Marinationwide

Multicultural

2009-12-16T21:02:00.005-05:00

You might have to click on this picture to see what's going on. This is the kefir section at Key Foods, which is a pretty regular-sized grocery store with a parking lot. It's a place that stupidly sells a lot of fresh produce packaged on Styrofoam trays wrapped in plastic, but it is thoughtful enough to carry Itallian "00" flour, fresh yeast, shmancy D'Artagnan products, and all the flavors of cheap, big-bottled fruit syrups. What I just learned though, is that it also carries a ridiculous line of cultured dairy products. In this line up you will see the common:

-Strawberry/Banana
-Raspberry
-Strawberry
-Apricot

But you can also choose from:

-Classic
-Original
-Plain
-Apollo
-Mountain ("Drincable")

All have distinct labels, but no real clues (minus "Mountain") as to where they fall in the spectrum, if indeed there is one. Getting all of them at once for a taste-test seems very unlikely.

The December Sun Times

2009-12-02T10:41:00.008-05:00

Last week was when it really started hitting me about Gourmet being gone. There was a flurry of turkey imagery around, and grocery stores filled with people who were intent on actually cooking food. My last issue arrived in its bodybag and stayed unmoving on the kitchen table, wrapped up with a full piece of paper that appeared to be some kind of wasteful, mean joke. Last chance offer, yes, ha ha.

Is that a bullet hole?

Flipping through the consolation prize Bon Appetit subscription cards I started to get that creeping Sunday-night feeling of...oh no, we are nearing the end of the weekend and there will be no December issue. The cookie issue.

That would have been a special treat for me, since I have a particular interest in cookies, but I realize now that its nearly a new year, and one I am looking forward to. Change is good and moves things around in ways you hadn't expected. I loved the photography in Gourmet, the colors, the cool lighting, the straightforward recipes and text, the eclectic tableware, and the wide range of subjects. I still like a print magazine in general; I can carry it, work from it, file it and return to it later. That one has taught me a lot, and I will miss it.

What a wonderful surprise to see my ironwork cookies this week on the cover of my other favorite magazine, Edible Brooklyn. EB and I arrived in Brooklyn around the same time, and I thought, "man, I really moved to the right place!" I love the photography, the matte finish, the clean high-content layout, the relevant ads, and the quarterly portrait of this diverse place. Community, culture, and visual and physical experience is what drives me to food in the first place (and to Edible Brooklyn). Making cookies is a way for me to contribute, translate and share things that fascinate me and distribute that in something that fits in your hand and doesn't last forever. I made those ironwork cookies because I love looking at the fences everyday in my neighborhood, I love how they were made and that they were made here, and there ended up being a cookie issue after all.

Eden of the Empire State

2009-10-30T12:46:00.001-04:00

I didn't grow up visiting orchards in the fall, but I see why New Yorkers feel so strongly about it, and I'm catching up. They are the most romantic of places, a low-slung mysterious maze of short, strong trees. The silvery leaves are hung with ornaments the brilliant colors of perfect and marred fruit. The ground is rolling with apples and long grass. Walking only a few steps, you can disappear entirely.

Man, what a drawing.

Apple in Halloween costume as plum.

This Week On eBay...

2009-10-07T16:41:00.003-04:00

Produced for MoMA (NYC) but shipped from seller in New Mexico..I love it. I knew it was old because these wouldn't be the iconic building silhouettes chosen for this product today. Also the faint windowpane grid background is an eighties contemporary look. I do wonder about those "Fake Architectural Cookie Cutters" that must be out there...this is a terrific find for Sugarbuilt.

West Indian Day Parade

2009-09-09T03:31:00.012-04:00

I spent Monday with other New Yorkers (almost all of them, I think) at the parade and carnival on Eastern Parkway. It was an incredible cultural mash-up that included noise, color, food, and togetherness...no wonder I had such a good time!

Pholourie. Fried spiced dough balls with a thin sweet chutney.

Delicious goat roti...

Jerk chicken...

Some alcoholic thing from Barbados...

Fab earrings!

Girl vs. The Branzino

2009-08-20T16:25:00.000-04:00

Wherein Amelia Goes to the Hamptons and Cooks as a Private Chef

Here are some of the photos I took this past weekend, when I cooked eight meals in four days for a private household.

Whole Roasted Branzino

Here is the cherry chutney I made to have with roast pork, corn, roast potatoes, and sauteed red chard with pecans. It was deliciously dark, sour, spicy and sweet.

Moroccan Spiced Roasted Chicken

Summer Squash Corn and Poblano Soup

Chilling watercress vichyssoise.

