Oriol Sala Colomer of Mercat Negre/Brooklyn and Jalinson Rodrigues of Mercat/NYC prepared our Catalonian feast at the James Beard House on this hot June evening. A shot glass full of creamy gazpacho helps take the edge off of a steamy summer day. And when you follow that with Shrimp and Chicken Croquettes, and Shrimp and Chorizo skewers, and a glass of cold cava, well, who’s sweating? OK, I’m sweating, but I don’t mind nearly as much. The first course was Sardine with Roasted Vegetables and Sherry Reduction. And really, who doesn’t like silver food?
The sardines were more mild than expected, which was a good entry to an evening of gluttony. Next up was the Sautéed Wild Mushrooms with Fried Egg, Shoestring Potatoes, and Truffle Vinaigrette.
The shoestring potatoes were homemade Picnics! Reminded me of dad’s bachelor food, though this was the opposite of canned chips and fried eggs. I ate the truffles all at once. It was the most truffle I’ve ever had in my mouth at one time. I could really become accustomed to these. If only I had a pig. And a forrest. The Monkfish with Summer Squash Romesco and Dried Fruit Confit swam up behind the egg.
The squash was like Spanish baby food and the fruit made it especially festive. Short noodles with Sepia and Ink glistened in a shiny black squid pile.
Little squid cubes were disquised among the noodles. It tasted vaguely of the sea. Once I separated the hazelnuts from my Duck Breast with Puff Pastry, Pear, Spinach, and Hazelnuts (Becca must have a purse full of hazelnuts by now), I was left with a savory dish that was almost dessertlike in its sweetness.
Appropriate, as we were heading into high dessert time. The first was a palate cleansing Lemon Frappe.
The lemon was hollowed out and replaced with a bit of smooth, bright custard. The Chocolate, Olive Oil, and Sea Salt Toasts proved a perfect ending to a fine Spanish feast.
A small crisp packet bled dark, dark liquid chocolate. I went home and dreamed in Spanish.
C’mon don’t tell me you've never done this: The chocolate topping has only scrapings left and you’re too lazy to dig for it, so you just put the ice cream directly in the jar and squirt the last of the whipped cream on top.
I ate mine while reading my new salad recipe book.
Father’s day required a special manly menu: thick grilled steak, lobster, baked taters and salad.
Apple pie for dessert, all eaten outside on the deck. It’s good to be American Dad: Superhero.
The Dutch herring season is brief, so you really need to eat all you can before it turns skanky. My second Herring Opportunity this season was at the Netherland Club, where my Dutch friends kindly took me for all-you-can-eat herring and all-you-can-drink Heinekin. They made no profit off of us. There was some consternation at the shortage of chopped onions: I was sent back several times until I procured the proper amount of onion accompaniment.
We tried to determine if the last week’s Oyster Bar herring seemed better to us because it was the first of the season, or if the fish itself was really superior. The beer leveled out our opinion. All Dutch herring, all over the world, all the time is really, really good and we are glad to be alive to eat it.
Sinigual is the corporate suit place we go to for lunch sometimes. After a couple of very powerful margaritas, we are prepared to endure the rest of our stressful work day. Expecting dull, middle-of-the-road suit food, we’re always pleasantly surprised by the quality and creativeness of the meals here. This time out, I got a comforting lobster quesadilla.
Little bits of mango snuck in between the crisp tortillas and there wasn’t too much gooey cheese. And it looked really pretty, too.
Becca signed us up for a sausage making course after she found these beauties in her local market.
I heard them calling out for greens and grains, so I threw some swiss chard and kale together to see if they would get along. They did. Summer tomatoes made their way with mozzarella and basil and the livin’ was easy.
