Une petite anana-cerise
8:00 PM - i'm using a baking sheet over the stovetop as a cutting board, making French bread pizza while be preps 4 bags of carrots for the juicer. The pizza turned out excellent: crusty baguette with a little tomato sauce, thin slices of mozzarella, fake pepperoni rounds, olive oil and seasonings. As for the juice, be mixed some of the carrot with cranberry since we only had 1 apple; surprisingly it was quite good, and tasted like neither!
9:30 PM - be gets hit with a Slurpee craving. We have to find a better parking space for the car anyways, so we're off down Northern Blvd to the
7-Eleven in Jackson Heights. Unlike those in the suburbs, at this one you have to pay for your drink first, in order to get the cup. I chose the smallest cup (probably the size recommended for infants) while be chose the 3rd out of 5 total sizes. I haven't stood in front of a Slurpee machine in years. They had the regular
flavors of Coke and Cherry. Nothing blue, orange or purple. I tried some Fanta Pina Colada (too syrupy sweet) and Pineapple (good, but didn't really taste like pineapple) and totally avoided the Diet Pepsi and Crystal Light flavors. If i'm having a Slurpee, it should be loaded with sugar, you know? I ended up with mostly Pineapple and a layer of Cherry on top while be got all Coke, of course. BTW i've always loved that spoon-straw.
11:00 PM - be made a pot of rice and some braised mushrooms. I wasn't really hungry (i'm loading up on toasted corn nuts now!) but he ate a little bit. Mainly i was concerned about Vampire Harley (the big cat) who just lost a canine tooth! Apparently cats are really prone to dental problems. She's been acting completely fine and we had no idea there was a tooth issue until i saw a strange object on the floor. This weekend = vet.
Important Things
1) Tonight i found "toasted corn snacks" at Whole Foods. It's sold in plastic containers in the bulk foods aisle. They're exactly the same crunch consistency of
Elotitos but without the flavors. Think of it as plain tortilla chips vs. Doritos. Since be can't drive me to Jamaica every week, i must settle for these toasted corn snacks. I ate 1/3 of the container on the way home.
2) Does anyone remember
Sugus? Growing up, i always thought it was Chinese candy but now i hear it's really from Switzerland. Imagine Starburst, but harder & chewier with less intense flavors. In Hong Kong i loaded up on numerous packets and rolls (squares?). Sadly,
Sugus is surprisingly difficult to find here; once i searched nearly every market in Chinatown and the only place that had any was
Aji Ichiban, the overpriced candy store. Of course i bought some (and ate a ton of free sample nibbles to compensate for their ripping me off).
3) Speaking of candy, as soon as we reduce the stockload in the house, i'm heading over to
Economy Candy. We checked it out 2 summers ago and let's just say the house totally smelled like Halloween. I won't say exactly how much we spent on candy, but i'll note it was more than $20.00 but under $50.00. The place kicks ass. Just remember to brush and floss - root canals are no fun.
MK Will Move Back
Some new vegetarian/vegan places i've been meaning to check out:
Candle 79, a fancy version of Candle Cafe
Counter, where the chefs grow their own vegetables on the roof
Food Swings in Williamsburg, a fake meat joint
Franchia, a Korean tea house owned by the
Hangawi crew
Pukk, a vegetarian Thai place
sNice bakery cafe (vegetarian s'mores!)
The 2nd Sign
I love being around Tauruses. I have Taurus rising so i get what they are: food loving, self-indulgent and utterly soft velvet pillows and chocolate cake lovers. I've always been surrounded by Tauruses; i think the food lover in me finds comfort in knowing that my friends love eating, too. Major events in the past few years can be summed up with, "Remember those strawberries?" or "I wish i could eat that candied potato dish again." Luckily for be, he's a Taurus; i'm not sure i'd love him if he wasn't! (But his Gemini moon is another story...)
Miss Bamboo (a Taurus, of course) volunteered to take care of the food & drink for yesterday's rehearsal/performance and did a great job - dinner for 25 people for under $200.00, complete with
Tagalong Girl Scout Cookie Ice Cream! Who even knew this existed? I must try the Samoa flavor next. I once attended a house party at Miss B's - the spread was insane, quantity- and quality-wise. If a Taurus is throwing a party, you must go.
When i got home, be had created a new dish he called "Jumble." I though he named it "Jumbo," as in, "Have a big slice of Jumbo!" but it's true - out of the senses, my hearing is the worst. It was an odd combination of things that tasted surprisingly good: fried potato chunks, lacinta kale, fake ground beef and feta crumbles. He threw out the collard greens because they were moldy. The dandelion is going bad, Cutie doesn't want any more.
We might be going to Tokyo this Spring. Fares are good and vouchers make them better. If anyone has tips please let me know. be (the seafood lover) might not want to leave!
Sea Fleas
This afternoon, pre-accidental nap, we ate an Easter lunch at be's parents' house. The main events were lobster, crab and shrimp so i watched his entire family cracking shells and squirting juices all over the table, while eating my yellow rice, eggplant, curtido, potato and grilled zucchini. be woke up early this morning to marinate and grill our two zucchini and they turned out very good.
