Cast Iron
J just bought her first piece of cast iron cookware: a large double-burner grill with griddle on the reverse. be and i were giving her tips on seasoning and caring for it; i'm a huge fan of cast iron and be's a recent convert. With proper care, cast iron will last forever, have a surface slicker than any Teflon pan and NOTHING FRIES BETTER! (Crisp crusts, browned surfaces, yum!)
My first piece was a 10.5" skillet my mom bought me for less than $10. It's been dropped, cut into, and had its seasoning burned off numerous times - but this thing bounces back. A re-seasoning fixes anything and it gets better the more you use it. 12 years later it's a beautiful glossy black and nothing fries better.
Next, my mom gave me an 11" grill pan she wasn't using. I bought a corn stick pan and a now-discontinued "All Star" pan that makes cornbread in cute star shapes. My mom also gave me a Tabasco logo fajita pan, and my brother gave me a 5" skillet and another corn stick pan. (I still need one more corn stick pan since 3 pans will bake exactly 1/2 a batch of cornbread mix.) I guess you could say i'm a nut for cast iron but seriously, there are a lot of benefits:
Pros:
it will last many generations
it's cheap
cooking in cast iron imparts minute amounts of iron into your food
you don't have to use high heat since iron is a great conductor
it retains heat very well
it's the original non-stick cookware
it can be used as a weapon if need be
Cons:
you have to season and possibly re-season it a few times
you have to keep it away from water and soap or it will rust
it's heavy when full of food
To me, the cons are so negligible when compared with the pros. Seasoning isn't difficult; you just have to do it right and keep caring for the pan correctly:
1) Lodge* has a
use & care section on their site. Just be sure to use MELTED Crisco or vegetable oil to season it. If you glob on hard shortening, it will melt into a gummy mess in the oven. The goal is to "burn" the shortening/oil into the iron.
2) Food will stick the first few times you use it. Some people recommend cooking very oily foods at first to speed up the seasoning process. Over time, you'll see the iron turn from gray to brown to black. You want to get the pan nice and glossy black, but this will take a few months to a few years, depending on use.
3) To clean, we like using salt. Just put 1-2 T of salt into the pan, use it to scour away any food particles, rinse and hand dry. You must always hand dry cast iron or else the water drops will cause rust. Some people like to further dry the cast iron by heating it until warm to evaporate any water, but i never do this. If the pan is really greasy, i wash it with 1 drop of soap, but try to avoid soap in general.
4) Lodge now offers a "pre seasoned"
Lodge Logic line, which you can apparently use out of the box. They season it by using a special process at the factory. I haven't tried any of the Logic line. I don't think i will because it's really satisfying seasoning it yourself over countless uses. Plus, i'm old-fashioned like that.
5) Some companies offer enameled cast iron, which retains some of the benefits of traditional cast iron and you don't have to season it at all. However, enameled surfaces are not non-stick. The pieces usually come in bright colors and they're supposed to also be used as serving dishes. I've never used enameled cast iron, namely because it's crazy expensive.
Le Creuset is a very famous manufacturer.
If you like to cook and have never tried using cast iron, i highly recommend spending $15-20 on a skillet to try it out. be was skeptical at first, mainly because he'd never used it before - and now he cooks almost everything in them! You can't make real cornbread without cast iron, nor can you sear steak or grill anything indoors. Most importantly, nothing fries better!
*
Lodge has been making cast iron cookware since 1896 in Tennessee. All of my cast iron is from Lodge and i've been very happy with everything.
I'm on a 5T/Day Diet
No one understands how much i love this
butter! No one!
Toast
I need a new toaster. We like toasted baguettes and bagels but don't like unnecessary oven use. Right now my trusty 20-year old GE TOAST-R-OVEN is barely working - but keep in mind this thing is older than all those college students descending onto New York!
be was using the TOAST-R-OVEN a few months ago when he saw a giant spark and a puff of smoke. The top heating element finally gave out and although the bottom one works, you have to flip the item to be toasted 2 or 3 times. It's quite annoying, not the mention potentially dangerous since the bottom one will probably go out soon enough. This TOAST-R-OVEN is tough, though. It was originally my parents' but they gave it to me for college. In Mod 58 there must have been about 15 toaster fires due to dripping cheese, too much butter and not enough crumb-tray cleaning. Like
flames fires!
