Marinationwide

Summer Love

2011-07-22T23:44:00.001-04:00

Philly Weekend: Architecture and Pretty Good Food

2010-07-22T17:44:00.015-04:00

I spent a wonderful weekend in Philadelphia and met up with my stepmom, who was there for a sustainable agriculture conference. We soaked in a few wonderful meals, and some even better design, a couple of our favorite things. She has a history as a blacksmith, and introduced me to the killer ironwork of Philadelphia's Samuel Yellin, which I found very inspiring.

Sort of a high/low thing going on here...

They just DO NOT make 'em like they used to.

Built in boot scraper.

We visited Capogiro Gelato, that uses local and seasonal ingredients. We both tried several flavors, then had a dish of two, then repeated that process and I don't regret that part at all. I was excited about the sweet Amish milk option, and the fact that they had pale pink Queen Anne cherry AND black cherry.

We had an awesome all-out dinner at Parc on Rittenhouse Square. A beautiful french brasserie with endless tables, interesting details, great lighting and great service. Many tables are on the sidewalk, and there is a large transitional section of indoor/outdoor space. I think I could live there.

Trout Amandine, perfectly and simply done.

Glintyness after dinner.

The lighting and floors at Parc.

A flavorful gazpacho and knockout buckwheat blueberry pancakes at a noisy hipster pub.

The train station kicks ass, in a very grown-up way.

Red Hot Summer

2010-06-24T17:10:00.006-04:00

Past and Present Pattern

2010-03-26T13:46:00.008-04:00

Passover is approaching. I was at Landau's this week, a fairly large Jewish grocery store in Boro Park, Brooklyn, where it was Pesach-Madness everywhere you looked. The entire store has been thoroughly reorganized for the onslaught of good business that the holiday necessitates. The endcaps are stocked for the season, with latex and powder-free rubber gloves, intricately braided candles, pre-packaged tiny packets of breadcrumbs, and clear signage for what is Kosher For Passover. The cleaning product aisle is impressive, since families will be performing a full-tilt spring cleaning. I bought some Chrayonnaise dip, a puree of beets, horseradish, vinegar, spices and mayo. There are lots of beets-with-horseradish and horseradish-with-beets situations, but I hadn't seen this smooth electric version. I also picked a soft and graphic marbled rye from the rapidly declining bread corner. There was an enormous mound of gnarly fresh horseradish, and I can only imagine the vapors it will release in its processing before reaching the Seder tables..a powerful scent drifting in the spring air.

Love Appears

2010-02-14T13:40:00.000-05:00

Oh, Canada...

2010-02-05T20:24:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year! (For my thoughts on that, see saucylittledish). I spent the past weekend in Toronto (which Canadians seem to pronounce "Tronno") for a wedding, and though there was plenty of drinking and dancing, I had eyes for all the food things that crossed my path.

There were a lot of festive goings on and when everyone crashed the afternoon after the wedding I went to the grocery store for an hour and a half. I could have tortured someone by dragging them along, but it was probably better I went alone. It can be useful to go with someone so I don't look as insane as I go though every aisle in slow motion-and it defends against getting in trouble for taking pictures...Oh well, I had a fine time. I went to an incredibly regular, mainstream neighborhood grocery store, which luckily still gave me plenty of perspective, though I would have loved to visit more kinds of places. Grocery stores give me an idea of what makes a place tick. I had forgotten that they sell milk in bags here, (and are way into recycling) and everyone has a handy oval milk pitcher in their fridge. (I did not see smaller pitchers for cream). I am so tickled by this, I must have really needed to get out of town. Seriously, I am really excited about these minorly different customs.

More dairy: I decided to buy cheese, hoping the pasteurization laws would be less stringent than in the U.S. (I have pined on about this before). I picked some soft, young French cheese too, because I wanted cheese made from milk from French cows...(Meux). All of the cheeses list the milkfat and moisture content on the packaging, and I bought a camembert, a "washed rind" young cheese, and some "pressed cottage cheese". We also had that old standby black pepper Boursin. I honestly am not sure if they were much different than what I can get in New York, but they were meltingly lovely anyway.

This was the best flavored hummus I've ever had. If you examine the photo close-up you will see it includes apricots, almonds, spices and honey. It wasn't overly sweet or over seasoned, just perfectly balanced and interesting. Word.

I couldn't resist this tiniest of pimiento jars that was all the way from, well, Tennessee.

I couldn't get away without throwing some meal together. It was my wedding present. I made a vegetable soup and and a potato leek soup, and a pasta/green salad situation. We had bread with those luscious cheeses and humus and jam alongside.

Real fruit gummies. My favorites are cherry and black currant, and of course there were hardly any of those, darnit.

Popcorn being thrown out behind a movie theater. I was surprised at first, but I suppose if they dumped two of these every day, and they just scattered it on the ground, the street would look like a sandy beach with obese pigeons and black squirrels lolling like walruses freezing to death.

Though this minitrip made me ever hungrier to go farther afield, thank you Canada for adding some depth to my marinade, as it were.

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

The Last Supper Festival

2008-10-20T17:00:00.001-04:00

This fall season has brought me many wonderful events, and lined them up all in a row so that reporting on them fell off-until now. So, way back on Saturday 9/20/08 was the raucous Last Supper Festival at the artspace/venue 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. It was a multimedia event held at the change of the season to celebrate the harvest and the switch and featured an unusual mix of Brooklyn creatives. There were 13 short films, 13 artists, 13 food artists and bands (including a wild performance by the Hungry March Band) all brought together for an evening in Bushwick. The theme was "landscape" and the show came together as a poignant multi-sensory experience.

The food art included woks as suspended scales, acting as a mobile/serving buffet, and beautiful cast sugar medical objects, by duo Eve and Bowie.

I made architectural cookies, including this edible floor tile pattern of lavender sugar cookies and chocolate red chile cookies. On the wall were a selection of cookies based on some of my favorite ironwork fences from Greenpoint Brooklyn.

Love Badge

2008-09-29T14:43:00.001-04:00

Exotic Albany

2008-09-16T22:31:00.001-04:00

Unexpected Jewels in New York's Capital City

I visited New York's capital region, a destination rich in Americana. Among the bowling alleys, drive-in movies, estate sales and homey porches are community vegetable gardens, old school diners, and a solid tradition of soft-serve ice cream.

There are piles of old cookbooks to be found in junk stores and garage sales, from church-lady collections to volumes compiled to promote a single product, such as Diamond walnuts or bananas or peanut butter. I love the illustrations of these books, especially the gelatin depictions. Luminous and futuristic, I try and understand the appeal; how it might have seemed modern to suspend food in any shape we wanted,with gem-like chunks set in a color-coded and quivering force-field. As interested as I am in texture and mouthfeel, imagining these dishes in my mouth does an effective job of reinforcing my interest in authentic foods. Especially ones I can't suck through my teeth.

At our visit to the Pig Pit barbecue joint I was thrilled with fried okra, sliced brisket and corn fritters. My southwestern genetic heritage giggled as I focused on my okra and glanced around to see the words "tamales", "Frito pie" and "RC Cola". I knew not to get too excited about the Frito pie, and was right to be skeptical as I saw one being made, apparently created with a dollop of everything edible in the room.