His dad gave us two tamarind pods from Thailand. I'm not sure how he acquired them but they sure were tasty! I love tamarind candies, which are essentially nuggets of pulp mixed with sugar and salt and sometimes chile powder. The fruit from the pods was less intense than the candies but tasted clearer, if that makes any sense.
A big part of the lunch conversation was the retelling of free seafood stories. When be's family lived in Miami they used to chase and pick up crabs off some particular stretch of highway during a specific time of the year/tide. Apparently they also once collected a bunch of roly-poly type insects on Rockaway Beach and ate them as well. I'm not sure what they were (his mom called them "sea fleas") but it seemed like they weren't supposed to eat them.
I never liked seafood growing up. My mom is a huge seafood fan so we ate it much more often than we liked. She would scare us with stories about bad men getting fish bones caught in their throats as they told lies during dinner (or whatever bad thing they did), so being that we were bad kids, eating fish meant chewing each bite a hundred times before swallowing. Growing up near the Chesapeake Bay meant wooden crate buckets full of crabs, poking them with chopsticks and watching the grown ups gorge on them over a newspaper-covered table. To this day, i hate the smell of
Old Bay Seasoning. Overall, i think lobster is gross; i hate watching people cracking/squirting/dribbling. I hated the taste of oysters. Octopus and squid were like rubber. That black vein in shrimp is poo! Yeah, let's just say i never liked seafood.*
Many people are surprised that i don't eat it. Common knowledge about "vegetarians" is that they will eat seafood since it's not "meat." When i tell them i don't eat it, i usually get a look of pity - poor me, missing out on the good stuff. Well, to me it never was good stuff, and yeah ... it's meat.
*One exception: canned tuna. I loved tuna fish sandwiches, but i think it was mostly the mayonnaise. I used to eat mayo by the spoonful!
Pupa
On Friday we received an excellent
box! Not only did we get ultra-crisp pink lady apples and dark red blood oranges, but mushrooms for the first time and two bunches of dandelion! Normally, the extra dandelion wouldn't be a good thing, but we discovered Cutie (the little cat) happily nibbling on a leaf so she and Harley (the big cat) can help us reduce it - it's a combined household effort.
Saturday was mainly spent at
Citygirl's wedding bash in Long Island. The catering was shockingly good; the last wedding i attended at a "hall" was merely okay, more show than substance - they made a big deal of wheeling out numerous dessert carts, spotlights and annoying MC included, but the desserts were repetitive and not that great. Today's wedding however, was so yummy i must have eaten 1 lb of cheese alone during the cocktail hour. The fruit platters contained delicious starfruit and pineapple almost as good as on Oahu. be ate a ton of large shrimp. At the dinner, we made the idiotic mistake of standing in the shortest line, which was short for a reason! It was mainly pasta dishes and a falafel-making area. Back at the table, we realized the long line was for Indian dishes, so we ate a few bites of pasta and waited with the masses for the good stuff: saag paneer (which be loves), biryani rice, dal, kofta curry, idly, vada, sambar. I was so stuffed!
After a quick clothing change we met up with O, Doey & Yumi in the East Village. We ended up at
Centosette since it was quite late and our other options were closed. be's cappuccino mousse was tasty and creamy; i really liked the chocolate cookie crust. My tiramisu slice was good, but still nothing like the piece i had in Paris - at a vegetarian restaurant called Aquarius! be and i both agree we would easily pay $50.00 for that tiramisu cake. It was one of the best desserts i ever had.
We like to do things in reverse, or perhaps it's because dessert is more important than the meal, so we ate some food at
Veselka after the cake slices. Most of us ordered soup but if i had any room i would've eaten some fried pierogies, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy or a veggie burger.
Green Goodness
S came back from her week in Trinidad rested, nicely tanned and bearing gifts of unique deliciousness. She brought in a few plastic bags of crunchy green mango slices, marinated in a slightly hot, salty mixture of cilantro, lime and other seasonings. It was such a refreshing, tart and zesty combination. Originally, i'm not a fan of green mango (we always ate it buttery ripe, juice dripping down the chin and arms) but what S brought in has totally done a 180 on me. be sometimes eats green mango with a little salt, but next time we get one, i'm going to try to recreate this cilantro marinade for it.
There are a lot of recipes online for "mango cilantro chutney" but they're not what i'm talking about. Doing a search for "Trinidad" and "green mango" calls up a few recipes using chile, limes and salt - more like what we ate, but with chopped cilantro bits. I'm sure other countries have similar things, too.
Necessities
The snowing outside looks like powdered sugar sprinkling onto fried dough! This
guide to fried dough around the world is simply awesome. Out of the list i've had: beignets, churros, donuts, fritters, fry bread, gulab jamun, hush puppies, malassadas, pooris, sopapillas, you tiao (oil fried devils!) and zeppoles. Thanks
A Full Belly!
The iCat Mega Post
We are tired people.
Friday began with loads of frantic cleaning. The 4 Rices arrived around 8:30PM from their week in Boston and day in Amherst (where they consumed pizza from Antonio's!).