Green beans and carrots, duh.

Roasted Curry Cauliflower

Wild Rice Salad

Fennel Watermelon Mint Salad

Different day, different fennel salad...

Tabouli

Turkish breakfast with poached eggs in toast cups and ginger scones.

Pear Sorbet, Poached Pears, and Ginger Meringue Cookie

Strawbrerry Rhubarb Tart (for the recipe, see the post I did on Saucy Little Dish here)

Lemon Cake Pudding with Lemon Ginger Caramel

Plum Sorbet with Cherry Tuille and Fig

Love Badge

2009-08-17T01:19:00.000-04:00

I Love Lettuce

2009-07-28T15:29:00.005-04:00

I just realized that I have taken too many pictures of lettuce this week to not acknowledge it here. It's fresh at the store, it takes up yards of table at the farmers market, it's overflowing CSA shares. To see all those lacy green piles... I am so taken with how beautiful they are. Sure I make salads, and I've made an intricate lettuce soup with a savory custard on two occasions, but no portrait series or Ode to Lettuce. Until today- I declare my love!

Growing up we had "real" lettuce, or green leaf lettuce. This was because my mom grew up on white bread and iceberg (among other things) and so she bought dry, dense wheat bread (boy has that come a long way) and real lettuce and did not stock soda or cereal more sugary than Honey Nut Cheerios. As soon as I was at other houses or comparing lunchboxes I yearned for the exotic crunch of iceberg and remember begging for it (she must have been so horrified). I was rejected with "there is nothing IN iceberg lettuce". I have forgiven her for that and am in fact totally grateful that she made the choices she did in feeding me. I actually still love iceberg, particularly involved in a red onion-blue cheese dressing situation, but now I love all the other lettuces too...

This varietal is called Salad Bowl! It truly fills a huge bowl...at least briefly.

Relate to Horseradish

2009-07-19T13:05:00.004-04:00

How do we learn what is appropriate for ourselves and those we share our lives with? It seems obvious how much horseradish is too much, when eyes water and the nose hurts, but how much horseradish is just enough or too little, how much will enhance and delight the right way when feeding yourself or someone else? At what point do we start to know the flavor enough to recognize its complement, and not be overwhelmed by it? Everyone’s taste is different and every mouth understands a different bite. If you overdo it, you risk losing the flavor or texture of the food. At the least, what measure makes it not even worth it, hardly a taste? We start to guess by seeing what everyone else does, and we learn by experimenting to find what feels right for us. If all goes well, you know what you like but are still willing to bumble through more trials to discover something new, or even the same thing over again.

It was a private moment of excitement years ago when I stood in my kitchen alone and put horseradish on a hard-boiled egg for the first time. I learned how much was appropriate for each bite, and was thrilled to experience this new combination (and discover a new vehicle for horse radish!). I wondered if this would satisfy anyone in the same way as it did me. I imagined standing in the kitchen with someone else, sharing horseradish in our own proportion, but remaking the discovery together.

Have You Been To Brighton Beach?

2009-06-22T14:27:00.008-04:00

These are huge sheet cakes from a grocery store in the Russian neighborhood of Brighton Beach, just a ways down from Coney Island, in Brooklyn. The one on the right is covered in poppy seeds and golden raisins. I had a cold red borscht at Gina's which was perfect with beets, dill, and a crunch of cucumber.

Pickled watermelon.

Pastries were for sale all around the store. There were savory ones by the hot bar of Stroganoff and cabbage, cherry turnovers by the salads, and enormous slabs of cake and piles of cookies that filled a case as long as my apartment.

The actual beach.

What The Hell Is That?

2009-06-18T20:59:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I am moved to make things for many reasons...

See more pics and how at saucylittledish.wordpress.com

The Tapestry Dinner

2009-06-15T02:00:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures from the Tapestry Dinner, a supperclub-style evening I worked on with a crew of talented peeps in a wonderful loft in Brooklyn. Above is the salad course: watermelon, avocado, mango and cucumber with pea shoots and a spicy dressing. Below is the main: orange marinated grilled steak and cous cous.

Prep and plating was spacious and efficient atop the temporarily converted pool table.

Tea macerated oranges with pistachio creme anglaise and pistachio tuille. This was the best part! Well, and there was dancing...

Springtime in the Rustbelt

2009-05-29T00:00:00.002-04:00

Observations From a Recent Trip to Southeastern Michigan and Toledo, Ohio.