At the Snow Man in Troy, NY, I had the most perfect soft cone of my life. It had a beautiful texture and was so dense and smooth that it displayed the fine lines from my tongue for a moment before slumping slightly into a mirror-melt surface.

Lunch at the Miss Albany Diner was a wonderful adventure. Its a compact original diner on an industrial stretch of road and has clearly staked out its greasy place in the world. There are rules posted everywhere mostly pertaining to how your kids should behave ("perhaps you should look into acting schools if your kid is attracting the attention of other patrons") and how many people can sit in the small wooden booths on what days that there are no substitutions. The cook regularly comes out to serve food and joke or give people a hard time, and there is an inventive "gourmet" side of the menu, which is totally unique. I had some pork sausage ("we make it in the kitchen and it has herbs, such as sage") with eggs and several cups of coffee.

On the way out I go in an abandoned-looking office furniture place across from the Miss Albany Diner to see if they have anything old or interesting. It looks like no one is there, but eventually a towering, shiny woman appears from behind a bank of computers and shows me some old (lame) stock in the back room. As I am leaving without chairs I notice that the mysterious office furniture woman is tanned and made up and hair pouffed and is wearing several inch high black patent leather heels with ankle straps and a satin miniskirt and top. Maybe this is Miss Albany herself?

Love Badge

2008-08-29T11:45:00.000-04:00

Nice Coffee

2008-08-22T23:34:00.000-04:00

The iced coffee drinking days of summer are growing numbered, but how else is a girl supposed to do the research unless she spends most of those days with an iced coffee in each hand? I offer up this end-of-summer review of some cold coffees you can grab in Brooklyn (and Queens) for one more month. (5 *'s is the best).

Cafe Grumpy
193 Meserole Avenue (at Diamond St.)
Brooklyn, NY 11222 (there is also one in Chelsea)

$2.75/Lg
Frequency card: Yes
Food: Some ?
Consistency: Pretty good

Comments: The most expensive of today's list, the coffee is good and strong with a bit of sourness. The environment is large and varied with windows and a cozy, relaxed front room and a cavernous back room. There is a bench out front.

Rating: * * * * Strong is good.

Wyckoff Starr
30 Wyckoff Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11226

$2.50/Lg
Frequency Card: No
Food: Yes
Consistency: Medium. Get it together!

Comments: They have the market cornered in Bushwick, and sometimes the quality can be a toss-up. However, they have the nicest staff in NY and when the coffee is good, its good. They have ok pastries. They have some interesting new savory tarts. They have fresh orange juice. They have good bagels. They have the option of tofu or regular cream cheese, with onions and cucumbers and tomatoes. This is a great breakfast sandwich, but hard to eat. They need to SLICE these options THINNER because big hunks of raw onion are unpleasant. They have seating out front and a tiny indoor space and they play good music. It is truly a community place.
Rating: * * * * This is a great place for making connections and feeling at home. One less star for the quality problems.

Baruir
4007 Queens Blvd.
Sunnyside, NY 11104

$2.50/Lg
Frequency Card: no
Food: Sort of

Consistency: Decent
Comments: This Turkish grocery and coffee store has some canned and dry goods and some cheeses and coffee by the pound. I had a wonderful spinach pie for $1.25 from the counter, and they dress your cup with milk and sugar before handing it to you, like at the deli. They use sugar instead of simple syrup so it's a little grainy, but they carefully plunk in homemade ice cubes made from coffee fetched from a Tupperware container. Aww.
Rating: * * * I'm sold on the cubes.

Gimme Coffee
495 Lorimer St (betw. Powers and Grand)
Brooklyn, NY 11211 (part of a mini-chain)

$2.20/Lg
Frequency Card: Yes
Food: Balthazar pastries

Consistency: Good
Comments: Gimme Coffee! really cares about coffee, and they sell coffee beans as well as coffee drinks. They seem dedicated to developing the farm-to-cup perspective meaning that they are involved in pursuing and selling fair-trade, organic, sustainable or shade-grown coffees, as well as organic milks in their stores, compostable plastics and sourcing locally when possible. As far as the iced one goes: it has a creamy texture and a balanced flavor. The red interior and the graphic logo help create a dynamic brand that is focused and simple.
Rating: * * * * * Devotion to this kind of thoughtful behavior in business earns another star. All companies should address this stuff and not need to show off about it.

Champion Coffee
1108 Manhattan Ave. (betw. Clay and Dupont)
Brooklyn, NY 11222

$2.50/Lg
Frequency Card: Yes
Food: Yes!
Consistency: Awesome

Comments: The iced coffee is Americano (3 shots of espresso over water and ice) and it is perfect every time. Strong, never bitter or sour or burnt. There is a bench out front. There is a great backyard and a cozy interior. The staff is friendly. The food options are VERY good. There is a limited but quality selection of pastries, egg dishes, sandwiches, salads and a great gazpacho. I love the mini baguette sandwich with goat cheese, tomatoes and Calamata olives. Everything is appropriately priced and the logo is snappy.
Rating: * * * * * Champions.

A Closed Mouth Don't Get Fed

2008-08-08T09:30:00.001-04:00

New Mexico July Part 4

It used to be that Santa Fe was served by many tiny local grocery stores tucked into every neighborhood. Most of these are gone, and the city has the big mainstream grocery stores. There's an Albertson's and a Whole Foods and a Wild Oats and a Trader Joes along with some successful smaller local stores like the Market Place and Kaune's Foodtown. And happily, there is still Johnny's Cash Store, a tiny one room grocery that opened in 1946 and is still run by Johnny and his family. The store is hidden up a hill in an old part of town, where the streets are narrow and twisting, and turning into the dirt parking lot could feel accidetal.

In high school, this is where we went if we had a break or ditched school and bought tamales and Dr. Pepper and individual cigarettes and sat outside on the portal to share them. The tamales are excellent and hot. This one was red chile pork and had ideal proportions of filling and masa.

Blue Sky soda is from Santa Fe and many flavors are made with real sugar. I like the grapefruit because it is not too sweet and makes a great substitute for tonic.

Johnny's also offers burritos.

Even though I bought the large bag of tamales from Johnny's, I still stopped at Albertsons to buy tubs of frozen chile. Everything (15-20 lbs) went into an insulated tote bag and got checked at the airport. It should last at least a month.

A Burned Kitchen

2008-07-31T23:00:00.000-04:00

New Mexico July Part 3

In a forgotten high place in the desert is a burned house. It was a wash, and almost everything remains where it fell. Whoever lived there moved on, or perhaps they rebuilt on another side of the property and never went back. Pots sit on the stove with skinny looped bars sticking out, their wood or plastic handles that provided leverage long gone. The sink is filled with the ceiling and the kitchen window.

A potato ricer is evenly rusted; encouraged by the many years of sparse rain falling into the room from the sky. A pantry cabinet has fallen all the way out of the kitchen onto its back below the slab. I am not sure why dishes and enamel cookware also litter the front yard. Were they thrown from below the billowing smoke that could be seen from miles away? Were they picked over later when the damage was complete and dropped dismissively into the dirt? There are shards of thick swirling glass midcentury accent pieces, and glinting triangles of a textured ochre pane maybe from the dining room or the front door. Flowers are still sweetly pink, patterns recognizable even after their residence became their most frightening kiln.