L brought me a bag of yummy cookies from the Henion Bakery, my most favorite bakery in MA, which used to make this amazing black olive bread and the best danish i ever had. The cookies were all excellent: citrusy and nutty florentines, hearty coffee chunk, chewy dried cherry and real oatmeal cream pies! It was a large soft oatmeal cookie, sliced into half moons and filled with a light, sweet cream cheese filling. In a taste test, it would cream the Little Debbie version. For dinner, the Rices, be and i ate at Dow Thong. One of Ian's favorite dishes is pad Thai, so he had that (so did i!) while be had his usual shrimp pad sew ew, L ordered a vegetable dish and dude had eggplant. The meal was delicious; dude even proclaimed that their pad Thai was the best he ever had!
Saturday included a moral dilemma. During our lunch at
Hunan Delight in Park Slope, not only did
dude look like he was about to cry while eating his
broccoli, zucchini, eggplant and garlic sauce, but temptations to move back took hold - all due to the power of one
dish.
Ian drew be a picture of Harley, on which he wrote, "iCat."
Sunday was the start of the cleaning/painting frenzy. be and i spent 2 days painting 2 rooms of our apartment. For the final outcome, you'll have to see it for yourself so take a trip out to Queens! We had some pizza at Dino's on Broadway for a late lunch. For dinner, i made a meal of potato patties with beet tops, fake chicken chunks, sauteed zucchini and beet stems with basalmic vinegar, which was quite tasty considering the vegetables weren't at their freshest.
Monday contained a visit to the
East Village Cheese Shop, where we snagged a $19.08 bagload of cheese and butter goodness! Nothing was over $1.99: 2 rounds of Boursin, 2 sticks of Lurpak chile & lime butter, 1 basket of French butter with sea salt crystals, 1 round of Camembert from Normandie, 1 marinated string cheese, 1 packet of sliced Colby, 2 Mediterranean feta crumbles, 2 goat cheeses and 2 boxes of crackers!! If you're going to buy cheese, this is the only place to do it; most of the products are imported and the prices are unbeatable! The day didn't include a full meal, though; over the day we ate: potato patties, soup, bread & butter, cheese, cereal, dumplings and candy.
Foods Frenzy
Happy Birthday to my Mom!
Today before work i checked out the new
Whole Foods in Union Square. It just opened a few days ago on 14th St in the building where Bradlees used to be. Let's sum up the experience in one word: madhouse! The entire place was mobbed beyond belief, especially the main street level which was filled to the brim with rudeasses and their bumpy baskets. The basement level is the supermarket, the main street level has the hot/cold food bars and pre-made foods for the lunch crowds, and the upper level apparently holds a cafe. I didn't make it up there to check, but i'm sure it was mobbed, too.
I left with $21.08 less in my wallet in exchange for: Kiss My Face lavender deodorant, 32 oz of Fuji apple juice, 1 Kozy Shack rice pudding, 1 large baguette, 1 stick of
Lurpak garlic butter and 1+ lb of food from the salad bar (which was surprisingly good; the cooks are better at Union Sq than Chelsea or Columbus Circle - try the roasted mushrooms!)
Back at the office, i offered everyone some bread & butter. I'm lucky to work with people who are also into food, so they're always down for taste testing. The Lurpak butter, like the Vermont butter, was dense and creamy. The garlic flavor was strong and pungent, which matched the salty butter very well. It tasted excellent on the crusty baguette but it might be too strong for regular soft bread. Apparently
Lurpak makes a chile & lime butter, which i'm totally going to try next. I didn't know this, but Lurpak seems to be a
world-renowned brand.
For a late dinner Cristin (the new Limerick Slam champ), O, be and i went to the Neptune Diner in Astoria. The New York Daily News keeps
voting it "The Best Diner in New York," if not the 2nd best, and although i guess the meaty stuff is great, the things i've eaten have been okay - not raveworthy, but good. be is in love with their grilled octopus, which he swears tastes like steak. My pickle was excellent but the grilled cheese and fries were okay. But i will admit that O's sundae looked perfect.
Choco-covered what?
Apparently, the
Just Pickles stand on 33rd St sells a
chocolate-covered pickle!? I am very suspect. This cannot be a good thing.
I used to hate pickles as a kid. Looking back, i think my hatred stemmed more from expectations than actual dislike. Aren't all kids supposed to hate pickles, anchovies, bread/pizza crust and brussels sprouts? Thankfully, i like them now; a good pickle is so deliciously crisp, salty and refreshing.
I found the Just Pickles stand one day while walking around Midtown. It's a tiny stand comprised of a guy and numerous barrels of pickles, very easy to never notice. I ordered 2 sours but he gave me 3 pickles in the bag!
If anyone's insane enough to try this choco-pickle, do report! I'm curious, but it just doesn't sound like a good flavor mixture, you know?
