And when I say adventure, I mean exercise in waiting very very patiently while you are very very hungry. Made all the worse by the fact that I was waiting for burgers and shakes, two of my most favorite things in the whole wide world.

We arrived at the shack at 12:45 to a very long line. I had had an errand to run earlier in the day, so I had been wondering around outside since 11 AM, with a few stops at a few stores. Needless to say I was quite chilly and definitely ready for some food (especially since I normally eat lunch at 11:30). We were able to wet our appetite with a taste of the custard of the day, cinnamon toast. And boy did it wet my appetite. Even though it was cold out, I was definitely planning on getting a shake, if for no other reason, so I could pretend that I was at the DQ for the cold opening.

At 1:35 we had placed our burger orders, a single for me with a shake and a double for Jeff with an order of fries. There were 7 of us, so at least waiting in line was fun, even if it was for 50 minutes. As a nice little gift for coming out on opening day and waiting in the cold, we were each given a $2 gift certificate for our next visit. Oh, but don't think the wait was over yet. Then, you get in the line to get your food. There, you're waiting at a window with hot food coming out; forced to smell the burger aroma. At about 2:05 our order number was called, hallelujah! There was definitely a fist pump on my part upon hearing my name called.

We grabbed a table and pulled out the burger jems. They looked dee-licious. However I definitely should have gone for the double, I was STARVING! Next time.

I bit into the burger and I knew we were working with a high quality burger. It was really really hard not to eat it really fast, but I slowed myself down with big slurps of my shake. I probably could have done a much better evaluation if I weren't so cold or so hungry. I would have to agree, it was a very good burger, although I would have like to have seen more shack sauce on it. But, it still doesn't live up good ole' Red Coat burgers. I also wish that I wouldn't have had to wait for nearly an hour and a half to eat. Although I very do much appreciate the fact that I have time and can enjoy such meals. Next time I'll have to go when I'm not so hungry so I'm not so incredibly starving by the time I get up to the window. The shake was also very very good, but I think the custard is better just by itself, it was UN-believably creamy.

I am definitely a fan of the Shake Shack. I think that it actually is a good thing the wait is so long (and from what I hear, it's always that long, not even just on the first day) otherwise I'd be there every day for lunch!

Mmm...full tummy...time for a nap.

Spring has arrived and so Shake Shack opens

2006-03-21T08:09:00.000-05:00

Although I've never been there, I've been assured, it's very good. I am very hopeful I will find an end to my burger quest and although it is 25 deg outside, I will most definitely be having a shake (and yes, we eat outside). We will be going for lunch today, so unfortunately you'll need to wait (I know, I'm torturing all of you) until I get home from lunch.

Read up and get excited: http://www.shakeshacknyc.com/

Corned Beef First Timer

2006-03-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

As you all remember from Friday's post, we finished off the week last week with a "traditional" corned beef and cabbage feast for St. Patrick's Day ("traditional" because I'm not sure our mates over in Ireland really had it as a traditional meal).

Well the corned beef making started early last week, Tuesday actually. I wanted to get the beef brisket "corning" before that, but alas, we were enjoying our "break" from the winter in Arizona. However, it appeared from the wide variety of recipes that I read, that 3 days of brining would be sufficient. So it was off to the grocery store for my first ever brisket, and I went for the biggest one they had 3.5 pounds to be exact. Yes, I was only cooking for two, but I was already dreaming of the leftovers...corned beef hash...grilled sandwiches....mmm.....

The brine was pretty easy, and included your typical suspects: salt, water, sugar, mustard seed, allspice, peppercorn, etc.... It was a good thing I had recently reinforced my spice collection, because I'm not sure I would have necessarily had all of the requisite spices. But I was lucky enough to find all the ingredients in my "pantry." The only issue with the brining process was, as you can imagine, I needed to brine it in my biggest pot, and I needed to keep this biggest pot in my fridge, and well, my fridge isn't so big. We pretty much lost an entire shelf for the week, but it was well worth it. Every few days I'd peer in and make sure everything was a-ok with my brisket. Not much to look at really, but to make sure it was still completely submerged.

As Friday approached I began to get a little nervous, I've never had a ton of luck with the slow cooking, it never seems to be quite as tender as I'd like. I checked in with my mom probably about 3 or 4 times during the week, over IM, over the phone, over e-mail, then double checking again with Grammy. I wanted to make sure it was going to work, but my mom had always made her corned beef from pre-corned (brined) meat and always in a slow cooker/roaster.

One of the things that I was debating was cooking it on the stove top or in the oven. For some reason I wanted to do it on the stove top, I think I was afraid of repeating the pork butt dry out. So I did in fact start the corned beef on the stove, but after an hour of running in and out of the kitchen adjusting the temperature of the burner, I decided to throw it in the oven, at 300 deg. I was really nervous because when I pulled it out to put in the veggies it seemed to be boiling pretty hard and part of the meat kept poking up above the water. I was convinced that it was going to be dry and tough.

As the 3 hour witching hour approached I was standing over the oven. And almost exactly three hours after I started the whole cooking adventure I checked in on my corned beef. To my surprise, it seemed like it was relatively tender, not quite as tender as I would have liked, so (and I'm not sure why I made this call) I decided to let it go for about 20 more minutes (until Jeff would be home). When I finally pulled it out, the potatoes were perfectly soft and the carrots were tender, and it appeared as though the meat was falling apart tender, stringy and perfect. The only thing left was the flavor. I was sure, again, that it wouldn't really taste like corned beef as I know and love. It certainly didn't have the distinctive red color on the outside (which I think is from the nitrite saltpeter that is used by manufacturers who corn it for you), but all my worries floated away instantly when I took my first bite.

It was perfect, just as corned beef should be. Jeff, who's not even really a fan of corned beef to begin with, described it as "exceptional." And it was even better the next day when I made reuben's, my way, with just cheese, coleslaw and russian dressing (but it probably was made better by the fact I did make the coleslaw and russian dressing myself), and then even better in my corned beef hash Sunday morning.

I think corning it myself and going through all the trouble was well worth it. It's definitely going to be a yearly thing for me, but, even if it's not appropriate, I may need to do it even more often than that. Being patient for half of a week is difficult, but definitely a good thing in this case.

Here's the recipe I used, from the Food Network (I kind of combined a few recipes), although I changed the method a bit. And I did cook the cabbage separately (Jeff does not like cabbage and won't touch it with a 30 foot pole) but still in the same cooking liquid.

Corning Brine and Corned Beef Recipe
Water (to cover)
1 c salt
1 c brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons whole coriander
1 1/2 tablespoons whole mustard seeds
1 1/2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
1 1/2 tablespoons whole allspice
4 sprigs fresh thyme leaves
2 bay leaves
1 (2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pound) brisket

I threw all the spices in the pot and then rubbed it on the meat and then covered with water, as the originally recipe said, but I think it would be better if the water was heated and the salt and sugar was dissolved first while the remaining ingredients were rubbed on the meat, but either method should be fine. Let it sit in the brine for 3 - 10 days in the fridge.

2 sprigs of thyme
4 sprigs of parsley
1 bay leaf
1 t black peppercorns

1 - 2 c of baby (or cut up) carrots
2 c of baby potatoes
1 small head of cabbage (or 1/4 to 1/2 of a large head)

Pre-heat the oven to 300 deg. Take the meat out of the brine and thoroughly wash it off. Put it in a dutch oven, and cover with water. Bring the water up to a boil and turn the heat down and simmer for 10 minutes, skimming off scum as it appears. After 10 minutes, taste the water, if it's too salty, start over with fresh water. Add the thyme, parsley, bay leaf and peppercorns and put in the oven. After about 2 hours, add the carrots and potatoes and cook for an additional hour or so, until the meat is very tender. Pull out the meat and veggies, put the pot back on the stove, bring to a boil and cook the cabbage for about 10 - 15 minutes until tender.

Enjoy the leftovers in sandwiches, hash or whatever you can come up with!

Fieldtrip O'Friday III

2006-03-17T14:48:00.000-05:00

Being St. Patrick's Day and all, I decided that the perfect fieldtrip for myself today would be...dun-da-da-dah, the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Yes, there is a St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York, we don't have a green river, but we do close off a huge chunk of Fifth Ave for an afternoon of fun. But, you're going to get double your money's worth with this entry, because I also went to the DMV, or the "License Xpress" DMV to get a NY State Drivers License. Two adventures, all in one very green day.

I had to plan my "St. Patrick's Day '06" day very carefully, as I was planning (and am currently doing) to make an actual corned beef for corned beef and cabbage. But, as you may know, this takes many hours, so I had to be home early enough to get 'er in the pot for dinner tonight. 3.5 pounds of brisket waiting to be enjoyed. Anyways, the parade started at 11 AM at 44th street and worked its way up to 88th (I think, maybe 86th), so I decided to leave our apartment at 11, hit Starbucks and head across the park for the parade. I was then planning to walk down to the DMV (34th street, right by Macy's) after I had enough parading.

I very carefully packed my bag, for this was a real adventure, two stops all in one day: newspaper and book (for waiting at the DMV), water, camera (yes, I actually took it with me), apple and soup in a thermos (well, I would need some nourishment throughout the afternoon).

I arrived at 81st and Fifth around 11:20 or so, and the parade had not yet made its way up there; taking the NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade Website's advise, I headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to sit on the steps. Much to my dismay, the police had surrounded the steps and completely barricaded them off. Stupid website. But I was able to find a seat on a ledge of the museum, which was perfect, it was in the sun and the wind was blocked by the building. I realized that this was infinitely better than a Thanksgiving Day parade for one small reason, it was March, spring is coming in a week! It's not -30 degrees and my toes aren't frozen to bits, even with the chemical feet warmers. It was sunny, there were birds! I was dressed in a cotton sweater and my puffy vest, no hat or gloves...ahh, I love the St. Patrick's Day Parade!

After I decided I loved the parade (that hadn't actually gotten to me yet) I busted out the camera to take a picture showing that the parade wasn't there yet, so essentially a picture of nothing, when after taking the picture (or perhaps during the picture taking) the batteries died. I had the best of intentions, there really were going to be pictures this time..stupid camera.

I then called my mom to chat a bit about my corned beef adventure for the afternoon while I watched green balloons, green cotton candy, irish flags, green dr. suess hats and the like go by (this was before the parade started). Soon, the police car came leading the parade and I settled into my seat. Suddenly my stomach growled and so I pulled out the still very very hot soup. You can't even imagine how good it was (yes, I still had leftover pasta e fagioli from the other night, and yes, it was still delicious, especially because it was hot and it was cold outside). I had to pat myself on the back for thinking of packing it.

The parade mostly consisted of police officers, veterans, various military groups (army, marines, reserves, I'm not sure I couldn't tell them all apart) plus some bands - my favorite was the all bag pipe band, I'm not sure I could handle it any other day but today. No floats, which was too bad, imagine a shamrock float coming down Fifth Ave. Lots of men in skirts, both in the parade and not in the parade, and Rudi Giuliani (not in a skirt though, but that would have been awesome)...I had two thoughts while watching the parade:

1. Parades are funny (especially those with nothing to see but people walking). People who are in them are looking at the people on the sidewalks and people on the sidewalks are looking at those in the street. Everyone waves and smiles. A little curious, but everyone seems to enjoy themselves.

2. It seemed as though all of the police force was walking in the parade today, so I wondered, who exactly was on duty and where were they?

So the answer to that question came as I was walking to the DMV. As it turns out, the police people who aren't in the parade are stationed on the streets...outside the bars. Ha! That to me is awfully hilarious, duties for Friday the 17th were either: bar or parade. What a great day!

So my two favorite things that I saw today:
Runner-up: Guy with died green hair. What made this good though, was that he had a very very short buzz-cut so it looked much more like died green head. Classic.
Winner: Totally unrelated to St. Patrick's Day, unfortunately, but again while walking to the DMV, I saw a guy carrying a plastic naked headless mannequin. To be fair, it was the "Fashion District" (I'm not sure if that's an official district or not), but it still brought a smile to my face.

And on to the DMV, which was much less of an adventure than what I was hoping for. Since this location only handled licenses, everyone was pretty much there for the same reason. After our third try at attempting to get a license, I finally had all the correct paperwork: passport, social security card, Michigan license, and my driving record (which cost $7 to get). No, I'm not kidding, you actually need all that. But the whole thing was relatively well run, they have an information booth that you have to go to either get a number or forms. They make sure you have everything before letting you get in line. Then I was sent to take my eye exam and get my picture taken, let me assure you, it's not cute. Then I got a number to go to the counter, pay my $42.50 and get my paper temporary license. For $42.50 I get a piece of paper? Are you kidding me? So glad I didn't do this last week when we were traveling on the plane. Not sure they would have let Jeff rent a car either. Yeah, so a paper license is what I have now, they took the Michigan one away, no long teary goodbyes or anything, just whisked away. Good thing I do have a passport because if we want to get rockin' tonight at the bar, there's no way they'd let me in with a piece of paper (although my eye wrinkles are making my license less and less necessary when ordering drinks).

Anyways, I'd say this was another successful Fieldtrip Friday, lots of walking, lots of enjoying the city and lots of people wearing green, just as it should be. Stay tuned however, for Monday, where you'll get to read all about how the corned beef came out. I know, I know, you're going to be at the edge of your seat until then. Happy St. Patrick's Day, kiss someone (Irish or not)!

My "Bye" Night

2006-03-16T10:09:00.000-05:00

I got a "bye" last night, which is how I refer to a night when I get to make something up because I'm on my own for dinner. It can be very fun or terribly frustrating, depending on how quickly it takes me to decide on something for dinner. So last night I was left to fend for myself. Jeff was staying at work for a tech talk (which I was invited to as it was open to the public, but I politely declined), so it was dinner on my own. Most nights, if this were to happen I would immediately hit the deli for a tossed salad. I don't often have the patience to make up recipes, and I don't often take advantage of bye nights. But having just gone to the grocery store and completely filled up every free "nugget of space" in our fridge, I felt like it wasn't necessarily the best decision on my part. And, I had all the fixin's to make my own salad. But somehow, the idea of making my own salad didn't sound as appetizing as going out for a salad, weird, but true.

So, struggling to figure out what I should do for dinner I went to the gym (a "fun" habit of mine, thinking of dinner ideas while I run on the treadmill). To me, when I have dinner by myself I try to make something that Jeff doesn't really like all that much (or at least he doesn't like my version of it because I don't add enough cream, butter or cheese, which I think is perfectly fair). All of my meat was tied up in the freezer and I wasn't in the mood to defrost it, so I was limited to vegetarian dishes. So that left me with a few ideas: soup, polenta, or something involving tuna fish.