So anyone with toaster recommendations please pass them on. It doesn't have to be a toaster oven; the old skool slot-loading toasters are fine, too. I don't like the cheapy Black & Decker model. We had one at work and i hated the way it toasted: nothing, nothing, slightly warm, BURNT! plus it died after 3 years of very light use. Stuff isn't made to last anymore, especially not through 20 years of fires!
PS:
CUP Diner changed their menu and doesn't make banana cream pie anymore! In fact, we were informed that ALL their desserts are now from the Omonia Cafe on Broadway. For dessert, why not just go to the real deal a few blocks away? Poo!! BTW the best diner is the New York Ham & Eggery next to Best Buy on Northern Blvd, a tiny real diner with great food, friendly service and low prices.
South
While walking around the East Village last night, we passed by a new place called
Hip Hop Chow on 2nd Ave, where the Tibetan place Shangrila* used to be. be and i were like, "Huh?" and then proceeded towards the epicenter of fries and mayo,
Pomme Frites.
Upon doing some research this morning, i found out that Hip Hop Chow is a new restaurant featuring Southern American and Southern Chinese (Cantonese) cuisines alongside each other. Chef Eric Kwan states: "It's not fusion, but it's diverse." From the website:
This is soul food with a twist. Chef Kwan serves up all his favorite dishes from his New York upbringing. Artistic elements of Hip-Hop and Chinese culture are combined to provide a unique setting for sampling the home-made chow.
So far there are 2 mentions of HHC on Chowhound:
this one says the cornbread is great while
this one says it's a multicultural asset to the neighborhood. Both reviews were glowing in general.
I can't say i'm not intrigued!
*be's been crying ever since Lhasa closed a few years ago. He loved their version of this Tibetan dish of hand-rolled noodles in a tomato broth with ricotta-like cheese. Shangrila made a good version too, but i mainly loved their garlicky hot sauce served alongside the momo (dumplings). Weirdly, the four of us that once drank the house tea all had strange dreams that very night - we all commented on this!
Grilling
For their Summer 2005 intern dinner, E and K chose
Gyu-Kaku in the East Village. It's in the same building as The Village Voice on Cooper Square in the East Village. I've been to Korean BBQ places in K-town with groups, but didn't do the BBQ part myself due to lack of meatless options. Gyu-Kaku, however, is a Japanese BBQ place which happens to offer many vegetarian options, even for the grill (plus some Korean dishes too!)
First off, the restaurant is beautiful. Most of the furnishings are dark wood tables and booths with paper lanterns and an overall simple, modern feel. The partially-open kitchen, friendly atmosphere and group-mentality made it a lively place to be. Plus, the fancy bathroom sinks had river rocks in the basin while the counter had mouthwash (i guess, good for dates!) and lotion.
Each table or counter seat had its own built-in BBQ grill imported from Japan. It was the size of a large plate, heated by an imported charcoal called Binchotan and fueled by gas. The waitstaff periodically adjusted the flames and changed the metal grill plate. Each person in our group ordered 3 or 4 items; each item is a small serving, good for sharing but you'd need a few to fill up on. I got the tofu, which came with 3 tofu slabs and many seasoned, fried tofu pieces and a delicious marinade; a foil packet of asparagus and a foil packet of garlic butter mushrooms. The mushrooms were awesome but the asparagus - i've had better. In addition, i got the tofu salad with greens, croutons and a delicious special dressing which came in a giant bowl. Everyone else also ordered meat: basil chicken, kalbi-marinated beef and lamb, which they enjoyed. For dessert, 3 of us ordered the s'mores which arrived with skewers, 2 marshmallows, 4 graham crackers and 4 pieces of Hershey's chocolate each. Even though marshmallows aren't really vegetarian, nor do i even like then that much, i have fond memories of s'mores from our 4th grade camping trip so i ordered them. Still good, but not as good as on a real fire on your own self-picked stick. As for price, each grilling item cost anywhere from $4 - $10 and the dishes run from $9 - $15: not cheap but not crazy pricey either.