As the trees were bursting forth and the flat expanses of grass appeared, I found myself absolutely fascinated by this region. I felt a driving tug that propelled me into junk stores to spend hours looking through things. I combed the internet and grocery store aisles and read road signs, looking and listening for the layers, the identities, the truth. I wanted to see beyond the franchised landscape. Where are the pieces of people's homes, lives, histories- in this area as they once were in boom times and as they are now? The place is steeped in car culture, manufacturing, chain stores, politeness and heartache. The effects of corporate culture, lost jobs and bland heavy food is everywhere, but I found an original and complex garden.

In Monroe, a town south of Detroit and north of Toledo, there is more than one locally-owned seasonal drive-in chili dog and root beer place. At both, young female carhops deliver trays that rest on your windows, ponytails swinging as they log another mile of their summer jobs. Both drive-ins are orange, and neither are plastered with a big A&W sign, apparently the root beer is homemade. I tried to ask about that-how do they make it? The girls just shrugged and said they made they're own. I would love to believe that someone is brewing their own herbacious syrup every week for the thousands of frosty mugs of root beer sold in the summer, and not dispensing a generic corn syrup concentrate into the machine, but I haven't talked to that person yet, so it will for now remain a mystery.

There was rhubarb growing in the back yard of a friend's house. I pulled up a stalk and washed it and cut it and ate it raw with sugar. The big leaves are poisonous, but I heard you can eat the stalk raw, in small quantities, which appears to be true and delicious.

One afternoon I went for an outing at a state park on Lake Erie. It was perfectly sunny, and grass and trees grew almost to the edge of the water. I walked on the beach as such with my cowboy boots on. The sound was like walking through the burned rubble of a porcelain factory, hundreds of Zebra Mussel shells crushing under each step. This lake was incredibly polluted at midcentury and though there have been years of regulation it still has plenty of problems, the plague of zebra mussels among them. The breeze blows and I squint at a pair of cooling towers on a far shore.

I found this in an antique mall alongside tiny sparkling glass salt cellars.

I saw remarkable architecture like the Greek-revival Toledo Art Museum and its smart looking new glass wing. Toledo is the "Glass City" because of the work of Libbey Glass, Owens-Corning, and other auto and object glass manufacturers that developed the area. There are blocks and blocks of amazing houses in the Old West End neighborhood, house after hulking house in Tudor, Late Victorian, and Arts and Crafts styles, to name a few.

As I meet the Midwest, the Midwest greets me in a surprising way. I was stunned to see this menu item available at a sports bar in Toledo. No fanfare, no bungled novelty, just an honest to god New Mexican green chile cheeseburger.

Saucy Little Dish

2009-05-21T12:00:00.000-04:00

Sandia (watermelon) agua fresca from a truck from the ball fields in Red Hook, Brooklyn. This drink defines the term glow.

I will be contributing to a new blog called Saucy Little Dish with seven other lovely ladies. My first post goes up today! Check it out here..

From the Company That Perfected the Dream of Controlled Nature

2009-05-09T01:00:00.001-04:00

...part of a complete breakfast with juice and toast by...Mattel?

Brooklyn April 2009

2009-04-12T01:27:00.001-04:00

Chocolate Vodka

2009-03-25T21:37:00.006-04:00

The second attempt went better. This time I used vodka, cocoa nibs and vanilla beans and sweetened it with a simple syrup made with vanilla sugar. I recently tasted some chocolate vodka made by a guy in Red Hook, Brooklyn which had a remarkable flavor; the effect was the moment of biting into a perfect bar of chocolate. I don't think mine is as complex as that one, but it is certainly interesting and tasty.

As for the first round "disaster" liqueur, I didn't toss it. My friend Anne suggested I could make a sort of bitters out of it so I added orange peel, star anise, cardamom, and cinnamon bark. After adding a deep caramel to it, it should be usable, I hope. We'll see.

Fat Mardi From Brooklyn

2009-02-24T18:02:00.010-05:00

Oh my, are those the sweet lumps of a bead-hungry parade-goer? No, they are Paczki (PUNCH-key), the plump Polish donuts that will magically turn you into one if you eat too many of them. They are eaten year round but are scarfed up especially on Fat Tuesday as the decadent parcels they are before the days of Lent. They are filled with jam, and the ones seen here are filled with cherry and plum (the real stuff, not a matte-finish polymer goo).

I researched king cakes again this year, an oval braided ring-shaped cake with garishly bright decorations in the Mardi Gras colors green, gold, and purple. I am interested in the community spirit of it. King cakes are shared in groups like most cakes and there is a trinket hidden in its crumb, usually a baby (representing the baby Jesus). Whoever gets this piece assumes responsibility for the next gathering and cake. It used to be that the trinkets were baked-in porcelain figures or penny-dolls, but these days liability requires most to have a plastic baby inserted after baking. I would love to see some of those old ceramic ones.