Bored out of my mind on the treadmill, I came up with nicoise salad (although I had neither olives or green beans, it didn't matter, I really just wanted the egg and tuna). Which was a bit funny to me, given that before I left for the gym I was not in any sort of mood to make my own salad, but I think the nicoise salad is different enough and not really an option at the take-out salad bar. Even funnier, though, was that by the time I got home I really wanted soup. I should have just gone out for a salad instead of wasting my time trying to decide what I wanted to make, but now it was a challenge.

Thinking I didn't really have many soup ingredients on hand (although soup comes in so many different styles and varieties, really anything can be a soup ingredient), I settled on a version of pasta e fagioli. I reviewed a couple of recipes and then headed into the kitchen and started adding things to the pot. Since I didn't have a ton of stock on hand (project for today), the soup was incredibly thick and, remarkably, very delicious. One of my best thrown together meals in awhile (and I did have a "side" nicoise salad with the soup for dinner). And, since it was soup that I was making, and it needed to cook a bit on the stove, I was able to finish all the dishes piled up in the sink while it cooked. Awesome...I love dishes, but at least the kitchen was clean by the time I finished cooking dinner.

As it turns out though, this made a huge pot of soup, definitely enough for more than just one (but I do have a delicious lunch waiting for me in the fridge). But its really quick and easy, so you should definitely try this recipe. Unless you live with someone that doesn't like soup...or chick peas, then all bets are off.

Caren's fake pasta e fagioli (I can't claim that I'm Italian, and I don't know what makes a pasta e fagioli a pasta e fagioli, so I'll just say this is probably close, but then again, maybe not)

1 T olive oil
1 medium size onion, rough dice
1 - 2 carrots (or a big handful of baby carrots), chopped
2 celery stalks, diced
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 - 4 T of fresh parsley, chopped
2 - 3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 - 2 T tomato paste
1 (28 oz) can of canned tomatoes
1 can of chick peas (or cannellini beans or kidney beans, but I like the taste of chick peas the best)
3 - 4 cups of broth (that's all I had, but you could use more to make it more soupy)
1/2 - 1 cup of pasta

Heat olive oil over medium high heat in pot. When hot (not smoking) add the onion, thyme and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until the onion has softened a bit (couple minutes) and add the carrot and celery, add a bit more salt to draw out the moisture. Cook for 5-6 minutes until the veggies have softened (it could have been longer or maybe shorter, I don't really remember). Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook for a minute, stirring frequently. Add the canned tomatoes and broth and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente (about 10 minutes depending on your noodle choice) and then add the chick peas and heat through. Taste the soup and make sure it's delicious, add salt or pepper if needed and add a bit of parsley right at the end.

I also think that adding a bit of white wine right before the broth and tomatoes would be fantastic, but I didn't feel like opening a whole bottle just for cooking (we don't have one of those "suck the air out wine savers" to keep the wine fresh).

Yum! I can't wait for lunch today!

Grill Pan: the good, the bad and the ugly

2006-03-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

First of all, sorry for the late post today... I promise to all 3 of my readers that I'll try to be a little more prompt. Today was the big Crate and Barrel interview...I'll be sure to let you know how it went.

On to the topic at hand, the grill pan. I think the grill pan is a great invention. Especially for the unfortunate souls without access to an outdoor grill (c'est moi), or those who don't wish to brave the elements in the middle of winter to grill. It definitely took me awhile to really come to appreciate this cooking tool, although I'm not really sure what I was afraid of. I grill everything on my grill pan(s): bread, vegetables, meat, panini...one of my pans is one of those reversible griddle ones, in which I can do an entire breakfast with eggs, pancakes and sausage all with one pan (on the griddle side). Again, great for the NY kitchen with no dishwasher.

So, I'm sure you're beginning to wonder...so I understand the "good" but I'm not sure I understand the "bad and the ugly." So if the grill pan is one of the best inventions for the home cook, then the cast iron grill pan is one of the worst. THE WORST. We're now about to cover "the bad and the ugly." So cast iron will be a topic for another day, and when I do write that entry, you must remember the whole time you're reading it that cast iron grill pans are completely exempt from everything I write about regular cast iron. So, cast iron needs to be seasoned, you know, oiling it up so it doesn't rust, things don't stick, etc.... Fine, I still don't like the seasoning process much, but I can live with it. But let's think for a few minutes about a grill pan. The whole idea is that there are grill marks, right? So there are raised indentions on the pan. Fine again, but let's take a step back and imagine, for a minute, you are at your outdoor grill. You are grilling (mmm..smells great already) and the food's ready. What do you see on your grill? Little browned bits kind of burnt to the grill. No problem for an outdoor grill, right? Next time you heat it up, you'll burn it off and scrape it down.

Ok, back to the cast iron grill pan. Imagine now you are done cooking your food (I do have to admit the cast iron grill pan does cook the food better), and there are the same browned bits (no matter how much I have seasoned the pan, they are still there, which I don't get with a regular cast iron pan. I think because typically when you're using a regular cast iron pan you're using a lot more oil - i.e. frying bacon or chicken or corn bread where you melt a lot of butter, so you're, first of all, not essentially burning meat to the pan and you're doing a lot more seasoning of the pan because the oil gets absorbed better because you're cooking with it). --that was a huge side thought in parenthesis, now back to the browned bits on your grill pan.

So what to do about them? I could do the same as with an outdoor grill, turn up and the heat and burn it and scrape it off, but not only disrupt my neighbors and send the cat running for cover when the smoke detector inevitably goes off, but the scraping would ruin my seasoning progress. Fine. I did some research and found that kosher or rock salt was one of the best ways to clean cast iron (just like when we were in the Grand Canyon hiking and cleaned our dishes with sand, it's great abrasive to get the oil out, but it also won't scratch the seasoned surface). So, I've tried this a few times, and it works great, but here comes the ugly...imagine what happens after rubbing the pan with salt (I've used paper towel, but I'm sure there's a better thing to use), is that you have brown bits and black salt in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE GROOVES in the pan. And, you would think that you could just "dump it out" but the inside of the pan is a little sticky, plus the way the sides of the pan curve, there isn't really a direct path out of the pan. So then I spend 20 minutes trying to get the salt out of the pan. Without fail, it's a frickin' mess. Worse than doing dishes. In fact, typically if I do end up cooking with the cast iron grill pan (which I do still from time to time because I always forget the pain), the pan sits on the stove for about a week because I won't let Jeff touch it and I have to work up the energy to attack the pan.

There is one good thing about the cast iron grill pan, if you have a fatty piece of meat that you're grilling or a very very well oiled piece of bread dough, and there are no browned bits (which I think have maybe happened only once or twice to me) then there are NO dishes to do, just re-oil the pan and put it away.

Overall, the grill pan is a great thing, or as Martha Stewart would say a "good thing." What I really like about it is that it provides a great way to cook up food rather quickly and easily, it sort of simplifies the cooking process (plus everyone says "ooooh" when they see cross-hatched grill marks), and I typically find a way to grill my entire meal so that there's only one pan. But whomever came up with the cast iron grill pan needs to go back to the drawing board, or at least the non-pre-seasoned cast iron grill pan, needs to go back to the drawing board.

So grill up dinner tonight, meat, veggies, fruit, you name it, you can grill it (last night we had buffalo chicken grilled for buffalo chicken salad). It's quick and easy and you might get a gasp of joy from your family when they see those grill marks.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELLY!

Chicken Cordon no dinner Blues

2006-03-14T13:12:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure that I've actually ever made chicken cordon bleu before last week. I've had it many times, my mom used to make it all the time. And I loved it...ham, cheese, breaded chicken. You can't go wrong with that. What I never understood was how she got the ham and cheese to stay in the chicken without it seeping out the side, it was one of those unexplained mysteries. Her little secret though (sorry for divulging it mom) was that she bought them pre-made (although that doesn't explain why or how its done, it is easier to understand given that they were probably sent down some assembly line).

I'm not sure why I've never made it; I've done all sorts of different versions of it - not breaded, no cheese inside, putting the ham and cheese on top instead of inside...just about any variation that you can think of, I've attempted. And I've done all the variations because I was always afraid that I would have a cheese disaster seeping out during cooking. And I'll have to say that the real thing is the real deal, it was definitely way better than any of the variations that I had previously attempted. But, that's not to say it wasn't tricky to make sure the cheese and goodness actually stayed on the inside and didn't seep out. It was definitely a lot easier than I had imagined, and with a few key steps it is pretty darn simple and definitely worth it.

So here are my tips:
1. Pound the chicken out really really thin, almost until its shredded (but don't go that far or your cheese will definitely seep out). It cooks faster and its much easier to handle and is more pliable the thinner it is.
2. flour...egg...breadcrumbs. Probably the key to the whole thing. The process of dipping it in flour, then egg, and then breadcrumbs will effectively seal everything in. Then, when you put them in the pan, make sure the oil/pan is hot so that everything seals up right away when it goes into the pan.
3. Don't be afraid of toothpicks. You can even take them out before you serve it (or if you have someone that tends not to chew his/her food before swallowing, you can leave the toothpicks in as an attempt to slow them down when they eat. You should, however, warn your family or your guests, because that's just mean if you don't). Take the edges and weave a couple toothpicks in the edge to keep everything together. Or you could go for the butchers twine, but I mostly find that to be unruly and difficult and everything always falls apart anyway.
4. Don't overstuff it. If you put 5 slices of cheese in the middle, you're going to have some leakage, guaranteed. Come on...think about it. There just isn't that much room there.

The result is a tasty, cheesy chicken dish that is sure to please. I got multiple thumbs up at various points throughout this dinner.

Chicken Cordon Blue (for 2)
2 chicken breasts
1 egg
2 slices of cheese (muenster, provelone, mozzarella, swiss - which is classic, but use whatever you've got)
2 slices of prosciutto (use the good stuff, it definitely makes a difference, I definitely would not recommend using regular ham, it just doesn't have enough of the salty goodness flavor that you get in prosciutto
flour for dredging (seasoned with salt and pepper)
1 egg, beaten (seasoned with salt and pepper)
breadcrumbs for dredging

Heat some olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Pound the chicken breasts until they're about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick (I like to put them in a ziploc bag and pound them that way). Put a slice of prosciutto and cheese and fold the chicken in half, closing the edges with toothpicks (two per chicken breast should be fine). Dredge the chicken in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs and put into the hot pan. Cook until golden brown on each side, probably about 5 minutes per side.

No more chicken dinner blue's with this one!

Out of the Office

2006-03-10T09:25:00.000-05:00

I am currently out of the office until Tuesday, March 14th. If you need immediate assistance in the meantime, read some of my old posts, they're pretty good too.

Birthday Banana Creme Pie

2006-03-09T12:43:00.000-05:00

It all started last year when we went to Vegas for my sister's birthday. Some time during that trip we had a most delightful dinner at one of Emeril's restaurants (I think it was NO Fish House). As dessert approached I began eyeing the menu, as I have a relentless sweet tooth. One thing, which I never ever order, that was on the menu, was banana creme pie. No, I did not order it. But my cousin did. Thankfully, she was too full to finish it and Jeff and I devoured the rest of it, with each bite being better than the last. I am neither a very big "fruit dessert" kind of person, nor am I a banana person nor do I really like the idea of a "creme pie." However, this banana creme pie can only be described as heavenly, melt in your mouth perfection.

So sometime last summer, we were going over to one of our friends' house and I was in charge of dessert. Wandering around the grocery store thinking about what to make, Jeff immediately and enthusiastically insisted upon banana creme pie (this was the only time I made it for a non-birthday event). Not having a clue what you actually need to make it, I called my mom and Grammy. Unfortunately, my dad answered the phone and the ladies were not around. He asked what I was up to and I asked if he knew what was in banana creme pie, remarkably, he rattled off a bunch of ingredients, and if I remember correctly (I may be glorifying my dad's ingredient list) he got them all right. Although he said I needed pudding mix, and of course the recipe would actually call for making your own homemade "pudding" or creme, but the ingredients that we hadn't thought of (like cornstarch) I had on hand.

When we got home from the store I dug up (i.e google searched it) Emeril's recipe for banana creme pie and it looked hard but do-able. The recipe needs at least 8 hours, so I started right away. First is making the "pudding" part and chilling it, then the crust, letting that cool, then layering the crust, bananas and "pudding" and chilling the whole thing again. The hard part is making sure you don't scramble the eggs but thicken it enough to hold its shape. For being a banana creme pie "newbie" it turned out pretty good. The flavor was definitely right on, but it wasn't as thick as I would have liked.

The next time I made it (and how it became known on the circuit as the Birthday Banana Creme Pie - actually I think I'm the only one who calls it Birthday Banana Creme Pie, but I don't think it's a misnomer) was at one of Jeff's friends birthday parties. I also made an apple pie (it was the fall) but that seemed to fall by the wayside. The real star was the banana creme pie. It was just as messy as the first time, impossible to cut cleanly, but just as tasty. However, the reviews were unanimous. De-frickin'-licious. In fact, the birthday boy of the evening polished off the pie in bed, eating it right out of the pie dish.

So last weekend we were off to another birthday party (this puts the count at 3 birthdays), and this birthday boy has a few allergies, but the banana creme pie was one of the few things that was a "safe" dessert. So I bought four more pounds of bananas and all the cream that's fit for a kitten and planned yet another banana creme pie kitchen adventure (it literally takes all day and requires a plethora of kitchen tools). However, this time, I found a different Emeril recipe. The ratio of ingredients was a bit different (same technique same ingredients, just different amounts), and it looked like it would come out a bit less runny (because there was more cornstarch). So I opted for recipe #2.

After the first 4 hours I already knew the texture would definitely be much more stiff, the question was, would it be too stiff?

After a half hour subway ride turned into an hour subway ride ("we are waiting for the train in front of us to move") I was sure that the pie would be a melted mess, but it held up just fine (thank you pyrex insulated carrier!).

The pie was able to be cut (and I also made some modifications to the crust as well which made it not so crusty) and I think the verdict was that recipe #2 was the clear winner. I actually personally would have preferred a filling that was somewhere between #1 and #2, maybe I'll do some experimenting...