The day we’d been waiting for had arrived at last: the Dutch herring were in! Shipped from Holland, soft and oily, tasting of the sea and rain. To me this is a minor New York holiday. Like the first time the radiator comes on in the Fall or Manhattanhenge. One of those small events that makes life here worthwhile. We gather at The Oyster Bar at Grand Central Terminal, which is a holiday in itself. The lady brings us a double herring portion with the traditional chopped eggs and onions.
Grabbing the fish by the tail, we hold it high above our heads like cartoon cats. Lower it carefully into our mouths and bite off the end of the fillet. Richer than a bowl of cream, oilier than the gulf, briny and sweet. The first one is gone in seconds. The second demands a jenever, which cuts through the heaviness. The third comes with flat bread. The fourth asks where the jenever went. The fifth just wants to take a little nap. A few more and I could have spoken fluent Dutch. Hooray for herring!
I ate in bars yesterday. Twice. The first was at lunchtime in the basement at Macy’s. Did you know Macy’s had a bar? It really makes the tedium of shopping more palatable. At the second bar I consumed about 8000 calories (see previous entry), all of them from fat. So today I’m eating this:
With a cherry lifesaver for dessert.
We were hoping that the crowd at the Waterfront Ale House would be mostly sailors and Mafia guys with pinkie rings, but we were not surprised when we found the usual midtown post-frat clientele. The french dip sandwich, however, was a pleasant find:
smokey, fatty brisket on a baguette that was crisp on the outside and soft and dense on the inside. I didn’t care much for the barbeque sauce, so I was pleased that they left it to the side. The mustardy cole slaw was neither too sweet nor too runny. It all went well with three foot-long beers.
We declined the full WD50 tasting menu in favor of the pared down option, which our server kindly recommended. Some of the dishes were most amusing. Funny food is something you don’t usually see in adult settings, with cocktails, and I’m glad someone is making me laugh at my dinner. First course was the everything bagel.
The “bagel” was a tiny tire made of cream cheese with the traditional Sunday morning options deconstructed and shrunken down to microscopic proportions. But in the shrinking, all of the flavor was condensed to one bite, particularly in the case of the spring onion, which packed a miniscule wallop. Everything was composed into an Islamic crescent, possibly in a very subtle culinary attempt at peace in the Middle East. For some reason the chef was on a breakfast theme (rough Wednesday night?) and followed the bagel with scrambled egg ravioli.
This egg was not just scrambled, it was whipped and cubed and placed next to an avocado that had been similarly slapped about. The egg was a little bland, but the avocado was intense and creamy though it looked like a little green turd. Something sperm-shaped tried to squirm off the egg. The cold-fried chicken oxymoron wasn’t too unusual, but little tobasco surprises hidden on the plate created small, happy bursts.
Somehow the caviar was not out of place. On the next plate, the sweet shrimp hid under a weird sesame blanket that may have contained Kevlar. Or gum.
I do not know what the skid marks were made of. Ask the avocado. Beef and bearnaise were cleverly disguised as matzo ball soup.
And then came the dreaded lamb. The flavors were condensed and intensified to a lamby extreme, which is wonderful if you love lamb, but to me it was a mouthful of angst.
I dislike lamb very, very much. My dining companions loved the little chop so I shut up and waited for dessert. The white-on-white lychee sorbet served as a splendid palate cleanser.
Fresh and tangy with intense pistachio syrup oil and foam made of clouds captured on a Malasian beach at sunrise. And then the hazelnut tart arrived in the shape of Mickey Mouse after a hard bender.
That was almost enough to distract me from the hazelnuts, which were taunting me. Rather than fling them across the room, I hid them under the table and dug into to Mickey’s bearded chin, which was surprisingly mild and very creamy. Hazelnut crisis averted, I nipped at the chicory ears, reminiscent of bitter poison. By the time the hilarious cocoa packets arrived we were pretty much sated.
The packets were sort of like chocolate Otter Pops, but you could eat the casing, which seemed to be made from the hot cocoa skin that forms if you let it sit too long because you’re mesmerized by Saturday morning cartoons. There were furry salty chocolate balls, too. Obviously a nod from chef to Chef.