We all agreed that Gyu-Kaku would be a great place for a group dinner in wintertime. The grill emits a nice heat! Not that it wasn't fun during summer, but sitting in a booth with friends over a hot grill when it's snowing outside sounds good! As we were walking out, i saw someone who ordered the mushroom plate which looked awesome. be would totally love it!
Solar Cooking
The NYTimes ran a very interesting
article about solar cooking - using the sun's rays as a fuel source to prepare slowly-simmered, ultra-flavorful dishes. A
solar oven is a box with a bottom painted black to absorb heat, covered by a 45 degree angled reflector panel that moves the sun's rays into the box and converts them to heat. From the article:
You can cook almost anything in these things -- breads and cakes, eggs, soup, souffles, fish, stews, almost every vegetable. I've never seen a simpler method of food prep. Not much clean-up either. And you'll infuriate Con Ed, which is always worth doing. There are so many uses for solar cooking -- at picnics or on a rooftop or, on a more profound level, in needy villages all over the world. Mary said, quoting Peter Matthiessen, ''Anyone who pushes a button to turn on the gas or turns a spigot for water doesn't know how most of the world lives.''
I'm very curious to try it out. be and i always talk about our solar-powered, off-the-grid home. But weather like the muggy gray New York days of late make it more feasible in the Southwest.
Boursinity
I love
Boursin. It's the creamiest, fattiest, most delicious thing you can spread on a baguette or crackers. It's Gournay cheese from Normandie, France - a soft spreadable cheese that reminds me of whipped butter - but way better! If you've never tasted Boursin, i highly recommend making a trip to the
East Village Cheese Shop where they sell rounds for a measly $1.00! (At Whole Foods it costs $4.99!) EVCS doesn't always stock Boursin, but i know that they have both new flavors in stock RIGHT NOW, so hurry up and snag a few rounds.
I've tried all the old Boursin flavors; the original Garlic & Fine Herbs is my all-time favorite. However, the new Fig, Raisin & Nut flavor just shot up the list to be a close second! It's a mildly sweet Boursin with little bits of fruit and chopped nuts mixed in - delicious on a Carr's Whole Wheat cracker (which is slightly sweet and flaky by itself!). The new Shallot & Chive flavor was also excellent but quite "oniony" so if you prefer garlic to onion like i do, stick with the original.
The Citrus Family
Tonight
my sister helped me make a ton of body scrubs and essential oil perfumes! She brought her box of oils, glass pipettes and vials just so we could make a slew of products. She's completely against spending $20 on a jar of sugar scrub when you can make the exact same thing at home for $1. And since she's read a billion books on aromatherapy and natural cosmetics, i can opt for the easy condensed 5 minute tutorial!
We made 4 different body scrubs: brown sugar with vanilla and sandalwood (bakery sweet), sea salt with tangerine and lime (deliciously refreshing), white sugar with lemongrass and lavender (fresh and zingy), and brown sugar with ylang ylang and bergamot (rich and citrusy). Along with the scrubs, we made 4 perfume concoctions with essential oils in a base of vodka: lavender, grapefruit, lime and lemongrass.
My most favorite scents are the citrus ones. I never realized how much i loved them until quite recently. I'm not a flowery scent kind of person, nor do i like the mediciney smells like eucalyptus. And i hate patchouli! Given my fresh oj, grapefruit and limeade addictions my love of citrus smells does make sense.
So if you pass by someone smelling like limes or grapefruit, it's probably me!
Dim Sum Face Off
Part of the fam's in town again. Monday's brunch was at
Buddha Bodhai in Chinatown since we had
Vegetarian Dim Sum House on Sunday - a nice change and a chance to compare some of the dishes. While VDSH serves dim sum all day, BB only does so in the morning and early afternoon. After 3 or so it's the dinner menu.
I must first say that i've had countless meals at VDSH; after all, i've been eating there for over 10 years. I've had nearly everything on the dim sum menu at least once and also many of the dishes off the menu. Like most restaurants, VDSH does have their off-days but overall i love the place. Great authentic tasty vegetarian fare. Top 5 of all time.