You really need to be up for a day of cooking and cleaning (or maybe not if you have a dishwasher) to try this one, but you'll be very very very happy you did. The pie is awesome. It takes maybe an hour to two (maybe less I don't really remember) for all of the prep and cooking and at least 8 hours additional chill time (in two different steps, at least 4 hours each). Below is recipe #2, and it's Emeril's recipe, available on the Food Network. If you know someone with an upcoming birthday, surprise them, ditch the cake, make a pie.

Banana Creme Pie
4 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups plus 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise and seeds scraped (In my mind, you MUST use a real vanilla bean)
3 large egg yolks
2 large eggs
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 recipe Graham Cracker Crust, recipe follows
3 pounds (about 9) firm but ripe bananas, peeled and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine 2 cups of the cream, the milk, 1/2 cup of the sugar, the vanilla bean, and the vanilla seeds in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a gentle boil, whisking to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat.

Combine the egg yolks, eggs, cornstarch, and 1 cup of the sugar in a medium bowl, and whisk pale yellow in color. Set aside.

Whisk 1 cup of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolks. Gradually add the egg mixture to the hot cream, whisking constantly. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly with a large wooden spoon to cook out the cornstarch and the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing down against the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator for about 4 hours.

To assemble, spread 1/2 cup of the custard over the bottom of the prepared crust, smoothing with the back of a large spoon or rubber spatula. Arrange enough banana slices (not quite one-third) in a tight, tiled pattern over the custard, pressing down with your hands to pack them firmly. Repeat to build a second layer, using 3/4 cup of the custard and enough bananas to cover, smoothing down the layer evenly. For the third layer, spread 3/4 cup of custard over the bananas and top with the remaining bananas, starting 1-inch from the outer edge and working toward the center. Spread 1 cup of custard evenly over the bananas to prevent discoloration. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

In a medium bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of sugar and the vanilla extract and whip until stiff peaks form.

Graham Cracker Crust:
1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 ripe banana mashed

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the graham cracker crumbs and sugar in a medium bowl and mix well. Add the butter and banana and mix well. Press the mixture into a 9-inch pie pan. Top with aluminum pie tin and with a circular motion, press the crust tightly into the pan. Bake until browned, about 20 minutes. Cool.

Nutty for Pine Nuts

2006-03-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure when and where I decided that I liked pine nuts. It hasn't been long since I've been a devoted fan to this little jems. But I don't think that they taste very good when they're not toasted. They're transformed into a golden toasty nut from a boring plain tasteless nut. I've tried to figure out exactly what happens in the toasting process, but the interweb has failed me. Or, more likely, my google search skills are not up to par (yes, it is ironic).

I do know that it is well accepted that toasting does bring out a deeper, nuttier flavor and adds some crunch. And I do know that the toasted nuts don't last as long as plain nuts either. But other than that, the whole toasting process of nuts is kind of an enigma to me. Even my "On Food and Cooking" book which is supposed to be THE guide to food and food chemistry doesn't explain what happens in the toasting process. It simply says "nuts are good simply oven-toasted or fried for a few minutes, which transforms the chewy, pliable, bland, pale seeds into crisp, flavorful brown morsels."

I personally prefer the dry toasting method in a pan on the stovetop. It's easy, it's quick and I don't have to clean anything. I put a small saute pan over medium-low heat and add the nuts. They kind of need a lot of attention so they don't burn but the whole thing takes a couple of minutes anyway, so it's no big deal. I just shake the nuts around in the pan until they are light golden brown and pull them off the heat and out of the pan (which is important because they'll keep cooking if you leave them in the pan and probably burn).

So what's so great about these piney treats? Well first of all, they don't actually taste like pine, but they do come from pine cones, which is pretty darn neato, and they take about 3 years to mature on the cone. Other than that, they're pretty unremarkable, but they have a fantastic nutty flavor that can't be described in a little ole' blog. You've got to try them. And you better toast them or you're wasting your time and money. So, what's the best way to enjoy the nut o' pine? Glad you asked...

I like them straight up on salads best. Plain and simple and they really perk up the salad (not as much as the spiced nuts do, but they're much easier to prepare). There's also tons of recipes out there for pine nut tarts and cookies and things, which I actually haven't tried, but I'm sure are pretty darn tasty. BUT, let's walk through the classic usage, pesto.

Pesto....yum. Again, something that I was very much afraid of for a very long time. I always thought there was too much oil and then there was the "I don't like pine nuts" problem as well which certainly has resolved itself. But really, you use like a tablespoon or so of the pesto per serving, so it's not so bad. Plus, you can freeze it and pull it out whenever you want to use it. And you can use pesto for everything. Pasta (obviously), sandwich spread, topping/sauce for chicken or turkey or lamb or shrimp, "potato salad" (in quotes because real potato salad is and always will be Grammy's potato salad, anything else is pseudo potato salad), addition to soups, pizza, just about anything! Last night we had grilled veggie sandwiches with goat cheese and pesto (pulled out of the freezer). Plus pesto can be whipped up in your food-processor (mini or regular), super quick, super easy.

I kind of add as much or as little of the classic ingredients based on how much of the ingredients I have on hand (but make sure you taste it and it tastes good) and what I feel like, but here's what my concoction is based on (scale up or down as needed) from the food network:

Pesto
1/2 cup pine nuts (TOASTED) - You can also use some walnuts for an omega-3 kick
3 T chopped garlic
5 cups basil
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup parmesan cheese (freshly grated)
1 cup of olive oil (I add the olive oil until the texture looks right to me, I like it thick)

Put the garlic in the food processor and chop it up. Add the nuts, salt and pepper and pulse together. Add the basil, pulse a few more times, and then drizzle in the oil to desired consistency (there are small holes in the top of the food processor for just this use). Dump it out of the food processor and fold in the parmesan cheese (seriously, freshly grated). If you want to freeze it, put it in an airtight container and put a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of the pesto. Defrost and use as needed.

Party on pesto!

The Lasagna Struggle

2006-03-07T08:19:00.000-05:00

I hate ricotta cheese. Not good, not good at all. Anything that is "leftover" from a food making process can't possibly be good. And ricotta is no exception; apparently ricotta means "re-cooked" and in the cheese making process the whey that is leftover is re-cooked to make ricotta. I actually don't think I'd mind ricotta maybe with a bit of honey and some raspberries or something, but lasagna is not the place for it.

Needless to say, I don't really ever make lasagna, but, Jeff is a huge fan. He loves noodles and cheese, and lasagna is pretty much the epitome of that. It doesn't get more noodley or cheesey than lasagna. I think the last time I made lasagna was probably 4 years ago. But, Jeff was talking about lasagna last weekend so I decided to give it a go again. But, this time I decided I was going to make my own pasta noodles. I also found a couple of lasagna recipes that didn't have ricotta, but instead included a bechemel sauce. Sounded good to me (I have heard the suggestion of using cottage cheese instead of ricotta, which I do like, but it still doesn't seem right in pasta).

Early afternoon yesterday I busted out the pasta roller attachment that Grammy had given me for our wedding (and technically yes, Grammy gave it to us, but I'm not sure Jeff will ever use it, but I'm happy to be proven wrong). The traditional recipe that I've seen for pasta dough includes mounding up a pile of flour and making a well in the middle of the flour and putting the eggs in the well and then mixing them in to the flour. Great, sounds easy, no problem.

I made my mound of flour, made a perfect little well in the middle (key word being little), and dumped in the eggs. On the addition of the fourth egg, there was a volcano of egg over the mountain of flour. I tried chasing the oozing egg with flour trying to move my mountain of flour around the egg lava. Thankfully I decided to make the pasta dough on my big cutting board and it has a lip on it (memories of the pierogi's oozing through the crack of our table were still very vivid - but it wouldn't have mattered, because as it turns out our cat likes raw pasta). I was able to catch the egg before it went overboard

Once the egg situation was under control I got the egg mixed in with most of the flour until it resembled a usable dough. I kneaded it and let it rest for a half hour (and during the half hour I was lucky enough to have dishes to do that were piled up in the sink from the weekend burger extravaganza). Then it was time for the rolling of the dough. While typically I am not a patient person, at all, this takes some patience. A couple of rollings at each setting on the machine ends up being at least 15 times through the machine for each hunk of dough (I had divided the dough into three pieces). Things were going pretty well though, the dough looked like actual pasta and I cut the noodles into lasagna type shaped and had enough dough leftover to make some fettuccine too.

I then realized about 2 hours had passed and it was time to get crackin' on the lasagna filling. I cooked the meat, made the bechemel (I had pre-made homemade pasta sauce defrosted already) and shredded the mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. I layered everything in, including a bit of spinach, patted myself on the back, because it sure looked tasty to me, a non-lasagna lover. I topped the whole thing off with a final layer of cheese and covered it with foil (I didn't pre-cook the noodles for fear of them sticking together and ruining the whole project).

About half-way through the cooking process I went to take the foil off and the entire top layer of cheese and noodles came out with the foil. Lesson learned... The good news was that I knew Jeff would love picking the noodley cheesy hunks off of the foil (which he did). I re-topped the whole thing with more cheese and popped it back in the oven.

About an hour and a half after I put it in the oven, the lasagna was done, just in time for Jeff to get home. I served it up and we dug in...turns out the spinach was a big mistake, no can-do for Jeff. Another lesson learned...Jeff's expectation of lasagna does not include spinach. But, other than that if I have to say so myself, it turned out pretty well. Plus we had some yummy bread and olive oil to accompany the lasagna, and that'll make any meal great. I think, however, we have some middle lasagna ground, no ricotta, no spinach, bechemel sauce and lotsa mozzarella. The noodles were great, but I think they could be better "shown-off" in a dish that focused a bit more on the noodle. Well worth the time and noodle making adventure.

Pasta Dough
3 1/2 to 4 cups AP Flour
4 eggs

Make a mound of the flour and make a very large well in the middle of the flour. Add the eggs to the well and start mixing the eggs and slowly incorporate the flour. Once the dough has some kind of shape, stop mixing and start kneading and incorporating more flour. It may not need all the flour. Knead for 5 or so minutes until smooth, a bit sticky and elastic. Let it rest for a half hour and then roll it out in your pasta roller.

You can freeze it, but I let it dry a bit first before freezing it (but then you have to be careful with it because it'll be more brittle - this was the point at which the cat enjoyed the noodles so much), I was afraid it would stick together. Maybe best for a weekend project.

Burger Mania

2006-03-06T08:46:00.000-05:00

I am a burger fanatic. FA-NA-TIC. When I was in high school (or maybe it was college, so long ago I don't even remember) I boycotted meat. Just red meat. Not for health reasons, not because I wanted to be a vegetarian for political reasons, just because I didn't want to carry the filet tenderloin in from the car for my mom. I'm not even sure how long it lasted, maybe a year? Not sure. But the thing that broke this camel's back was my longing for the hamburger. Steak's great and all, but it was the burger that drew me back into the world of red meat. I had a deep longing for the delicious red meat patty.

When we moved to NY I knew that one of the foodie things I would miss most about Michigan was Red Coat burgers (the other was La Shish hummus). Burger heaven. Unbelievable. My mouth is watering at 10 AM just thinking about it. I love burgers, did I mention that?

So last week I was watching a little tv and saw that GQ had created a "20 Burgers to Try Before You Die" list. To my amazement, Red Coat was not on the list (and a place in Ypsilanti, MI was, where I've been and can say the burgers are not nearly as good as Red Coat). But, more importantly, there were a couple of places in NYC which I knew I must try. As Saturday afternoon changed into Saturday evening and it was becoming painfully clear that there would be no cooking in my kitchen we started pondering the take-out/cheap eats options and decided to go for one of the burger places on the top 20 list.

We selected the burger joint at Le Parker Meridien, mostly because of its proximity to us and the price - $6 for a cheeseburger and $4 for a Sam Adams on tap. The menu consists of only a few things - hamburger, cheeseburger, fries, pickle, brownie, soda pop, milk shakes and Sam Adams. We knew that the location of the burger joint in the Parker Meridien wouldn't be obvious once we walked into the lobby, but thanks to Zagat's description we were able to find it. Walking into the lobby you see this curtained off area and peering around we spotted a small neon sign that was a picture of a burger with an arrow. Following the sign around the side of the curtained off area, we found the entrance (it was easy because there was a line waiting to enter).

Walking in, it definitely could be considered a dive, especially because it is surrounded by the marble lobby in the hotel. There are about 10 tables in the place; you wait in a line to order and then they call your name when your food is up and you just grab a table when one opens up. It was about 6 or 6:15 when we went and it was packed. We did get a couple of seats at a large sort of communal table, but as soon as we started eating a bunch of tables opened up.

The fries were fantastic (especially with the Sam Adams), and I think I would have liked the burger a lot better if it weren't for two things:
1. my burger was overcooked
2. there was horseradish in the mustard which I didn't know until I was well into the burger

I HATE HATE horseradish, and the mustard was in a regular yellow squeeze bottle (implication = it is plain old yellow mustard). When I was eating the burger, I was busy pulling off onions trying to figure out what was burning my mouth. But other than that, not a bad burger. However, not EVEN CLOSE to Red Coat burgers. Not worthy of a top 20 rating in my mind. I will, however, give it a second chance and try it without mustard.

A slightly disappointing burger experience. Too much hype. So Sunday dinner planning came around and I decided that we needed to have burgers, yes, again. Two days in a row. Have I mentioned that I love burgers? I really do.

So I went for the simple burger. Just salt and pepper as seasonings. I also always grind my own meat when I cook burgers, which I recommend for everyone. Especially because I tend to like my burgers on the more rare side of medium rare, and its a bit safer if you grind your own meat. I have a grinding attachment for my Kitchen Aid, but you can also do it in a food processor. And if you don't have a Cuisinart either, I would recommend buying your meat at the grocery store in the steak form and ask them to grind it for you (and then use it right away). I use a combination of sirloin and chuck (50/50). The results from the simple seasoning were pretty darn good. I also put blue cheese and grilled onions on top, which to me, is a necessary requirement for a perfect burger.

The only thing that was missing was the Red Coat special sauce for the burger. I have been trying and trying and trying to make that damn sauce. Its so good. It's some oniony-mayoy sauce and I just don't know what else. Paprika? I don't know. But I would probably pay some pretty good money to get the recipe. All I know is it's not your typical special sauce.

