NYCookery

Summer Hiatus Continued Ad Infinitum

2010-01-20T08:06:00.002-05:00

It has been a long while since I put finger to key to throw out my thoughts on food to the general Internet audience. Apparently, my last attempt was a complete lie as I said that I would only be halting this blog for a short bit. Well that short bit, is going to turn into a long while as other things have been cooking over in my neck of Brooklyn.

Starting this winter my friend and all-things-food partner and I will begin the operation of a baking company. Already three clients in, our products will appear in new coffee shops and restaurants opening in late February, early March, and April in the County of Kings. We are starting small and only providing catering and wholesale goods to establish businesses (though you may catch us at the Brooklyn Flea as well). An official announcement of our partnership will be announced shortly, and, trust me, y'all are going to hear about it.

So, what does that mean for NYCookery? Well, since my arms have been elbow deep in flour and sugar for the past few months and since it looks as if it will continue that way for the coming few, NYCookery, sadly, will be on indefinite hold. However, I've been talking to some creative folks, and we are discussing ways that NYCookery could become less blogg-y (i.e. eff all these written words) and more video- and film-focused. More on that when something comes of it.

Until I figure that out, keep checking back once in awhile. Who knows, maybe this thing will start again before too long.

Summer Haitus

2009-06-18T07:35:00.002-04:00

Despite the facts that it been unseasonably cold, and that it has rained almost every day in June in the Big Apple, it is indeed summer. And summer means project time here at NYCookery. I'll be taking a cooking break for the next couple of months in order to build a shiny new website that will be the most bad ass of its kind. Expect more stories from all of those little corners of New York (and beyond) that you didn't even know existed (like Bay Ridge!) when I return.

See you in the fall...

The Highest Quality

2009-06-03T07:11:00.001-04:00

In case you didn't get enough of my webisode featuring John Payne and his WASP-style pasta sauce, you can also check it out the high quality of Vimeo by clicking here.

WASP Pasta Sauce: The Recipe

2009-05-28T06:38:00.004-04:00

Are you curious how to make this:

into this?

Wait no longer. This is the recipe for John Payne's WASP-style pasta sauce. The story behind the sauce (a webisode!) can be retrieved here and the story behind the story of making the sauce can be found here. Recipe after the jump.

John Payne's WASP-Style Pasta Sauce

Serves 6

2 tablespoons canola oil or other oil with high smoke point
1/2 sweet onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 can of Campbell's tomato soup

15 oz can peeled cherry tomatoes in juice

35 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes

1/2 cup Mediterranean olives

2 Quorn chicken cutlets

2 Veggie Burgers (Morningstar farms spicy black bean burgers are preferred by John)

1/4 cup basil, ripped
1/4 cup parsley, chopped

1 lb pasta

1/2 cup grated parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat pan over medium high heat and add oil one tablespoon oil. Add onions. Reduce flame to medium and saute until soft. Add garlic and cook until fragrant about 2 minutes. Increase heat to high and add mushrooms.

In separate skillet, heat remaining oil. Fry quorn chicken patties and veggie burgers until crispy on the outside and cooked through, about 3-4 minutes per side. Remove from heat and cut into bite-sized chunks. Set aside.

Add tomatoes, olives, and veggie meats to pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer and cover. Let cook 30 minutes. Add herbs and cook for 2-3 minutes more, or until wilted. And you saw the cooking process. Pretty standard, with the understanding that the sauce should thicken after about 30 minutes of simmering so that it becomes stew-like. Salt and pepper to taste.

After sauce has been cooking for 15 minutes, cook pasta until al dente (about 8-10 minutes).

Once sauce is thickened, and pasta cooked, spoon pasta onto plate (about one cup cooked pasta), top with sauce (to taste), and shredded cheese. Serve immediately.

WASP Pasta Sauce: The Webisode

2009-05-25T07:25:00.002-04:00

Welcome to NYCookery's first webisode. John Payne generously offered to make me his WASP pasta sauce - a favorite of his growing up in New England - a famous dish of his grandmother's and one of the only he actually knows how to make. For the back story on how this video came to be, click here. Watch, learn, enjoy.

Next up: the recipe.

WASP Pasta Sauce: The Preview

2009-05-12T08:08:00.009-04:00

Mark Annotto and John Payne met in Lewiston, Maine as undergraduates at the small liberal arts school, Bates College, where together they sang in an a capella group, played ska, and bonded while toasting hot dogs in John’s Hot Diggidy Dogger. The two—sardonic and self-deprecating—have been somewhat of a creative duo ever since. After four years in New England, they formed both the Armed and Ridiculous Brooklyn Comedy Collective and the “post-geek-synth-rock” band, Puppetbox (named as such while John sat, literally, on a trunk full of puppets during a brainstorming session).

Through Armed and Ridiculous, Mark and John created sketch comedy bits that morphed onto the screen. Their inaugural short, The Underground: NYC Ping Pong, which, Mark claims, “is one of the century’s most mystifyingly un-funny [films],” was accepted to several festivals despite his modesty about its quality. The two also created a series of semi-biographical silent shorts about the trials and travails of a 27 year-old virgin (I will not share here which of the two arrived at that age as such) told through puppets—a second place winner at the 2006 MTV Labs Desktop Film Festival.

For months, John (who shares my affinity for artistic theatrics and who has studied at the London School of Puppetry and has created his own short plays for New York’s puppet slam, PUNCH) had insisted that NYCookery would be a great show and that his friend, Mark, would be perfect for shooting webisode with his “fancy camera.”

I avoided the topic. After years as an actor and doing student films, the desire to be onscreen had been completely squelched. But then one evening not too long ago, I finally met Mark and John for some beers and, over a basket of popcorn, the two talked enthusiastically about the possibility of a creating a cooking video. Their excitement about the project began to tickle my interest.

However, there was only one problem: since Mark had to do the filming, that meant John had to do the cooking. As it turns out, John does not cook (he said something along the lines of, “I know how to make a mean omelet. Well, I used to. I mean I haven’t made one for a long time, but I’m good at it. That and sandwiches.”) But he had an idea—he could make his grandma’s famous pasta sauce. "Great!" I thought. "Everyone loves a good pasta sauce!" Then he told me the secret ingredient: Campbell’s Tomato Soup. As in the stuff in the can. That orangey goo that comes out in clumps.

My eyes widened. Mark averted his gaze and stuffed his face with some popcorn. Then, sheepishly and in defiance of his Italian heritage, he told me that he had eaten it, and that it was “actually really tasty.” I looked back at John, who smelling my fear like a shark does blood in water, said, “I’m not telling you what else I put in there.”

God knows what they slipped in my drink, but I said yes.

Aspic a la Argentine: The Recipe

2009-04-26T22:03:00.008-04:00

As we lifted our forks to enjoy our aspic, Veronica stated, "this is a great summery thing." True that, Veronica. Paired with a salad, this vegetarian take on a meaty French tradition will be a great compliment to the hot weather ahead of us. Don't let the ingredients list intimidate you; though there are many components, this aspic is actually relatively simple to prepare.

(For part one of this story click here, and for part two, here.)

Leandro Carbonell's Vegetarian Aspic
2 large carrots, peeled, cut in half, and sliced into 1/3" pieces
2 tablespoons dried chives rehydrated in 2 tablespoons water, then drained
1/2 lb cottage cheese
4 oz whipped cream cheese
1 oz Roquefort cheese
2 tablespoons pecorino romano, grated
3 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
1/2 tablespoons celery seeds, crushed
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 can heart of palm, stalks cut in half
1/2 teaspoon hung lui (optional)
2 large celery stalks, sliced thin
1/2 teaspoon lemongrass powder
4 ounces plus one teaspoon agar agar powder
7 cups water
3 slices dark German rye
Salt
Pepper

Boil 2 1/2 cups water. Once rolling, add two ounces agar agar powder. Stir well until dissolved. Add hot liquid into 9X5 metal mold or loaf pan until it reaches a depth of 1/8" or 1/4" (thickness of the jello is entirely to taste). Place in refrigerator.

While agar agar hardness, steam peeled and sliced carrots until fork tender (about 5-6 minutes). Once steamed, shock in an ice bath. Set aside.

In a bowl mix together cottage cheese, whipped cream cheese, Roquefort, and pecorino romano until smooth. Add chopped parsley, rehydrated chives, celery seeds, olive oil, hung lui (if using), and 1/2 teaspoon agar agar powder to the cheese mix. Stir well and then season with salt and pepper.

Boil 1 1/4 cups water. Add one ounce agar agar powder and stir until powder is dissolved. Add 1 cup of the liquid to the cheese mixture, mixing well. Place in refrigerator.

Once the agar agar in the mold is solidified, layer sliced carrots over it until completely covered, slicing carrots as necessary to fill the pan in one even layer (see picture).

Layer heart of palm over the carrots in one even layer.

Remove cheese mixture from refrigerator and spread over vegetables.

Cover cheese mix with two thinly-sliced celery stalks, 1/2 teaspoon lemon grass powder, and pinch of salt.

Cover the entire cheese mixture with German rye.

Ensure that the entire aspic is covered with one even layer of bread. To do this, place one slice of bread at one end of the pan and another at the other end. Cut a third piece of bread to fit in the gap between the two slices, making a snug bottom crust.

In a pot prepare 1 1/4 cups water and one ounce agar agar powder until powder is dissolved. Spoon agar agar over the bread until entirely covered by the liquid, about one cup.

Refrigerate over night. Before serving boil remaining two cups water and pour into a large baking dish. Place pan bread-side up into the boiling water and run a knife around the edge to loosen the aspic.

Cover the aspic with a platter. Hold the edges of the platter and the pan tightly and flip over. The aspic should come out whole.

Cut aspic into 1" slices and serve.

Aspic a la Argentine: Part II

2009-04-23T00:33:00.018-04:00

This is part two of this series. For part one, click here.

We inspected the "silicon boob" that was Leandro's agar agar experiment. The disc was opalescent, silky to the touch, and shone like a jewel in the light of the setting sun. Unexpectedly, I had an intense urge to take a bite out of the pearly gelatin, but I fought it off -- soon enough I would know what it tasted like. Leandro returned the wobbly disc to its bowl, and then got to work removing the finished aspic from its metal mold (which he needed for the next aspic he was about to make).

He poured about an inch of boiling water into a large, shallow baking dish and then placed the pan into it. Then, he ran a knife along the periphery of the aspic to ensure that it would not stick to the sides. While he did this he told me about Argentinian cuisine "The point of [Argentinian] food is about...its freshness. There is no real Argentinian menu - it's pretty much a mix of European stuff: Spanish, French, German." A culinary combination that is reflective of the country’s rainbow of immigrants and settlers.

"Now we just have to find a platter that will fit this," Leandro said as he flung about tupperware, bowls, and other kitchen detritus while searching through his cabinets for the right plate. Finally, he settled on a rectangular steel tray. "Too bad this thing is so ugly, the aspic would look better on white." Leandro covered the aspic with the tray and quickly flipped it over.