Hearing the fish call, Matt got up at 5:30 in the morning and headed out on the boat. Caught 5 striped bass as we dreamed of sand and sun and surf. They cleaned and filleted the bass on the boat and he roasted ’em up on the fire with butter and garlic and tomatoes. Possibly the freshest fish I’ve ever eaten, and oh so delicious.
We’d also been dreaming of bacon-wrapped asparagus, because asparagus on its own is far too healthy. Mac’n’cheese and steak met our dairy and turf requirements. The mango pepper salsa merged well with the fish and the swiss chard-wild rice combo was oddly perfect.
While I was in the garden, pondering my cocktail consumption, Bonnie pointed out her thriving sage, thyme and mint, and handed us a sprig of rosemary, which we promptly stuffed into a bottle of vodka. Hours later the vodka was infused and ready to meet the pomegranate juice, fresh squeezed lime juice, and simple syrup.
Our summer cocktail was born. We indulged before our supper of leftovers. Jen had kindly shaped the leftover fish into crab cake form before taking off for her mommy quiet time. I put all the fruit and vegetable leftovers into the salad, which met with skepticism.
The last cries of the bass were for peach pie so we obliged. And of course, in the summer, everything tastes better when it’s eaten al fresco with family and friends.
At first I thought BXL was just another post-frat bar in the neighborhood, but I finally went in, took a look at the draft list and was enamored. 'Cause I really like Belgian beer. After much contemplation, I decided on the Cuvee BXL.
Crisp ad summery, though a little small for the price. That got me as far as the dining room, where the Sunday all-you-can-eat moules were on offer.
$20, and they come with frites, of course, good bread and a Stella. (There's a little pot of ketchup on every table, which must annoy the Belgians.) I didn't have room for dessert so I ordered the pot au chocolate,
which was dense and just sweet enough. I do believe I've found a new local.
Ruby and I went on a nighttime walking tour of Green-wood cemetery (with accordions!) and Ruby wisely decided that homemade Korean BBQ would be the perfect post-cemetery meal. She barbecued the beef on her Foreman grill and made the vermicelli with mung bean noodles. Neil made an emergency trip to the Chinese place for rice to place in the lettuce with hot chili paste. Kim Chi was pungent and spicy and my favorite was the bright yellow pickled daikon which, Ruby explained, is Japanese in origin. A duck wandered in, rich and five-spiced.
We drank everything with Polish beer because this is New York City, so we can.
Worked up an appetite riding to Red Hook. Just dodging wayward humans on the Brooklyn Bridge was harrowing and I needed a reward. It turned out to be chalupas and tacos. After circling the field to examine the offerings of Central and South America, we settled on my old favorite: Mexico. The three chalupas were topped with a spicy bistek, an oddly tinted pollo and a somewhat fatty chorizo. Tacos were pretty much the same, minus the chorizo, on a slightly different corn base.
The very satisfying fuel got me to Prospect Park.
Best bang for the buck, for sure. $6.75 gets you a nice little lobster roll at Williamsburg Snack Bar, which is in Haydenville, MA.
Though it is far from the sea, this roadside shack with outdoor picnic tables serves fresh, sweet lobster tucked into soft white bread. The mayo is minimal, the chips are salty, the atmosphere is New England summer.
We continued our Treme viewing, this week with red beans and rice and daiquiris.
Just enough hotness to suggest some NOLA danger, with life-giving broccoli rabe on the side. With the leftover rum from last week (huh? how did that happen?) we tried the trad daiquiri and the Hemingway, which ads a splash of grapefruit juice and something cherryish. And we started with a hot one that had cayenne and salt on the rim for some tingly punch.
When the new stadium opened last year, I was relieved at the expanded concession stand choices. Everything from Sushi to pulled pork sandwiches was available and, best of all, they had better beer. So I tried a bunch of stuff, and most of it was pretty mediocre, so this year I've been going back to the basic foot-long: grilled, of course.