And speaking of special sauce and burgers, I can't write about burgers without mentioning In 'n Out, the hamburger chain in California, Arizona, and Nevada (perhaps a couple other states out west too). The use fresh ingredients, for example when you order fries, they take a potato, put it through the potato slicer and fry it up, right in front of you. And they have good good burgers. We're going to Arizona this weekend and by the way, if any of our "car-mates" are reading this, there WILL be a trip to In 'n Out. Guaranteed. I've already figured out where they are in Arizona (fine, if you don't want to go, we'll go drop you off at the airport and then go afterwards).

Anyways, I think burgers are the perfect meal for any night of the week, however you like them. Just a bit of salt and pepper, freshly ground beef and a delicious grilled bun. Hmm...maybe we'll have burgers tonight too.

Field Trip Friday II

2006-03-03T13:04:00.000-05:00

I've been looking forward to this week's Field Trip Friday all week. It was last weekend when I decided on the objective: Best Bagels in NYC. WHO-HOO! I couldn't have thought of a better Field Trip Friday if I spent a google years thinking. So, the objective was clear. In order to narrow my search, I went to a foodie's best friend - Zagat's Gourmet Marketplace. I took the top five rated bagel places in Manhattan (there were some top rated ones in Brooklyn and Queens, so I can't really say best bagels in NYC, really it's best bagels in Manhattan). With the objective and locations picked I plotted out my route. Five subway rides and about a mile of walking (I planned in some walking on purpose, I enjoy it) to reach the five best bagel establishments. A morning of pure glory in my mind.

The five contenders: Murray's, Kossar's, Absolute, Ess-a-Bagel, and H&H. H&H is the hometown favorite in our household because it's really close to us, so that was going to be my baseline. I also decided that I would get an everything bagel at each store, since that's my favorite kind, and I would get a feeling for how well the toppings were managed. I planned to pick up a bagel at all the locations then come home and do my tastings.

8:40 am I headed out and walked to H&H (I wanted to go early enough so that the bagels would be pretty darn fresh). It was another cold windy Field Trip Friday, in fact I came home with wind burn on my face, although it was a very small price to pay for this exciting adventure. I then took the subway up to 110th and hit Absolute, headed down towards midtown and walked to Ess-a-bagel. H&H is pretty much a "grab a bagel" place, complete with saw dust on the floor (they don't put cream cheese on your bagel for you or anything). Absolute was slightly more organized and you could order coffee and cream cheese, etc.... Ess-a-bagel was just as you would expect in the east fifties. Cute sign out front, inside a mass of people, bagel sandwiches, schmears, etc... that you could order. I did appreciate, however, that you could avoid the line if you were just getting plain bagels. Whew!

I headed back to the subway and headed towards Union Square to Murray's. Definitely the best bagel atmosphere. A nice combination of H&H and Ess-a, pretty barren and homely inside. They'd put schmears on, but not much else (which is good, I'm a purist when it comes to bagel stores). However, they did have tofu cream cheese which is completely blasphemous, but I guess if you're vegetarian then you should be able to enjoy bagels as well. Finally, I headed down to Kossar's in the East Village. When you walked in, it was like you were walking into the kitchen. There were trays of bagels on carts, with a small cash register to the left. I liked the look of it. Kossar's was the highest rated by Zagats and also were known for their bialys. The bialys are round, with no hole and flavoring in the center. I did buy one so I could taste it, but I didn't include my opinion of it in my rankings. It kind of tasted like a really good bread without any crust, the cream cheese seemed a little out of place, but the center filling was delicious (I got garlic)!

I then headed downtown to do a little shopping (so as to not favor the bagel purchased last which would have been the freshest, I needed to put some time between the last purchase and my tasting, that or an excuse to go shopping). Around noon I headed back home, hit the grocery store and got home around 1 PM.

And on to the tasting....

First let me say that all the bagels were very very very good. Infinitely better than most bagels in the midwest. The differences that I have noted below are very small differences between the different bagels, I had to draw a very fine line to come up with my favorite. I would happily eat any of these bagels any day of the week.

Kossar's was slightly too crusty for my taste, there was a pretty thick crust on it, but the flavor was right on.
Murray's had a good crust and a great chew, but I found the flavor a little bit too oniony. The everything flavor was overpowered by onion.
Ess-a-bagel was HUGE! And the toppings were on the bottom of the bagel, which I thought was pretty interesting, but didn't seem to serve any purpose. It didn't have as much flavor as I would have liked.
Absolute had a great chew and a pretty good crust and it was more salty than the others, which I really really liked. It was a bit lighter in density than some of the others.
H&H, I'll have to say that the H&H bagel was my favorite in terms of the crust and chew. Perhaps I was biased because it's the one I always have, but it is fantastic. I like the dense chewy goodness. However, it was the most expensive at $1 (the rest were $.75) which I think is a little conceited of H&H. It's not like they're paying for their "decor."

What I realized, however, is that I may not be the "NY bagel lover" that I have always professed that I was. The H&H bagel barely had a crust, it was mostly chew, which I really love (similar to Detroit or NY Bagel in Michigan). The other four bagels definitely had a crust, which I think is a bit more "NY" than the H&H bagel. So I feel as though I need some "NY growing up" to do.

I did decide however to eat the whole Absolute bagel (I now have four other bagels with a sliver cut out of it). I really liked the flavor and the density and I am definitely beginning to like the crust. So for the real deal, I think I liked Absolute the best. Best Field Trip Friday, ever.

Take-out salad

2006-03-02T10:19:00.000-05:00

One of my absolute favorite things about living in NY is the "salad bar" at most of the delis (which are pretty much at every corner, at least around us). It is, hands down the best, fastest, cheapest take-out that fits everyone's taste. Well, I guess it fits everyone's taste if you like salad, but in our household we're 2 for 2, so it works out.

So here's the deal. You walk in to the deli/salad establishment, there will be a big long counter and at various places along the counter you can order different things: slices of pizza, sandwiches, coffee, and, the salad. In front of the salad ordering section there is a big pile of containers filled with various lettuces (romaine, spinach, spring mix, etc...). You simply grab a container of lettuce and hand it to an available person behind the counter. And here's where the magic begins. In front of you (behind glass) is a colorful array of every salad topping you could possibly imagine. And so you start picking, whatever you want. If you want a caesar salad, then you pick the appropriate things (chicken, croutons, parm, and caesar dressing), but we're never traditionalists, we just pick out whatever floats our boat on any particular day. Then, to complete the masterpiece, you pick your salad dressing and they toss it all together for you, so each nugget of goodness is perfectly coated with salad dressing. Seriously, how could this be better? Oh, except for the price - last night I went for turkey breast (real chunks, not deli sliced), avocado, broccoli, roasted red peppers, blue cheese, chick peas and ranch dressing, and the total? $8. And it's not like you get one little piece of avocado, there was probably an entire avocado in there plus the huge hunks of turkey and cheese and everything. The salad always ends up weighing like 10 pounds (you pay by ingredient, not by weight). Just how it should be, more goodies then lettuce (or in my case, spinach).

I think this type of "salad bar" has really started to catch on in corporate cafeterias, at least in all of my interviewing I've seen them a lot. It's brilliant. Jeff and I dream of opening something similar in Ann Arbor (and now that I've shared this, I'm sure all 2 of my readers are going to do it first and we'll miss out on the awesome opportunity, but alas, that's the risk I'm willing to take, and I'll hunt you down and take a cut of your earnings, you forget, I went to business school).

I'm so very addicted. Thank goodness we have two great places within about two blocks from us (one is just about across the street), so it's never far. Columbus Gourmet is our favorite (for two very simple reasons, they take credit cards and the counter is the right height so you can easily talk to the person behind the counter to pick out your toppings). Check out the menu online, pretty frickin' awesome. Lenny's is our second choice, but it is closer.

So, clearly I did not cook last night. It was salad night at our household, which has the added benefit being able to wake up this morning to a clean kitchen with no dirty dishes. Which is always a treat, I didn't have to move any pots or pans out of the way to get to the cappuccino machine. I'm spoiled! But a salad is a fantastic meal even if you make it yourself, and easy too, another one of those "empty the refrigerator/pantry" meals. Throw in whatever looks good, even if its not traditional (definitely use those spiced nuts that you should have made by now). Easy and great!

Paczki Day!

2006-03-01T10:01:00.000-05:00

Most know the day before Ash Wednesday as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. But to any good Polak, it's Paczki Day (pronounced poonch-key). No longer being in Michigan with access to paczki's around every corner, and being lucky enough to have substantial free time on my hands, I decided the only appropriate activity for me would be to make these sweet treats.

For those of you unfamiliar with the paczki, it is a traditional jelly doughnut-like sweet goodness treat served on the day before Lent begins (but way way better than a regular jelly doughnut). The idea is that during Lent you are supposed to be fasting, so to use up all the butter, sugar, eggs, etc.. you make paczkis. The traditional paczki is very large, very heavy, and very dense. I think the rumor on the street is that one paczki has about 1000 calories in it. After I read the recipe, I could see why, 20 egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup of butter, all that before it is deep fried. In my red Polish cooking guidebook I was able to find a recipe that seemed to be a bit lighter, so after consulting with Grammy, getting her approval and getting the inside secrets, I was ready to go.

The recipe called for 3 risings for the dough, so it's not great for those who are rushing home after work on Paczki Day. I bet that you could prep the dough the day ahead, keep it in the fridge and let it rise a bit when you get home and fry 'em up. I dug my heels in early afternoon. After two risings, I was ready to form the doughnuts. The thing that surprised me was how light and soft the dough was, it took no effort at all to roll it out, I was expecting a pizza like or bread like dough, but it was nothing like that at all. The recipe warned me that a regular jelly was too thin to use, but I went ahead anyways and used the jam from our fridge. Turns out the recipe was right. Seeing that disaster was immanent, I made half of the paczkis without any filling.

After they rose the third and final time, I thought that those with the jelly in them would surely hit the hot oil and explode with the jam pouring out. I therefore wanted to cook the plain ones first. So I heated the oil up and anxiously dropped in the first one and saw the perfect little bubbles around the edges, oh they looked good. They cooked quick, about a minute on each side to a golden brown, and I pulled them out on topped with some powdered sugar. I popped the jelly filled ones in the hot oil and to my surprise, they held up. I have no idea how, but they did. After a few minutes to cool we dug in. I had told myself that I would only have one (I rarely rarely rarely eat doughnuts and when I do, I never eat more than one). But two and a half paczki's later I had to call my mom and Grammy with tales of success. Pretty darn good paczki's. Mmm...especially warm ones. It's really too bad you can only make them once a year, or maybe its a good thing.

Here's the recipe I used, but just so you know, if you make them on any other day of the year besides Fat Tuesday, it's sacrilegious.

Paczki
1 1/2 cups milk
2 packages of active dry yeast
1 t salk
1/2 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
1 t vanilla
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1 stick butter
4 1/2 cups flour (plus more as need for rolling/forming dough)

Scald the milk (my interpretation of what this is, is to heat the milk up in a pan until small bubbles form around the edges and then pull it off the heat) and cool to lukewarm (I interpreted this to be less than 110 deg F because above that the yeast will die). After the milk cools, add the yeast and let sit for a few minutes. Beat sugar and butter until fluffy, then add eggs, salt and flavoring. Add the flour and milk/yeast to the butter sugar mixture in alternating batches until it comes together. Put in oiled bowl, cover and allow to rise until double in size in warm location (it took me about an hour and a half), punch it down, knead, and allow to rise until double again. Roll it out/stretch it out, cut into desired size and fill with your filling of choice, JAM/JELLY IS TOO THIN (it'll just be a very thin layer in the middle of the paczki)! What I would actually recommend (which I didn't do) is to fill the paczki like they are traditionally done in doughnut shops, with a pastry tip. Allow to rise again (until you think they look ready to go, fluffy and good).

Heat Crisco (Grammy insists on Crisco or lard) to 375 deg F. Add a few paczkis and cook until dark golden brown and flip over (should only take a minute or so). Turn them only once. Pull them out of the oil and sprinkle with powdered sugar so it melts over the top.

Indulge just this one time per year and eat three.

The Morning Ritual

2006-02-28T09:57:00.000-05:00

Every week day I begin my morning in pretty much the same way, feed the cat so she'll stop screeching, make my latte, watch my morning news soap opera, and eat my oatmeal. While I'll save my discussion on the struggle to make the best foam for my latte for another day, today's its all about the oatmeal.

I have found oatmeal to something that many people really like, but its never a food that really gets the attention that it should. Especially in the winter, when everyone needs a little warm morning pick-me-up, oatmeal really gets you going in the morning. I have found that many of my friends and family are closet oatmeal lovers. There's a few things that I really like about it:

1. It tastes pretty good on its own, but you can flavor it really however you'd like. Whenever I start to get sick of eating oatmeal every day I change up my "mix-ins" (I also only eat it during the week and indulge in my real breakfast love on weekends, bagels). I have used nuts like pecans and almonds and a variety of sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, brown sugar), and a wide variety of fruits (berries, bananas, apples). Or you can use any combination; the possibilities will keep you interested in oatmeal for months and month and months. Right now I'm hooked on dehydrated fruit (which plumps up when you add the milk and heat it up), but my classic is really just a bit of maple syrup.

2. It keeps you full for the whole morning. This is especially true if you put nuts and fruit in it. But even if you don't, the thick gooey meal really does "stick to the ribs" and keeps you satisfied and starts your day off right. I also think (pure speculation) that if you think about the meal in terms of how much food you're eating (by weight and perhaps calories), you'll find that you can eat way less oatmeal and stay full longer. Maybe it's because it doubles in size when you cook it. One of the reasons that I never used to like it was because it made me feel so full (when I would use the packets). Now I do the measuring myself so I get the appropriate serving size and it's just right, much like the Goldilocks tale.

3. It's super healthy. First of all, it has been shown to lower cholesterol, so I don't need to worry about that rice pudding I had last night. It also can help lower your blood sugar level (again, no worries on the rice pudding). Both the cholesterol and blood sugar lowering benefits are from the soluble fiber, beta glucan. Great stuff. I guess this super-duper glucan "slows the rate at which food leaves the stomach and delays the absorption of glucose following a meal." I wonder if you could just have a little bit of oatmeal with every meal and that would slow the digestion of the entire meal. Somehow I doubt it, but that would certainly make it my favorite food ever.
As if all of that weren't enough, the oats also have phytonutrients (I know that you wouldn't be convinced of its healthy power unless it had these "ph"abulous nutrients). One of the two main phytonutrients is ferulic acid which is an antioxidant and has been shown to inhibit the growth of some cancer compounds. Rock on oatmeal.