It was a perfect terrine. "The more colored the food, the more visually engaging the dish," Leandro said as he placed the aspic into the freezer to firm it up. With the metal mold now free, he began to make a second dish. He started by steaming the carrots until they were soft and boiling a "finger" of water. While the water heated, Leandro rehydrated dried shallots and expertly sliced celery stalks, garlic, and heart of palm.

Once at a rolling boil, Leandro added agar agar powder to the water and stirred until it was dissolved. He then poured about 1/4" of the liquid into the metal mold, and let the gelatin firm up in the fridge. While he did this, I lifted the hot lid to check on the steaming carrots, burning my hand. "I think these are done," I told Leandro as I sucked my index finger. To comfort myself in my wounded state, I decided to pet the cat, Whootie. It immediately hissed and scratched my other hand. Typical. I retreated to a corner of the kitchen away from felines and heat sources.

Leandro checked on the carrots –- lifting the lid with no resulting injury –- and indicated that they were not cooked to his liking. "I am going to try to pair the consistency of the palm hearts to the consistency of the carrots. This thing is so delicate and I need to serve it to other people, so I'd rather not have to fight it when I cut it. Basically, I'm going to kill those carrots."

"Ah, so, basically if you had no teeth, you'd be able to chew this."

"Exactly."

He mixed together some creamed cheese and cottage cheese, then stirred in crumbled bits of stinky Roquefort. "My friend he said once that the only thing he would save from a burning house is the cheese. [Roquefort is] overwhelming, though, so we’re just going to give it a touch. Little shavings." He added pecorino romano, salt, olive oil, and seasonings (including something called hung liu) to the dairy mix. I found a spoon and dipped it into the white cheesy sauce. It was salty and fragrant. My hopes for the aspic lifted.

Meanwhile the agar agar in the fridge had solidified, so Leandro layered the carrots (which he had shocked in an ice bath after steaming) and then the palms on over it and the cheese mixture over that.

The last step was topping the whole thing off with German Rye and more agar agar.

Once that was finished, Leandro put the final product in the refrigerator, and removed the de-panned aspic from the freezer. He sliced it into perfect one-inch slices, then plated them. Veronica entered into the kitchen as we snapped pictures of the Leandro's creation.

"Oooh! That looks beautiful!" she exclaimed, "but - wait - the jello has no taste? What's the point of that?" Acting as though I actually knew something about aspic, I explained to Veronica that the dish was very popular in the late 19th century through the mid 20th century; however, this clearly was not a direct answer to her question. After some extensive research (uh, Wikipedia) I discovered, that people had been making and eating aspic since Medieval times. Like many age-old techniques aspic most likely first was eaten as a way to use up every part of the animal -- the gelatinous broth left over from boiling particularly bony pieces of meat (knuckles, heads) would be cooled and then jelled. With the help of the culinary genius of the French, aspic was clarified and used to create the type of terrine that I was about to eat.

As Leandro plated aspic for the four of us, we got into a conversation of good and gross foods. Brains, menudo, and most organs tipped the nasty scales for Veronica and I, but Leandro seems to love all of it. "Argentinians eat anything," Veronica explained, "especially if it's from a cow. I'll go there with [Leandro] and his mom will be like 'Eat this!' And I'll go 'I'm not exactly sure what this is. And why does it taste like balls?' But that's just me...no, most of the stuff she makes is really, really good."

We headed into the living room and sat cross-legged around the coffee table in the couple's small living room. As we lifted our forks Leandro's mother called and left a long message in Spanish -- almost as though she could sense we were about to eat the dish that she had advised Leandro how to make.

We all took a bite. The jello was flavorless and as Leandro later suggested, a little too thick on top, but the filling was totally delicious. Each of the flavors passed subtly over our palates and the distinct tastes -- hints of lemongrass, bitter celery, salty pecorino, pungent Roquefort, and briny heart of palm -- slowly emerged as I chewed.

Mao, the married pair's other cat (the one that suffers from "itchy cat syndrome" and has to be on cat anti-depressants)came over as I was eating and rubbed against my leg. "She likes everything," Veronica indicated and told me that I could give her a bite of aspic. I held out a small nibble. Mao gobbled it up, then purred, as though asking for more. Following the cat's example, I did the same.

Aspic a la Argentine: Part I

2009-04-14T11:26:00.014-04:00

When my friend, Veronica, first sent me an email about cooking for this blog, she suggested that we do something in the spring so that we could use readily available seasonal crops. It only took us a FULL YEAR to solidify a plan. And so on a sunny, Sunday afternoon I finally found myself ringing the bell to her Caroll Gardens apartment that she shares with her husband, Leandro Carbonell.

Veronica, a PhD candidate in religious studies, had just returned from a league soccer game and left soon after I arrived to grab some sundries from the corner store. "I'll be right back! Promise. Leandro, be a good host while I'm gone," she singed and disappeared out the front door.

Leandro, a video editor and native of Buenos Aires, had taken care to be ready for me when I arrived. (Turns out that when Veronica first told me that she would like to cook for me, she really meant her husband. Veronica later indicated, "Leandro shall cook. I'll just lounge around waiting to be served, as God intended.") His dish of choice? That savory, molded jello we know as aspic.

I was dubious, but since the French have been enjoying aspic (also called cabaret, and, when mixed with cream, chaud-froid) for centuries and since they know a thing or two about cooking, I tried to keep an open mind.

Leandro decorked a bottle of wine and said in thickly-accented English, "I called my mother and asked her how to make aspic." His parents, both of whom continue to reside in Argentina, are responsible for Leandro's skills. "There was a party every weekend, my parents would cook and invite people over... They are great cooks. My father even has a first prize [from a local contest] for an asparagus mousse." Once in high school, Leandro often made family meals during the week and spent many of his spare hours experimenting and learning his way around the kitchen. Despite decades of experience, however, he continues to rely on his mom and dad for cooking tips and tricks.

"My mother gave me a lot of guidance for this dish, but really my specialties are roasted meats and stuff like that." He poured me a glass of wine and led me to the living room - dense with knick knacks, decorations, books, and other accumulated, but organized flotsam - where he sat me down in front of his computer to show me pictures of some of the meals that he had previously created. There was documentation of caramelized roasted vegetables, browned sides of meat, and roasts bubbling over with juices. And we were going to eat bread and vegetables preserved in boiled algae? Great.

We headed back into the kitchen to begin the cooking lesson. Leandro explained that he decided to make a vegetarian aspic and, since there would be no boiling of bones (cartilage and bone give meat-based aspic its gelatinous consistency), he had decided to use seaweed-derived agar agar as the congealing agent. He opened the refrigerator and showed me the finished version.

"I had to experiment with the agar agar because I wanted to make sure that it would work, so I just made a little and poured it into the bowl. I don't like that it is not totally transparent, but it will do." Leandro produced a bowl with the jellied stuff and turned it over, unloading its contents into his hand. At this moment Veronica returned. Setting down her bags she exclaimed, "Look at that! It looks like a silicone boob."

Truer words were never spoken.

For part two, click here.

Eat some food with NYCookery!

2009-04-02T07:30:00.001-04:00

Folks, has your lifelong dream been to listen to music themed around freedom and bondage while eating edibles that have been inspired by the same?

YOU ARE IN LUCK!

Tonight, come out to the Bowery Poetry Club for Gastrophonic Stimulation - a totally sensory experience and wild party based around a timely theme. This month, Gastrophonic Stimulation will explore Passover, which means you will have the chance to rock out while you munch on some tasty ass morsels that invoke such subjects as slavery and the plagues and, uh, Moses.

For more information, read this well-put summary written up by our friends over at Metromix.

End of post.

The Gannon Family Secret: The Recipe

2009-04-01T23:02:00.000-04:00

This recipe includes caraway seeds. Their inclusion is entirely up to you. Both John and Noemie don't like the licorice-y bite that they add to the bread, so they omit them (admittedly, the bread did not win any local contests until Aunt Nancy took them out). Though I am a huge fan this spicy cousin of cumin, I suggest leaving the seeds out if you are not a fan of their flavor.

Serve this puppy hot. And, I suggest you do as John's mom recommends: slather a slice with even more butter and accompany it with espresso, coffee, or Irish-style tea (i.e. lots of cream and sugar).

For the story of the bread, click here and here.

Aunt Nancy's Irish Buttermilk Bread
5 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 cups raisins
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
3 tablespoons caraway seeds (optional)
1 egg slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350

Grease one large (12" cast iron skillet) or two smaller (7" or 8") cast iron skillets. If you do not have a cast iron, you may use two 8" round cake pans. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. Cut butter into flour mixture, work butter into the mixture with your hands until it is crumbly and resembles corn flour. Add caraway seeds (if using) and raisins. Coat the seeds and raisins thoroughly with the flour.

Add buttermilk and slightly beaten eggs. Mix with spatula until dough is just wet and almost smooth. Take care not to over mix. Spread into greased pan(s). Bake for 45 min. Test with toothpick for doneness.

Remove from oven and rub butter on the top crust of the bed. Let cool 10 minutes. Remove loaf from pan and slide onto a plate. Place in a paper bag and let cool completely or overnight. Once cooled, store in ziploc bag or plastic wrap so that it stays moist.

The Gannon Family Secret: The Tasting

2009-03-31T18:50:00.006-04:00

This is part two of this series. For part one, click here.

The buzzer sounded and Noemie removed the hot bread from the oven. As soon as the skillet was placed onto a cooling rack, she ripped open the top of a stick of butter and began to rub it over the crust. As the cold butter met the hot bread, it melted and oozed.

After letting it rest for a bit, Noemie flipped over the heavy load and slid the lot onto a plate and into a large paper bag, where it would steam for a good ten to fifteen minutes.

Her movements were fluid and quick. The friends who had arrived to eat with us let out an uncontained applause. “You’re all lucky I didn’t drop that!” Noemie told us as she wiped her hands off on her jeans.

Unfortunately, I could not try Noemie’s bread with her. I had to do work work—like the kind that pays me, and I had not choice but to be on my way. However, before I left, Noemie packed a hunk of the loaf into a to-go bag for me. So, it was on the subway home that I got to try her creation.

I remember the first time I tried Irish soda bread. My mom had brought some home with her to accompany our traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal of corned beef and cabbage. She told me to be proud of golden dough—after all, it was a product of Ireland! The best country in the world! Forget the mishmash of heritages that comprise my ethnicity—the Polish, the Jewish, the Roma, the Austrian, and the English—all that mattered is that I was Irish. So, I ate up. And boy, was I in love.

That said, my expectations were high. On the walk to the train, I decided that I would not try Noemie’s bread until I reached my apartment. But, on the half-empty G train, the smell and warmth of the just-baked bread got to me, and I could not wait any longer. I broke into the ziplock back and ripped off a huge, tender, and steamy bite. Expectations met.