Hoegaarden to wash everything down and make my evening glowy. Yanks lost to Tampa Bay which sucked, but the dog was most satisfying.
If you call two days in advance, and bring 5 hungry friends, they will roast half a pig for you. They chop it down the middle and lay it on the table, as if it’s napping. It takes two guys from Daisy May’s to carry it. And it’s a little disconcerting to have your dinner so close and still so recognizable.
If this does not propel me to vegetarianism, nothing will. I forged ahead, devouring the chopped pig bits and the abundant sides: mac & cheese
and baked beans, which were sweet and chunky.
After we ate the soft, chopped insides, we moved on to the ribs, hacking away, finishing up the soft buttered toast
and tart coleslaw.
I walked home 2 miles, and arrived home just as full as when I got up from the table.
5 episodes in, and I hadn’t even seen Treme. For shame! We buckled down, starting with the New Orleans box set and some mighty fine cocktails: The Meihana,
which contains two types of rum, (it kind of reminded us of the Whacky Wafer that Linda invented one summer) and Captain Vadrna’s Grog,
which features spiced rum and fruit juices and makes a tiki fest in your mouth. Both were perfectly balanced and bright. I could almost hear the riverboats. Steve made a superb gumbo with andouille sausage and shrimp.
Roux #2! The show was really good. It inspired me to stockpile seafood before it was covered in crude oil.
After a weekend of making and drinking complex cocktails, one needs some Bhutanese rice. Meryl makes it perfectly and she put some salmon right next to it, which was a fine idea. Simply prepared with assistance from Paul Prudhomme’s magical spice mix, the fish was tender and sweet. Salad for health
and then a strawberry and rhubarb compote
that somehow complimented the cafe pousse perfectly.
A real New England fish shack, Commander Cody’s serves the catch of the day in the most down-home way imaginable: on styrofoam plates, with plastic forks and a bottle of ketchup on a table nearby. Just like mom’s! But you have to bring your own beer. And find the opener next to the ketchup and open it yourself. I had scallops fried, even though I wanted them broiled.
I guess they just wanted to be battered and dipped in hot oil. It was all very satisfying, however, 2 beers and many french fries later.
The soaring vaulted ceilings made me feel small. The pianist was hiding above my head behind a balustrade. Joe Biden was not in attendance. The Green Room in the Hotel duPont is one of those American historical treasures, designed for special occasions, celebrations, and uncomfortable footwear. And the food is really good! I started with a salad of greens and almonds and goat cheese
and then moved on to the New York strip steak which was skating on some creamy potatoes.
Manly and girly at the same time, though it looks a little obscene here. White chocolate cake for dessert
(the hazelnut got kicked under the table and across the room) and then some almond macaroons to take home for breakfast. It all went well with a good malbec. I never did find the piano player.
We went to see an African play and then got hungry for Thai. Yum Yum Too jumped into our path and we did not argue. Started with weak but tasty mojitos.
More fruit juice than alcohol, which is always disappointing, but they came with little appetizers of spring rolls and dumplings, so all was not lost. Started with a fresh papaya salad with a tangy dressing.
The grilled shrimp was spicy
and the coconut shrimp sweet and not too battered.
We left a little bit hungry, yet, through an act of determined will power, avoided the cupcakes on the walk home.
We were walking around Little India but felt a curry aversion, so we stopped into Brother Jimmy’s BBQ, in an effort to pretend we were at JazzFest. It was pretty sad. Sadder was my hairbrained idea that I could eat something healthy at Jimmy’s, when I really should given in and had a shot and a beer. The iceberg lettuce salad sounded light, but when it came it looked like furry nuclear cake.
The lettuce was pretty fresh, but the bacon was soggy. I had a few day-glo onion rings, but then got bored and went back to my beer.