I personally like McCann's Quick Cook oatmeal (which is the rolled oat variety). I just add milk (and/or water) pop it in the microwave for about 2 minutes and its done. I recently tried Quaker Oats and I could taste a difference (not good or bad, just a difference), and I prefer the McCann's, but it's really just personal preference (I think I really just got used to the taste of McCann's and I like it). There is a difference as well between steel cut and rolled oats, the steel cut take much longer to cook - for the steel cut, you can boil water, add the oatmeal, turn off the heat and let it sit overnight. Then the next morning you bring it back up to a boil and cook until tender. That's easy, but then I'd need to remember to set up my breakfast the night before (but it would be great if you were already setting up the coffee as well for the morning). I think the steel cut is the more old-fashioned traditional type of oatmeal. I do believe that the it is more nutritious as well.

So don't forget about your oatmeal, you can jazz it up or leave it plain, but either way you're really starting your morning off right. So much so that you'll be able to run and jump and kick your legs up to the side just like Maria in The Sound of Music (if I ever had a commercial for oatmeal that's how it would end).

Pork Butt for Everyone

2006-02-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

I decided it was time that I cooked a massive piece of meat. So I decided on the pork butt (which is actually the shoulder of the pig) for some delicious pulled pork bbq goodness. It also goes by the name Boston butt or roast and I think there's a few others. I got the boneless variety, 7 pounds of pork delivered to my door via Fresh Direct. I had them tie the roast up for me, which turned out to be a mistake, because there was probably about an inch (no joke) of fat on the top of the roast. It was actually relatively disgusting (and I really like pork fat) because it kind of looked like pig skin on top of the roast. Now I'm sure you're ready to vomit, sorry about that.

So I had to untie the roast, trim off the excess fat and tie it back up (if you get the bone-in variety I don't think you need to tie it up). Trimming the excess fat on the surface of the roast is ok because there's so much fat marbling (see my steak entry) it'll still stay moist inside through the long cooking process. Which is key to this roast, very low and very slow cooking. Hours and hours in the oven. The fat melts and the whole thing gets very tender, very moist and delicious. That is, unless you completely over cook it (keep reading).

The recipe I had said about 6 hours in the oven at 300 degrees, and after I read the directions there was a very brief flash through my head which sent me a warning signal I should have paid closer attention to - it seemed like kind of a high temperature. Many of the other recipes I had previously read mentioned 200 or maybe 250 degree ovens. But, my rule is follow a recipe the first time and make adjustments the 2nd time.

Luckily, about 4 1/2 hours into the cooking time, I decided to take the temperature of the meat, which, after about 10 readings was consistently 10 - 20 degrees above the target temperature. I took it out of the oven and allowed the roast its obligatory rest and then attempted to "shred" the meat, as it should have (in an ideal world) fallen apart. It was more like a tug of war with butt, which I was now not-affectionately referring to as the "ass." This, after Jeff had invited some friends over for dinner since we were going to be having 7 pounds of pig, which is about 6.5 pounds too many for us to eat ourselves. The cat, however, seemed to think that it still smelled good, until we put a piece in her bowl, to which she snubbed her nose. It wasn't looking good for our delicious bbq pork dinner.

I finished my tug-of-pork and had a reasonably "shredded-like" pile of meat. I poured some bbq sauce over the top and hoped that the sauce would sort of be soaked into the meat and make it at least some what more moist. In the end, it didn't taste terrible and it was actually edible, a battle well fought on my part. I wouldn't call it a victory, but I think I can safely say, it was a scrappy battle.

What I think the issue may have been was that the recipe was actually for a bone-in roast (it doesn't say) which would make it take longer to cook. I can say that I'm SO glad I decided to check the meat temperature well before it was scheduled to be done. I can't imagine if I had left the roast in for another 1.5 hours. I would have had a shrivled rock solid hunk of butt in the oven. Doesn't that sound delicious?

So if my disaster story has inspired you, a few things to keep in mind when cooking the pork beast:
1. always keep a thermometer in the roast so you can constantly measure the meat temperature, it should end up between 160-170 (not 190 like mine was) - in fact I would ignore all cooking times and depend only on the internal temperature readings 2. make sure you know whether the recipe is for a bone-in or boneless roast
3. pour the bbq sauce on it when its warm, it really will soak up some of the sauce
4. don't invite guests until after you know whether or not it turned out to be delicious
5. if it's boneless, I'd probably cook it at 200-250 and cook it until it gets to the right temperature
6. have the butcher cut off the excess fat for you (if there is any) and then tie up the roast if its boneless

Here's the recipe for the rub I used (which was good), and if you want to make this, you can follow my guidelines above (or you may not want to since I haven't actually made a successful roast yet)! I got the recipe from the Food Network.

Pork Roast Rub
3 T paprika (I used the spicy variety)
1 T garlic powder
1 T brown sugar
1 T dry mustard
3 T salt (kosher/sea salt better)

Mix everything together and rub all over the roast, allow it to sit at least an hour up to overnight. Good for a roast about 5 - 7 pounds. Don't over cook it!!

Field Trip Friday

2006-02-24T13:50:00.000-05:00

So I decided that Fridays would be my field trip day, which means late blog postings (I know how much everyone is anticipating every entry, so I do apologize), but hopefully it also means thrilling, edge-of-your seat stories for the Friday blog. TGIF.

So today I decided I would go to the Farmer's Market at Union Square; I think it's supposed to be one of the best most famous farmer's markets in the city, but I'm not sure. We had been there once before in the fall and had a good experience, so I wanted to check it out in the dead of the winter. And, I decided that I was going to walk there and back to add to the "adventurousness" of the first Field Trip Friday. It's about a 3.1 mile walk each way, just about a straight shot down Broadway, so I was destined to not get lost, which was good.

The trip would take me down to Columbus Circle, through Times Square, by Macy's and some area in the 20's which I don't really know what it's called. Union Square is between 14th and 18th and is bordered by Broadway and Park Ave/4th Ave (it's right where Park ends and 4th sort of starts). We're at 75th, so I got to painfully count down to 14 from 75 and then back up again. So I packed up my bag, charged up my phone, grabbed the iPod and the camera and set out for my journey. Unfortunately, I managed to take 0 pictures in the first Field Trip Friday, I know, I shouldn't have even told you that I took my camera with me.

Good thing I decided that the first Field Trip Friday would be on a day that had 50 mph wind gusts. Awesome. Actually, it was awesome when I was walking there and the wind pushed me down the street. It was not awesome when I was walking home and I was hungry, wind burnt and it felt like a big windy hand pushing me backwards. For comparison sake for my mom and Jeff (who are probably the only 2 people who read this), it was windier than the Statue of Liberty, but WAY warmer. The hardest part of the journey (besides the wind), or maybe I guess the most annoying part, was the fact that Broadway wanders diagonally down Manhattan (between 77th and 6th streets, above and below that it is straight). So it's kind of really annoying because it crosses 4 avenues, which means navigating through these huge intersections where you can't really tell which street is going to which direction. Times Square is obviously the worst. I always have to cross back and forth repeatedly to make sure I get on the right side of the right street to go in the right direction. But have no fear, I managed to get it right the second time around, and I never wandered too far off my path, I know you all were worried.

The farmer's market was terribly unexciting, there were about 15 vendors, which is reasonable since it's February. But they did have some good ones - a honey vendor (my only purchase at the market was a bottle of honey), homemade pretzel vendor, turkey vendor (with some delicious smelling turkey sausage), and a couple of bakeries that looked like they had some great bread products. I do like the fact that it's open 4 days a week even in the winter. Although maybe not worth a 3 mile walk (one way), but it was Field Trip Friday, so I guess that was the point.

So as I leave you for the weekend, with such an unexciting story about the unexciting Farmer's Market, I promise you that next week's Field Trip Friday will include some pictures. Hopefully that's enough to keep you reading the blog. TGIF.

Life without a dishwasher

2006-02-23T08:54:00.000-05:00

Sucks. Big time. I didn't actually think it would be a big deal, probably mostly because I didn't ever really do the dishes, I did the cooking. But if you've ever seen my kitchen, I make a huge mess, every time, with as many dishes as possible. So there has obviously been a transition for me and my cooking, which I liken to my laundry habits when I went to college. Prior to going to college (and doing my own laundry) I would wear a t-shirt for 5 minutes, decide I didn't want to wear it and put it in the laundry. Then once I went to college I would wear jeans for about 3 months before I put them in the laundry. But I was talking about dishes, not laundry.

So you might be wondering, "hey, she doesn't do anything all day, I don't think that she can complain about dishes." And you have a good point, but the frustrating thing is that every time you walk into the kitchen, there are dishes. Whether they are in the sink or in the drying rack (clean), they are always there. And that gets pretty annoying. I even got a dish break last weekend when my mom (thankfully!!!) did all the dishes, and it didn't take 2 days for me to get sick of them again.

Finding an apartment in NY was hard enough (and I already had a million criteria), so I wasn't really allowed to add any more criteria to our search menu, so I was willing to give up the dishwasher, although maybe I should have prioritized having an elevator too. Some day I'll write about the apartment search in NY; every day when Jeff leaves for work he gives me a kiss and says "write about the apartment search today." One day he'll get his wish, but not today.

So I'm always on a search for recipes that are: quick, use few dishes and can be eaten on one plate/bowl. I've taken to using foil when I roast things so I don't have to wash the pan (and can recycle the used foil, I think I can at least). And I definitely don't wash strainers every time I drain pasta (really, how dirty do you think they get? and I haven't gotten sick yet). I'm curious to see what happens when I'm actually working, but I think our little NY kitchen will become more of a typical NY kitchen, one that doesn't see much action.

But for now, I'll keep up my dish routine, and I'll keep hating it. As for recipes, the best ones are really stews and chili's and things which really are one pot meals, that also can be eaten in one dish as well. But everyone knows those. A technique that I've really taken too is the pan saute with the gravy/sauce made in the same pan. It's great - take your meat of choice (chicken, turkey, whatever), dust it with flour (which will help thicken the sauce later) and saute the meat in a pan. When it's almost done, take the meat out and wrap it up in some foil (don't use another plate), add some garlic, onions, peppers, chilis, whatever, to the pan. Add a little broth or wine and cook it all together, reduce it a bit and then add whatever else from your fridge (herbs, other vegetables, beans, dried fruit). Last night I added some spinach and some heavy cream, but fresh tomatoes and basil is great too. Then you just add the meat back into the sauce and let everything cook together a bit longer until the meat is done. You can round out the meal with some roasted veggies (cooked on foil, of course), like sweet potatoes or asparagus, two of our favorites. It's easy, it's quick, and there aren't very many dishes to clean!

Frittata salad?

2006-02-22T12:56:00.000-05:00

So I promised (myself) that I wouldn't post more than once a day (I don't have THAT much to talk about), but since I'm so busy today and I just saw the craziest thing on tv, I had to share. Since there's nothing else on tv at noon I've taken to taping Molto Mario. Not a huge fan of the show, especially because there's always weird things on the menu, chicken livers, etc... And he does a terrible job showing me how to do anything. But anyway, today, he was making frittata salad so I was intrigued, especially since I had just written about frittatas the other day.

So he made the frittata with just some simple herbs and a bit of chili pepper flakes and chopped it up and added it to a bed of escarole (kind of bitter-ish lettuce) and orange segments. I think I actually like the idea of eggs on salad with the citrus. I've been going back and forth on it for a few minutes, but it might be good. The eggs would have to be cooked well done for sure. And the lettuce would have to be crunchy, but not too crunchy, but I think I could do it. Not sure what Jeff would think, but his rule is: "I love eggs"

It's definitely not something that I'd ever ever think of, but maybe I could do it - frittata salad. I think I'd have to work up to it. Like maybe start by having eggs with some other vegetables and move on to the lettuce. I don't know, but I've heard that things that you don't like to eat before you're 30 you'll never like, so I guess I'll have to try it within the next couple of years.

Mac 'n Cheese Please!

2006-02-22T09:59:00.000-05:00

I remember this one time when Christa and I were at home with a babysitter who asked us what we wanted for lunch. Christa immediately began singing/screaming Mac-a-ron-i and cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese! Mac-a-ron-i and cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese! She was unstoppable until the babysitter agreed to make us the requested macaroni and cheese. All I remember (besides the song which still runs through my head, obviously) was that I was thinking, "I HATE macaroni and cheese." I don't know what I was thinking, because I love macaroni and cheese. I think she just loved it more and we always had to have it.

We were Kraft mac 'n cheese fans. Die-hard. No velveeta, give us the blue box. (Holy crap, I just realized that I must be way behind the times in that velveeta is actually owned by Kraft, which completely changes my world view, but I won't dwell on that right now). After college I would continue to buy the Kraft macaroni and cheese, although it no longer served in the weeknight dinner position, it had moved to the Saturday afternoon meal slot and more recently we have actually moved to the organic variety of mac 'n cheese - Annie's. I guess that's step one on the path to yuppie-ville.

I never really thought of making my own macaroni and cheese, but I also think there's also recently been a resurgence of macaroni and cheese and it's much more in-vogue these days (although it's kind of weird to me that food can be in style). So it's on people's minds a bit more. Anyways, it probably wasn't until last year when I attempted my own macaroni and cheese. And, I do have to warn you, if you're looking for that macaroni and cheese from your childhood, you're not going to find it if you make it yourself, but you will have a delicious creamy dinner that will bring a smile to your face.

I'm not sure I've ever actually followed a recipe (not even the first time I made it) for homemade macaroni and cheese. It seemed to me that you really could make a good mac 'n cheese without putting in cups of heavy cream or even cups of half and half. I'm sure those versions are quite delicious, but I'm not sure I could eat more than 3 bites without wanting to throw up. I honestly believe that comfort food should not come at the expense of vomit. So I use part milk and part broth, and it's still pretty darn delicious. I actually make my "cheese sauce" to be almost like a cheese fondue, thicker than what you'd typically think of, but I think it's fantastic.

Another great thing (depending on who you talk to) about homemade macaroni is that you can bake it in the oven and add a breadcrumb (and/or parmesan cheese) topping. I personally like the creamy noodles under the topping, but Jeff likes the crunchy topping, ours is a marriage made in mac 'n cheese heaven (and the creamy part wouldn't be possible without having the crunchy topping). You can also just cook the whole thing on the stove top and it tastes just as good too (and it uses one less dish), but you don't get the crunchy topping. And, you can do the dishes while it bakes in the oven, so it's not as big of a deal that there's an extra dish.