The Gannon Family Secret: The Baking

2009-03-28T15:20:00.007-04:00

In a less confessional and older world, the key to particularly good dishes often was hoarded. They were the legacy that mothers left to their daughters, and cooks to their apprentices—golden prizes made of salt and flour and secret ingredients. Yes, there were cooking clubs, women's magazines, and recipe exchanges, but when your neighbor gave you the instructions for his babka or her jerk chicken, there was always that possibility that an ingredient or two would be missing. That tablespoon of butter? Whoops! Actually, it should be a teaspoon of vegetable oil. That habañero pepper? Mea culpa! It was really supposed to be an egg white.

And so it went with Margie Slater, John Ardolino's mother, and her sister Nancy's Irish soda bread. Weeks before I headed over to John and Noemi Lemasson's apartment, John told me that yes, there would be bread, but no, I could not have the recipe. There was "no way" that John’s mom, a “stickler” whose sister had perfected the Irish tradition for competitions and school bake sales, would just hand over the family recipe. For a blog. For everyone to read. Absolutely no way.

Well, at least that is what John assumed and had reiterated to me in a series of email conversations. However, when he told his mom about his feature on NYCookery, she happily gave over her treasure, indicating that it could only be printed as long as the loaf was named “The Gannon Family Secret: Aunt Nancy’s Irish Soda Bread.” As you wish, Margie, and a big thank you from my readers and me.

When it came time for Noemie to show me her stuff, she had placed the components that would eventually become soda bread in brightly colored bowls of various sizes. There were raisins plumping in water, flour, salt, baking soda, sugar, and the biggest cast iron skillet I had ever seen, buttered and ready to go. With The Clash as our soundtrack, Noemie, dressed in very feminine apron shirt that showed off her intricate tattoos, began to gracefully assemble the rather simple recipe. She pinched cubes of cold butter between her fingers, cutting it fully into the flour.

Noemie’s French father, also a professionally trained chef, had nurtured that her love of food. Growing up, she told me, meals were central to family life. John chimed in and talked passionately about the culinary pleasures that awaited visitors at the Lemasson household. They seemed meant for each other.

“So, wait, how did you all meet?” I asked. “Well, Noemie used to come in the bar where I worked with her boyfriend. And then I didn’t see her for awhile and then one time she came in by herself, so I asked her out and then we went on a date. And it was was the best date EVER.” Noemie smiled as she added buttermilk, “And now were getting married. And that's the story.” Her heart-shaped ring glinted.

Noemie turned the finish batter into the buttered skillet. "This thing is fucking heavy," as she lifted the enormous pan from the counter. “It’s a skillet bread! I guess. Wait it cooks in the oven, so, uh never mind,” John chimed in as he popped open a Guinness. “My mother halved the recipe and put it into two small cast irons, but the original is to put it into the big one. My aunt would always cook it and cut it in half and give people big halves of Irish bread. I like that style. You’re doing the right thing. Big pans. Better.” Noemie thanked John for the support and closed the oven door.

As the bread baked, we talked about local restaurants and the perfect, but simple macerated prune and mascarpone dessert served at Frankie’s 457. John, unclear on exactly what a macerated prune is, asked me to explain.

“Uh, you know, they’re macerated in wine. Liked soaked in the shit. I think that’s what macerated means. Now I’m doubting myself. It’s when you soak it in an acidic substance, right? Actually, now I’m not sure. I just use the word. Apparently everything I say is bullshit.”

“Yea, I macerate things, too,” John teased as he verified the term in Joy of Baking, “this is my meatloaf, I macerated it. I’m going to say it all the time. At work I say, ‘macerate that document, see how it comes out.’” We verified my assumption (I was right, of course) and moved to the couple’s kitschy dining room, where we drank coffee and talked about Paula Dean’s affinity for fats (I swear I saw that women drink melted butter once) while batter and oven bonded...

Click here for part two.

St. Paddy's Beef: How To

2009-03-20T07:25:00.006-04:00

John Ardolino, though he received inspiration from the Internet for his brining solution, added some personal touches to the process. I can't speak enough about how good this homemade corned beef is. Try it at home, and, like John said, let it marinate for the full seven days. You won't be disappointed!

Do you have a favorite brining recipe? Let me know about it by leaving a comment!

(Thanks to John for all of the pictures of this process!)

John Ardolino's Home Brine for Corned Beef

Ingredients
1 (8-10 lb) beef brisket
4 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in thirds

The Brine
2 quarts water
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup white vinegar
4 tablespoons sugar
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon peppercorn
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 pinch ground cloves

The Simmering Liquid
Water
1 teaspoon peppercorn
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole allspice
1/4 teaspoon whole cloves
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1 bottle Harp or lager of your choice

The Vegetables
10-12 large carrots, scrubbed and cut into thirds
10-12 medium-sized russet potatoes, peeled and halved
2 large cabbages, quartered

Combine the brining ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then cool completely.

Place the beef brisket, the cooled brine, and 4 garlic cloves in a huge plastic roasting bag. Do not use a garbage bag. Plastic roasting bags can be purchased from your local grocer or butcher.

Ensure that all of the meat is covered completely by the brine (cutting the brisket in pieces if you need to), tie off the bag tightly, and then bag it a again OR place in a pot large enough to hold it. Refrigerate for 7 days, turning occasionally.

After 7 days, remove brisket from the brine. Discard the brine.

Rinse the meat thoroughly, then place in a Dutch oven or large pot. Add enough water to come up cover the meat 2/3 or 3/4 the way. Add the simmering liquid ingredients, and bring to a boil. Remove any scum that rises to the surface. Add bottle of Harp or lager of your choice.

Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook, covered, for at least 3 - 4 hours. One hour before the meat is done cooking, add the carrots, potatoes, and cabbage.

Remove meat from simmering liquid and let rest for 10-15 minutes. Serve sliced into 1-1.5" pieces and with vegetables. Great for sandwiches, too.

St Paddy's Beef: Part II

2009-03-17T23:58:00.013-04:00

This is Part II of this series. For Part I, click here.

Because the meat was going to take so long to cook, I had come prepared to do some work at a coffee shop during that time. Of course, as soon as I went searching for a place to perch, I ended up shopping instead. The recession has it's bonuses, most markedly the vast amount of sales that dot the retail landscape. However, except for some horseradish mustard and Grey Poupon, I went back to Noemie and John's empty handed. Just cuz stuff's cheap don't mean it's pretty.

While I was out stimulating the economy, the future husband and wife were doing the same. Apparently, after I left, they had a real "urge" to play Sorry. So they trekked in light rain to several neighborhood stores before finding a board at a local Rite Aid. Something about a pair of adults walking the streets of Brooklyn to track down a game meant for seven-year-olds warmed my heart.

When I returned, wafts of allspice, cloves, and peppercorns permeated the house. It smelled heavenly. But it wasn't time to eat yet; first, Noemi was going to make me some Irish soda bread (the subject of my next post). So we did what came naturally - we talked and drank enough coffee to give me the shakes for days. Several times in the middle of our conversation, John added a staccato "I'm hungry" and "I want that corned beef!" Noemie responded by looking longingly at the boiling pot.

It was just about 6:30pm, a good four hours after we had begun, when John started looking at his watch. Three friends of theirs had been invited to partake in the corned beef experiment. They were late, and the minutes passed painfully.

Unable to wait, John put a small potato on a cutting board and cut it into bits. The tuber was saltly from the brine, and juicy and oily from that meat. My mouth watered. Noemie gave John a high five, "Good job, baby! I think that beer really added good flavor." John tipped his glass of Guinness at her in reply, then removed all of the meat from the pot and laid it out on a cutting board. He let it rest for a good 15 minutes; in that time the couple's friends arrived with bread and brews to share.

"Ok, so I'm putting a curfew on our hanging out. 10pm. That's it. This daylight savings time is messing me up." John announced as he sliced the meat into generous portions, plattered the cabbage, and spooned up the spuds. I wondered if we could actually eat our way through the glistening and steaming piles of food in such a short amount of time (we would eat all of it goddamit!). "You guys hungry?" We responded with a slow, Homer Simpson-eque "mmmmm." Kevin, one of the friends there to dine, watched John closely. "So, this is like a one pot meal, huh? Do you brine it? Like, in salt water?" he asked. John explained the process. Later, Kevin told us that despite being a first-generation American from a family of Irishmen, his mother pooh poohed traditional Irish fare, so, despite his heritage, he was unfamiliar with the meat's preparation.

Hoping to prompt everyone to sit and eat, I anxiously took a seat in the dining room ahead of the rest of the group. The sooner we were at the table, the sooner my stomach would be satisfied. I could barely contain my excitement. Finally, John began bringing in the dishes from the kitchen and, after he set his iPod to play some traditional Irish fiddlin' tunes, we dug in.

The corned beef was brown on the outside and only slightly pink in the middle, not the traditional deep rose color due to the lack of sodium nitrates. It was tender, fatty, and deeply flavorful. The exact way the meat should be. The vegetables - carrots, cabbage, and potatoes - had absorbed the tastes of the pungent allspice, bay, and clove. I helped myself to three plates of the stuff. It rarely gets better than this.

The group of us laughed and ate and laughed and ate until our cheeks and stomachs hurt. When it came time to leave, John and Noemie presented me with an amazing gift - a doggy bag filled generously with the night's treats. While I rode the subway home in a food-induced coma, I congratulated John with a mental high five.

St Paddy's Beef: Part I

2009-03-16T19:01:00.019-04:00

Where I'm from, St. Patrick's Day is like Christmas. In Chicago, ole Paddy is revered by many Irish and non-Irish who, on his day, venture to the South Side by the droves wearing their pleated khaki pants, kelly green collared polos, and shamrock headbands to celebrate the bastard. They pound beer after dyed-green-beer and shoot Irish car bombs, until they can no longer remember the words to "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." Not that they ever really knew them.

I hated the holiday.

But here in the Big Apple St. Paddy is more Eugene Mirman than George Carlin - an appreciated, but subdued figure in the minds of New Yorkers - and so when John Ardolino - a terrific actor and puppeteer that I met through the fantastic company, Drama of Works - asked me over to taste his home-brined corned beef (one of my favorite foods), I realized that maybe his day could be enjoyed. I decided to drop my grudge and to get into the spirit.

As I walked up the stairs to John Ardolino and Noemie (no-ee-mee) Lemasson’s large Carroll Gardens brownstone apartment, I was greeted by cardboard cutouts of leprechauns that adorned the walls outside their door.

Inside, the two had decorated their apartment with green crepe paper, though the abode seemed rather perma-festy: one wall was lined with a collection of snow globes, a plastic skeleton from some unknown high school class sat in a chair in their dining room, a well-loved but not-functional-looking 1950s radio stood in a corner, and knickknacks abounded.