Too Much TV
I used to watch the Food Network constantly. It was my absolute favorite channel, that had the best shows and most interesting programs. In the past 2 years though it's just gone downhill, namely for a few key reasons:
1) I hate Bobby Flay, and besides Emeril, he's all over the channel. I've always disliked him but after that first "Iron Chef America" that they filmed in Webster Hall (Morimoto v Flay) where Bobby jumped on his cutting board while raising the roof, my disliked turned into intense hate. He's so full of himself!
2) Too much Emeril. I don't hate Emeril, although i think "bam" is old news. He's just on the channel way too much. Watching his show is like witnessing a Pavlov's dogs experiment; mere mentions of butter, pork and oil cause the audience members to scream.
3) "Iron Chef America," all versions old and new. This is the absolute dumbest show with the stupidest script, rules and judges ever. It totally pales in comparison to the real "Iron Chef" - those shows were so intense, interesting and had good stories. I don't like Alton Brown as the commentator/resident food expert, the way they pit nationalities, gender and race against each other for faux conflict; and the pretentious comments from the idiot judges.
4) "Unwrapped," which used to be an excellent show. Now all the episodes are like: "Carnival foods you can eat in the bathroom!" "Fried snacks that look like unfried snacks!" "Chocolately foods that double as drinks!" and "Lunchbox treats you liked as a kid and now like as an adult!" Poor Marc Summers.
5) Remember "No Repeat Monday" on MTV in the late '80s? Let's just say Food Network (and MTV!) don't abide by such silly rules anymore. I'm always seeing the same clips on different shows, whether it's "Food Finds," "Top 5," "Unwrapped," "Roker on the Road, "The Best Of" or "Wedding Cake Challenge IV!"
6) Besides Bobby Rivers, Al Roker and the crew of the real "Iron Chef," it's all white people! Sometimes you'll see a handful of chefs on an "ethnic cooking" show aired in the afternoon, but that's it! It's ridiculous that there's 2 Italian cooking shows (3 of you count Rachel Ray) but absolutely nothing on Chinese or Mexican cooking. Plus, whatever happened to Ming Tsai?
7) There used to be a show on vegetarian cooking with Curtis Akins. You'd think a "Food Network" would encompass shows on different kinds of cuisine AND at least have 1 vegetarian show. Shit, there's like 5 BBQ shows, 3 low-carb shows and 24 shows with Emeril and Bobby Flay. Maybe they ditched Curtis Akins when Al Roker came back, only 1 black guy allowed per channel, you know.
8) If you go to their
site and see the listing of shows, you'll notice that all of the major players have 2 or 3 shows. Technically, this means that the Food Network is just repeat episodes of the same people and clips over and over. Prime example: Bobby Flay is on: "BBQ with Bobby Flay," "Boy Meets Grill," "FoodNation with Bobby Flay," and "Iron Chef America." I know he's the Food Network darling, but aren't other people getting tired of him, too?
I guess i'm now going to have to watch Comedy Central and all those animated shows with be. (Better yet, we should just do away with watching TV!)
The Good Afterpost
Now that everyone thinks i like
soylent green, here's a recap of my weekend in food:
Saturday night i had dinner with LD, A$, P and Chester at
Village Mingala. That ginger thoke salad sure was delicious! P requested her soybean basil "extra spicy" and it came made with about 2 T of crushed chile flakes! Two people at the table admitted they couldn't eat it, it was so hot! I had a few pieces but i don't think i could've eaten a whole plate; P's tuff. Afterwards, we hung out at Fish Bar on 5th St, a very nice, non-pretentious neighborhood joint.
Sunday for lunch be made a yummy noodle dish. He first stir fried cubed eggplant with fake pork chunks from
May Wah. With my assistance, he rehydrated thin rice vermicelli noodles and added them to the wok with soy sauce, mushroom sauce and seasonings. Finally, he added a few pieces of lettuce for color. In the U.S. most people eat lettuce raw in salads or on burgers, but i grew up with lettuce stir fries. My most favorite was romaine hearts; they come out so crisp and sweet. be's dish came out very tasty: the noodles were cooked perfectly, and went well with eggplant and smokey fake pork. The only thing i would've added was hot chile paste!
I met up with LD for a late lunch at
Kati Roll Company. We took 4 unda aloo (egg & potato) kati rolls to go since all the seats were taken, plus there were more people standing. It's a small place but the wait is always worth it. I love the crispy, oily paratha bread wrapped around chopped onions, pickle and your choice of filling. For some bizarre reason, no one ever wants to go with me when i get hit with a craving. I'm always down, whoever wants to go!
Since be's been cooking for the past few meals, it was my turn to cook dinner. First i made a pot of russet potatoes that i mashed with cheddar cheese, fake bacon bits, butter and salt & pepper. Leaving the pot to settle, i made broccoli with garlic and lemon pepper and a pan of carrot rounds, sauteed with yummy VT butter and brown sugar. I used my egg ring to make nice round potato patties and pan fried each side in a little oil until browned and crisp. Finally, i toasted some rustic bread that we ate with more VT butter. Meanwhile, be popped in a Mrs. Smith's Apple Pie for dessert, which i didn't eat since i was riveted to the "Cannibals" show.