There is a high risk for fire in New Mexico, but I am not aware that houses here burn any more frequently than other places in the country. I have never been in a house fire, and hopefully I never will be. I walked through this record of fire and thought of the situations where I had to make the assessment: what do I have? What do I need?

Of course this could apply all things: to food, love, time, money, space, heath or furniture, but my life isn't always budgeted evenly. The questions mainly come up when I taste there isn't enough salt in what I've made or when looking at my collected dimensional clutter and bare walls, I wonder why I don't have more 2-D decor. I can feel at home almost anywhere and I have enough space to live and sleep and cook, but is it enough? Is it in the right place? Is it the ideal elastic hammock of my independent youth? What do I have and what do I need?

The smell of New Mexico is strong. After it rains, everything in the ground takes a deep breath and makes itself available to the air. The light bakes everything and the fearless plants are determined and fragrant. The environment is adaptable, wild, mysterious and comforting to me, and I breathe it. I try and smell the answers.

The smell of this fire is long gone. When I walk out of the kitchen and look at clouds above me I know I'll always have New Mexico, and it knows I need to go and be under more roofs. It won't tell me where, so I suspect there's more smelling to be done. And besides, the house in New Mexico isn't ready for me yet.

Prize of the Plaza

2008-07-24T14:40:00.001-04:00

New Mexico July Part 2

The Original. This is the classic Frito Pie from the Five & Dime (formerly Woolworth's) on the plaza in downtown Santa Fe. Served in the bag, eaten with a spork, it is a hot aromatic nest of Fritos ladled with red chile, pinto beans, ground beef and cheese. I also like the optional diced raw onion on top. (A great-but-different version is served at the Atomic. Compare and contrast by clicking here). For me the ritual is completed by eating the Pie on a bench in the plaza with a Dr. Pepper, scarfing the spicy dripping crunchiness until I am glowing and red chile stains the corners of my mouth like a toddler after SpaghettiOs.

When Woolworth's began closing its stores in 1997, the residents of Santa Fe were so unhappily fired up about it that developers and an owner of the building protected a third of the store and essentially made it into a shrine to the former general store and lunch counter. They sold off a bunch of the old stuff including the lunch counter waitress uniform dresses. I got one and it ended up making a great "Ghost-of-Woolworth's" costume for Halloween. They added more postcards and tchochkas and kept the employees and Frito Pies. They also have good and very hot green chile stew (with beef).

On the plaza itself is a food cart, Roque's Carnitas. Roque is a fast talking character, and of course I love the food more because of him. He sells tamales and chicken or beef carnitas. He grills the meat with onions and green chiles and then puts it in a thick flour tortilla with salsa. His salsa is heavy with large pieces of tomato and is mostly liquid. I have never been able to really eat one with grace. I do manage to pay attention to the earthy, charred ingredients with bright, spicy slurping. They are satisfying because they are simple and good, and they taste like all the other carnitas he has ever made, the developed layers of everything that's been on that grill before.

Home for Chile Flowers

2008-07-21T19:00:00.001-04:00

New Mexico July Part 1

Along an arroyo that runs through Santa Fe, New Mexico is chef Katherine Kagel's organic purple amaranth plant. All the plants in her home garden are organic, provided by Seeds of Change, a company that sells and promotes organic seeds and foods. Her restaurant, Cafe Pasqual's serves 98 percent organic food and wine. This afternoon I follow her from garden to kitchen to table, where eight people are fed a beautiful fresh summer dinner.

KK snips bok choy and yellow chard.

And bok choy comes in twins!

Check out this fabuloso recession special: greens from the July garden, garlic, pecans, feta and lemon served forth in a beautiful micaceous platter. Add some grains underneath and some tequila above and weather the stormclouds to come.

Sunday in Southern Manhattan

2008-06-30T00:42:00.008-04:00

It was an eventful weekend (as in, the weekend was full of large organized events with websites). There was the Fancy Food Show at the Javits and the Unfancy Food Show in Brooklyn. There was the opening of Olafur Eliasson's waterfalls, (see one in the photo above) and there was the New Amsterdam Market, held outside of the Old Fulton Fish Market by the Brooklyn Bridge. (To see what goes on at the new one, click here).

I loved looking at all the bread, but especially these stenciled and slashed ones from B.R. Guest.

This is a luminous sample of fancy-tasting pomegranate chardonnay jelly from long island.

The market has occurred twice before, with the goal of becoming a permanent fixture for local producers. As it stands now, it is reminiscent of the Greenmarket but more like an expo with booths and samples and information, with a limited amount of products for purchase.

Also on display were foraged wild foods (loosely and quickly packaged), cheese from farms and companies like Saxelby Cheesemonger, honey, bread, a pizza maker, magazines and pickle producers. There were two ice cream flavors from the excellent Marlow & Sons: Cherry Chip and Anise Hyssop, both were intelligent and dreamy.

Even with the lovely samples of pink peppercorn goat cheese and beet soup, a more satisfying lunch was still necessary, as was escaping another dramatic thunderstorm. Luckily the special occasion Market was located very close to the old standby Joe's Shanghai, where soup dumplings were cheap and sublime, like always.

Orzo or Orzo

2008-06-26T17:00:00.001-04:00

I am fascinated with the shapes of pasta right now. I have thought plenty of times (oh, texture-focused child that I was) about tortellini, and how to eat each piece by methodically maneuvering it around in my mouth so that the pinched together arms were directed towards my throat, and the folded over seam holding in the filling was placed exactly over my lower front teeth. This was the best way possible for a small mouth to experience the pleasantly ergonomic dissection of the storebought tortellini.

Imagine the tired parents who are just trying to get the kid to finish her dinner and not be distracted by it. Oh well! The way of a savoring life!

I also loved the feeling of eating Kraft macaroni and cheese, partly because we didn't have it at my house. The other reason was the liquid orange sauce, surrounding and dispensed by delicate inch long lengths of pasta and was mild and swimming with a lightness of being.

For me, spaghetti, fettuccine, and angel hair are perfect on occasion, especially at restaurants when I am spontaneously charmed by something I wouldn't probably make at home. The current intrigue lies in bite sized sculptural forms, and finding and imagining the qualities of the shapes, and the best usage. I have been frequenting an Italian market which has a huge selection of excellent pasta, in usual and unusual forms. I like Orecciette (shaped like "ears" or little bowls), and some wavy almost free-form ones. I have yet to try the tennis racket shaped ones although those tiny cross-hatches look appealing. Mouthfeel can be entertaining, or just contribute an interesting sensory aspect to food. Each shape delivers sauces and other ingredients to your tongue in different ways.

One night I used orzo, a pasta often used in soups. It is shaped like rice but larger and flatter. I used it in two unsoup related ways, just because.

orzo
sauteed red onions in olive oil with Indian spices (black pepper, cumin, corriander, cinnamon, chili, turmeric, and additional garam masala mixtures.)
fresh thin sliced scallions
fleur de sel
zest of a lime
a drizzle of honey

This one is best hot. It turned out with a good balance of spicy, salty and sweet.

orzo
red onion
scallion
tuna fish
kalamata olives
tomatoes, 10 cherry tomatoes
feta, crumbled
basil, chopped

I like this one cold. It is fresh and each bite offers a different combination of flavors.

All-American Summer Camp

2008-06-16T17:26:00.003-04:00

I did not grow up in a family of campers. I am a camping novice, but completely sold on this activity that requires constant attention towards the fire and the next meal and can be communal or solitary and filled with freedom.