So here's my recipe for macaroni and cheese, since I never really followed a recipe to being with, this recipe is particularly vague. But you can be creative if that's any consolation (that actually wouldn't be consoling to me, so I'm sorry about that).

Macaroni and Cheese (serves 2 plus a bit extra for snacking)
1/2 box of pasta, a tubular shape so the cheese sauce can really get in there
2 T butter
2-3 T flour
1 1/4 cup milk (typically I use 2%, I wouldn't really recommend skim since you're already substituting with some broth)
1/2 - 1 cup broth (chicken, veggie, whatever, I've even used beef)
2 cups of your favorite cheese combination, I like 2% sharp cheddar, muenster and parmesan, mostly because that's what I typically have. You can use just about anything, but I would recommend using cheddar as at least one of your cheeses. And, if you use some more milder cheeses (mozzarella, provelone, etc...) you'll probably need to add a bit more salt to the sauce.
Breadcrumbs/parmesan and oil/butter (for topping)

Pre-heat oven to 350. Bring pot of water to boil. Before adding the pasta, be sure to salt it. Add the pasta and stir it a bit. Don't cook the pasta all the way, for pasta that should cook about 10 minutes (according to the package) I cook it about 6. It's going to cook more in the oven and suck up some delicious cheesy sauce too.

If you want you can start the cheese sauce in another pan (I don't because it's one more pan to wash, I wait until the pasta is done and then make the sauce in the same pot). Melt the butter over medium heat and add the flour. Cook the flour for a couple of minutes, stirring rather frequently. Add the milk and broth and whisk very quickly until there aren't any lumps. Keep the heat relatively low and stir frequently until the sauce thickens. Turn off the heat and add the cheeses. Let the cheese melt; if the mixture looks too thick for your liking add some more milk or broth. Make it a bit thinner than you want it to actually come out of the oven because it'll thicken a bit when the pasta sucks up some of the sauce. Taste the sauce and make sure there's enough salt and pepper before you add the pasta.

Add the pasta to the sauce and put in a casserole dish sprayed with non-stick spray. Top with as many or as little breadcrumbs/parmesan as you want and then top the breadcrumbs with some oil/butter to make it golden and delicious. Bake for about 30 minutes until its bubbly and irresistible.

What Flatiron, Hanger, Skirt, and Flank have in common

2006-02-21T08:55:00.000-05:00

Before you read "flank" I'm sure the correlation between flatiron, hanger and skirt may have been obvious. Clearly, I'm speaking of steak and not of things you may find in your closet.

As you may have noticed, I was on vacation for the past few days. Actually, my parents came to visit, which put the blogging on hiatus. Just like when I was in college, I spent many hours researching restaurants in anticipation of their arrival. Most of the research was for naught, as our plans typically changed about 6 times prior to us actually venturing out of the apartment.

So Friday night, in an effort to get some sight seeing done during the dinner hour, I found a restaurant (one of about seven) at the Waldorf-Astoria. Reasonably priced and with a relatively diverse menu, I thought it would appeal to everyone. Alas, the only steak on the menu was "Flat Iron" to which my dad responded: "what's flatiron steak?" The extent of my knowledge on the steak was, a thin steak that is best eaten medium rare which can get tough if not prepared correctly. "Too complicated" was my dad's reply and he decided on the burger.

Saturday night, we were off to a French restaurant that Jeff and I had wanted to try. Looking at the menu, my dad spotted "hanger steak" and asked again what was this mysterious steak. Replying with just about the same answer as the previous night "thin steak that should be cooked medium rare and cut against the grain." "Too complicated" my dad again replied. Strangely enough, he ordered it, until we pointed out that he missed the strip steak on the menu (it was disguised under the heading "Steak Frites"). He did order the strip and got the classic steak he was looking for.

In an effort to dispel the mystery around these seemingly complicated and "new fangled" steaks found on menus in restaurants these days, I decided to explore the flat steaks. I personally think that these steaks are appearing on menus because they aren't as expensive cuts of meat, but they can trick the unexpecting consumer into paying higher prices because its "steak." A little trickery...

So there are really four of these flat steaks, and I personally think they can be quite tasty, and I very often buy one of these cuts when I'm in the mood for a little red meat (although having red meat every day last weekend I don't think that I'll be indulging again anytime soon). I actually really like cooking them at home because they are cheaper and can taste great (although there are a few simple rule to remember to make it actually taste good, otherwise you're going to end up gnawing on your meat and kicking yourself for wasting your time and money cooking the steak).

First up, the skirt steak. A great beginner flat steak, mostly because it's got some "good marbling." That's some BS phrase for "lots of fat goodness running through the middle/inside of the steak" but what it really means is that it is harder to dry out because the fat running through the middle keeps the steak juicy tender and delicious. Call it marbling, call it fatty goodness, whatever, it's great stuff. The skirt steak is typically used for fajitas, so you've probably had it before in restaurants. It comes from the diaphragm of the cow (that sounds super nasty, so I'm not going to dwell on its location). Anyway, cooking the skirt steak - I think it's best grilled, but there's some debate on the best cooking method. Again, the key with these 4 steaks is quick cooking, keep it at medium rare. And, like I told my dad, cut this steak against the grain. You'll be able to see the grain running down the steak - slice it up for your guests/family prior to serving. And please please, wait the obligatory 10-15 minutes before slicing. The tasty juices must "redistribute." Some other BS term, but it is true. Let the meat rest my friends, make the steak happy. And happy steak equals happy dinner.

Next, the flank steak. Much leaner than the skirt steak, but just as flat and also from the cow diaphragm. So you definitely definitely need to be careful on the cooking time, but with a little salt and pepper and cooked medium rare, this too can be quite delicious. BUT, I have the most yummy braised recipe for flank steak. Wow, it is tasty. Braciole. You take the meat, sprinkle some cheese and breadcrumbs (some recipes call for sausage too), roll it up and sear it. Then you braise it in tomato sauce for awhile and it's the most tender delicious dinner ever (well maybe not ever, but it's one of my very best Sunday night meals). I usually get the "holy cow, you made this? why don't you make this every night?" one eyebrow lift from Jeff whenever I make it. The lack of marbling makes flank steak a great candidate for braising.

Onto the hanger steak. Again, a cow diaphragm steak (hmm...perhaps a pattern emerging? I'm actually starting to wonder about the available information on the interweb). Apparently it hangs between the last rib and the loin. It's a big thicker cut of steak, and works great marinated. Since it is thicker, the marinade (I am postulating here) helps to infuse more flavor and tenderize the meat a bit. Again, same rules apply: cook quickly, slice against the grain.

And finally, the flatiron steak. Kind of a fake flat steak. It's a big steak liar. It's actually a "slice" of the top blade roast (aka top boneless chuck, top blade steak, among other names). Essentially, if you cut the top blade roast in half you get two flatiron steaks. Weird. Not sure who decided to do that. It's pretty well marbled, but keep in mind the rules of the flat steaks: cook it medium rare and slice against the grain.

So, really, hopefully I've beaten into your brain the two "flat steak" rules: quick cooking (medium rare) and slicing against the grain. Don't even try to eat these if you want it cooked medium or medium-well, you're going to spend most of your meal gnawing on your food, and probably end up spitting it out in the end. The cuts of meat are cheaper, but not that cheap. I'd recommend any of them just with a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper grilled (bring the meat up to room temperature for a better cooking experience), but I'm giving you the recipe for the braciole, because it's awesome. It's a Giada De Laurentiis recipe that I've tweaked a teeny bit.

Braciole

1/2 cup dried plain bread crumbs (seasoned with salt and pepper and whatever dried herbs I feel like throwing in)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano (this is key, don't substitute anything for this)
1/3 cup grated Parmesan or mozzarella
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
4 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 (1 1/2-pound) flank steak
1 cup dry white wine
3 1/4 cups Homemade Tomato Sauce, or store-bought marinara sauce

Stir the first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl to blend. Stir in 2 tablespoons of the oil.

Lay the flank steak flat on the work surface. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture evenly over the steak to cover the top evenly. Starting at 1 short end, roll up the steak as for a jelly roll to enclose the filling completely. Using butcher's twine, tie the steak roll to secure. Sprinkle the braciole with salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a heavy large ovenproof skillet over medium heat. Add the braciole and cook until browned on all sides, about 8 minutes. Add the wine to the pan and bring to a boil. Stir in the marinara sauce. Cover partially with foil and bake until the meat is almost tender, turning the braciole and basting with the sauce every 30 minutes. After 1 hour, uncover and continue baking until the meat is tender, about 30 minutes longer. The total cooking time should be about 1 1/2 hours.

Remove the braciole from the sauce. Using a large sharp knife, cut the braciole crosswise and diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Transfer the slices to plates. Spoon the sauce over and serve.

Be ready to get a few eyebrow lifts from your family! I promise to post my recipe for homemade tomato sauce too, which definitely helps make this so darn tasty.

This blogger is on vacation...until Tuesday

2006-02-17T12:25:00.000-05:00

See you then!

What separates the Italian from the NY style?

2006-02-16T09:09:00.000-05:00

No, not fashion. I'm talking pizza. I'm not sure how the conversation got started, but last night we were discussing what exactly constitutes a "New York Style Pizza." Oddly enough, but lucky for me, Wikipedia has an entry to help end the debate: "New York style pizza is...oversized, thin and flexible slices. It is traditionally hand-tossed and light on sauce. The slices are sometimes eaten folded in half, as its size and flexibility may otherwise make it unwieldy to eat by hand."

Doesn't that sound really gross to anyone else? The slices are folded in half? Nasty. I don't want to have to fold my pizza in half to eat it. And to be clear, I have had my fair share of NY pizza, so I'm not flying blind here and judging without a taste test. So, in our debate last night, the question inevitably arose, "what's the difference between real Italian pizza and New York style pizza?" A question that I instinctively knew the answer to, but could not put into words.

To me, the NY pizza always tastes like it has been made from frozen dough, overcheesed, and is nearly tasteless. That's not to say that it doesn't make a great late night snack. But it does have a thin crust, which makes the distinction much more difficult between Italian pizza and NY pizza. So, I'll do my best. Maybe I'll just talk about all of the things that make Italian pizza so good, that's easier.

The crust on Italian pizza, like I mentioned, is thin. But not only is it thin, like the NY pizza, but it's crispy too. I think the crispiness comes from the fact that it is often cooked on stones that get really really really hot. 1000 degrees or something. So they cook uber-quick. You get a great bite when you get to the crust of the pizza, but not so much that it bites back.

I'm not sure what the "rules" are for the sauce, seems like you don't necessarily need a tomato sauce, and if there is a so-called tomato sauce on the pizza, it's typically just pureed fresh/canned tomatoes. Again, it adds to the freshness of the pizza, not the kind of cooked tasted you get with marinara sauce.

And, the cheese, like with panini, the mozzarella should be very fresh, and it doesn't necessarily need to coat every inch of the crust. It's very much a freestyle dish. Each bite has its own unique mix of toppings, with the cheese also considered a topping, so its not serving as the base for the pizza.

So, now that I've just put forth my description of what is Italian pizza, I realized that Wikipedia had another entry, which literally defines exactly what it is. Their definition is much more technical (this is actually a definition for Neapolitan pizza and there are some distinctions with some other regions of Italy, but the differences are mostly just the toppings):

"According to the rules proposed by the Associazione vera pizza napoletana and other sources quoted by the BBC [3], and the legal EU document with the Vera Pizza Napoletana Specification in translation. The genuine Neapolitan pizza dough consists of Italian wheat flour yeast or brewer's yeast, and water. For proper results, strong flour with high protein content (as used for bread-making rather than cakes) must be used. The dough must be kneaded by hand or with an approved mixer that moves in a clockwise direction. After the rising process, the dough must be formed by the right hand and the first two fingers of the left without the help of a rolling pin or other mechanical device, and may be no more than 3 mm (1/8 in) thick. The pizza must be baked for 60Â90 seconds in a 485 Â°C (905 Â°F) stone oven with an oak-wood fire. When cooked, it should be soft and fragrant."

Wait, are you kidding me? The mixer must mix in a clockwise direction and formed by the right hand? Seriously? What, is it French pizza if you use your left hand? Maybe that's the line between Italian and NY style pizza, the hand that you use to form the dough. Or maybe, the difference is that New Yorkers don't have so many rules surrounding what qualifies as NY style pizza. Wow. Well, I certainly unexpectedly learned something about Italian pizza today, pretty pretentious.

Even though there's so many rules, I still like the Italian pizza better, and NY style still remains a tasteless blob of cheese on floppy bread. But, the funny thing, is that Chicago style is my favorite. If I want pizza, that's my pie of choice, hands down. The thick doughy crust that you can dip in extra sauce, mmmmm...., my mouth is watering. I like Italian pizza, but when I want pizza, that's not what I think of. I want the thick, gut-busting heavy crust. So, my favorite recipe for pizza is therefore a deep-dish recipe. There are also recipes for making dough in bread machines, which work well too, but, alas, my bread maker didn't make the cut and resides 300 miles from my kitchen. This recipe too is from the Food Network and has corn meal in it, which gives it an awesome kind of crunch. It takes some time for the dough to rise, but its a great Saturday night meal.

(type 0 and/or 00), natural Neapolitan Deep Dish Pizza
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees F)
1 (1/4-ounce) package active dry yeast (about 2 1/2 teaspoons)
2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for oiling bowl
1 (14 to 16-ounce) can peeled, whole tomatoes, drained and chopped OR tomato sauce
your favorite toppings
2 cups grated whole milk mozzarella cheese (about 1/4 pound)
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan (optional)

In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in water. Sprinkle yeast over water and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Stir in 2 1/4 cups flour, cornmeal, salt, and 2 tablespoons oil and blend until mixture forms a dough. Knead dough on a floured surface, incorporating as much of remaining 1/4 cup flour as necessary to prevent dough from sticking, until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

Put dough in a deep oiled bowl and turn to coat with oil. Let dough rise, covered with plastic wrap, in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

Punch down dough and knead 4 times. In an oiled 10 1/2-inch cast-iron skillet, press dough with oiled finger until it comes 2 inches up the side and is an even thickness on bottom. Let dough rise, covered loosely with plastic wrap, in a warm place for 15 minutes.

Sprinkle dough with tomato sauce, cheese and your favorite toppings. Sprinkle the top with the Parmesan and bake the pizza in the lower third of an electric oven, or on floor of a gas oven for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees F. and bake 10 minutes more, or until crust is golden.