Strange Endings
I just finished watching a 2 hour show entitled "Cannibals" on the History Channel. I love watching all those documentary shows anyways, but this one was especially interesting. It feels slightly strange sitting here, wanting to blog about my good food weekend when i just watched a show about eating people. Sure our culture abhors the act, but if faced with cannibalism or death i'm sure it's not so easy to completely dismiss the idea. What i found particularly interesting was the body's response to starvation: first your fat and muscle mass are depleted, then your non-essential organs shut down (liver, stomach, intestines) leaving only your heart, lungs and brain functioning; finally the cerebral cortex (the large frontal lobes of the brain) shuts down, leaving only a very simple part of the brain working. It's this process that not only makes a person crazed, but drives you to do anything, even eat another person, to survive.
Apparently anthropologists and archaeologists all over the world are in hotly contested debates about cannibalism - not if it's moral or not, but whether it's "imprinted in our bones" as either a survival instinct or as the deepest taboo (hence, diseases from
prion disorders). Faced with an extreme dire situation, i would never intentionally kill someone for food... shit, i don't even eat animal meat! but i don't think anyone can know what they would or would not do, without being in that life or death situation. I'm just looking at it from a logical standpoint.
Vampire-Friendly
Last night
be,
O and i took a trip out to NJ to have dinner with
Dyanna & Steve at
The Garlic Rose. It's an Italian restaurant that puts garlic in everything, even the ice cream! (No, we didn't order it, more because we were too full than too scared, though.)
The place was decorated with garlic ropes hanging off the walls, which were painted to look like crumbing plaster, revealing the "original, old brick" underneath. The service was friendly but a little slow, but they were very busy with a crowded restaurant. Our table was the only one with any people of color, a weird thing to experience when you're used to dining in New York.
The first thing you get is Italian bread and a bowl of super-garlicky spread, consisting of olive oil, rosemary and other herbs, breadcrumbs and a ton of chopped garlic. It was very tasty, the garlickiest thing we ate. We went through 3 or 4 orders of the bread & spread being that we all were hungry and that it was so good. You can order the spread to go, also.
As appetizers people shared the stuffed mushrooms and a shrimp dish. O ordered the filet mignon while everyone else got different pasta dishes. Mine was good, the pasta wasn't overcooked (the #1 culprit of bad pasta dishes) and i liked the contrast of the salty olives with the sweet tomato sauce. I was surprised my pasta dish actually WASN'T that garlicky. Considering the spread left me with everlasting garlic breath, the other dishes lacked significant garlic punch.
Dyanna requested roasted garlic heads for the table. I ate half of my head alone and mixed the other half in my pasta. When garlic is roasted, it gets soft and slightly sweet while losing the typical taste and hotness of raw garlic. These heads were good, but would've been better hot from the oven. I haven't roasted any heads myself, but i'm going to try it sometime.
Funny note: in the bathrooms, they have mouth wash dispensers and little plastic cups!
I thought overall the restaurant was good & tasty but "could've used garlic in more original, innovative ways" as opposed to "just using garlic in dishes." Maybe i've watched too much Iron Chef. That spread though - even mouth wash, gum and mints won't do anything!
Search Terms
Apparently many people reach my site with the following search terms:
"hot ass"
"hot asian ass"
"hot latin ass"
"delicious latinas"
"delicious anal"
"sad-banana"
"snow zombies"
"can you eat sea salt"
and my overal favorite:
"butternut squash in ass"
I don't think i'll be posting a recipe for that anytime soon.
Going to Go!
The Loud One is in town. After work be, P, Anjali, the LO and i went to
Go! on St. Mark's for a late dinner. I hadn't been there in many months. It's the first restaurant i became a regular at in New York: the Workshop used to be across the street and we ate dinner there so many times i've lost count.
I really like the atmosphere there - very casual and friendly. In the summertime it's fun to sit outside next to the sidewalk and watch everyone go by (these days, it's less gutter punks and more tourists). The sushi is good; not the best and not the worst. What makes Go! different from other Japanese restaurants is the okonomiyaki stand, which grills meat and noodles topped with a thin egg pancake and sauces. They also serve many small dishes and snacky-type foods, announced on magic marker signs taped to the wall. I once worked with someone who also waited tables there, and she informed me of the secret "real" (better) menu that you can request to order off of, comprised of very authentic Japanese dishes. (I've never done this.)
My favorite thing to order at Go! is the "Yasai Zen," a giant tray of vegetarian dishes for $10.25. First you get miso soup and salad with ginger-carrot dressing. The soup really fills you up, so by the time the tray of food arrives, i'm questioning whether i can finish a respectable amount: 1 inside-out avocado roll, tempura (tomato, onion, bamboo shoot and a leaf), a picked assortment (cucumber and 2 kinds of seaweed), stewed vegetables (broccoli, squash and bean sprouts), 2 grilled tofu skewers with hot peanut sauce and a bowl of rice. Only once have i ever finished every last crumb. Usually i manage to finish everything but the bowl of rice.