A stick of butter with the impression of corn.

I have a feeling these sample cones acquired a muted palette after sitting out in the sun and a few thunderstorms.

Man, it was so pastoral and pretty it was like being in the label of some Hidden Valley Ranch dressing. For expanded discussion of this imagery in American food culture, read up in Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food.

Ew. Here was one option I spotted at a local grocery. Click on the picture to check out the ingredients and the disturbing hot pink color. There is a red seal on it that says "Inspected for Wholesomeness by the U.S. Department of Agriculture". The Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer suggests that boosting productivity at home and abroad is a solution to rising food costs. Apparently things are pretty simple for the Department and the Secretary.

And yes, we went with these, and they were delicious.

Pig Roast 2008

2008-06-13T08:00:00.011-04:00

These are the highlights from the 2008 Pig Roast. This particular 24+ hour backyard barbecue occurred in southeastern industrial Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The subject was an eighty-three pound Heritage Tamworth Pig (raised and butchered locally), which I assume means not closer than Queens, but I didn't ask. Money was raised for America's Second Harvest. There were additional ribs cooked inside it. and onions. There were sauces, baby banh mi sandwiches, black eyed peas, collards, iceberg salad (with bacon in it) pulled pork two ways, ribs and more ribs, cornbread, beans, succotash, etc.

Moose Mike (Pig Roast Honcho) is a believer in pure and real ingredients, and lots of them. These are either in action or in your belly, and hopefully you can still remember where you live when its over. (Overwhelm factors can run high at his affairs).

Love Badge

2008-06-03T08:00:00.003-04:00

Pecans and Ambrosia

2008-05-30T16:42:00.002-04:00

This week my grandmother Elizabeth celebrated her ninety-sixth birthday. She is a tiny bird, and though she was never the cook of the family I recall some influential food situations that surely shape the genepool. She is a Texan, and always had a major interest in plants and flowers and trees, like the pecan tree. My dad also has a deep respect and love for plants and trees of the region and pecan trees and nuts in general seem to be in the the family taste. Every Christmas without fail my grandmother cracks and packages pecans (we say pe-CAHN) in Tupperware (nothing cutesy) and mails them, and my dad makes pecan pie. I think the family members like pecans, but I am pretty sure that honoring the tree and distributing its fruit is taken as seriously as any praline.

I don't remember too much candy available at my grandparents house, but there were always jordan almonds around. I always thought these seemed promising but their hard, chalky, not-very-sweet breakup would disappoint every time. It is possible that the jar of opaque pastel almonds was present for the aesthetic quality. After all, they were placed on the countertop where my grandfather arranged sliced fruit in a geometric mosaic on top of their cereal every morning.

At holidays and family reunions, Kaypah would make ambrosia. She made it in a large stemmed cake glass, mostly while seated. It involved layer after layer of colors and shapes and I remember I loved how it looked but hated the metallic-y taste of the canned mandarin oranges and the dry coconut dyed pink from the maraschino cherries. My dad instructed me to choke it down, and pointed out that no one liked it but we all had to eat it.

Driving to see the folks we would stop in Czech towns to pick up kolaches for them, a pastry with cheese or fruit like apricot or prune. We would also stop to get Elgin sausages and barbecue. My grandmother can certainly eat barbecue, which seems pretty bad-ass to me.

At her ninetieth birthday party, I remember we had a selection of appetizers including warm brie with almonds on it. For her entree she ordered the warm brie. There was some fussing about this from her offspring, but after all the 80 pound woman was ninety and she could do whatever she wanted. She had a pink napoleon for desert and a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream. I am floored by my grandmother's longevity, which I am convinced is a product of her stubbornness. The secret couldn't possibly be the Velveeta "cheese puddle" or the Coca-Cola she drinks every day with a mouthful of original teeth.

Though she might not taste much these days or hear, or see, I salute all the faculties of my complicated Kaypah with love.

Ruby Wednesday

2008-05-21T08:00:00.002-04:00

Satiny fiber optic stalks of rhubarb are here, and I am going to figure out what they really taste like. Back in the day, I only knew rhubarb as a word that went between "strawberry" and "pie", and I can only remember the strawberries. So rhubarb and I have a midweek date.

I just got all this fresh corn, basil, rhubarb, and yellow and red tomatoes, and I am SO happy that it is spring. I made a pasta salad with eleven ingredients. I also want to point out that this spring has been taking its time and actually acting like spring, instead of switching suddenly from winter to august.

I cut up the 'barb and made half of it into a beautiful pink simple syrup for cocktails and lemonade, and I'll make the other half into a compote tomorrow. (Just less water). Maybe I'll even do some with hardly any sugar, for application in some savory endeavor. The goal here is to teach myself the flavor of rhubarb itself (in the edible cooked form and without the poisonous leaves).

I made a cocktail with rhubarb simple syrup, soda, ice and Hendrick's Gin. It was sweet and tart and floral and interesting. Rhubarb looks like a structured straw of green tinted water coursing through a red taffeta-paper slip. It tastes like fruit, like the definition of fruit. What meets the mouth is juicy, tart, sweet and subtle, able to color syrup a bold pink, or dissolve into a soft, bashful pulp.

Still Hot

2008-05-20T01:28:00.004-04:00

Hey, I couldn't resist...

A Cherry Clafouti I made. This was a thrilling little thing to make; sort of a puffy baked pancake with an eggy outlook and cherries that stay fresh tasting. (As opposed to that sickly strange thing I think they often do in cherry pie).

Cast Iron

2008-05-05T08:00:00.006-04:00

I am just now discovering cast iron. I have had a cast iron pan since I my initial collection of cookware materialized suddenly on my eighteenth birthday, when I was thoughtfully given tools to accompany my somewhat awkward lurch toward adulthood. I wasn’t exactly a blossoming chef at that point with all signs pointing to food, so it must have been the adulthood thing. Either way, everyone is supposed to have one. They are icons of the kitchen and of kitchenware, appearing on greeting cards with cartoon fried eggs.

It’s odd that these objects have remained so mysterious to me for so long. I don’t remember using any heavy black pans before recently. It’s even odder that I have been collecting pieces for a few years and stacking them up, blankly staring at the heavy, unseasoned pile and quietly lugging them along when I move apartments. I like to think that I just wasn’t ready, and subconsciously knew that somewhere down the line I would be. Cast iron seems to have had some recognizable value to me, maybe because of its weight, maybe because of its myth. It seemed like even if I didn’t use it, it was still sitting in safe storage earning interest unless it became entirely rust and returned to the earth and didn’t matter anyway.

Besides that first pan, any other pieces of cast iron I have came from garage sales or from the street for free. Apparently some people can’t wait to get rid of them. I snapped them up.

So now I have seasoned. I have rubbed. I have fried and baked and I even gave one away all ready to go. They are shiny and smooth and dark. Food doesn’t stick to them, and they get as hot as I want. Some pieces are strange and exotic like the one that is squareish and has two perpendicular ridges I’m not sure about. Others are classic and deep, with symmetrical pour spouts on either side. My new favorite is shallow, slender and elegant. I’m thrilled, and I hear it gets better.