Quest for the Perfect Valentine's Dinner

2006-02-15T08:41:00.000-05:00

So it began a few weeks ago while I was perusing the Williams-Sonoma website (an activity in which I often partake). I found a recipe for Chocolate-Peanut Butter Ganache Heart Cakes (I tried to put a link to the recipe, but the recipe section of the W-S website is down right now). Any recipe that includes the words "chocolate" and "peanut butter" and "ganache" is one in which I absolutely must try - no questions asked. There is no more perfect union than chocolate and peanut butter. That was the point at which I decided I would make us dinner on Valentine's Day. So in an effort to save some pennies and the excitement of making an exotic meal, and of course, with dessert already decided on, I was on my way to creating our Valentine's dinner.

Over the next few weeks I kept myself busy by browsing my recipe books (something that I actually rarely do), searching my favorite sites online, and getting ideas from my favorite day time tv. I finally decided on a 5-course meal:
1. Salad - blue cheese, dried cherry and walnuts (an easy choice, it's Jeff's favorite)
2. Cannelloni with a ground turkey filling
3. Cabernet Sauvignon sorbet
4. Veal Scaloppini with a saffron cream sauce
5. Chocolate Peanut-Butter Ganache Heart Cakes

With the planning underway in January, I had many weeks to refine the menu. I decided that the pecans on the salad would be candied/spiced, that I'd make my homemade tomato sauce for the cannelloni, I also added roasted asparagus to course 4, and I decided the dessert wouldn't be complete without some homemade raspberry sauce. I also wanted the five courses to come sequentially, which turned out to be a pain in my ....

So, a few (very minor things) that I decided to simplify. I decided to use store bought salad dressing and I decided to use wonton/egg roll wrappers instead of making the pasta noodles for the cannelloni. This is the point at which you're probably thinking - crazy lady. But, it's not like I'm busy during the day, so I was ready. I'm not going to take you through the entire process, but I will share what I learned....

1. Turning cannelloni into ravioli is easier than you might think.
When my eggroll wrappers came from Fresh Direct as wonton wrappers (I'm pretty sure that was my fault), it was clear that it would be impossible to make cannelloni, unless they were the world's smallest. Easy enough, I thought, I'll make them into raviolis. Great, except that it's difficult to make ravioli ahead of time; I was planning on putting the dish in the oven when we ate our salad, and it wouldn't have worked if I needed to boil the delightful little packages. Hmmm... tricky. In a flash of shear brilliance, I decided to cook the noodles and the filling ahead of time (I was already planning to cook the filling ahead) and then put them in the oven while we ate our salad. Yeah, um, well that didn't really work out so well, the whole cooking the noodles thing. After throwing 8 wrappers into boiling water and pulling them out in one big glob. I needed to re-think. So, I tried cooking them one at a time. No luck. They folded over themselves and when they were cool enough to even touch they were already glued to themselves. AAAAAHHHHHH! So, I thought to myself, "screw it, I'm using raw noodles, covering them with pasta sauce and hoping for the best." Turns out, that works too. Easy and delicious.

Even better, was that I turned our favorite turkey meatball recipe into the filling for the ravioli's. I cooked the meat, dropped the breadcrumbs and added the egg and romano cheese to the cooked meat mixture. Tasted just as good in a ravioli as it does as a meatball. Clearly, it's possible to put anything that you think tastes good into some noodle squares.

2. Spiced nuts turns a regular salad into an unquestionably delicious restaurant grade salad.
This decision was a last minute one. For the weeks leading up to the big dinner, I was torn between wanting to make Jeff's favorite salad and wanting to make it special. It hit me just a few days ago like an ice cream headache, "dress up the nuts!" (yes, you can laugh childishly at that quote). It took me some time to find a recipe I liked. I really wanted them to be spicy and sweet, kind of like the ones that Zingermans makes. And, I didn't want to deep fry them (which was a step in many of the recipes). So, I checked the Zingermans site and tried to find out what spices they used and then searched for those ingredients. I finally found a recipe in which you mix a bunch of sugar and spices (typical pumpkin pie spices actually) and then drop the nuts in egg whites and the sugar/spice mixture and bake 'em.

Seems like a lot of work for some nuts on a salad? I know, I know. BUT, the good thing is that the recipe makes a TON of them, and you can keep them in an airtight container and then you'll have them on hand for many a delicious salad. Or, you can eat them right out of the container as a snack, and everyone will love you and your nuts.

3. If your first 4 courses go off without a hitch. Dessert is destined to be a disaster.
Maybe it was because I was sure I'd screw up one of the other courses. I went into the dessert course like Bode Miller at the Olympics. I was going to kick its butt. I decided to wait to make the dessert course until after we had finished the first 4. It was only supposed to be about 20 minutes to make and bake the heart cakes (which it was). Things were going great, raspberry sauce was already done, the eggs were whipping up just as they should, truffles were, if I might say so myself, perfect. Into the oven the heart cakes went, 10 minutes later out they came. 5 minutes to cool and then, time to "pop" them out of the pan.

This was the point at which I realized that the silicone pan that the cakes were supposed to be baked in was kind of the key of the whole thing. I was using a heart shaped pan, but it wasn't silicone (yes, it's true I have a pan that makes mini heart shaped cakes, but I don't have a panino maker to feed my panino habit). Crap. Seriously, once I pried the little cakes out of their molds, that's what the cake actually looked like, crap. Literally. But I gracefully put the crap on the bed of raspberry sauce and added a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Luckily things that look like crap still can taste good.

So, the cornerstone of my five course Valentine's dinner completely flopped. Really, literally flopped. Thankfully, everything still tasted fan-tastic, and while it took me all day yesterday to prepare everything and it'll probably take me all day today to clean all the dishes, I think that it was totally worth it (though, ask me again once I finish the dishes today).

I'm gonna share the recipe for the nuts (I got it from the Food Network), because I think everyone should try making them. I don't think everyone should try making the chocolate peanut butter heart shaped cake unless you have the specific silicone W-S pan, and that's just annoying. Whether or not you like them on your salad is irrelevant, eat them as a snack, eat them for dessert (guaranteed not to flop), eat them with some cheese and grapes, eat them with some yogurt for breakfast. And, don't forget about all of the goodness and health benefits in them:

Ginger: helps with digestion, helps reduce motion sickness, helps reduce blood pressure and blood clotting (similar to aspirin). Perhaps not enough ginger in the recipe to do all these things, but that doesn't really bother me.
Walnuts: reduce coronary artery disease (Omega-3's), reduce inflammation (Reversatrol flavonoid), reduce likelihood of adult onset diabetes, has lots of Vitamin E (which, apparently, people don't get enough of), helps prevent cancer and some aging (folic acid and ellagic acid)

Enjoy and don't feel bad about all the sugar that's in them!

Spiced Nuts
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 pound pecans (I did some research to find an equivalent in cups, and I thought it was equivalent to about 2 cups, but I think this was a bit of an underestimate. I also made it with half walnuts and half pecans, both were good)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Beat egg whites lightly with salt. Sift together sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice and mix well. Add pecans to egg whites and coat completely. Transfer pecans from which excess egg whites have dripped off to cinnamon sugar mixture. Coat pecans completely and place on parchment lined baking sheet, leaving space between nuts. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until sugar coating on nuts is crisp. Cool and serve or store in an airtight container.

Perfect Panino

2006-02-14T08:32:00.000-05:00

I am a self proclaimed panino snob. There are very few so called panino sandwiches that actually meet my lofty expectations. And most of them are found in Europe or in my kitchen. They are very easy to make and delight all the senses (except perhaps those looking for a romantic dinner for two, which is why I'm not sure why I decided this would be the Valentine's Day posting).

To clarify two points before I continue, the first of which I actually just learned:
1. Panino is the singular form of the word, while panini is the plural form of it (which is why it's even more annoying when restaurants have "panini" on the menu)
2. This is my self-proclaimed perfect panino, while it does reflect what I saw in my European travels, it does not reflect what is and is not a true panino as defined by an actual Italian citizen. I'm just being snobbish over something that I have decided to define as the perfect panino. We all have our faults...just wanted to blog with open disclosure.

The perfect panini have a few key elements: bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, lettuce and olive oil. Some acceptable alterations of this basic recipe include italian meats: prosciutto, sopressa, salami, I'd even allow real Italian bologna (although you would certainly never find that on my sandwich). A sandwich with any other ingredients is simply a glorified grilled cheese, it is ABSOLUTELY NOT a panino. Please just call it what it is, a grilled sandwich.

Perhaps a little background on this topic is necessary, where does one become such a panino snob? For me, it was Paris, France about 8 years ago. I was visiting, and while trying to maintain a low food budget, I was introduced to the panino. I think there is something a little bit more special about the sandwich when you're enjoying it in Luxembourg gardens or on the river Seine. Kind of hard to beat that. The homemade panino is good, but it can never be that good. Every time I've gone back to France or Italy, I have really focused my eating efforts on these delightful sandwiches. And, the other thing, is the panino is to be enjoyed from a street vendor. Don't waste your time ordering it in a restaurant, the best are found on the street.

At this point, you're probably wondering "seriously, she's going to tell us how to put some cheese on some bread and grill it?" Am I right? You are, aren't you? There are a few things that you may not think of that will make your panino second to none (well, maybe second to those found in Europe, but those our really out of reach on a day to day basis). So keep reading.

Now, onto those key ingredients. Let's take them one at a time - starting with the bread.
A baguette is key. Not sliced bread. No no no no no. It must be a baguette. The tricky thing with a baguette is that they tend to be quite crusty. So, you have to take a squeeze of the baguette before you buy it (or you can make it too, just don't make it too crusty, i.e. don't brush with so much water). Just make sure that the outside crust isn't too crusty, and that it gives a bit when you squeeze it. If you're in NY, the Balthazar baguette is perfect.

Next, mozzarella cheese. Absolutely do NOT use the pre-shredded or pre-sliced mozzarella. You can use fresh mozzarella (which is the best), but I'm ok with the low-moisture stuff too. I like to put slices of the cheese on both sides of the bread so it gets super gooey. But that's not really standard, so do what you want.

Onto the tomatoes. Really the only thing you need to know about the tomatoes is that you need to salt and pepper them. Do not forget this step. It is absolutely key. If you're ever lucky enough to eat a tomato off the vine (my first experience doing this was also in Italy, but I was 10, and I'll never forget it), try eating it both with and without salt and pepper. A WORLD of difference. Even if you don't like salt. Try it. It doesn't taste salty, it actually just enhances the sweetness and the flavor of the tomato. You've got to do it. You don't need a lot, a few sprinkles. But it separates a bland sandwich from a world class panino.

And the basil. Add it. It's fantastic. Whole pieces, chopped, whatever. I highly recommend fresh basil. But, if you really really need a panini and you don't have fresh basil, you can use the dried stuff, but it doesn't taste nearly as good. You could also heat up some olive oil with some dried basil to flavor the oil and bring out the basil flavor, still though, not quite the same.

So that's all the stuff you'll add to the sandwich before you grill it. But, you'll also need to add the lettuce once it's done getting all melty. For the lettuce, this too is key - chop it fine (almost shredded) add some olive oil (the best you have) and again, add salt and pepper. Sounds gross, salt on lettuce. But believe me, it just tastes like oily lettuce if you don't add the salt and pepper.

And the grilling process. If you have one of those fancy schmancy panino grills, fan-freakin' tastic. You're all set. If not, try a Foreman grill. And, if you don't have room for a million crazy kitchen gadgets, pull out your grill pan. No grill pan? Just use a regular pan. It doesn't really matter. What you do need, however, if you don't have some kind of pressing type grill, is a cast iron pan. When the sandwich is grilling, you need some weight on the top of it to press it down and make it super gooey and delicious. If you don't have a cast iron pan, you can just put a plate on top of the sandwich and press down on the plate with your hand (hopefully covered in an oven mitt).

So, please, don't go to a restaurant and order a "grilled chicken sundried tomato aioli panini" unless you want something that's not a panino. There's no aioli on panini. There's no grilled chicken on panini. Panini does not come with a side of fries. It comes in some wax paper all wrapped up and ready to eat. And, if you're ever in Europe, please please please try one from a street vendor. You'll understand my obsession.

Panino (add a side salad or soup to make it a meal, serves 2)
1 baguette
8 good size slices of mozzarella
1 tomato, sliced
~ 6 basil leaves
~ 1 cup sliced lettuce
prosciutto, salami, etc... (optional)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Pre-heat your grill pan / panini maker / regular pan. Cut off the ends of the baguette (you can use the ends for croutons, store 'em in your freezer) and cut the baguette in half then slice it lengthwise. Add the first layer of cheese on one side of the bread, and add a layer of sliced tomatoes. Add the salt and pepper to the tomatoes and the basil. Add the meat layer (if you want it) and second layer of cheese. Close up the sandwich. Brush both sides of the bread with some olive oil and add it to the pan (don't forget to weight it down!). While the sandwich is cooking, add the olive oil to the lettuce and the salt and pepper. Set aside. When the bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted (a couple of minutes) flip it over and cook on the other side. When you pull the sandwich off, add some of the lettuce dressed with the olive oil to the middle of the sandwich.

I'm sure as soon as you bite into this hot, crispy, gooey, sandwich you will never go back to any other version of the panino, or at least you'll understand my crazy obsession with the perfect panino.

2006 Adventures in the Purple Crush

2006-02-13T08:56:00.000-05:00

"So, I heard NY got some snow?" "What'd you guys do?" Well, here are a couple of our adventures....

After it finally stopped coming down yesterday evening, the official snow measurement came in at just under 27 inches in Central Park. That makes it THE biggest snowstorm in NYC's history, or as it's fondly now known, The Blizzard of '06 (which must be said in a booming voice with a bit of an echo in the back get the right effect). You would think someone could be a bit more creative in naming the storm. All hurricanes get real names, so you would think that THE biggest blizzard in history would get some kind of name. So, I've decided to refer to the Blizzard of '06 as the purple crush (for those of you that know me well or were at our wedding will understand my history between snow and the color purple, thanks dad).