About a week ago, my body told me to eat something green right away or something bad would happen. I listened and slipped into Sip Sak, one of my favorite local dining spots. The Greek salad was one of the best salads I’ve ever eaten. This sentiment may have been my cells thanking me for the nourishment, finally. The salad was calling out to me all week, so I went back again and it was just as satisfying.
Artichoke hearts, stuffed grape leaves, feta and tomatoes all gang up on fresh greens, smothering it with the help of a lemony vinaigrette. They also have some excellent octopus,
which is tender and tentacley and a light and fluffy tarama salata
and all the warm bread you can devour.
I’m still not sure “Green Beef” is the best title for a program about food, but it proved to be fascinating and informative. Slow Food NYC sponsored the event at Astor Wines upstairs in the sleek amphitheater. Michael Crupain, who has a blog called thedairyshow.com, showed his film “Green Beef: A Story of Grass-Fed Beef” which is about sustainable cattle raising, particularly at Grazin’ Angus Acres. There was a panel discussion with Dan Gibson from the farm, the delightful author Betty Fussell, butcher Jake Dickson of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats and Josephine Proul, the chef at Local 111. Josephine made some appetizers for us which were, of course beefy.
Little piles of grass-fed, grain finished beef with some lovely red wine accompaniment. I was inspired to eat more organic beef and make a trek to Local 111 for more good, happy meat meat meat.
Local promises local products and services, so it’s sort of a political meal. And very good--made to order, which takes awhile. The line is almost out the door. To cope, the guy at the register has obviously dropped an E, for he his smiling and happy and unhurried. The burgers are juicy and fresh
and named according to where the cow was raised and slaughtered, which may be more than I want to think about. But cheddar cheese and bacon can make me forget most bovine hardships.
The mythical Sonic Burger was elusive at first. We tried to find it while passing through New Jersey, but didn’t hone in on a location until we were too far past it to go back. Got it on the way home, though. Drivers pull in next to individual standing menus in the parking lot. They must be careful not to run over their servers, who are gliding past on roller blades, sacks of burgers on their trays. The luridly colorful menu suggests a festive burger party, possibly geared toward 6-year-olds in possession of a valid driver’s license. You speak into the little box and tell the high school student inside the Sonic building what day-glo meal you would like to eat. Then you swipe your credit card and minutes later, they roll up with something soggy in a bag. I got the toast thing,
which, when I looked under the hood, had a small onion ring between the bun and the cheese. I can only assume this was intentional. Besides that onion, there were also some chopped sweet onions and a pickle and some hickory sauce, which wasn’t as gross as I’d anticipated. The thin meat patty was quite cold, possibly because it had been rolled around the parking lot before being delivered through the car window.
Before an afternoon shooting stuff, one needs pancakes, so we went to the Hawley Diner in the damn cute town of Hawley, PA. In a daredevil stunt, I ordered pancakes
with scrapple. I’d never eaten scrapple before and will never eat it again. I’d often wondered what scrapple was. I still don’t know, but I think it might be all the organ meat that’s just too icky to get into sausage.
It’s sort of like chunky liverwurst but worse.
Waffles! Stef made waffles before we went to the baseball game and they were fluffy and smothered with real maple syrup.
I made eggs, which I’ve never been good at, and also maple sausage. The sausage grease hit me just above the eye, which was pretty fortunate, because an inch lower and I would have been blinded and then I couldn’t shoot arrows with a bow later that day.
I recognized the interior because it used to be San Domenico, which was pretty swanky back then. It’s called Marea now and it’s just as fancy. The menu was pretty cnfusing and very fishy. The nice waiter helped me out, though when I asked him to recommend some good fish, he recommended everything, but he was right: everything was good. First there was an amuse bouche
which seemd to be an unassuming salmon chunk on a stick, but then it tasted as if it had made a quick jaunt through a currylicious part of India. As an appetizer before the appetizer, I got mackerel that had been pounded flat and topped with a fragrant oil.