Now as for BB, i've only been to the Flushing location once and the newer Manhattan restaurant about 5 times.* I've had just a handful of their dishes and none of the dim sum until today. So far everything's been good to very good with the exception of the pan fried noodles (which were soggy and overly-gravied). They have many dishes that VDSH doesn't serve and their house specialty - fake char siu (honey-glazed BBQ roast pork) is awesome. The owners have been super nice to us too!
So i guess you could say VDSH is the favored incumbent while BB is the new underdog with lots of promise. That's my background in the world of vegetarian dim sum in New York City. (Oh, and
Dim Sum Go Go is terrible. They have some vegetarian selections but when we went, both carnivores and vegetarians thought it wasn't raveworthy plus the service was the opposite of nice. Whoever thinks it's awesome doesn't know what good dim sum is in my book. Worst thing according to my mom: shrimp in the dumplings wasn't even de-veined!)
Of the five BB dim sum dishes i shared with my mom and their comparisons to VDSH's versions:
1) BB's House Special Congee v VDSH Corn Congee (aka jook, which is rice porridge): BB hands down! They serve it up with fake ham, fake jellyfish, peanuts, cilantro, mushrooms and rounds of yu ja guei (deep fried Chinese bread). Super yummy.
2) Rice Flour Rolls with Fake Ham: VDSH wins with a fair margin. They use better, juicier fake ham and add cilantro sprigs to the filling. BB's fake ham was too dry but the rice flour roll part was good.
3) Buddha's Bean Curd Rolls (bean curd skin wrapped around vegetables, pan fried and sauced): BB! Their version had a nicer, chewier texture and a better sauce. VDSH's is too sweet.
4) Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaves: Tie. Both were very good but quite different. VDSH's version is full-sized, contains traditional fillings like chestnuts and beans and is so fragrant when unwrapped. BB's order is 2 smaller packets instead of 1 large one, filled with salty fake chicken. Can't decide!
5) Har gow (shrimp dumplings): My mom says VDSH's are better. I hate shrimp both real and fake so i didn't have any.
I would definitely go back and check out more dim sum dishes at BB. Next time i'll revisit the Flushing location since it's been a few years. So for now VDSH is still it. Buuut that House Special Jook at BB...
PS: People who get annoyed because glasses of water don't automatically arrive and/or aren't constantly refilled obviously don't know what "authentic" dim sum is! First off, it's called YUM CHA which is to drink tea. Dim Sum is all about the tea! Secondly, you're not supposed to drink cold water with hot foods. I'm so tired of morons on foodie message boards posting idiotic reviews, claiming to know what "true, authentic X-kind of food is" because "they once visited X-country." And please don't use a chopstick like a knife.
*I assume that the Flushing and Chinatown locations are related but the Chinatown website doesn't mention the Queens restaurant. Can anyone confirm this?
News
The new executive chef of the White House is an Asian American woman! Filipina American
Cristeta Comerford is the first woman and the first person of color to ever hold the position. (Guess she'll be making a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and hot dogs for gourmet George - hopefully pretzels too!) Thanks
O!
A book i plan to check out soon is
Eating Like Queens: A Guide to Ethnic Dining in America's Melting Pot, Queens, New York by Suzanne Parker. From the NYTimes, the book:
...offers a 40-cuisine tour of the city's most ethnically diverse borough. The book ... is organized by country or region: six Chinese regions are represented, for example, plus categories like Caribbean-Chinese and kosher Chinese. There are descriptions of the food in places like Flushing, Jackson Heights or Corona, and a list of restaurants and food stands for each type of cuisine. Indexes sort the material by neighborhood, cuisine, restaurant and type of dish; maps are included.
But the bottom line is
John Roleke's review on queens.about.com, the book:
... is a "foodie" bible for Queens, New York, detailing the cuisines of over 20 cultures with history, recipes, and mouthwatering descriptions that will send you on a beeline to the nearest place cooking up kebabs, samosas, arepas, or dim sum. Though it does include short reviews, Eating Like Queens is not a Queens restaurant guide. Rather, it's a guide to eating well at ethnic restaurants, whether in Queens or anywhere recent immigrants have added to the American melting pot.
Pros
Great guide to ethnic dining in Queens, New York
Background on the cuisines of over 20 cultures
Recipes and glossaries explain unfamiliar food
Perfect gift for a "foodie" interested in exploring ethnic eats anywhere
Cons
Not enough restaurant reviews
Plenty of restaurants are listed, but are all they recommended?