Perhaps there are king cakes to be had somewhere in New York, but there are definitly paczki. I found these at the tiny Polish bakery Rzeszowska on Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Watch out for these hard sugar figurine-weapons that are starting to be prominently displayed. Come Easter, they can be unwrapped and flung to inflict pointy, adorable springtime traditionalism.

Infused and Furious

2009-02-18T11:59:00.003-05:00

Weeks after I closed up my attempt at homemade chocolate liqueur, I opened it to discover a cocoa-scented elixir that will work nicely for stripping furniture and cleaning cuts. It was a disaster! The cocoa nibs and vanilla beans had done their part and given all their essence over to the base, which as the recipe specified- was 151 rum. I have never heard of including such a spirit in a cocktail, and the idea of this being "showcased" in one seems impossible, since a drop is face melting. I should have recalled the high school moment watching boys blow fireballs by spitting 151 over lighters. I am still tempted to try it again since I've tasted divine chocolate liqueurs (including a homemade one). Should I give it a go with regular rum? Please let me know if you have any ideas (that don't include blinding moonshine).

Happy New Year Some More

2009-02-04T09:00:00.001-05:00

Is this the third New Year-type post this year? Yes! This time it is for Chinese New Year, which is a vibrant experience in New York City. I started in Flushing, Queens for dim sum with friends on New Year's eve (1/25), watched fireworks over Manhattan from my fire escape during the week, and went to the parade in Chinatown this past Saturday. I am just now learning about this celebration, and it is easy for me to love. Dim sum is thankfully around all year, and is so appealing with its seemingly endless rounds of small different bites. Combine this feasting with copious amounts of joyful red, fireworks, and drums, and I am a giddy mess.

We started with shumai, and went on to a fried shrimp-stuffed chili, stuffed eggplants, pork shortribs, a bland congee (rice porridge), and lots of tea. I had chicken feet (above) for the first time, which were covered in a lovely sauce, and that is all I'll say about that...

I was impressed with the steamed pork buns, which were sweet and smoky and parceled in a heavenly dough that I wouldn't mind being wrapped up and steamed in myself. The perfectly spherical ones were filled with a thick sweet bean paste that tasted of peanuts. My favorites were these pork folded dumplings that slipped wonderfully, and delicate curried beef turnovers. All of the pastry-making was a marvel of texture and craftsmanship.

I insisted we order a gelatin dessert because it just looked so amazing, and reminded me of the fish tanks behind our heads. It was very firm and flavored with tea and goji berries and was interesting but so aromatic and strong that I couldn't eat more than a bite. After all this the bill was delightfully puny and we strolled through the busy streets and unusual markets.

On Saturday, the parade came down Mott street stopping and starting, with confetti shooting in the air, loud bangs, and tacky, traditional and exuberant everything. Afterward, we walked with every other person in the city down to eat soup dumplings on Pell street, which were perfect and simple and cheap. I felt lucky to be in such a city and especially to eat these wonderful things in the year of the ox. Here is to each bite taking us closer to our fortune, and not missing the opportunities on our plate.

Obamarama

2009-01-20T08:00:00.002-05:00

It feels like New Year's day all over again, but I didn't make black-eyed peas...I made cookies! Today the new President is sworn into office and I'll be checking out an interesting blog called Obama Foodorama, which will be posting when possible from the crush of humanity in Washington D.C.. This blog is a chronicle of Barack Obama and food. At first I wasn't sure what that even meant, but getting into it is well worth it. You will find recipes, food-political commentary, informative links, goofy pictures, ag policy and cupcakes. The variety of items is intriguing and the blog paints a wide and complex picture of an interesting subject and our culture at this moment. These are attributes that Marinationwide can happily endorse. Let the inaugurating begin!!!

Winter Chocolate Liqueur

2009-01-10T22:58:00.012-05:00

My friend Eric recently returned form Peru and brought me some cocoa beans. Thank you Eric! Opening the jar releases a complex and unmistakable smell. I spent a long time cracking them open by hand and picking out the dark shiny, jagged meat. There are quicker ways to do this, but I wanted to inspect them meditatively while listening to the radio on a snowy night.

Some of the beans really do have a purple color and remind me of Kalamatas. What to do with them? I followed a recipe for homemade chocolate liqueur from Epicurious that includes nibs, vanilla beans and the very flammable 151. I have to shake it every day for 21 days-away from heat and flame. Hopefully when I open the jar in three weeks I will be met with an intoxicating chocolate aroma (as one would imagine). I'll let you know.