O'er The Ramp-arts I Go

2008-04-28T21:03:00.013-04:00

The pale green blush of spring is here and it is well into ramp season. I spent Saturday traipsing (sneaking) around in the woods on the prowl for those tender but not shy wild onion relations. The finding was a little difficult at first, with alien-size skunk cabbage beginning to cover everything. I admit my heart was pounding as I hoped I wouldn't be seen and because those things are tricky to pull up. The bulbs are just deep enough and the pink throats so slender that you really have to dig so as not to snap off just the leaves.

A clump of ramps visible in the central foreground

They say this rabbit-eared wild vegetable tastes like garlic and onion, but it has its own flavor, very green in the beginning with a spicy garlic burn in the back. And they are not messing around, either.

Ramp Pesto

About 50 ramps
Small handful of piñon (pine) nuts
a generous pile of Parmesan
a few long pours of olive oil
kosher salt
black pepper

Clean ramps well (since they-and you- are covered in dirt, roots and slimy stuff) and chop roughly. Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until a paste forms. Yeilds about 3 cups. Toss into pasta, make bruschetta or freeze. You can also use ramps in quiches, to flavor oil, vodka, or anywhere you would use garlic, onions, or herbs.

Fridge Trophies

2008-04-23T01:28:00.006-04:00

I like to think that I am aware of eating locally. I even think that I buy many local products. And beyond that, I tend to consider whole, organic foods as being important to me for a host of reasons. I DO go to the farmers market sometimes. And I shop in small, frequent, neighborhood trips, so my food is fresh and supports my neighborhood stores.

But when I look in the fridge, and stand there to pick items from my thoughtfully chosen collection of groceries, I realize that I don’t have tons of local stuff, and if I try to see myself through the labels of the cold storage products I keep around, really who AM I ANYWAY? I am clearly fascinated with eating a WIDE variety of items from very far away, and have no intention of avoiding or slowing this pattern.

I think that perhaps I collect them as prizes. Each one is a gem, a score, a novelty or a cherished standby. Here is a current portrait of my fridge, not including regular stuff like ketchup, mayo, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, relish, O.J., soy milk, leftovers of take out and stuff I cook. Note- this isn’t really a proper portrait of my diet, just my fridge trophies.

Cherry kefir
French sheep’s milk feta
Marmite
Gold’s horseradish
Pickled ginger
Mole paste from Oaxaca, Mexico
Kalamata olives
Fig and sesame jam
Pink grapefruit marmalade
Chardonnay jelly
Tamarind chutney
Fig Greek yogurt
Organic brown, free-range, Omega-3 eggs
Happy chicken breasts
Nitrite-free uncured bacon
Nitrite-free smoked salmon
Herb polenta
5 kinds of unsalted butter
Organic Carrots
Lemons
Basil
Black sesame butter
New Mexican green chile sauce (which may be the MOST local product since it runs in my veins)

Should I go on about the cupboards too? There are dried jackfruit chips, Heritage Bites cereal, three kinds of vanilla extract, blue cornmeal, coconut milk, chestnut cream, packets of borsht, active dry yeast, brown rice, almonds, agave nectar.

I adore ethnic grocery stores and grocery stores in general, and I blame my Dad for this. I will continue to pursue a local, seasonal, sustainable value system regarding my food, and y'know, try and do the right thing. But I'm no milquetoast, just check out my fridge.

Banh Mi Party

2008-04-09T01:43:00.007-04:00

The crazy cats that threw the pizza party in December recently threw a Vietnamese sandwich shindig. It was a simpler affair, the only variations were the options of Nayonaise versus the real thing, and tofu, pork, or chicken. The meats had been marinated in a gorgeous place filled with star anise, ginger, coriander and other lovelies.

The recipe is roughly:

Meat marinade
1 knob of ginger, about 1.5" x 1.5", peeled and chopped fine
4-6 star anise, ground
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 cayenne
1 teaspoon coriander
2 tablespoons brown sugar
*optional 1 tbsp honey

Four chicken breasts or equivalent pork, cut into thin strips. Baked tofu works well too.

Slaw:
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar, or enough to cover
1/2 cup julienned carrot (i think 3" lengths work best)
1/2 cup julienned daikon radish
5 green onions, sliced into 3" strips

For Sandwiches
Cilantro, leaves only, washed
Mayonnaise
French baguette

Combine the first 9 ingredients in a gallon ziploc bag or large bowl. Mush around with your hand to mix well. Add the chicken/pork and allow this to marinate for 30 minutes - 2 hours.

Make the slaw: Grate the daikon and carrots first and put them in a small bowl and cover them with rice vinegar. This will give it a pickle like flavor. Prepare the other veggies.

Cook meat in a pan and let cool before building sandwiches.

This recipe was contributed by Zach, who has just started a garden on his fire escape, sure to be a hotbed (heh heh) of beautiful urban produce.

Homemade Chickens

2008-04-04T15:33:00.012-04:00

Here is more maple syrup in action. My maple adventure was great, but truthfully, the maple was only part of the sweetness of that trip. People can tell me about their food politics, and I can read books and articles, and watch movies, and shop consciously, and its important; but going out of town and kicking it with a family that has a good idea about where their food comes from makes it actually register. My brain and body and memory heard it. See Amelia, there are these chickens and they run around over there, eat bugs, and get looked after. Then they make all this noise and lay eggs. Why don't you go collect them?

And then you get to eat them!!!

I am obviously very used to buying eggs, and even though I get the brown ones with "Omega-3" on the package and not the Styrofoam-packed ones with laser printed ads on the shells, I am so removed from chickens that it felt like a wild, jewel-like gift to pick up a warm egg. Which is what it is I guess. So now I know.

A beautiful view from the nearby town of Hudson, although not as dramatic as egg-laying.

On the way up to the maple trees, wild garlic grows.

Another stellar breakfast with homemade bread and bacon from a former resident pig.

I love cooking and eating homemade things, and eating locally if possible, but this was a new level for me. It was the edge of winter, so there weren't so many things from a garden, but there was homemade jam, pesto, sausage, bacon, bread, and eggs of course. I also had tea (PG Tips) steeped in half boiled maple sap (oh MAN). Spring creeps ever closer and so does the promise of fresh food, foraging, and more adventures...

March Maple

2008-03-18T17:57:00.017-04:00

Spring is coming. I went to upstate New York for a couple days for a visit and to see what maple trees do this time of year. Up there, the day is getting warmer, snow is melting and the trees are thinking about forming buds. Actually they are doing far more than that. The inner core of the tree is dead, just a memory of the rest of the tree's life, a structure for the living part to hold onto. When the temperature consistently rises enough, the living outside aggressively pulls water up from the ground to nourish the buds it wants to produce. This is when the sap is collected and processed into syrup. When the buds are ready to go, the sap changes and slows down, and the syrup season is over.

There were 6 tapped trees, and while I was there, the sap flowed and each tree gave about a gallon and a half of sap per day. The sap dripped like a leaky faucet into buckets that had to be dumped into a larger bucket, then carried down a little hill and stored in a huge trash barrel on the front porch until it could be boiled down into syrup in small batches. The ratio is about 44 units of sap to one of maple syrup.