The cooking had begun much before I stepped out of a gypsy cab on that drizzly day. Five nights earlier, John had begun brining brisket – coaxing it to metamorphose into corned beef by means of a salty and spicy bath. He had debated on and off whether or not to make the Irish culinary tradition from scratch, and finally had decided for it. I was happy about the decision. For the purposes of this blog, boiling already cured corned beef with a packet of packaged spices seemed like cheating.

We started soon after I arrived. John removed the meat from the turkey roasting bags it was stored in, and rinsed it under cold water. Because John had decided not to use the preservative saltpeter in the brining process, it had turned a dull gray from oxidation. The color of, you know, rot.

After debating for quite sometime the opaque recipe directions to fill the pot with water "three-quarters to the meat," John put the giant metal vessel on the stove and wiped his hands together. "All right, well, see ya later! I've got some plans."

He was kidding of course, but there was not much to see - this first part really was just an opportunity for me to snap photos. Noemie and I sipped strong coffee and John drank a Guinness while we chatted and chopped up the cabbage, potatoes, and carrots that would be added once the scum was scraped from the water.

"Shit," John said, interrupting conversation guided by random thoughts that ranged from subjects such as Brooklyn blogs, the couple's courtship and recent engagement, and our native lands (John and Noemie are from Connecticut and New Jersey respectively), "I wanted to add some beer to this." Noemie assured him that it wasn't too late, so he poured in the contents of a bottle of Harp.

After all, it would be three hours, at minimum, before we ate.

Click here for Part II.

The Puppet Men Cometh

2009-02-26T06:50:00.015-05:00

In the next few weeks, I'll be cooking with people that I connected with over puppets.

Yes. Puppets.

One of my weird creative hobbies, I cut my stage teeth at the visual-arts focused company, Redmoon Theater in Chicago. Through shadow-, papier-mache-, rod-, hand-, found-, toy-, and even stuff-animal puppets, I have bonded with some of my closest friends, expanded my social network, and found a new community in New York. And, I swear, these people are some of the most inventive and normal I know. Well... maybe the latter is a bit of an overstatement.

So, what should you expect? Corned beef by John Ardolino, Drama of Works associate director, and a soup-based sauce by John Payne (and the subject of my first webisode - to be filmed by his bud and Puppetbox bandmate, Mark Annotto), former student of the London School of Puppetry. Surprises, I am sure, will abound.

Raisin the Bar with Kugel: The Recipe

2009-02-22T12:39:00.005-05:00

The best part about kugel is that it is served at dinner, but really tastes just like dessert. Just in time for Passover, too.

Ali Hart's Raisin Kugel
1 lb egg noodles
1/2 stick melted butter
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup raisins
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp orange juice
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Set oven to 350 and grease a 9X13 baking dish.

Cook noodles according to package directions, drain in a colander. Run cold water over hot noodles to make sure they stop cooking. In a mixing bowl, whisk remaining ingredients (it will be runny). Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes to one hour, or until top is just browned.

Raisin the Bar with Kugel: The Finish

2009-02-19T19:48:00.026-05:00

This is part two of Raisin the Bar with Kugel. For part one, click here.

While we relaxed between videos and in between conversations about relationships and exes that I could not possibly include here, Ali said "I'm trying to think about what I can tell you about this that would be interesting...Well I am Jewish, this is my one Jewish dish, and also my one dish." We laughed. Then, when I realized that that was the extent of her story, we laughed even more. "Man, I think I'm just really out of it!" Ali got up to check on the water. "What else can I tell you? Um, I like to buy the Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles... for no reason." Maybe because of the doves on the logo? Ali's love for the Amish? Who can tell. Who can tell.

Ali picked up the lid. "The package says bring to a rapid boil. What's the difference between boiling and rapid boiling? I don't even know how to cook pasta, apparently." I peaked into the pot and assured her that it was time.

We gossiped some more and after a few minutes I asked, "So how long do you boil this for?" which induced a little bickering between us. Being old friends is just like being an old married couple.

"It doesn't say. I think just until they're ready." Ali told me.

"I don't think you'd want to boil them all the way they're totally ready. Because they'd get like mush."

"Wait, it says 'cook as directed.'"

"But I don't think you do that. You cook them until they're almost done."

"Well... then they'll get too crispy."

"They'll definitely become mush if you do it all the way."

"Uh uh!"

"All right. Well, we'll do it your way."

"If it says to do it as they they're supposed to be cooked. That's how you do it."

Boop, boop, boop. Saved by the cell.

Ali pulled out an extremely long, funny-looking pot holder that had two hand pockets on each end to use to pick up the large and steaming metal vessel.

"Everyone always makes fun of me for this, but it's my grandma's mitt. And also this is my giant grandma pot. Everything is grandma. Even the Jewish part." After she dumped the noodles into a colander, Ali turned on the water to ensure that they stopped cooking and then set the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Ali tested the noodles with her hand to make sure that they were cool, then returned them to the pot. She added the egg mixture that she had blended earlier and stirred the ingredients together.

Once everything was well mixed, she dumped everything into the prepared baking dish...

...and placed it in the hot oven.

Yes, the baking pan was cool to the touch at this point, but apparently Ali uses every opportunity to utilize the grandma mitt.

The kugel had to bake for 45 minutes, so we checked out more videos, watched Saturday Night Live snippets, and messed around on Facebook. Finally, the oven alarm chimed and Ali went to the kitchen to remove her creation. "Make sure you bake the kugel on the middle rack, because if it's too high up or too low, the kugel will get too crispy," she said as she removed the pudding and placed it on the counter. Typically, one should eat kugel at room temperature, but I wanted some right then, so Ali cut off a generous piece for me.

Now, admittedly, I am a die-hard kugel lover, but Ali's kugel is particularly good. The texture created by the golden brown top and the moist center satisfied my desire for chewy and crunchy, while the rich, eggy, buttery custard that acts as a glue to hold the dish together was perfectly accented by a soupcon of cinnamon and nicely punctuated by juicy bursts of raisin sweetness. Simply delicious.

After we had had first and second helpings of the noodle delight, Ali packed me a tupperware of leftovers. It was gone by midnight.

Raisin the Bar with Kugel: The Beginning

2009-02-19T06:53:00.004-05:00

When I arrived to Ali Hart's Prospect Heights apartment, her door was ajar in anticipation of my entrance. Inside, her shared third-floor walk-up felt tropic due to an overactive radiator system. Ali, dressed in a thin T-shirt and jeans, was furiously texting as I crossed the threshold, and gave me a nasal "Hiiii" without looking up from her mid-1990s-sized phone (she insists she likes its bulk). Ali, a student of the Presidio School of Management and looking to one day enter into the world of sustainable (read "green") business development, is not much of a cook. Like she had both feet firmly planted in adulthood when she first learned how to boil pasta kind of a cook. Though, admittedly, she has come a long long way since I first met her when we were college freshman; back then she subsisted almost entirely on pizza and burgers. In fact, her food journey has been so well-traveled that she is now a vegetarian with a much expanded palate (though it still annoys me that she does not eat runny eggs. I mean come on! That's they way they should be done!).

Ali, a consummate texter, and also one of my dearest friends, spent our first minute or two together focused on her phone. Since we talk about every five minutes and since she knows just about everything I do from the breakfast that I have eaten to the subject of my recurring dreams when I was a kid (Steve Martin inviting me to his birthday party, if you want to know), I knew that Ali was capable of multitasking phone and kugel, so the "bloop bloop bloop" that sirened every so often to let her know that it was her turn in the conversation was hardly a distraction.

"So, Ali, what are you going to make me?" She set her phone down and walked over to the ingredients that she had splayed on her counter top. "I'm making you raisin Kugel!" Ali explained that she had been making the dish for about five years. "Is this your only specialty dish?" Ali laughingly responded, "Uh, yea. It's the only dish that I've tweaked to make better... I added orange juice to it, more raisins, and I think I may have added nutmeg or something..." Bloop, bloop, bloop.

After a quick text, she continued. "Sorry," Ali said as she set down her cell. "So, I put orange juice in because I was cooking from health books that had different kinds of sweeteners and that's why I tried orange juice." Bloop bloop bloop. Another interruption. "Do you want me to grease the pan while..." Bloop bloop bloop "...you're texting?" I asked, and picked up a stick of butter and began to rub the fat in a large Pyrex baking dish.

Ali cracked an egg into a small bowl, then dumped the gooey rawness into a larger mixing bowl and repeated the process three times. She told me that she learned the technique from her 6th grade home economics teacher, Mrs. Schmucker - just in case there was something "gross" inside the shell, one is saved from ruining a whole recipe. A good trick. Beating the eggs with a fork she said, "I also learned to make a scrunchi, and a jewelry box out of fabric... Wait." She stopped what she was doing. "I don't know why I'm doing this. You don't need to beat the eggs yet." (Later Ali told me that she "usually only make[s] scrambled eggs, so when I crack them, [beating them] is my MO") . Then she measured out sugar and spices added them to the bowl. On the stove she melted a 1/2 stick of butter.

"I didn't buy the organic raisins because they were too expensive, but don't say that on the blog because I'm supposed to be 'green' and all." Oh, whoops. I hope they don't fire her from green school for that one. As she measured and dumped the dried brown bits into the beaten eggs, Ali looked at me and asked, "So, the original recipe only called for, like, a third of a cup. It's raisin kugel! Why would you only put that little in it?"

Ali finished off the egg mixture with orange juice and vanilla, and then proclaimed that she was almost done.

"You don't have to boil the noodles before you put everything together? Wow!" I said. Ali looked at me and then let out an embarrassed giggle. "Oh shit. Fuck. I forgot about that. Ahhh! I'm so mad." We laughed. "Well, Ali, at least this will make for good blogging material."

After filling a large metal pot with water, we drank seltzer and watched some YouTubes while we waited for the water to boil.

Click here for part two of this story.

I'm baaaack

2009-02-17T06:42:00.000-05:00

After a torrid time at the ole office (there's a recession you know) that has forced me into longer hours (oh, the calamity!), things have normalized and posting will, once again, be a regular thing here at NYCookery. Expect to hear about kugel, corned beef, and more in the coming weeks!

Kugel Prep

2009-01-12T07:35:00.002-05:00

As Ali Hart was making me her famous kugel yesterday, the strange yet toothsome combination of ingredients that mark this sweet pudding got me thinking about the Jewish cooking genius who must have invented it - how did that chef come to the conclusion that eggs, noodles, raisins, and sugar would make for a good foodstuff? Why did he or she make it? Was it for a special event like a wedding or birthday? Or for something religious like Rosh Hashanah or a Sabbath?

The inventor of the dish may remain nameless and the occasion for which it was first made a mystery, but kugel will always hold a special place in my stomach and heart. Though a secular and definitively non-Jewish Austro-Hungarian gastronomy dominated the culture of my family’s table growing up, I remember the excitement I felt at the prospect of digging into a sweet noodle kugel at a shared Passover dinner with family friends. The dish’s crispy top and gooey, eggy center has always been a favorite treat.