I'll be sure to add my 99 cents when i get a look at it.
And lastly but not leastly, my sister Bonesli finally started her own blog!
Solarkat's Eco blog is information on the environment, eco-friendly products, aromatherapy, natural skin care, books, crafts, and more!
Better Than Pens
I came across this site for
The National Bitter Melon Council - "an organization devoted to the cultivation of a vibrant, diverse community through the promotion and distribution of Bitter Melon." From their site:
Bitter Melon (Momordica charantia) is a member of the Cucurbitaceae (gourd) family, and a relative of squash, watermelon, muskmelon, and cucumber. The tropical vine is a tender perennial. The fruit of this plant lives up to its name - it tastes very bitter. The surface/skin is bumpy and coated with glossy light to dark green skin. The inside of the melon is filled with spongy pulp whose color ranges from white to light green covering the seeds. Younger melons are seedless (more like the inside of a cucumber) and are generally more bitter. Ripe ones (outside: lighter green with hints of yellow; inside: bright, bright red) are much milder.
I haven't had any bittermelon in years. My mom would crave bittermelon once in a while and i would watch her prepare it by scraping off the bumpy, bright green skin. Naturally, i hated it as a kid but nowadays it's good as part of a dish. Note i said
part of a dish; i can't imagine eating only sauteed bittermelon, even with strong seasonings! It's very bitter but also fresh tasting, but after a few mouthfuls the back of your tongue is going insane from the taste. It's so bitter it tastes like ballpoint pen ink, which i once had the unfortunate luck to taste. PS: Don't suck on the ends of open pens, even if they have pom pom snowmen stuck on them from your secret Santa in 3rd grade.
Even though i'm essentially complaining about how bitter bittermelon is, it's actually quite good. But as part of a dish!
Breakfast for Dinner
I'm not a stickler for only eating certain foods at certain times. I love having a bowl of cereal as a quick light dinner, eating pasta for breakfast and sipping coffee late at night. Generally the feeling is: eat whatever you want, whenever you want. The only major exception to this rule is dim sum; it's just not right having it at night. Dim sum is only for weekend brunch times. French toast at night: awesome. Mashed taro treasure boxes at 6pm: not so good.
Today was certainly defined by our consumption of "breakfast" foods. be woke up with a hankering for pancakes, so combined with our brown-spotted banana bounty he made a batch of homemade banana pancakes on his electric griddle. I never touch this griddle since it seems blasphemous somehow; i always prefer using my cast iron skillet but he loves the surface area and easy temperature control of the griddle. He used the pancake recipe from
The Compassionate Cook which i used to use for my pancakes back in college. I like the recipe since it's simple, doesn't require eggs, buttermilk or unusual kinds of flour - a perfect recipe for college students without complete kitchens and pantries, plus it's vegan. be added some mashed banana, cinnamon and nutmeg to the batter. Although the pancakes looked and tasted great, i abhorred the doughy, gummy texture from the bananas. be claims he usually uses banana rounds, but decided to mash them this time based on the banana pancake recipe in another cookbook.
I snacked on random leftovers and chips for the rest of the afternoon, but decided i needed breakfast for dinner. Since
The Compassionate Cook was out on the counter, i was inspired by the scrambled tofu recipe and made up a batch with toast and
Boca fake sausages on the side. I've had scrambled tofu a few times and the dishes ranged from excellent to "watery mess," but this batch (my first!) was really quite good. Essentially it's a block of mashed firm tofu cooked with turmeric (for a bright yellow color), seasonings and whatever vegetables you want. We didn't have vegetables prepped so i just made a plain batch. I haven't had scrambled eggs since i was a kid so i don't really recall the texture, but i can say that scrambled tofu is soft and somehow buttery - a yummy substitute. Even skeptical be liked it!