I loved collecting the sap, (illustrated above by a young friend of mine). I guess I expected it to look thicker. It looks like water, though I think it catches light a little softer, but that could be how I want to see it. The sap varies by day and weather and tree size, but usually has about a 2% sugar content. To drink it from the tree is just drinking cold and clean water with the faintest sweet taste and the knowledge that you are drinking out of the side of the tree you are leaning on. I didn't expect to feel the way I did about the trees sharing water with me. Sharing their blood. I liked that water moved underground and roots gathered it up and it filtered through the stable body of the trunk. Standing in between the tapped trees, soft dings and thwaps of drops fall evenly into buckets. It was moving.

Here is syrup boiling on the woodstove. Below is a large version, an evaporator in the garage of a neighboring syrupman. It also has a fire underneath which must be stoked. The sap is poured in the top and the liquid travels through a series of channels. The heavier sugar saturated sap stays towards the bottom and is eventually released from a spigot. The more watery sap has more surface area above to release steam, so processing more volume goes a little faster. It is still pretty slow, especially if you are up to your ears in sap.

Some of the syrup I jarred. This is grade B, or at least not Grade A, which is the lighter colored first batch. These jars hadn't settled yet, so they are a little murky looking.

I made this maple fudge candy, something you can't really get wrong. There will be smiling no matter what!

Superbowl 2008 Chili Cook-Off

2008-03-18T17:55:00.009-04:00

(1st photo by Andrei)

Here is the proof I attended and helped judge the 2008 Superbowl Chili Cookoff in Williamsburg, Brooklyn last month. There were three enthusiastic teams, and three cooking areas (assigned by lottery): the stovetop, the firepit, and the...elevated fire pit. The TV was moved to the backyard and it was cold enough to keep the beer outside.

The first team entered with an ambitious "surf and turf" concept. The corn was nice, but the heat was too much and the LOBSTER flavor was startling and detracted from this chili. I also considered the meat served alongside as distracting and a little brown-nosy. The cornbread muffin was good, but there was too much going on altogether in this entry.

The second team had a nice presentation with a simple and tidy fried ball of masa as the starch, which was unfortunately bland. The pork chili was married to a mole, which was a fabulous idea. There was a nice burn and it would have been really complex but it ended up getting bogged down in sweetness from the chocolate.

The third chili was also pork and was spicy and smoky. It reminded me of barbeque and was the most classic of the three. It was nice enough looking with a puff pastry and a drizzle of a cooling herbed something. I was excited about the new approaches to chili, but in this case the winner was the traditional one done just right.

A Side of Brooklyn

2008-02-05T00:15:00.000-05:00

Michigan 2008

2008-01-19T18:13:00.000-05:00

Starting the year off right with 2008 calories? This plate is loaded with essentials: black eyed peas with green chile and bacon, eggs, and homemade biscuits and gravy.

The Meijer superstore in Monroe, Michigan is a place where you can buy jeans, live goldfish, children's furniture, a soldering iron, and um, pink eggs. Just in case you need those.

Donut Palace: reigning over the industrial slums of Detroit.

The Lotto is everywhere. All the bars and grocery stores and gas stations make participation easy. I didn't technically win with this one, but obviously this ticket was a winner for me anyway.

Pizza Party: More than a Reward for Reading Books

2008-01-04T14:58:00.001-05:00

One of the best parties I attended in the past month was a pizza party. It celebrated a birthday by involving the small group of goers in the making and eating of 8 kinds of homemade pizza for several hours. Homemade dough, sauce, piles of interesting ingredients, the wait for the oven and slowly eating bites of the results made this surprisingly organized frenzy taste extra fabulous.

The Greek One

This one was made upside down, with cherry tomatoes, pancetta, olive oil and mint. (Sprinkled on after it was out of the dish).

Polish Pizza! Potato, red cabbage and kielbasa decorate this fusion pie of local fare.

Southwestern chicken (whatever that means...) homemade salsa and guac...

The Thai One

There was a luscious mushroom situation, and one with all vegetables i think...it was pretty hard to keep track, actually. This party was a marvelous idea, and like the best meals, is not something that can occur often or maybe ever again for that matter, so it is all the more special.

Full

2007-12-03T19:57:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving 2007 Menu:

Turkey
Simple Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce
Rosemary Apple Cider Gravy
Ginger Sweet Potatoes
Green Beans with Lemon and Mint
Green Chile Cornbread
Apple Brie Rosemary Purses
Curried Butternut Squash Soup with Fried Leeks
Gratineed Dijon Creamed Pearl Onions
Blackberry Pie
Pumpkin Pecan Clafouti

Green Chile Cornbread

1 portion green chiles minced (frozen/reconstituted/can diced)
1 poblano chile (roasted, peeled and seeded) minced
1 c. flour
1 c. cornmeal
2/3 c. buttermilk or plain kefir
1 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 T cold butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 can creamed corn

450 degrees. Big bowl, mix dry: flour, cornmeal, sugar, powder, soda, salt, then butter in bits. in another bowl, mix wet: egg, corn, chiles, kefir. Add wet to dry. Bake in greased dish, perhaps a square 9 inch glass baking dish, or some such item, until golden and toothpick comes out clean.

I am thankful for many things. Thankful that as I get older I get to watch people I love get older and really start to become friends with their siblings. I am thankful that my palate is so curious. I'm thankful for criticism, change, spices, chemistry and honesty. I am thankful for my senses, my memory, and my family. I am thankful for cumin, Honeycrisp apples, onions, and chiles. I can't possibly list all the things in the world I am thankful for, better to try and pay attention everyday and night and live the list instead of write it.

Three Days in the South

2007-11-18T20:04:00.000-05:00

I was in far western North Carolina last weekend. I'm not from there, and neither are my parents or grandparents, but my great aunt lives in Cherokee, and all of us on my dad's side have spent some time growing up, living, or working there. I have the least amount of experience with the place, but being there with my family and my 90 year-old great aunt, I could hear and feel many layers of memories surrounding us. It was a moving trip that further informed me of my heritage and of the region. There was lots and lots of driving, some hanging out and eating in the hip coziness of Asheville, and some time in the mountains, being with each other and the past.

The leaves are so late here!
(I'm not complaining)

At the gas station, there is a sign alerting drivers what kind of snack (?) they can get when they fill up.

I was hoping for some boiled peanuts, but alas, I only found shells littering the ground.

Coffee, Tea, Cereal, Grits.

Battery-powered ice cream toothbrush.

For scale, the containers on the right are gallon size.

These (Maker's Diet approved) (organic) breakfast cereals are a convenient way to follow through with "God's dietary guidelines", a specific mode of eating drawn from biblical principles. I like to picture the food stylist aranging the spoonful on the box, and the graphic designer charged with creating catchy packaging. (Where should the dove go? should we create a background pattern using scripture?) The diet has rules about animals with cloven hoof who do and do not chew the cud (apparently you should really stay away from the tempting, unclean "does not chew the cud" items.) The diet is 40 days long. So I guess Noah was pretty good lookin after that storm.

Autumn Opening

2007-10-15T18:22:00.001-04:00

On a recent Saturday I had an excellent opportunity to run upstate for fresh air and to feel the proper onset of fall. It was nearly ninety degrees, but I think it still did the trick. I was giddy the moment we got in the car, and got progressively higher on oxygen as we left town, gripped with regular laughter as we hit and ran over falling leaves in the road. Our first stop was a Stewarts Shops, which had one bale of hay outside the front door. Stewart's is a regional gas station/convenience store chain covering a wide plume-shape area rising from New York City. They all have a lengthy self service counter that snakes around, offering all the convenience store items you would expect, but spread throughout a different landscape. I love the fat font that covers everything, identifying the brand's sacked, wrapped and bottled items, and even the occasional novelty spoon. I ordered my favorite: a maple walnut milkshake, and noticed the inventive and appropriately creepy spheres floating above.