Late last week I began to hear of the purple crush, and began to plan my weekend accordingly (yes, I AM an obsessive-compulsive planner). I scheduled Fresh Direct for Saturday morning, planned to finish off the rest of the grocery shopping at Fairway, changed our Saturday dinner plans to Saturday brunch plans, and turned the radiator on. I also planned to get our Sunday morning bagels on Saturday after brunch, but Jeff insisted that we make it an adventure Sunday morning and go out in the snow. The best laid plans...
Fresh Direct came an hour late, which made us late for the rescheduled brunch, and Fairway, ah Fairway, where do I begin? (Fairway is a grocery store here, actually, a really good grocery store that's just down the street from us, supposedly people come from all over the city. So, it's always busy, I promise an entry at a future date on the insanity which is shopping at Fairway.)

On this particular Saturday, before the purple crush, it was like walking into a slapstick comedy movie. I felt like people were running around, vegetables, fruit, elbows and bodies flying through the air. Checkout lines were wrapped (literally, I am NOT EVEN exaggerating, you can ask Jeff) around the store and OUT the door. People were walking down the aisles asking others if they were in line for checkout; it was impossible to tell if someone was actually shopping or checking out. Someone tried taking my stuff out of my cart and taking the cart, but I was able to successfully defend our cart. We made it out of the store, with everything we went in for, but we went home and had to take 2 hour naps to recover.

Saturday night I was like a kid before Christmas, "is it snowing yet?" "how much do you think we'll get?" I kept looking out the window. By midnight there was still barely a dusting on the ground. A little disappointed, we went to bed, I had visions of snowmen dancing in my head. But I wasn't disappointed when we woke up Sunday morning, and it was still coming down! Lola was even trying to attack the snowflakes through the window. When I opened my eyes the first thing I whispered out of my mouth was "the storm" (much like Doc whispered in "Back to the Future.") It had come in full force!

Purple Crush Adventure #1: H&H Bagels
We headed out for our bagels around 9 or so. I stepped out of our front door and right into thigh deep snow (to be fair, it was snow drift). The very first thing we felt was a calm that had come over the city. It was so quiet. No cars, no people, just snow. Bright white snow. And it was kind of snow that drapes the trees, picture perfect. It was literally the exact opposite of our experience at Fairway. All there was, was the sound of silence.

Walking to the bagel shop, it was impossible to see. Thank goodness we knew where we were going, street signs were covered, my glasses were less than useless, but we could wander down the middle of the street since there were no cars, and even if there were, they wouldn't be able to get through. Half way to H&H Jeff wondered out loud who's dumb idea was it to go out and get bagels. I gently (or perhaps, not so gently) reminded him it was his. But we knew that the reward of hot fresh bagels was going to be sweet (or in my case, savory), especially because we were certainly getting our workout as we blindly trudged through the knee deep snow. Really, the reward was that there no line on Sunday morning at H&H. After returning home after a successful bagel procurement trip, we decided that we were going to hit Central Park in the afternoon.

Purple Crush Adventure #2: Central Park
Puffy coat - check
Knee high snow boots - check
Camera - check
Ski pants - check

Ski pants? Are you kidding? Of course we were going to wear our ski pants, there was thigh deep snow out there (and yes, Jeff does have ski pants even though he doesn't ski)!

Central Park was fantastic, I believe that just about everyone in the city was in the park (probably why the streets were so quiet). But there was an atmosphere of camaraderie and smiles all around. Dogs were bounding around, completely covered in the white stuff, parents were pulling their kids on sleds through the streets and sidewalks of the park (which were really just snow paths). We stopped to take some pictures and a very nice lady insisted that she take our picture together and insisted that she crouch down in the snow to make sure she got us the perfect Christmas card picture (Purple Crush pictures will soon be available on my website).

We saw everything, it was after all, still New York. Umbrellas, snow boards, runners in shorts, people pulling luggage and women in high heels. Yes, high heels. Clearly, tourists. New Yorkers aren't that dumb.
We saw sleds of all shapes and sizes: cardboard boxes, traditional wood, plastic bins, and what we decided to use - our good ole' fannies. Not so slippery, but still does the job. Thank goodness for bib ski pants.

The funny thing to me was that everyone was taking pictures, not really pictures of people though (that's what we were taking pictures of). They were taking pictures of everything with snow on it. Look - that tree, with a bit of snow on one of the branches! Look, you can't see those buildings because it's snowing, take a picture of the building you can't see! Hey, there's ducks on that pond over there, let's go get a shot. And, the statue, covered in snow!
It's not like it doesn't ever snow here! I have yet to figure that one out.

Two hours later we trudged home. Our adventures thanks to the purple crush made us weary but very much content in the joy of the city we found in Central Park. And, when we got home, the only thing that could top off our afternoon was the perfect cup of hot chocolate. I'm sure by the end of today, much of the snow will resemble the color of our hot chocolate, but I'm also sure we won't forget our 2006 adventures in the purple crush.

Hot Chocolate
3 T Scharffen-Berger Sweetened Chocolate powder
2 T water
mug full of warm/steamed milk
marshmallows (optional)

Mix the water and chocolate together until a smooth paste. Add it to the warm milk and add the marshmallows and serve!

Just to let you know, I'm off duty on the weekends

2006-02-10T21:54:00.000-05:00

I'll be back on Monday!

Dinner according to Jeff - Breakfast!

2006-02-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

If you would have put eggs down in front of Jeff about four years ago, he would have turned his nose (or really, he would have just not eaten them). Now, he can't get enough. Something happened somewhere between Michigan, California, and Florida a few years ago. We went on vacation and he came home an egg lover. Perhaps I should clarify, a scrambled egg/omelet lover. He still won't touch a runny yolk.

Now, he eats eggs anytime he gets the chance. This past fall, whenever he would cook himself dinner or breakfast or lunch, it would be scrambled eggs. That's it. For four months that was the only thing that was on the menu, (to be fair, he didn't actually cook himself a meal very often). I think that he may just really like ketchup, with which he smothers his eggs; typically his plate is half eggs half ketchup, but I have much weirder food eating habits, so I won't poke fun.

And I used to love eggs. Sunny side up was my favorite, or as I fondly referred to them - "dippity eggs" (dippity because I could 'dip' my toast into the runny yolk). But I liked scrambled too. My mom made a mean egg. Now, I'm sort of indifferent. I'll eat omelets if they're stuffed with lots of delicious things (sausage, feta, tomatoes, ...) or every once in awhile I'm game for a poached or scrambled egg, especially if its on an H&H bagel with bacon and muenster cheese.

I do, however, like to eat the Omega-3 eggs, makes me feel healthy. I don't eat nearly enough flax seed to get those delightful Omega-3's. In fact, I never eat flax seed unless its disguised as something else or hiding in a muffin or something I don't know about. Although Kashi has a delectable granola bar that has those potent little seeds which is actually quite tasty. I'm also a bit afraid of fish (another good source of Omega-3's). I love fish, almost any variety, but it changes practically daily which fish you can and can't eat because of over fishing and farming, and I absolutely can not keep track of the "bad to eat because of high levels of mercury" fishes. Although the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California is supposed to keep an updated list on these issues, who wants to be checking a list every time you feel like fish, especially if you're out at the restaurant? However, I have heard that Google has a beta service for your cell phone that you can text message them with a search and they'll text you back the answer, so I suppose you can actually check the list even if you're at a restaurant.
And there it is, I have digressed. Back to the topic at hand...

Are you beginning to see the issue? Jeff wants eggs for every meal. I'd rather have something else. The answer came to us last summer when Jeff was in California. He had this wonderful Italian roommate who introduced us to the wonder which is the frittata. I had seen recipes for them before, just looked like an omelet to me. But, what I learned, was that the eggs in the frittata were just a vehicle for any and every leftover you have in the fridge. Leftover pasta? Put it in a frittata! Leftover steak? Add some eggs! Veggies, meat, cheese, noodles, rice, whatever! And Jeff could get his breakfast for dinner. Now it's pretty standard if we have pasta one night for dinner, the next night will be frittata with the leftovers. You can either put in 'naked' cooked noodles or throw in the leftover pasta, sauce and all.

The BEST part of this meal, is that it epitomizes the one pot meal. The dishes that I dirtied yesterday (in our frittata after pasta ritual): one small bowl (for mixing the eggs), the cutting board (unavoidable unless I don't cook at all), and a 10" pan. That's it! My kitchen was still clean, while I was cooking, even in a NY apartment kitchen. Unbelievable. ESPECIALLY for me.

So, keep your kitchen clean, get dinner on the table in 20 minutes and eat a meal that's quite nutritious (depending on what you add) and keeps everyone in your family happy! How could I not share this one?!

Frittata
This recipe serves two for dinner, add some garlic bread or a salad to round it out. Just increase or decrease the amount of eggs to change the number it serves, but be careful as you'll also need to change the size of your pan as well

6 eggs (or some combination of egg whites and eggs, you definitely need some whole eggs though)
milk
salt and pepper
whatever you have leftover in the fridge (asparagus, peppers, onions, feta, sundried tomatoes, regular tomatoes, garlic, pasta, chicken, meat, are some of our favorites)
Last night we had: half an onion sliced, half bunch asparagus cut up in small pieces, leftover pasta (~ 1 cup), spinach (some), sundried tomato (4 tomatoes, cut up) and feta (~ 1/4 cup)

Pre-heat oven to 400. Heat some oil in a non-stick pan that can go in the oven over medium/medium high heat. Add the veggies that need a little extra time to soften (asparagus, peppers) or the onions if you want them a bit carmelized. Add the pasta. Mix the eggs in a bowl with a splash of milk. Beat eggs very well (if you want, it's even better to throw them in a blender). Lower the heat to medium low and add the eggs to the pan. As the egg cooks on the edge of the pan, use a spatula to scrape the sides and tip the pan so that the runny egg can get to the edge. When the egg is beginning to set, add the rest of the ingredients (the cheese, sundried tomatoes, etc...). Don't forget to season each layer that goes into the pan with salt and pepper. Once the egg is almost completely set, put the pan in the oven for 5 - 10 minutes.
Enjoy!

Tangelos -- "a crummy commercial"

2006-02-09T08:28:00.000-05:00

We've all seen the NY Times ads every weekend recently for Honeybell Tangelos (if you haven't seen them, there's an ad every weekend for tangelos). According to the ad, ONLY AVAILABLE ONCE PER YEAR! Last week, while I was doing my grocery shopping at Fresh Direct, I saw, gasp, the famous tangelos (only the Minneola variety though). Being a victim to advertising, I instantly added them to my "cart" -- seriously, if I could only get them once per year, I wasn't going to miss my opportunity.

So before I get to my tasting, I'll digress into a bit of background on the tangelo. Doing a bit more research on Wikipedia (and the sources listed on Wikipedia's Tangelo entry) I found that the tangelo is a cross between a tangerine (that might be obvious from the name) and either a grapefruit or a pummelo. To digress further, a pummelo appears to be a strain of grapefruit and according to one site I found, may also go by the names: pamplemousse, pomelo, Bali lemon, Limau besar, and shaddock. They also tend to have a bell shape, which aids in peeling. Anyways, after learning a bit more about what tangelos are, it occurred to me that this may be one of the world's most perfect foods (well, it's no blueberry, but hear me out).

Grapefruits are a good source of lycopene (also found in tomatoes and even more so in cooked tomatoes) but have a drawback of "increasing the bioavailability" of medicines. Tangerines/oranges are obviously a great source of Vitamin C, they also have some powerful flavonoids that are antioxidant and antimutigenic. When the two were crossed it appears that the issue with the "bioavailability" of the grapefruit is no longer an issue (although I really wouldn't take my word for it). Holy cow, it's a citrus miracle!

So on to the tasting...

I peeled my Minneola with great anticipation, although it wasn't the "dream to peel" as advertised. I took my first bite. Huh, I thought...tastes like an orange. So much for the "sweet" and "in a class by themselves" citrus treat. My first response, was similar to Ralphie's in "A Christmas Story" when he got his decoder pin from Little Orphan Annie -- "...a crummy commercial..."
Now, I do like oranges, so all was not lost, but still, come on, what's all the hype? I must be missing something. It was like buying Sunny D and realizing that the unique blend of 5 citrus fruits really didn't add up to anything all that great (in fact, I think Sunny D is citrus fruit gone bad) Perhaps it was because I didn't get to try the Honeybell variety of the tangelos. Maybe next year...

Here's the recipe section, but I don't have a recipe for you today, just some ideas
I would, however, recommend using these for a vinaigrette, the oil you add helps release the lycopene from grapefruits (not sure how) in your body. I think that citrus vinaigrettes are great on fennel salads/cole slaw (add some granny smith apples too, yum!), or even better as a marinade or sauce for fish. And don't forget to use the zest, its even better for you, it has limonene (it stimulates our "antioxidant detoxification enzyme system" and helps prevent the growth of tumors, and both of those sound pretty darn good to me).

So I would recommend to keep eating your citrus, and if you're bored of regular oranges or clementines by now, try a tangelo, it'll taste exactly the same, but you'll feel exotic.

The first, and hopefully not the last

2006-02-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

While I have some time on my hands, I figured I'd share all my exciting (and perhaps not terribly exciting) endeavors in my kitchen and in my new home in NYC.

The first adventure began yesterday while I attempted to create the family-famous pierogi recipe. It began well intentioned. Got the official recipe from Grammy, wrote it diligently in my "Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans" cookbook and dug my heels in. Unfortunately, in our small NY kitchen, I needed to knead the dough on the table. Great, if we didn't have one of those tables with sides that fold down (more explanation later). It also would have been better if I would have remembered to add the egg yolks before I had kneaded the dough and set it to rest. Hmmm...that presented a problem.

In a stroke of culinary stupidity, out of the fridge came the dough and in went the egg yolks to the smooth ball of dough. What then happened was an oozing mess of egg yolk covered dough, dripping through the cracks of the kitchen table (where the sides fold down) onto the floor. Even the cat wasn't interested in the mess.

A pile of flour and an extended resting period for the dough later, I rolled it out, stuffed them with a delicious potato mixture...and I ended up pulling it out in the end. If you're interested in this terribly resilient dough recipe...see below (Grammy, I hope you don't mind I'm giving away the family secret).

Pierogi (this is intentionally left to be somewhat ambiguous, use your culinary judgment)
2 cups flour
1 cup sour cream (use the good stuff)
2 egg yolks (don't forget these the first time!)
1 T melted butter
salt

Mix everything together in food processor until just comes together. Dump out on table and knead a bit until smooth. Let rest for 10-15 minutes (or longer if you've made a mess of it). Roll out dough, stuff with your favorite filling. Boil then fry in butter.
DEE-LICIOUS!