Fine in '09

2009-01-01T15:35:00.000-05:00

How many will she eat this year?

Happy New Year! Its time again to eat blackeyed peas for luck and fortune, a superstitious and delicious tradition. Usually I've used canned which works great but I happen to be in New Mexico where the options are broader! Frozen, fresh, dry AND organic? Alright!

Blackeyed Peas For New Years

-Blackeyed Peas, in some form, say two cans, drained (in my case this year, the fresh and frozens needed a lot of liquid to cook in to get done, so the green chile sort of dissolved into a stewy surrounding. There were also some cubes of pork involved.)
-Bacon, a few strips of thick cut, cut crosswise
-1 onion, diced
-1 bell pepper, diced
-3 cloves of garlic, minced
-1 bay leaf
-5 roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped green chiles
-Crushed red pepper flakes
-Shake of Sherry
-Chicken stock and/or water
-Lots of S&P

Cook the Bacon, and take it out before it gets crispy. Brown the pork cubes and take them out before they're too done. Saute the onion, garlic, bay leaf and green pepper in the bacon fat till soft and add the peas, chile, stock, sherry and red pepper flakes. Season as you go along, but mostly at the end. Let cook for about 45 minutes, till tender and spicy and come together. Eat each bite knowing that it can only improve your chances this year. Salud!

Feliz Navidad 2008

2008-12-24T01:34:00.002-05:00

Rural Projects Supperclub

2008-11-01T22:00:00.005-04:00

Saturday 9/27/08 was the night of the Rural Projects Supperclub. Rural Projects is run by some dear friends of mine who are lucky to live in the beautiful and bountiful Columbia County, NY. Spending several days up there, I tried to hunt down as many immediately local ingredients as I could, in order to cook a dinner for twenty people. Though it was the end of the season, I found nearly everything I wanted- ( what, no local star anise?) at small farms, a co-op, and neighbors' houses.

There is an index I found of all the farms in every county in New York, with a handy description of their specialties and what-not. Over coffee in the tiny-hip town of Hudson, we plotted out where the organic farms were, and an efficient path to reach them. Though everything was found nearby, it still meant a fair amount of driving around in order to produce this dinner, but the trees were turning, so it was hard to feel bad about. Using the excellent advice of the Dear Friends, the farm list, and the help of an enthusiastic and patient co-navigator, the items were gathered, checked off and hauled in to meet their fate.

These sheep produced the yogurt and Roquefort.

One of several darling diners.

I used polenta made by Wild Hive Farm in Clinton Corners, which was technically out of my region, but jeez- how wonderful. I also found a vodka called Core (made from apples), that is produced in the county, but I had already started infusing my own, darnit. I got a chance to taste the Core and it was fabulous and smooth with an appley breath, and comes in a classy bottle. I will remember it for the future, upstate or not.

We were lucky to visit the homestead of some pals of my Dear Friends who grow almost all their own food. I was blown away to be in their beautiful house and garden, and be able to use a bit of their yield (eggs, squash, onions, 5 kinds of basil, tomatoes, carrots, and leeks-or rather, the largest single leek I've ever seen).

The most idyllic kitchen window.

Brown, blue, and green eggs, all laid by different hens.

A peek into their remarkable pantry!

After all the traipsing and collecting, there was cooking. Two friends of mine came down to help and were stellar, and there were plenty of helpers, logistical engineers, ambiance coordinators, and finally eaters, all interesting and talented and fun.

The evening began outside, with cocktail hour held underneath a sculpture by the first Rural Projects artist-in-residence. The piece is called Rt. 11 by Martine Kaczynski, 2007, and resembles an abandoned gas station canopy. Read more here.

My tribute to the location.

Rural Projects Supperclub Menu

Cocktails
"Rural Rose": Pluot Puree, Pernod, Cava
"Columbia Cocktail": Honeycrisp Apple infused Vodka, Rosemary Syrup, Soda
Hors d'oeuvre
Green Chile Mini-Tamales
Roquefort Walnut Shortbread with Sheep Yogurt and Apple Onion Pickle
Soup
Butternut Squash and Apple with Bacon and Walnuts
Salad
Spicy Greens with Shredded Beet, Fennel and Purple Basil
Entree
Moroccan Spiced Chicken, Smoky Eggplant Puree with Yogurt, Crispy Polenta, Roasted Tomato
Dessert
Corn Ice Cream with Sexy Star Anise Whiskey Sauce