Every breath smelled more or less the same. The even, humid air was constantly noticeable, slowly counteracting all the different breaths I took in the city, where there are at least five smells in every block. I felt an inner scale slowly slide towards health, and realized I was relaxing a little from a constant awareness of my immediate environment informed by my nose. Here, inhaling under a tree would probably be a similar experience to inhaling twenty feet away from it, and so I let go of an unconscious humming inside.

We attempted to pick apples, but a slight lack of planning and the bizarre hours of a pick your own place forced us to stop at this spot. I bought some lovely brown eggs, a bag of honeycrisp apples (the BEST), some fresh mozzarella and a maple candy shaped like a maple leaf. There were 15 kinds of apples, and a variety of fresh things, but two thirds of the shelves were stocked with high fructose corn syrup "jam", and 30 colors of "olde-fashioned stick candy". There were wooden things painted with "gone fishin'" and other country wisdom, and unfortunate quantities of bland, processed foods.

We recovered from our roadside retail experience with something cozy, beautiful, mysterious and familial: The opening of Martine Kaczynski's: Route 11. Visit www.ruralprojects.org to see more about this particular work and exciting space. Children ran around, there were arias sung, a bonfire lit, raspberries picked, a biodymic apple eaten.

At the end I stepped away from the fire which was burning one side of me, and walked toward the dark which was just as dark when my eyes adjusted. Maybe I should just camp out for a few days...

Embrace of the Lobster

2007-09-25T19:03:00.002-04:00

The trip to the fish market yielded three 3+ lb. lobsters. They had to be gently protected all the rest of that late morning and work day before we could celebrate their lives in the kitchen.

Here one sits in familiar feeling shadows before meeting the steam pot.

"Best lobstahs yevah gonna have"...

We drank a buttery wine, had rosemary roasted potatoes, some spicy wilted greens, and salad to accompany the lobster. (As if there was a reason to eat anything else). Each one was steamed for about 15 minutes, and after the beautiful and funny process of getting into them in order to get them into us, every bite was textured and sweet. Fragrant fat covered our hands and everything on the table until we were finally still with satisfying dizziness.

The New Fulton Fish Market

2007-09-10T00:34:00.002-04:00

Its 2am. Do you know where your children are? They're walking through chilly fish puddles in a year-old $86,000,000 refrigerated facility in the south Bronx.

If you can't sleep, go to the fish market. Its between the meat market and the prison, and is filled with fluorescent lights and the pungent, gleaming catch you were hoping to find.

Its cold and damp. Guys have cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, and many of them have round bellies that bulge protectively close to the fish, watching over them.

A Crime Against Cherries

2007-09-09T23:10:00.001-04:00

At least there were souls who walked by and didn't think this was a good idea at all, and left those sad embalmed things on the shelf to be marked down to move.

Be thankful for actual cherries. The ones that ripen, the ones we eat, adding their souls to ours.

Cold Summer Drink III

2007-07-27T02:39:00.002-04:00

Cherry Juice

I wake up from a dream. In the moment before waking, someone whispers something that seems present and pressing to me at the time, words that don’t mean anything outside the moment of their dream context. Something under my skin is with me all day, but I can’t remember it, or can’t hear it.

I’m standing in the sun after some wandering around, looking for I’m not sure what. I’m drinking cherry juice through a straw from a box. When I turn with the light on my back, I see my dark shadow and a clear red line from my hand to my mouth, part of my shadow’s body.

The taste of the cherry is under something, not as easy and upfront as you might think. It’s under the sweetness. Like how a walnut has a flavor that is below and looks up at you, cherry juice is there being sweet but not knowing it. It’s not missing anything and not self-conscious, looking at you in the eye but saying something in your ear.

Cold Summer Drink II

2007-07-24T00:13:00.000-04:00

How could you not get neck-deep in a thorn bush for this?

Wild blackberries found in Central Park make beautiful and tasty cocktails. Press them gently (they're fragile enough that they'll crush if you talk to them directly), strain from their seeds, add a tiny pinch of sugar to the liquid and combine syrup with vodka, ice and soda.

Cold Summer Drink

2007-07-03T16:44:00.000-04:00

I love this satisfying and interesting drink-and I've never purchased buttermilk so frequently. A Polish version appeared in Saveur Magazine, and I adapted it. I think there must be a creamy cultured beverage from every corner of the world...

tall glass of cold 1% buttermilk
small handful of chives snipped tiny with scissors
several grinds of black pepper
small pinch kosher salt
large pinch ground cumin
equal pinch ground coriander

When you think about it, these are all things that will NOT make your teeth look awesome afterwards. Stir it up well and drink anyway. And chew. Sound bad? its not. Its great.

June: Another Exercise in Chile

2007-06-30T03:03:00.000-04:00

L.I.C., New York-

Attended the 1st Food Film Festival at Water Taxi Beach and saw George Motz’s film Hamburger America, which features (among others), the be all and end all green chile cheeseburger from the Bobcat Bite in Santa Fe. In celebration they flew in fresh frozen green chile from Hatch, NM and applied it to burgers (unfortunately with embarrassing teaspoon-sized portions). Though I have large amounts of chile in the freezer (as well as in dried form), this got me all riled up to visit the vibrant plates of El Norteño.

Santa Fe, New Mexico-

Huevos Rancheros at the Tecolote Cafe, (corn tortillas with eggs -I like poached- and smothered in red and green chile) served with potatoes.

Enchilada Plate at The Shed (rolled blue corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and raw onions, covered in red and green chile (“X-Mas”), with pinto beans, posole, and an egg over-medium. All traditional dishes are served with a small amount of chopped lettuce and tomato. The Shed serves the best red chile. Accompanied by the classic Silver Coin margarita. Not shown, enchiladas from the Santa Fe Bar & Grill, they have a good red too, very dark and smoky. Also had green chile cheeseburgers from the Zia Diner (organic) and fancy Niman Ranch GCC’s from Santacafe. Breakfast burritos from the Baking Company.

A Frito Pie at the Atomic Cafe. A traditional Frito Pie is served in the Fritos bag, with red chile and meat (like a sauce), and beans and chopped raw onions. The Atomic's is served in a bowl with Fritos, green chile, jack cheese, carrots, red onion, tomato, black beans and a slice of jalapeño. They serve some version at the Levee in Williamsburg, but I'm not sure what its about. I assume they're using a form of chili, not chile. Needs investigation.

The most unusual (and therefore appealing for a sucker like me) was the Kobe Beef burger from Bert’s Burger Bowl ("One Location Worldwide"). A funky burger joint that’s been open forever, Bert’s is never run of the mill. They serve “lime Cokes” and “French Cokes” the first with fresh squeezed lime juice and the second with half and half.

I had the burger with green chile of course, and it was good of course. I should have had them omit the yellow mustard and pickles though, which just sour everything up.