My fond memories and my inquisitiveness lead me to search out more information about this Jewish casserole on the Internet. Of course, a simple Google search produced thousands of results. Now, I might be motivated enough to type the word kugel into a search engine, but there is no way that I’m spending hours figuring out what is worthwhile/true/interesting, so I turned to a trusted source: the food section of the New York Times. A search there produced two interesting articles on the food - one about kugel's recent evolution and another by Melissa Clark - owner of Brooklyn's Sweet Melissa Patisserie - on her personal experience with the dish and with an accompanying recipe. Read up, and come back later this week to learn how to make it yourself!

A New Year, A New Format

2009-01-05T19:19:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year! I've been a little MIA for awhile traveling and baking cookies for various friends and holiday parties, but now that it's 2009, expect all sorts of delicious stories from NYCookery.

When I began this blog a number of months ago, my plan was to take a year cooking in each borough; however, I have received so many requests from other place (like Queens and Manhattan) that I have deemed it unfair to make all those cooks wait for me to get to them.

So, that said, NYCookery has spread like softened butter on a crispy baguette to the other areas of New York. I'll even be doing some field trips to other parts of the country to learn more regional recipes and tricks. Expect a bigger, better, and even more entertaining (is it possible?!) blog in the new year.

To ring in 2009 appropriately and to prepare for the next post (kugel), I've decided to provide you with a link to the best babka recipe ever known to man. Enjoy!

End of post.

Cookies for You (and for the Vegans in Your Life), The Recipe

2008-12-12T08:35:00.004-05:00

Savory and sweet, these cookies are a nothing to feel guilty about. Sarah says that "These are good hot, better cool, and even better the next day!" Enjoy!

Sarah Warner's Vegan Pistachio and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine in a food processor and grind into a coarse/fine meal:
1 cup raw, shelled, unsalted pistachios
4 T arrowroot
1/2 t cardamom
1 t cinnamon
pinch of cloves
1 t baking soda
1/2 t sea salt

Add:
4 T coconut oil
2 T agave nectar
1 t vanilla
8 large, pitted dates
and continue to grind until the mixture holds together like a dough

Remove the dough to a small bowl and stir in:
1/4 cup roughly chopped pistachios
as many chocolate chips as the dough will hold (about 1/2 cup)

Form into one inch spheres, then flatten these spheres to discs approximately two inches in diameter. (A little coconut oil on your hands will keep this from being such a sticky proposition.)

Place on a cookie sheet greased with coconut oil and bake for about ten minutes, until lightly browned on the outside.

Allow to cool briefly before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

Cookies for You (and for the Vegans in Your Life), Part II

2008-12-11T19:38:00.020-05:00

This is Part II of this series. For Part I, click here.

...I put the raw batter to my mouth and let it sit on my tongue for just a minute before chewing. There was nothing offensive about the dough - in fact, it tasted really only tasted nutty and spicy, but heavy and grainy. Not shocking.

Sarah transferred the mixture to a bowl, chopped up more pistachios and added them into it along with some vegan chocolate chips (she prefers Tropical Source).

"I could use a spoon," Sarah said looking at the thick and somewhat impenitrable-looking clump, "but hands are just easier." So using what God gave her, she mixed everything together.

"What your left with is a nice, slippery dough. Also, I like to oil the pan with my hands because then you're left with nonstick skin to shape the cookies." Sarah talked to me as she rolled the dough into 2" rounds and placed them on the greased pan.

The dough darkened a little from the chocolate, which was beginning to slightly melt from being handled. It turned from a greenish-brown to a more cookie-looking chocolate brown. I could smell the blend of cinnamon and cloves from my perch about five feet from Sarah was working and found myself salivating. I actually felt excited about eating those vegan cookies.

With the palm of her hand, Sarah pressed the little spheres flat.

"I think I might have put a little too much oil in these. I'll adjust the written recipe for you blog." She frowned showing me her greased hands.

"Wait, you're not going to put this on the blog are you? 'This is my friend, Sarah, she is a hack cook.'" Whoops. There it is.

She placed the pan of cookies in a preheated oven, washed her hands, and sat down to chat as they baked. After a little lull in our conversation (probably something about boys), Sarah looked at me and her eyes brightened. "Erin, you could write about my nice kitchenware on the blog!" She explained and then got up to open her cabinets. "I have some pretty cool stuff." Indeed her shelves were stocked with handmade ceramics and kitchenware that various artist friends had given her over time, but more notable was her heavy-bottomed crystal highball glasses.

"What's that?" I asked. "Oh," Sarah replied removing a glass from the cabinet, "That's my Christofle barware." I looked at her blankly. That was some expensive stuff. I asked her how she came about it. "Well, I was working at a department store in Releigh, and I was helping people make their gift registry and it was right after college, and working with all these brides was making me pretty down, because, ya know, it was right after I graduated and these women seemed to have their shit together..." Ah, yes, I knew the feeling well.

"Anyway," she continued, "I realized I wasn't so much jealous of those ladies, but of the gifts they got. So I made myself my own registry called 'married to me.' I realized that I didn't need the husband - just the line of credit. So I got one, bought myself a bunch of expensive stuff, and took the next year paying it off." I laughed. Sarah, who I met at Penland School of Craft a number of years ago, with her sweet looking smile, light eyes, and bubbly laugh continues to suprise me with her unsuspecting behavior.

Right when Sarah finished her story, the alarm went off, signifying that it was time for some vegan treats. She removed them from the oven and, with a spatula, scooped the sweet discs from pan to cooling rack.

After a few minutes, the cookies had cooled sufficiently to eat. Without asking, I took one from the wire rack and stuffed it in my mouth. It was fucking good. The baked little discs were not too sweet - nutty, chocolatey, and spiced well. I told Sarah that I imagined them as perfect breakfast treats. She agreed as she chewed on her own treat. As I dug into my second and then third cookie, I realized that I completely had forgotten about my headache and nausea and thanked Sarah for curing me of my malaise. With a knowing smirk, she nodded, and then grabbed another cookie.

Cookies for You (and for the Vegans in Your Life), Part I

2008-12-10T19:07:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago, I awoke to a drizzly and unseasonably warm Sunday and also to an unprecedented hang over. It was the day after my 29th birthday and my friends had plied me with drink the night before, rendering me completely useless the next day. The only thing that could feed my painful alcohol-induced headache, I thought, was a quiet day on the couch, but I was scheduled to learn how to make vegan cookies… about the last thing I wanted to do. Sarah Warner, my teacher, called a few hours before I was to arrive and made the deal stomachable by offering me a pre-cooking lesson lunch. It was just enough to get me out of the house.

Because I was slightly nauseous, I decided to splurge on a car to travel the mile and a half to Sarah’s house. Of course, I arrived late, but, due to a mishap involving water and a hot glass baking dish, Sarah was also a little behind and happy for my tardy behavior. While we ate baked chicken, sautéed leeks, and corn muffins, and drank black coffee, I slowly began to revive.

Sarah Warner, a professional jeweler and artist, embraced cooking a little later than most, but has taken to it like she has craftwork– she is a deliberate and creative home cook. While we ate lunch she told me about her growth in the kitchen and, as she saved the bones of the chicken leg that I had just devoured, pointed out that she was also a thrifty cook. “In fact, I even have had the same bag of chicken feet in my fridge for over a year – I moved them with me hear from Richmond. Want to see ‘em?” Of course I did. Sarah opened her freezer and produced a large plastic bag of the feet and then pulled one out of their housing.

“See? They really add to chicken stock – ya know they give it a thicker, more gelatinous viscosity.” The severed claw looked a little gross, and I was happy that it was not to be featured in the cookies.

Sarah returned the appendages and went to the counter to prepare the lesson. A very self-conscious cook who suffers from several food allergies, Sarah took several months to come up with a recipe for this blog, and as she prepared for the lesson she told me that the dish was still experimental.

I pointed out that Sarah had tested the dish about a million times she responded, “I know, but I might make some final tweaks… I even compared and contrasted recipes last week.” She frowned and looked at the ingredients that sat precariously piled on a stool in her rather nice-sized, but counter-lacking Park Slope kitchen, “I just wish I had used cheaper ingredients.”

The raw pistachios, she indicated, were probably the costliest item, but also what gave the cookies their extra-nutty flavor. Roasted were acceptable, too, she told me, but the less-shelf stable raw were superior. “I’m not a big believer in veganism, but since I’ve got this dairy, gluten-free thing going, I thought I’d leave out the egg and make it more accessible to everyone.” She loaded the nuts, arrowroot powder (for binding), ground cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves into the bowl of a food processor and let her rip.

“So, this is kind of a Middle-Eastern inspired spice cookie, isn’t it?” Sarah nodded, “Yea, those were exactly the flavors that were inspiring me when I thought of this.” She turned the machine off and showed the grit-like mixture to me.

“Everything just goes into the food processor, so it’s really easy,” she continued adding coconut oil, dates, agave nectar, and vanilla to the mix.

She turned the processor on again and, when everything looked completely ground and the batter balled together, and taste-tested some of her creation. She smiled widely and offered me the same opportunity. With some hesitance, I touched the dough, well, I more poked at it. It looked greasy and unlike a normal cookie. I picked off a chunk of uncooked cookie and brought it to my lips, put it in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed...

Turducken - The Instructional Video

2008-12-06T21:38:00.000-05:00

What follows is a short video (less than two minutes) of the assemblage of the turducken from the wrapping of the birds into one another to the sewing of the turkey. Now that you can see how to do it, your turducken will be perfect - and just in time for Christmas, too!

For part I of this series, click here, and for part II, here.

Enjoy!

End of Post

Turducken - The Story of the Eating

2008-12-03T20:49:00.006-05:00

This is second part of the story of the turducken. For Part I, click here. While the turducken roasted (first at 450 degrees for 45 minutes, then at 325 degrees for 4-5 hours, until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the tinfoil for the last hour of baking to brown the turkey's skin.), Jeff, Nora, and I chatted.

"Some people say you should cook it at 225 degrees for 8-9 hours, but I think that's just dangerous!" Nora told me, "Even though I'm not into eating meat, I'm freaked out by bacteria." Jeff concurred, "Yea, this is like a triple threat of bacteria." No one wants to be served a salmonella surprise, so my advice is to listen to Nora.

Later in the evening, the couple was having friends over to partake in the, as Nora called it, "tour de force of turkeys" and other good food and drink; unfortunately, I was off to Sag Harbor after our little lesson, so wouldn't be able to make it.

"Do you think you could save me plate of meat?" I asked Nora as we drank some coffee while the bird began to cook. "Of course!" she told me "I'm around all week." Time and time again, I am struck by the kindness of the people who cook for me. I mean, I go into their homes, they teach me how to cook something, they feed me their food, I pry them with a million questions, and all what do they get in return? A blog post. This quest to cook through New York has, in many ways (along with the recent election of Barack Obama) reminded me of humanity's natural inclination toward community. It's a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Before I left Nora agreed to take pictures of the fully cooked turducken for me so that I could include them, and, man, does the final product look beautiful.