Now, for a place to totally avoid, it can be found right next door to Go! =
Dojo. Yeah it's super cheap but the food isn't good! It's like diner fare with some super-Americanized Japanese stuff. I have no idea why people keep saying it's "healthy" cause it sure seems like diner grease to me. I admit, we used to eat there because dinner can be had for $5 but after the potato fiasco, i haven't set another foot there in 6 years.
Dude once ordered the $1 bowl of potatoes. Already halfway through his bowl, he lifted up another chunk to eat and not only saw some grains of rice sticking to it, but a BITE taken out.
I Need Snacks
The NYTimes has an
article about chaat, described as:
Chaats are jumbles of flavor and texture: sweet, sour, salty, spicy, crunchy, soft, nutty, fried and flaky tidbits, doused with cool yogurt, fresh cilantro and tangy tamarind and sprinkled with chaat masala, a spice mixture that is itself wildly eventful. The contrasts are, as one fan said, "a steeplechase for your mouth," with different sensations galloping by faster than you can track them.
The writer was wrong about
Dimple, though. It's been on 30th St for a few years and did not just open. They've been serving delicious vegetarian Indian cuisine, chaats and sweets as long as i've been working in Midtown. For many weeks, my favorite lunch was samosa chaat - for $5.00 you get a potato-filled pastry topped with chickpeas, yogurt, crisps, cilantro, chopped onion, 2 kinds of chutney and hot peppers. The older woman behind the counter makes it the best, so definitely try it out.
Anjali told me about
Sakhadia's on 45th just a few days ago. She recommended their pani puri and the cream of wheat cakes (i forget the name), both of which i love. Pani puri is totally in my top general snacks of all time list; crispy puffs (i love crispy crunchy foods), filled with potato chunks and chickpeas (2 more things that i love) and topped with cilantro water (you know i can't get enough of that herb!). I might go to VA in a few weeks, and i must eat at
Woodlands; they have a multi-region vegetarian Indian buffet that has pani puri, which i plan to gorge on.
Taco Be
be made the best tacos tonight! He brought the ingredients in separate containers for us to assemble at the Workshop; i was working late so this was a much appreciated meal - the offerings in Midtown, besides Korean food, are pretty terrible.
First he cooks a bag of Morningstar Crumbles (our favorite fake ground beef) with taco seasoning and some oil. He stirs the fake meat around until it's crumbly and dry. He heats up a can of vegetarian refried beans, shreds some cheddar cheese and chops up some lettuce and tomato. Lastly, we heat the shells in the oven to get them crisp. We usually like them slightly browned. If we have guacamole, that's great but usually we don't, so i finish off the tacos with hot sauce while be skips condiments.
I've realized that be and i have some specific official cooking duties. If a certain dish must be made, only one of us can do it. It's a rule that doesn't seem to be questioned.
be: tacos, quiche, pupusas, ravioli, croutons, pear dessert
me: broccoli, cornbread, collards/wild rice, vegetable soup, (sweet) potatoes, coffee
But there are some dishes that go both ways: mushroom pate, pasta, roasted vegetables, white rice, plantains
Bananas Garcia and the Dandelion Reduction
Tonight be made a delicious dinner and dessert! He sauteed that pesky bunch of dandelion with olive oil, garlic, fresh tomatoes and seasonings. He topped some ziti pasta with the greens mixture and toasted pine nuts (and a little Arribiatta sauce + extra chile oil on mine). Surprisingly, the dandelion lost most of its bitterness and reminded me of chewy spinach. I like dandelion okay, but in the pasta dish it was very tasty. I'm glad we ate this bunch instead of letting it rot in the fridge; it's
shockingly nutritious.
For dessert, be made up a new dish based on Bananas Foster. We ate it over a little ice cream, but it's great by itself. Here's the recipe he wrote down for everyone to check out:
Bananas Garcia2 bananas (slightly underripe is best)
2 T unsalted butter
2 T brown sugar
1/4 t cinnamon
3/4 c coffee
2 t white sugar
Coffee Syrup:
Heat 1/4 c of coffee in saucepan over low heat. Add 2 t white sugar and stir until dissolved. Simmer until it's reduced to 2-3 T.
Bananas:
Cut bananas into 1/2" rounds and soak in a bowl with 1/2 c coffee. In a pan over medium heat, melt the butter and brown sugar, mixing until blended. Add the bananas, coffee and cinnamon. Cook for 3 minutes or until soft.
Serve over vanilla ice cream and top with the coffee syrup.
Butterland
About 15 years ago i had some Amish butter straight from PA, a block of yellow-orange goodness wrapped in aluminum foil. It was so rich and dense, it reminded me more of cheese than butter - i wanted to eat this stuff straight, no bread necessary! Since then, i've been fondly remembering this wonderful butter although i haven't made a great effort to locate some. There's a booth at the Union Square Farmers' Market that sells Amish cheeses sometimes, but i don't recall if they had butter.