A Longing for Produce
Just to make us upset, the NYTimes ran an
article today about the
Berkeley Bowl Marketplace in
California, where 20 different types of heirloom tomatoes, 20 types of regular tomatoes AND 10 kinds of cherry tomatoes are available. Writer Sharon Waxman:
The Pink Zebra looked like a cross between a Fuji apple and a peach; it was sweet, not acidic, with deep pink flesh inside. The Cherokee Purple was deep vermilion with dark green streaks on the outside. Cut open, it looked like a hunk of raw meat, with firm flesh and little juice. The Lemon Boy was pale on the inside, tart and less intense than the others. The Beefmaster looked like a gnarly pincushion on the outside; inside it had deep red flesh and burst with flavor. I also tried the Wilgenberg hothouse, the Miyashita Nursery, the Momotaro, Big Beef, Dr. Wych's Yellow, Zebras (striped bright lime on the outside, kiwi-colored on the inside), Pineapple Stripe (squat and small), Mountain Delight (orange shaped and deep yellow in color) and the plum-colored Black Prince.
I'm so envious! All you Bay area residents better eat some extra heirloom tomatoes for me.
An important note is that the Berkeley Bowl Marketplace was created in 1977 by Glenn Yasuda, a Japanese American. Since then, the BBM has grown tremendously and is now the largest supermarket in Berkeley. They have the largest produce section of any supermarket in the entire Bay Area - and they're independent!
All this West Coast/Produce got me thinking about how U.S. agriculture is so linked to Asian American history, especially in California. It was the Chinese laborers who made the San Joaquin and Sacramento River deltas such an important agricultural area. Interesting fruit facts:
- Those deliciously sweet and juicy dark Bing Cherries were developed by Ah Sit Bing in Oregon
- The entire Florida citrus industry owes credit to Lue Gim Gong, who developed the first Frost-Resistant Oranges
- Crossing peaches with plums, Kim Hyung-soon developed the fuzzless peach - Nectarines! in California
If you want to read more, i recalled the info from Ronald Takaki's
Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. On a modern-day note, if you love reading beautiful writing about farmers and small farm organic peaches, be sure to pick up a copy of
David Mas Masumoto's epitaph for a peach: four seasons on my family farm. While reading there was nothing i wanted more than to taste a real Sun Crest Peach. From the prologue:
Yes, wonderful. Sun Crest tastes like a peach is supposed to. As with many of the older varieties, the flesh is so juicy that it oozes down your chin. The nectar explodes in your mouth and the fragrance enchants your nose, a natural perfume that can never be captured. Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches. When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water, your fingertips instinctively search for the gushy side of the fruit. Your mouth waters in anticipation. You lean over the sink to make sure you don't drip on yourself. Then you sink your teeth into the flesh and the juices trickle down your cheeks and dangle on your chin. This is a real bite, a primal act, a magical sensory celebration announcing that summer has arrived.
Hmm, maybe there STILL is nothing i want more.
Gorilla Biscuits
An eventful weekend means i don't blog for days!
Friday 7/29
In the early evening a bunch of us attended the
A/P/A Studies Moving Out Party. Due to some major structural changes at NYU, they're forced to move from their beautiful space designed by
Maya Lin into a cold space around Union Square. I hope this is only a literal move and not a cutting/downsizing of their amazing Asian American studies programs and classes. Regardless, it was a fun sad time to catch up with friends while munching on some delicious foods. A/P/A served a pan-Asian spread which included sushi rolls, pad Thai, samosas and banana fritters. Most notable were the ginger, green bean and mango salads from
Village Mingala. VM is another all time Top 5 of mine.
Afterwards, a smaller group headed towards
La Lanterna in the West Village. I shared an arribiata (tomato sauce and crushed chiles) brick oven pizza with A while A$ and P shared one with fresh arugula. Their pizza has such an amazing crust. If it wasn't $10 (for a pie the size of a large plate, about 4 small slices), i would eat it all the time!
Saturday 7/30
DC MK and MY were in town for a wedding so of course we went to
Vegetarian Dim Sum House in Chinatown. be, A$ and run-in Neil rounded out the group. Of course it was delicious but i wish we ordered better. Although dim sum is all about sharing, cutting bite-sized morsels in half or quarters sort of defeats the purpose. Maybe i'm just greedy. Their corn jook is yummy!