I returned to Nora's two nights later and when I arrived, there was a plate of warmed turducken ready for me. You can imagine that after waiting for over 48 hours, I was ready to chow on some stuffed bird. So, I dug in. The turkey - my least favorite fowl - was the juiciest I had ever tried. And the other roasted meats were flavorful and tender. For being a vegetarian, Nora had succeeded in perfectly cooking the birds and in making some very delectable meat-based stuffings. It was a wonderful treat.

Up next, an instructional video on the assemblage process.

Turducken - The Story of the Making

2008-11-30T18:01:00.030-05:00

When I arrived at Nora Leech and Jeff O'Neill's garden apartment in Williamsburg, my hands were numb and my ears sore from the unseasonably frost bitten weather. Upon entering their home, I was grateful to find that it was warm and cozy, but rather surprised to see the mound of raw meat that awaited me on their kitchen counter.

"Did you know that turducken is like the highest calorie meal you can eat?" Nora said to me. She wasted no time and, before I could settle in, began removing the turkey, duck, and chicken from its butcher's wrapping. "No, I didn't know that!" I said, as I tossed aside my coat and set down my purse, "but hold on a sec, let me get my camera out." Nora - who was wearing tall heals and a casual, yet perfectly assembled outfit – paused to wait for me to get settled. "Ready?" She asked and smiled. I nodded and then she splayed out large turkey, which was, besides its legs, entirely deboned.

Jeff, Nora's long-time boyfriend, was also there and donned a frilly skirt apron to protect his hip jeans from this experiment of meat assemblage. He indicated to me that he was the "turducken muscle" - responsible for holding the bird-enstein together and turning it into the roasting pan because ultimately it would weigh over 30lbs.

"So, you start by laying out the turkey and then just salt and peppering it and maybe putting some garlic powder and paprika over the meat," Nora told me as she tap tap tapped various spice jars, releasing their contents over raw turkey flesh. "And then you spread stuffing on top of it, but not too much, because you don't want the turkey skin to split from being to stuffed when you bake it. That happened last year and it looked like a meatplosion." Jeff shook his head, “Yea, we had to patch the rip with more stuffing. It tasted good though.”

Before I had arrived Nora - a lifelong vegetarian - had prepared three types of stuffings that she was to layer between the different types of birds. She had chosen the flavors for what she perceived as complimentary to the fowl. They sat heavy and pretty in large baking pans on the table. One featured sage, sausage, and cornbread; another cranberries, celery, and almonds; and another apple sausage and carrots. Nora expounded on her dedication to local foods and her recent "obsession" with sage, which she used liberally in her recipes.

The couple - whom I had met through mutual friend - was known to serve delicious food at parties; I myself had been to several wherein some sort of meat or fish dish was prepared by Nora. Up until this point I had no idea that, except for a couple bites of lobster, Nora was a lifelong herbivore (her parents were “big hippies “). When asked if she enjoyed preparing meat due to its forbidden-fruit value, Nora replied, “Yea, I guess that’s part of it.” Jeff chimed in, “I think it’s because Nora’s an artist – she likes the tactile feeling and the making part of it. But, more than anything she likes to feed people. Seeing people enjoy the food is the best part.” Nora nodded in agreement, then laid an entirely boneless chicken on top of the turkey and dressed it with spices.

She began to spread stuffing over the bird. “All the recipes I read say use three different stuffings, so that’s what I do, too. All that work to make three birds, might as well do three stuffings as well…” Once the chicken was finished, Nora did the same to a boneless and skinless duck (the skin proved to be too fatty in previous years, so Nora had used it to fry onions for the stuffing), and then motioned for Jeff to help her; until this point, had been snapping pictures for me.

He handed the camera back to me, and, standing behind Nora, helped her fold the birds together.

She slipped out from under his arms and came back with wooden skewers, which she used to hold the large carcass together, and a large sewing needle threaded with butchers string. “Time to sew this guy up!” With some effort, she pressed through the skin starting at the neck, “If you couldn’t already tell, I like to sew.” As she stitched up the turkey, she adjusted to skewers to ensure that the bird held.

Nora and Jeff’s sweet Midwestern faces and hipster sensibilities provided an odd contrast to massacre of meat before them. The mass was fleshy and bright pink and the sound of the sewing needling entering and exiting the flesh of the birds reminded me of the exaggerated surgery sound effects depicted on a TV medical dramas. Being a recent vegetarian turncoat, witnessing this fleshy event made me feel guilty, but I could see why Nora enjoyed making the turducken - it was messy, kitschy, silly, and fun.

Jeff began to show signs of fatigue as his arms strained under the weight of the layers of meat he was holding together. Just as I thought he was about to lose it, Nora finished her turducken tailoring and told him he could relax.

Looking down at the product he helped to put together, Jeff exclaimed, “This thing looks like some sort of geological survey.” Indeed the varying colors of fowl meat that stuck out from the stitched seam looked like the multi-hued layers of eroded Southwestern bedrock.

It was time to - somehow - flip the giant bird (no pun intended) and get it into a roaster. I looked at the turducken and then back at Jeff, who was calculating how to get the thing into the pan."I hope your not wearing your favorite shirt," I said to him. "I'm not, but I am wearing my favorite apron," Jeff responded then gave me several exaggerated Betty Boop-type winks. Nora and he figured that it would be best to get the pan at a 45 degree angle and then to turn the bird into it. In one quick motion, it was done.

"That was awkward," Jeff stated as Nora drizzled the bird with olive oil and as she used small metal kitchen skewers to suture the gap at by the birds wings to limit any stuffing loss. "Kind of like juggling a bag of eels." Once Nora had finished greasing the turducken, Jeff created a foil tent, covered it, then placed it in the oven. In six to seven hours, it would be ready.

For more of this story, click here.

Turducken Teaser

2008-11-18T07:52:00.013-05:00

This Saturday, Nora Leech, fellow UW graduate, designer, guac-off host, and fabulous home cook will teach me the ways of the, in her words, "menage a trois of the bird world." Excitement is at a high - what could be more perfect, kitchy, and delicious for this blog than a chicken, stuffed in a duck, stuffed in a turkey (rounded out by massive amounts of stuffing of course)?

As I indicated in my previous post, Stuffed, I promised that I would regale you with the words that many friends and acquaintances provided to me about the bird to end all birds. And so, here they are:

Mariclare Lawson, Brooklyn resident, video editor, and avowed vegetarian told me that just "...the thought of this multiple meat massacre gives [her] the willies."

Patrick Somerville, author of Trouble and the upcoming novel, The Cradle, remains "fascinated by turducken" even though he has yet to try it's juicy goodness.

Julia Lind, nurse, recounted that she has heard of the bird only referred to as "salmonella surprise." Not shockingly, she has never attempted to eat it.

Cian Leahy, executive chef for Leprino Foods and Johnson & Wales faculty member, looked into the turducken's multi-fowl history and found out that "either in ancient Roman or French times, they would stuff a squab or small bird inside a chicken, inside a duck, inside a turkey, inside a pig, inside a deer, and slow roast the whole thing. How much of a pain in the ass would it be to de-bone all of those animals?" Wow, who knew!

Finally, I thought I would end with a little art. Jessica Candlin, teacher and former NYCookery subject, wrote a poem inspired by this - as we just found out - ancient treat:

Get Stuffed
A bird within a bird within a bird.
Jeffrey Steingarten does not suffer fools (Retreat!).
Red tweezers pluck feathers that flutter like pages of Vogue magazines.
Take your paltry poultry to the beak, Squab!

See you next time.

A Three Part Feast: The Recipes - Dessert

2008-11-16T01:06:00.001-05:00

Finally, here is the recipe for the individual trifles that Markus so elegantly created for Heike and me. Though this recipe simply calls for diced mango, Markus tells me that soaking the fruit in a tablespoon of amaretto liqueur for about an hour before serving heightens the almond flavor of the cookie and the brittle.

Amaretti and Mascarpone Trifle with Nut Brittle
For trifle
1 cup mascarpone
1/8 cup heavy cream
3-4 T sugar (to taste)
10 amarertti cookies (such as the Lazzaroni brand)
1 ripe mango

For almond brittle
1 tsp butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup blanched, sliced almonds

Whisk together mascarpone, 1/8 cup cream, and sugar. Set aside. Crush cookies with a fork, set aside. Dice mango, set aside.

Over a medium-low flame, heat 1/4 cup sugar until it is liquid and just beginning to brown. Remove from heat and immediately add almonds and butter. Return to heat and stir mixture constantly until almonds are well-coated with the caramel, about two minutes. Set aside and let nuts harden and cool completely.

In a wine glass, alternately layer the mascarpone cream, mango, and amaretti cookies. The bottom and top layers should be the cream. Break brittle into large chunk. Top trifle with brittle. Serve immediately.

A Three Part Feast: The Recipes - Risotto

2008-11-13T23:11:00.000-05:00

This was the second course that Markus prepared for me. I absolutely loved the massive amount of perfectly cooked veggies that topped off the dish.

Vegetable Risotto with Pesto and Vanil-Tomatoes

The Risotto 1 T olive oil
1/2 onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
18 oz arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
1.5 liters vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil over medium flame. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is translucent (about 5-6 minutes). Add rice and cook, stirring constantly until aromatic and until some of the grains are slightly browned (about 4-5 minutes). Add wine and cook until the liquid is completely absorbed. Begin to add vegetable stock in 1/4 cup increments, waiting until completely absorbed before adding more liquid.

Continue adding stock in about six additions until rice is al dente - chewy, but not overly soft. This should take about 15-20 minutes. You may not end up using all of the stock or needing more.

Remove garlic cloves. Transfer risotto to a bowl or platter, spreading it over the surface of the dish in order that it cools quickly.

The Pesto
2 cups basil
Juice of one lemon
2 T olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in food processor and blend until finely chopped. You may also place ingredients in a tall measuring cup and puree using a hand blender.

The Vegetables
1 T olive oik
1 garlic clove, peeled
12 stalks asparagus
3 green onions
12 shitake mushrooms
5 crimini mushrooms, halved
1 sprig fresh rosemary

Heat oil over medium flame. Add remaining ingredients and saute until cooked, stirring occasionally.

The Vanil-Tomatoes
1 tsp canola oil
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
10 grape tomatoes halved

Preheat oven to 250.

Combine all ingredients but tomatoes in a small saucepan. Heat over medium-high flame until boiling, stirring frequently. Once boiling, stir vigorously until honey is completely dissolved (about 30 seconds).

Place tomatoes in parchment lined baking dish, cut side up. Spoon honey mixture over tomatoes. Bake at 250 for 10-15 minutes, or until tomatoes are bubbly. Remove from oven and use immediately or let cool. Tomatoes may be made several hours before using.