It was like eating fish velvet: smooth and silky and lush. It came on a really pretty pearlescent plate that I did not steal. Next was a bright red shrimp wrapped in a scallop towel, as if it had just gotten out of a sea shower.
Both shrimp and scallop were remarkably soft and tender. The shrimp appeared to be barfing some sort of yellowish condiment, which was quite delicious. But the big surprise was the little pile of greenery. A mouthful of springtime resting upon another flattened scallop. The pasta was a little more trad.
Perfectly cooked, of course, and studded with bits of halibut fin and pale slivers of artichoke. A little too salty, but that did not stop me from devouring the pile. By this point I was just grateful that no one had been playing with my food. Dessert was pistacchio, which captured the nutty essence in several forms, the most powerful being the ice cream form.
It tasted more like pistacchio that a handful of pistacchios. The cake was moist and gentle. And it was arranged as if it was trying to spell something out, like: “you will need to go back to the ATM now.”
Martinis in Grand Central Terminal: what could be more New York City? If you’re from Milwaukee or Fresno or Tallahassee, this is IT. But even if you live in New York City (the best city in the world, b.t.w.) Cipriani Dolce is a surprisingly awesome experience. We went after work and got a corner seat overlooking rush hour chaos. Over martinis and gimlets we caught up on all the pertinent life info while we watched the commuters and tourists and oddballs rush and wander. And we ordered this very girly snack tray,
which came on three levels (the nerd in me recalled Mr. Spock’s chess games) and tasted like a 3rd grader’s fantasy: slightly stale bread, tuna with plenty o’mayo, ham and greenery, and grape/apple cheese garnish to make it an extra after school special. By the time it arrived, 1/4 of a martini down, it was the most beautiful snack sculpture in ever created. In a flagrant display of decorum, we ate the whole thing with forks and knives, pinkies up.
I think Linda might have had a foodbrain battle thinking of what to make on Sunday. On one hand, it was opening day of the baseball season: hot dogs, potato salad, peanuts. On the other hand, it was Easter Sunday: baby animals, spring vegetables, eggy dessert. Fortunately, for me, she went with Spring Ritual #2. And golly, was it good. Channeling Mario Batali at his most lucid, she made osso bucco that was just as good as Babbo, if not better.
For our springtime health we ate broccoli rabe, just bitter enough, cooked with aromatics so fragrant, it didn’t even seem healthy. And for our comfort she made her very first risotto, rounded out with rich saffron, oozing a cheesy, buttery cheer. 5 innings later, before the Yanks started their dreadful choke, came the ricotta torte,
studded with pine nuts and calories aplenty. In the battle of peeps v. blood orange, poor little peeps didn’t stand a chance. I took the extra torte home (Extra! I know! What’s wrong with us???) and ate it for breakfast, two days running. Yanks beat the Red Sox next time out. So there.
The key descriptive word at Roberta’s Pizza is “tiny”, but that word is never mentioned on the menu. It says “dinner” which makes you think that you’re getting a regular sized portion, but really what you’re getting is an appetizer. After a hard hipster day, I would think the kids in Bushwick would want something more substantial. Look at these sweetbreads:
They’re lightly battered, succulent, and fresh, but I could have eaten three more plates. And they didn’t come with anything except parsley and a quick wipe of mayo. And check out the pappardelle with ragu:
Perfect al dente pasta and just the right amount of course salt on top, but in a Lilliputian portion. That’s not dinner. That's what you eat before dinner to get you in the mood for eating more dinner. So we had to get a margherita pizza, in addition to the “lion heart” pizza, which was topped with shredded brussels sprouts.
The pizzas were very good and not geared specifically for small appetites or girly girls. Dessert, however, was surprisingly abundant. The pot au creme was just the right amount of bitter and sweet, if a little too cold.
Pound cake was a little bland, but it looked pretty.
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