Black Eyes in 2007

2007-01-03T22:47:00.000-05:00

Happy new year! I hope everyone rang it in safely and in the best ways. New years day I made black eyed peas for good luck. It might be too late to bring luck if you didn't eat them on day one, but they are really good so you should make them anyway. I did an easy simple version:

2 cans black eyed peas
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
some cut up ham
a bay leaf
S+P
a little dried oregano and parsley
a splash of chicken broth
a few cut up canned tomatoes

In a pot, saute the garlic and onions in some olive oil, add the black eyed peas (if they are canned be sure to drain them) and everything else. Cook for a while, until everything comes together. Use lots of fresh ground pepper and remove the bay leaf at some point. Serve with rice or cornbread. Salud!

Treats From A Polish Neighborhood

2006-12-02T00:20:00.000-05:00

Butter, sausage, and plain pastry totaling just $3.75

Fractal Food

2006-11-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

Romanesco Cauliflower

Whisk & Ladle Supperclub

2006-10-12T19:24:00.000-04:00

I recently attended the inaugural Whisk & Ladle Supperclub party, which in this case was a many-course buffet-style hours-long feeding frenzy. In the future it promises to be a lower-key sitting-down kind of feeding frenzy. Produced by three young go-getters, W&L is like a once-in-a-while restaurant in a loft. The go-getters are lovely and so is the food. For more information and reservations, go to www.thewhiskandladle.com.

The Secret Life of Cookies

2006-10-09T14:05:00.000-04:00

The above objects are packages of butter

Japanese Food For the Working Woman

2006-10-09T00:13:00.000-04:00

Sesame Snack Cracker

Bounty (in packages)

Treasure Chest

Dinner Composition

Cute Key Lime Pie in Red Hook, Brooklyn

2006-10-08T22:52:00.000-04:00

This wonderfully fresh little key lime tart (three inches across) was from way down by the water, a bakery in a big old brick building that only seems to make things with key limes. (Shakes, pies in three sizes not counting this one). One has to get there by car, and know where to go. There are signs and arrows when you get close. I never remember that I am a fan of this dessert, but this made me think I'd never had any like it is meant to be. Composed of a simple, crumbly, graham cracker crust-almost a little salty, and a creamy, tart, sweet, straightforward key lime custard. It was sunny and it was perfect.

Los Angeles In Early September

2006-09-18T23:44:00.000-04:00

gravlox on potato pancakes

fancy bodega

regional chips

beautiful but incomplete and therefore unacceptable mojito (no lime juice)

drive-thru

Green Chiles

2006-09-15T03:07:00.000-04:00

Santa Fe, NM- We bought two bags (the size of garbage bags) of New Mexican green chiles grown in Hatch, New Mexico. Purchased in burlap sacks, they are then dumped into appropriately sized turning roasters stationed in the parking lot or wherever one buys the chile. The skin of the chiles becomes black and blistered, and the smell is smoky, powerful, a sign of fall in New Mexico. It gets in the blood. The steaming chiles are then corralled into plastic bags to be taken home for further preparation. The chiles are roasted and left to steam some so that the skin can be removed (it is not easily digestible) and so the flavor of the chile is enhanced and the texture useful. Once in the kitchen, (wearing gloves) the skins are peeled off and all the seeds and some veins removed. We then bagged and froze all thirty pounds. (about seven hours). The chile can then be easily transported, defrosted and used in sauces, stews, quiches, breads, on cheeseburgers, sandwiches, eggs, fries, tamales, enchiladas, and honestly anything and everything else.

Fried Rice Soothe Us

2006-09-01T13:26:00.000-04:00

Fall Start

2006-09-01T12:59:00.000-04:00

After a hectic morning arriving at the airport to be told I was there a day early, and a false start in a cab ride home with a furious and scary driver, actually getting in a cab that took me somewhere near my house left me needing some comfort. Tucked in at my local corner store awaiting a reliably wonderful egg sandwich, I drank some coffee and watched the neighborhood characters. The cat that lives at the corner store approached me directly and hopped up on my lap and started kneading like it was his job. Though I'm allergic to cats I could hardly protest as "Oreo" leaned against me, collapsed and went to sleep. A neighbor came over to greet the cat and express his jealousy since Oreo had betrayed him this morning. It was one of those times, though the weather was good and I was all ready to go that in fact I was right where I needed to be.

New Cheese

2006-08-16T10:57:00.000-04:00

Today I researched raw cheeses. The first time I ever heard of such a thing was when I read a food article in Vogue when I was a teenager. When I have been out of the country, the cheese was an entirely different food experience with textures and flavors never experienced at home. In fact it is illegal to experience these sensations at home. Cheese in the United States since the 1940’s must be pasteurized, and if it’s not pasteurized, it must be aged for a minimum of 60 days in order to kill off the bacteria that could make us sick but probably won’t. So all the luscious raw young cheeses that exist elsewhere must remain an exotic fantasy. I was fantasizing about Turkish cheese (beyaz penir) at the fancy grocery store, and staring at blocks of feta sitting in their cloudy baths, one French, on Bulgarian, one Greek. I tried the french one, which had a lovely flavor, but it was dense, crumbly, and far too serious tasting. I squished the farmers cheeses and fresh mozzarellas in their plastic wrapping and wished for a taste of this Turkish delight in my memory. Not that there is one specific type I know of. The only thing I know is that it is solid enough to be in a cube that can be sliced with a plastic knife, is moist, and springy and has a varying degree of salt. It also tastes like a million bucks. The guy at the cheese counter recommended a fresh cheese they make there, sold in little plastic containers. Its called Menouri, and is a soft Greek-style cheese made from sheep or goat whey. (The liquid byproduct of producing cheese from goat or sheep milk, the first product being the curds). This cheese has been able to sort of satisfy my craving. It is soft, salted, moist, sliceable, with a slight crumble like cheesecake. It’ll have to do. I hear there are places in New York that one can obtain raw, young cheeses, but it might get a little shady. The other options are to drive north, drive south, know a guy, or to keep the fantasy in frequent rotation.

New Bread

2006-08-12T01:45:00.000-04:00

At 12.30am I was walking home. The end of Manhattan avenue was filled with the smell of baking bread. I slowed down to savor it and to look at the building. I’m not sure which side is the front because I’ve walked down the other block and it looks the same, a red and white mosaic sign above the door that says New Warsaw Bakery. I’ve noticed the bread in the many local bakeries. I like the way of life that includes buying one’s bread everyday. As I stand under the sign, I look down and there is an open door with a tall rack in front of it, and I can see a huge oven, many feet wide, and a conveyor that extends to the other end of the building. The conveyor ascends away from me and on on it are a couple hundred shining new oval loaves. There is an old man sitting below the belt far in the back and he sees me and gets up. I wasn’t sure if he was coming over, but I continued to stand and he appeared with a greeting and slid the rack away. I said, “it smells good here”. “Oh it must be me”, he smiled. I asked if I could buy one, and he said “now? ok, two dollars”. He reaches over to the belt and puts a gleaming loaf in a big brown paper sack like a grocery bag. As I walk home I tear off little bits of it to eat. The crust is salty and the inside is hot and fluffy. The bread is much bigger than I expected and as I carry it on my hip, it feels like a warm, heavy, living being.

Stay Hungry

2006-08-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

2006-08-09T04:02:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Marinationwide. Here I will document my adventures and share lists, pictures, recipes, and writings on things that count. Salud!