Garnish
1 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
1T reduced balsamic vinegar

Assemblage
Combine risotto and pesto in a skillet or saute pan and heat through. Scoop about 3/4 of a cup of the pesto rice onto the center of a large plate. Top with 1/3 of the vegetables and 1/3 cup of Parmesan. Place 5-6 vanilla tomatoes on the plate surrounding the risotto. Drizzle reduced balsamic over the top of the food. Serve immediately.

A Three Part Feast: The Recipes - Salad

2008-11-11T22:46:00.000-05:00

Each of the recipes from this lesson will get their own post as they are each rather long. Though the ingredients to Markus' dishes are all simple and commonplace, the actual dishes are somewhat involved; however, they are totally worth the time they take to complete.

Zucchini-Wrapped Baked Goat Cheese and Tomato Confit Salad

Tomato Confit
1 T olive oil
1/4 cup white onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium/large tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped fine
1 sprig rosemary
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 cup water
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil over medium heat and then add minced onion. Cook until onions are tranluscent and then add the garlic. Once aromatic, add remaining ingredients. Turn heat to low and cook for five minutes, then add water. Continue to cook until tomatoes are very saucy and completely dissolved about 10-15 minutes. Serves 3. Zucchini-Wrapped Baked Goat Cheese
1 T olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and whole
1/2 zucchini
1 twig thyme
4 oz goat cheese
1 tsp honey

Preheat oven to 350.

Using a mandolin or a vegetable peeler, slice zucchini lengthwise into nine, 1/8" strips. Heat olive oil in pan and add zucchini strips in a single layer with garlic and thyme. Cook until zucchini is just pliable, about 3 minutes, turn over the strips and cook for another 3 or so minutes until the zucchini is soft, but not limp or falling apart. Remove from heat.

Cut goat cheese into 1/2" discs. Then cut those discs in half (making them half rounds). Lay zucchini on cutting board and place goat cheese on the end of the piece of squash. Drizzle with just a bit of honey, and then roll the goat cheese up into the zucchini, as you would a sleeping bag.

Place zucchini-cheese packages in a baking dish lined with parchment paper and bake for 10 minutes.

Vinaigrette
1 T balsamic vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 tsp fresh thyme
1 tsp fresh rosemary
1 T dijon mustard
4-5 T olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients except olive oil. While whisking ingredients, add olive oil in a slow and steady stream until the dressing is emulsified. Add salt and pepper.

Toss with 4 cups mesclun greens.

Assemblage
One a large place, place about a cup of the dressed greens. Spoon tomato confit in three spots around the plate and top confit with zucchini-goat cheese packages. Top with a few turns of the pepper mill.

A Three Part Feast - Part III: Savory and Sweet

2008-11-09T21:05:00.004-05:00

Before Heike and I had finished our salads, Markus was back at the stove, this time cooking an array of vegetables over medium heat in a skillet (again with fresh sprigs of thyme and rosemary) and boiling together a bit of canola oil and honey in a small saucepan.

Markus was in full cooking mode at this point and not very talkative, so I asked Heike if she cooked at all. "Oh, I make a great [German] meatball with a lemon caper sauce and I'm pretty good with Thai curry and with putting things together with leftovers." Markus grunted in agreement.

"So what are you doing over there?" I asked Markus, who had seemed to forget about my presence. He replied with an, "Oh just finishing things up." And poured a little vanilla into the boiling honey concoction. Then he very carefully applied the tomatoes with the mixture and put them into the oven.

While the tomatoes baked, Markus whipped up a simple pesto with a hand blender. He lit the flame underneath the cooled arborio and spooned in the sauce. "Now we are almost done... but my favorite part of this dish is the - how you call it - this balsamic," he said as he produced a small dish that contained just a bit of reduced balsamic - black as tar and thicker than maple syrup - one of my favorite substances on earth.

Reducing balsamic is no simple task - you have to watch it like a hawk lest it burns, and while it cooks down the vapors of the vinegar can burn your eyes and the inside of your nose, but once you get the hang of it, it is a wonderful condiment that can accompany and accentuate both savory and sweet dishes. Also, reduced balsamic costs much less than the really expensive vinegars out there, but tastes similarly. Markus had made the stuff before I came over, but I thought I would provide you with a link to the process.

Once the the rice heated, the balsamic reduced, the tomatoes cooked, and the vegetables sauteed, Markus was ready to put our main course together. With the exactitude of a brain surgeon, he plated up the disparate ingredients onto large white plates.

I returned to my place at the table and Heike, again, filled my wine glass. The food looked absolutely beautiful. We all dug in and chewed slowly, enjoying the deep umami flavors of the shitake and the Parmesan. The baked tomatoes on their own were interesting - only slightly sweet; the touch of vanilla added just an essence of a flavor, barely there, like a ghost on my palate. However, taking a bite of tomato with the rest the rice, the vanilla became barely perceptible, but the sweetness of the fruit remained a pleasant contrast to the saltiness of the cheese.

As I was enjoying my first few bites, Markus told me that he was a fan of not "adding ingredients directly to the risotto," like the vegetables that he had cooked and had laid on top of the grains. In traditional Italian cooking, these would have been chopped up and added to the rice (something that I too am not a big fan of).

After we all had the opportunity to dig in a bit, I asked Heike about her post at Parsons. She told me about her students, the work, the grading of papers, and somehow, the talk turned to dress, the interpretation of physical appearance (she did, after all, write her dissertation on the cultural anthropology of textiles), and ultimately to one's perceptions of the presidential candidates (we cooked together just before the election) just from their physical appearance. This conversation, of course, lead to the upcoming election. The three of us were, like most New Yorkers, completely unwilling to let in the hopeful optimism that seemed to start to take hold of the democratic party, political websites, and polls. "If McCain wins, will you two adopt me and take me to Germany with you?" I asked. Heike and Markus laughed. Somehow, it came up that Palin hunted wolves with semi-automatic rifles from helicopters. Heike and Markus did not know this little tidbit of information, and I delighted in telling it to them.

Again, Markus finished his meal before Heike and I had, and was back at the stove before my meal was done, this time he to caramelize some sugar.

Once the sugar melted, he added almonds to it, stirred it quickly, and then nuts harden away from the heat. Heike cleared the plates and put them in the dishwasher while Markus prepared dessert. "I would die without a dishwasher," Markus declared as he crumbled up amaretto cookies with a fork, "I think it's the most important thing in my life... after Heike, of course."

Markus sweetened mascarpone with just a bit of sugar and then began layering the cream with the crushed cookies and diced mango into a wine glass.

Once he had finished making the pretty little trifle, Markus topped it with the brittle, which he had broken into big chunks. It was a very showy and very lovely presentation. "Oh, this is my favorite!" Exclaimed Heike while Markus served us. "You know, I don't like very sweet things, but I cannot have dinner without dessert," said Markus as he sat down.

By the time the dessert was placed in front of me, I was sufficiently stuffed, but I knew that I would make room for the dairy and fruity goodness. The mascarpone was slightly sweet and the flavors of the liqueur in the cookies, the tartness of the mango, and the caramel-y crunchiness of the almond brittle, was well balanced. After a dish of rice, the lightness of the dessert was a perfect finish to yet another great evening of food and drink in one stranger's Brooklyn kitchen...

A Three Part Feast - Part II: Dressing up

2008-11-09T13:49:00.011-05:00

While Markus began to focus on the risotto – pouring about a quarter cup of white wine into the skillet that contained the rice, then, once that was totally absorbed, adding vegetable to the grains in quarter-to half-cup increments - I talked to Heike, who had come stopped working to enjoy a glass of wine and to chat while her husband worked the kitchen.

Still sitting and studying my notes, I asked Heike how she and the chef had met. “Well, sort of through friends of friends I guess,” she told me. “You know we walked home together twice after some parties – once he was very drunk and once I was very drunk. That was seven years ago! In the beginning there was a lot of cooking together – long cooking sessions and dinners and lots of drink. It was a great time.” She looked over to Markus to see if he had heard her story, but his back was to us as he rolled goat cheese into the long strips of cooked and just-tender zucchini and placed them in a baking dish, and it was unclear if he had been paying attention.

Heike said something short to him in German; possibly “Remember that” or “That was long ago” or “We were young then” – just a few words that I assumed, after such a retelling, carried the weight and time and joy of their relationship together. Markus responded with a short laugh – the kind that can show acknowledgment, agreement, and pleasure all at once, and a “ya.” He had been paying attention, after all. Heike, content, smiled and sipped her wine.

In that small moment, I felt like a voyeur. That giggle, that “ya,” – they were things conveyed between lovers that had such simple and profound meaning that my cheeks almost reddened. Or maybe it was because the love between the two of them was so palpable that I felt as if my very presence was invading in their private life. Or maybe it was because I felt like the act of cooking and eating together – an act that largely paved the road that took them to the United States and ultimately to a happy marriage, a road that took them across the ocean and required large sacrifices that I myself, once in a similar situation, was unable or selfless enough to make – was so ingrained into the essence of their relationship that it was not an activity to be shared by an outsider. Or maybe it was a combination of those things.

Markus broke the silence with “It’s important that the risotto is al dente at the end – don’t overcook the Arborio!” I was happy for the interruption (clearly no one was feeling as sentimental as I!), my sappy thoughts are no place for the blogging world. Noticing that I was ignoring my duties, Heike told me to be sure to get some pictures of the risotto process. I promptly did just that.

As he removed the grains from the pan, and spread them into another to cool, I asked Markus if there was any restaurant that he particularly like in New York. “It’s amazing how many restaurants are in New York! I mean, where I come from there are a restaurants, but here! On 5th Ave I hear there are 165 restaurants alone!” He was very excited by all of the eating prospects he had ahead of him.

Markus turned off the heat under the tomato confit and removed the squash-wrapped cheese from the oven. “We almost have the salad done now,” Markus said and began working away on a simple vinaigrette to dress it with. He tossed some greens with the dressing and then began to construct our first course on large white plates.

Since I had arrived in such a tardy fashion, my stomach had, by that point, started to sound like a rabid squirrel and I was ready to eat something. Heike and I sat down and Markus, like a proper host, served us our salads. “I think I will call this ‘Zucchini-Wrapped Baked Goat Cheese and Tomato Confit Salad.’” Very original. Heike and I both teased him. “Markus – this is your chance to go wild, we could call it whatever you want – ‘German Specialty,’ ‘My First American Mixed Greens,’ ‘Balls Salad!’” I said. Markus laughed sheepishly, “nah, that is OK.”

After Heike refilled our glasses, we gave a cheers before diving into our appetizer. I should say now that zucchini is one of my favorite vegetables, and I am a big big fan of simple flavors. Markus, utilizing the culinary trinity of olive oil, garlic, and onions as his base, put together a beautiful and unique salad using only a few common ingredients. Even before taking a bite I knew I would like it. And like it I did – the flavor of the thyme and rosemary, which had been thrown into the pan with the zucchini, was very palatable with the sharp bit of the goat cheese. The salad was perfectly dressed – a honey, Dijon mustard, balsamic, and rosemary concoction – and had a well-rounded flavor. Totally awesome. I was already ready for the next course.