The usual post-dim sum stop is
Chinatown Ice Cream Factory; i joined be and A$ in a long line out the door which still went quickly. I couldn't decide so i relied on Almond Cookie while A$ got lychee and be got half lychee and half mango-papaya. Mango-papaya is the best sorbet i've ever tasted! Their version is perfectly sweet and light. So good!
In the evening we drove out to Douglaston in Queens for J's birthday. We thought it was a barbecue but instead it was a Cuban-themed party with catered Cuban food. The spread started out with mini sandwiches, olives, cheese cubes and sliced meats for the carnivores (which would be everyone else at the party besides me and pescatarian be). As for the Cuban food, i thought the rice and the sweet plantains were too oily but i loved the steamed yuca with onions. The best thing at the party was the cucumber and tomato salad J's mom made from produce her garden - it was tossed in a light dressing and so fresh! On our way out be asked J's mom if he could have some green tomatoes and cucumbers which he'd been eyeing since noticing her garden. We reaped 2 hardass green tomatoes for more frying and 1 small but excellent cucumber.
Sunday 7/31
More out of town friends: SF Crack convinced NH Mama Sapp to visit for the afternoon. We started with brunch at the
Brick Cafe in Astoria. The decor and feel of the place was very beautiful on a sunny day. They have many outdoor tables under a large awning and they open all the doors so it seems really airy. Too bad their food wasn't as nice as the decor. No one thought their dishes were excellent or even very good. Crack thought her French onion soup's toasted bread and melted cheese were good but the onion soup part was lacking. Mama Sapp didn't like her seafood chowder at all so be finished it. It only contained fish and she expected shellfish as well. Although i liked my orange juice it wasn't worth $5 and my French toast was too sickeningly sweet. The toast was made well but the syrups and cream were just too much. be didn't like his fettucine and was dismayed that the shitake mushrooms were lacking. The home fries looked tasty but were actually a little bland. And lastly, Mama Sapp's and Crack's omlettes were just average. Crack had been for dinner and thought it was fine, but as for brunch we all thought it was merely okay. Certainly for almost $80 we expected the food to be better.
Walking around Astoria one of our party fulfilled a craving for Dunkin Donuts'
Coffee Coolatta while the other three shared a "like it" scoop from
Cold Stone Creamery. This scoop ended up being vanilla ice cream with Oreos, white chocolate chips and caramel mixed in. We would've sat and talked for longer if the "tips songs" didn't make us insane. Back at our apartment, Crack headed back to NJ while the rest of us later shared some cheeses and wine.
For dinner we brought Mama Sapp to Dow Thong, our favorite Thai restaurant in Queens and perhaps all of New York. Everything i've had there has been excellent although i can't say anything about the meat dishes. Out of the tofu and vegetarian ones they've all been flavored well and hotness isn't dumbed down. Since we were all noodle fans we went against family-style eating and ordered vegetable & tofu pad Thai, shrimp pad sew ew and shrimp pad kee mao. Pad sew ew and pad kee mao use the same soft broad noodles but the kee mao has more vegetables and a much hotter seasoning. Everyone loved their noodles and Thai iced tea.
Right before Mama Sapp hit the road she needed to break a $20 bill at the corner store. be and i were checking out the U.S./Brazil Mart's offerings and upon my saying, "Hey look, what is Mentos Cherry Ice?" Mama grabbed the box out of my hand and used it to break her bill. be and i tried one each but Mama chucked hers when i exclaimed, "Wait. This is like cherry Halls but worse!" It's packaged in the same Mentos style box (not the roll) and is part of an entire Ice line from Brazil. Unless you really like chewy, more bitter cherry Halls i'd advise against them. And i like cherry Halls!
Monday 8/1
Before work i picked up one mini bag each of Stacy's White Cheddar Soy Crisps and Cinnamon & Sugar Pita Chips. I'm a big fan of the savory
Stacy's Pita Chips and was not disappointed with the Soy Crisps nor the sweet Pita Chips. For me it's more about the texture than the flavorings, although too much extreme flavor powder makes me feel icky and my hands orange. So far every Stacy's product i've tried has exceeded expectations. Check them out!
be made a batch of
Annie's Mac n Cheese for dinner, which we both agree is better than Kraft brand. Annie's is less powdery and a better company overall. Plus it has cute bunnies on the box. I like bunnies.