Kavita's comment about butter keepers has me on a frenzy to locate one to buy. I love totally ingenious, simple things like this. A "butter keeper," aka "butter bell" or "French butter dish," is a two-part contraption. You pack the "bell" part with softened butter, and turn it upsidedown into salted water to store it at room temperature (for good spreadable consistency) for up to a month. The water forms an airtight seal, which keeps oxygen from reaching the butter and spoiling it. This
site has a diagram while this
one has a picture of a packed bell and links of sites to buy them. Today i saw one at
Bridge Kitchenware* but i wasn't into the heavy glazed pottery look. I'm leaning towards ordering a set of these
mini ones (cause i love mini!) or maybe this
red one.
It was such a nice day today that i walked from 52nd to 32nd, stopping at 42nd for the Grand Central Food Hall. I picked up a crusty baguette and was peering into the cheese case when it occurred to me to check out some fancy butter. The one i chose was the 8 oz. salted
cultured butter from Vermont Cheese & Butter Co. Back at the office, i tasted-tested the butter with P and Hiroko of
Lake Isle Press. We all agreed that the butter was absolutely delicious - it's much creamier and more flavorful than supermarket butter, and at $3.99 for 8 oz. vs $5.50 for 16 oz., the price difference is totally worth it. It reminds me of that Amish butter from way back.
Hmm, i've consumed about 4 T of butter today. This must be bad but it sure tasted great going down. New mission: get a cool butter keeper and fill it with this real butter for extreme butter goodness!
*I tested and bought a
Unicorn pepper grinder! It really does grind like mad. I'm excited about trying other peppercorns besides the ones in my giant McCormick jug.
Yummy Snacks
The first task of the day was a frantic Costco trip. I picked up my contact lenses, a mega 1.5 gallon jug of vegetable oil (we fry a lot, yes), enough tissues to last the rest of the year and a box of 24 cookies for the secret yarn club meeting.
Our 2nd meeting was at A$'s house and there were enough snacks to go into sugar/salt overload. Everyone brought something to share so the goodies ranged from cheese & crackers to donut holes. A$ made a bowl of her famous peanut-tomato chutney that we ate with parathas! The recipe is in the little cookbook A$ and i made in 2003, with recipes submitted by the then-Workshop staff. I was pro a yarn club cookbook/knitting & crochet pattern book but we're a few years away from that, considering we've only had 2 meetings!
Afterwards, A$ and i held a smackfest at the
Tea Lounge on 7th Ave in Park Slope. The place reminded me of something in MA instead of Brooklyn: mismatched old couches, people studying or playing games, loud and cozy. I was surprised that our cups of real tea (loose leaves placed into bags) were only $1.50 each! A$'s Empire Earl Gray was very good, but my Moroccan Mint was okay; i still haven't found anything comparable to Amanouz Cafe's in Northampton, MA.
be was driving around Park Slope in a frenzy since he called me 8 times! I totally didn't hear my new phone at all, sorry be! He picked me up and we met O, Doey & Yumi at
Vegetarian Palate on Flatbush for dinner. We ate family-style (everyone shares all the dishes): Crispy Nuggets, Shanghai Spicy Noodles, Tangerine Beef and Three Kinds of Mushrooms with Vegetables. We all were quite satisfied with the meal. Their Crispy Nuggets are definitely better than VP2's Crispy Soul Chicken in the West Village. I really liked the fake pork in the noodle dish. This place is good - even the meat eaters loved the fake meat!
The last stop of the night was
Saint's Alp Tea House on 3rd Ave in the East Village. Miss Nancy's in town so we all met up with her and her brother. The conversation on our end of the table was mainly about Paris. Shit! i mean Merde! the food was good there. Summed up in a few words: baguettes, Camembert cheese, gariguettes, tiramisu, cafe, crepes. If i could go between Paris, Hong Kong (jook, fried bread, mangoes, fried pie, street food, dim sum, the
best restaurant in the world) and New York to eat, i'd live a happy life.
Where's the Meal?!
Today i ate in order: 4 bosc pear slices, 3 fuji apple slices, some water, 4
Laughing Cow cheeses (from France, which come in squares, not wedges!), mushroom pate, 10 crackers, some asparagus, Coke,
Pretzel Stix and cheese, Coke, 1 pupusa/arepa* with hot sauce, bundt cake,
Soletti Happy Mix,
Kashi Medley cereal and soymilk, 2 slices
Mango Loaf, orange Gatorade and 4 Andes candies. Not a good food day. Yesterday our 3 kiwis and 1 orange from the box were crushed. I haven't had not one
Elotito in weeks. I need to eat a real meal. I'm so whiny!
*be's mom was really excited about making arepas; her Columbian friend showed her how. They came out okay but the texture was off since she used pupusa flour. be HATED them.
Ramen Jackpot
One of the packages i picked up in Ktown was Nong Shim's
Kimchee Ramen. I made a bowl for dinner - and it totally hit the ramen jackpot. It's hot, the noodles are a good consistency, it's salty and has little vegetable bits! Of course i added some of the crushed, roasted chiles from Thailand that P's dad made; no noodle dish would be delicious without it. be once made fun of me because of the way i use the chile: i lift up some noodles with my right hand out of the soup, and use my left hand to sprinkle on a little spoonful of the chile, then eat it. I don't like to sprinkle the chile directly into the soup because i think it's wasteful of the hotness. I'm not going to drink the soup (too much sodium) so why am i going to put the chile there?
Now that i've had a satisfying ramen, i'm going to horde packages in case 1) they stop selling it, or 2) meaty products suddenly end up on the ingredients label, two things that always seem to happen to me!
Free Hot Chocolate!
I'm never in this area, but if you happen to be on a cold day...
Tired of hot chocolate that can set you back $5 a cup? Try the lobby of the Regency Hotel, 61st Street and Park Avenue, where the hot chocolate is free to anyone, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., on days when the temperature dips below freezing. Back near the elevators, the hotel has set up a stand for self-service hot chocolate, a steaming winter warmer that the chef, John Iachetti, makes just rich enough by melting his chocolate in half-and-half. Minimarshmallows, chocolate swizzles and peppermint sticks are available as garnishes. In summer, when it's above 80 degrees, there will be fresh lemonade for all.
I copied the above text last year from the NYTimes, but here's another
mention of it from Frommers. If anyone can vouch for its existence and most importantly, its deliciousness, let me know!
Wishniak
Damn this
black cherry soda is good! Makes me wish we had some vanilla ice cream to make a float.
Red Velvet
Okay, now i want that
butter keeper too. Fresh for a MONTH? Thanks Kavita! PS: let the choco-fest begin!
Tonight a bunch of us had dinner at
Pam Real Thai on 49th St and 9th Ave. I had been there once before for lunch and found it to be quite good. However, our meal tonight wasn't as tasty as everyone raves it to be. My fried tofu appetizer was good, and so was A$'s tofu green curry but all the noodle dishes were too saucy and sweet. Overall, the service wasn't that great. On a good note, their prices are lower than expected for a Midtown Manhattan establishment. It's like Queens prices. And speaking of, who's down for a Queens eatathon this Spring?
Everyone i know keeps raving about Red Velvet cake/cupcakes. Apparently, it tastes like it sounds! The table next to us was sharing a box and i could see the envy on the knowing faces at our table. I'll report as soon as i try it.
I Love Ramen
Last night i stopped at Han Ah Reum on 32nd St before heading home. It's a big Korean supermarket that sells everything from baked goods to kitchen supplies. Yes, i was in search of more vegetarian ramen - i found 2 that had meatless powder packets - but i also picked up some fried tofu with chile and a package of Korean roasted seaweed snack strips (Choripdong brand). It's crispier and saltier than the strips from Japan or China, and coated with a thin layer of sesame oil. It's so addictive i already ate 2 of the 3 snack packages!
When i got home, be and i headed over to Stop & Shop to do a little grocery shopping. I picked up 3 packages of American ramen (Maruchan mushroom flavor), some Oatmeal Creme Pies and 4 bottles of
XXXtra Hot for my hot sauce "client." Our quick trip also ended up costing much more than we planned. One really shouldn't go grocery shopping hungry.
Back at home, be made a red chard quiche that turned out very good! The recipe we use calls for 1/4 block of tofu, i suppose, to replace an egg or two. The texture of the quiche is firmer but i think it makes sense with the heartier chard. Spinach is much softer so i can see how you'd want a softer, fluffier egg part.
I made a bowl of American ramen, which i must admit was tasty. It's crazy salty though, so i'd advise against drinking the soup - it's like 90% of your recommended daily sodium intake! I also pan fried some vegetable dumplings (Wang brand, also from Han Ah Reum) that were good and crispy.
Beet Tops
We've now subscribed to
Urban Organic (the box) for about 9 months, and in this time i can proudly say i've eaten new things like kale, kabocha squash, dandelion and chard. We recently got a bunch of beets with their tops still attached: dark magenta stalks with deep green leafy tops. As many of you know, be hates beets so it's always up to me to finish off the root part. The first time we got beets + tops, we waited too long to cook them so the greens rotted before we could eat them. The next time, i cut the stalks to an inch above the beet roots and sauteed the greens in some garlic and oil. Tonight, i did the same but i also sauteed the stalks, sliced into 1/4 pieces, with the greens. We both agree that beet tops are delicious. The flavor is so rich and hearty. I never thought i'd be raving about something so strange. Go get some beet tops and try it out! Better than sauteed spinach!
bebe Beet Tops
3-4 beets with stalks and leafy green tops still attached
2 T olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
salt + freshly ground pepper
Cut the stalks from the beet roots, leaving an inch attached. Save the beet roots for another dish. Wash the stalks with the leafy greens very well, plunging them into 3 changes of water, or until all the sand and silt are washed off. Separate the stalks from the greens, slice the stalks into 1/4" pieces. Shake excess water off the greens and slice into 1" ribbons. Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the chopped garlic and stir for 30 seconds. Add only the stalks to the pan, saute for 1-2 minutes, stirring frequently. Finally, add the greens and stir until coated with oil. Add 1/4 cup water to the pan and cover for 1-2 minutes or until the greens are wilted. Add salt + pepper to taste.