A Three Part Feast - Part I: Skillets A Go Go

2008-11-03T19:41:00.001-05:00

As usual, I arrived late to my cooking lesson with Markus Geisler. In fact, I arrived a full three-quarters of an hour after scheduled - more than my typical 15-20 minutes. Though I told Markus that the reason for my tardiness was due to train delays, the whole truth is that in my rush to make it to the his house on time, I hopped on the R train bound for Manhattan instead of the one headed toward Park Slope. I was embarrassed of my foible and so when Markus opened the door to his Park Slope apartment, I shrugged and said "Those trains! You can't trust them!" Yes, Markus, yes - the ugly truth is that I'm an idiot!!

Markus lead me up the carpeted stairs to his top-floor apartment. The owner of the building has interesting taste - the hallways were carpeted in a plush the color of red-velvet cake and walls hung with pastel prints that reminded me of a cheap hotel room in Florida that I stayed in in the late 1990s. We walked into Markus' flat - a sparce, well decorated, and rather nicely-sized one bedroom - that he shares with his new wife, but long-time partner, Heike, who is a fashion studies professor at Parsons. Markus hung my coat and offered me a glass of wine.

A recent transplant from Germany, Markus, had prepped everything before I arrived in order to maximize the important cooking time. In his sparkling and cramped kitchen, the laminate counter top was occupied by ingredients waiting to be made into the dishes that Markus was about to create; the tomatoes, chopped garlic and onions, arborio rice, soup stock, and vegetables in little were placed in small porcelain bowls and serving dishes were colorful and fresh-looking. As soon as Markus poured me that glass of wine (besides me being late, another constant of these cooking lessons), he lit the burners under three saucepans resting on the stovetop and poured about a tablespoon of olive oil into each.

Dressed comfortably in a grey, long-sleeved t-shirt, fashionable jeans, and Chuck Taylors, Markus - tall and comfortably in his 30s - spoke to me about his expansive and varied career history. As he sliced long pieces of bright green zucchini with a vegetable peeler, he told me about his experiences studying sociology, carpentry, and cooking. His accent was pleasant, not the harsh gutteral of some of my English-speaking German friends, and he was rather soft-spoken - a possible product of his newness to speaking American English.

Markus apologized often for his limited vocabulary while he cooked, but what he considered weak language skills, I considered near bilingualism, and I ensured him that his language abilities were far from weak. "Dude, you've already used bigger words than I've ever heard spoken by say, George Bush." Markus laughed and asked me if I supported Obama. "Don't get me started on McPalin," I said, "I want to keep my appetite."

After the large zucchini that Markus had been slicing was reduced only to its core, he placed eight of the 1/4" pieces of the vegetable into one of the pans with a clove of garlic and a twig of rosemary. He reduced the heat to medium low, and let the food cook undisturbed for several minutes.

Heike came out of the bedroom where I assume she was doing work (she had a constant litany of homework and papers to grade, she later told me) and introduced herself to me. Heike, like Markus, was fashionably dressed and had bright blue eyes that sparkeld when she spoke. "You know Michele?" She asked me, "Yes," I responded "We're work buddies." Michele Amar, who cooked with me previously for this blog had indeed put Markus and I in contact with each other. "Ah, that is right. She was such a delight to have around Parsons - we took lunch together all the time. I was mad at her for leaving!" She poured herself a glass of wine and me a glass of water and sat down at their dining room table.

Markus began working on a tomato confit by placing some minced onion in another pan, and letting it cook until it was translucent. With a pair of tongs, he jostled the cooking zucchini and when it was soft and pliable removed it from the skillet and into a bowl to cool.

"How long have you been cooking?" I asked Markus as he chopped peeled and seeded tomatoes and added them to the pan with the onions along with minced garlic, fresh rosemary and thyme. "Oh, six or seven years... I started in my brothers restaurant, which is, you know, a cool kind of place. It's a great sort of family, artsy place." After Markus had worked for a number of years creating mostly "Mediterranean-inspired, but also kind of German" dishes at that restaurant, he decided to go to cooking school. He told me that that in Germany one has to spend FIVE years in a professional kitchen or apprentice with a chef for three years before they can take a test to receive an official culinary diploma! A much more intensive requirement than in the United States.

To the third and final skillet, Markus added a garlic clove and minced onion and let them cook until the onions were translucent. He added what looked like a cup and a half of arborio rice to the pan and stirred it until it was aromatic and some of the kernals were slightly browned.

So much was happening on the stove that and Markus was so expertly going from dish to dish and chopping and adding ingredients to the pan, I almost lost track of what was happening. Even Markus grew silent as he chopped, stirred, and sauteed.

I at down for a second to look sat my notes and to ensure that I was recording the recipes correctly by repeating the measurements and ingredients aloud to Markus, who corrected me as I went along.

All that, and we hadn't even finished a dish!

Stuffed

2008-10-22T22:04:00.011-04:00

Last weekend, an old friend of mine introduced me to her friend who is a cheese monger for the high-end grocery chain, Whole Foods. Said friend - we'll call him Butch - and I talked food for rather a long time and, when I told him that I was going to learn how to make turducken for this blog, he had some very, very strong opinions about that meat inside meat inside meat. Such as:

"It's a novelty."
"I don't care if it's been a tradition in New Orleans for years, it's not real food."
"It's a joke."
"It's just a bunch of crap meat stuffed into more crap meat."

And the kicker:

"People who blog about turducken don't know anything about cooking."

I was rather taken aback by Butch's strong anti-turducken rhetoric, and even more surprised to hear that someone who claims to be wholly dedicated to culinary pursuits would not only speak so ignorantly about something that he admittedly had never tasted, but also that he "wouldn't even get paid to put that junk in [his] mouth."

Though Butch's argument was tempered by the fact that he had not actually tried turducken, his seething hatred towards something so seemingly silly stuck with me. Prior to witnessing the aforementioned diatribe, I only had heard that turducken is a juicy delicacy, one to be appreciated and savored. But now, I could not help but ponder, is turducken really that offensive to the palate? Did the mention of turducken inspire such hatred in other people? With these questions in mind, I decided to prepare for that upcoming meaty lesson on November 22 by collecting a variety of friends' and acquaintances' opinions on the dish.

Said group was selected from the following criteria:

Professional experience in the food industry
Adventurous diet
Sense of humor
Waist size

Over the next couple of weeks, I will post the writing that I received in response to my little survey about the layered fowl. The first words about these stuffed birds come in the form of a haiku from my dear brother, Daniel Patinkin. They follow:

Triple-poultry feast
Intimate fowl concoction
Turducken my loins

Thanks, Dan, for such a beautiful literary interpretation of your emotions.

What to do with all that Corn, The Recipe

2008-10-16T07:36:00.001-04:00

Summer is about to elude us, which means that with it goes its bounty of produce. Be sure to make this recipe while corn is still in season and before this Indian summer comes to a close.

Surly Tran's Sweet Corn Ice Cream

3 ears of corn
2 c whole milk
1 1/2 c heavy cream
1/2 c sugar plus ¼ c sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
8 egg yolks
coarse sea salt to top

Strip 3 ears of fresh sweet corn. I use the corn stripper from Oxo but you can also just use a knife. Set the kernels aside and break the cobs into thirds.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine milk, heavy cream, ½ c of sugar, and broken cob pieces. Take half a vanilla bean and split it long wise. Using the back of your knife, scrape the seeds from the inside of the bean and add to the pot along with the scraped beans. Bring to a boil.

While waiting for your pot to boil, puree your corn kernels in a food processor or blender and add this to your pot. When the pot has come to a boil, shut it off and let it sit for an hour letting the flavors infuse together.

After an hour bring the mixture back to a boil and shut off again. Take out all of the broken cob pieces and vanilla beans. In a bowl whisk together 8 egg yolks and ¼ c of sugar. Temper the yolks by whisking in a ladle of the hot cream mixture into the yolks, making sure to whisk constantly so they don’t curdle. Add the yolks to the hot cream mixture and continue to stir until the custard starts to thicken enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Once the custard is thick enough, strain the custard through a sieve or chinois and discarding the solids to get a nice and smooth custard. Chill the custard in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, freeze the custard in an ice cream machine. Sprinkle sea salt on top right before serving. (Surly prefers Himalayan pink sea salt, which adds a nice color contrast.)

What to do with all that Corn, Part II

2008-10-14T17:20:00.017-04:00

This is Part II of "What to do with all that corn," for Part I, click here.

Surly poured me a finger of bourbon and put a lemon rind in it (leftover from a homemade citrus liqueur she and Steve had previously made), and we clinked glasses. We sipped for a minute before Surly got back to work. She put down her drink and then produced a bowl of creamy yellow egg yolks.

"Whoa, that's a lot of egg! How much do you use for one batch?" I asked Surly. Turns out the custard requires a whopping 8 egg yolks. (No one said that this site was dedicated to health.) Surly quickly whisked them until they were smooth. "Now, we have to temper this baby." She said as she added a steaming ladle full of the cream mixture to the brightly colored yolks, whisking it constantly and rather ferociously as she poured.

"I have to admit," I told Surly, "the only dessert I've ever really had a problem making is ice cream. Babka, souffles, pies, cakes, whatever, I can do them, but I've tried making frozen custard four times and they all turned out horribly. Maybe my problem is that I don't temper it." Surly nodded knowingly and explained that it's tricky and suggested that I take a class by the artisanal ice cream makers the Van Leeuwan brothers at The Brooklyn Kitchen.

After tempering the yolks, Surly added them to the large and still steaming pot, whisking constantly so that they didn't curdle. She returned the heat to low, and stirred telling me that "you know the consistency is right when this stuff coats the back of a spoon."

As Surly stirred the thickening custard, I asked her about her favorite kitchen items. "Oh, God, there are so many! I guess now one of my favorites has to be that." She pointed to a large blue plastic box that was stowed away under her gadget- and sample-covered table.

"It's a cupcake holder. I actually bought one for my mom, too. Since it doubles as a sheet-cake carrier, it's perfect for when you have to feed a ton of people." When I told Surly that when I told another friend that a portable cupcake holder had already been invented, she would be very dismayed (she had the idea that that same invention would maker her a million bucks), Surly said, "Cupcakes hit their peak already; you're not going to create much new that's not already out there."

When the custard finally reached the proper consistency, Surly strained the buttery-looking liquid into a large bowl spoonful by spoonful.

"Now, this is the point where we'd put it in the ice cream maker, but I'll just show you what I do." She took out the bowl of the machine from her freezer and said, "To make good ice cream, this thing has to be really, really cold, so put it in the freezer at least 24 hours before you make your dessert. A little trick I learned was to put a Ziplock bag in the base, then fill it with water and freeze it. What you get is an ice cube in the shape of your bowl, and then you can be sure the thing is evenly cooled - a very important step in the making process. And the best part is you can use that big ice cube over and over again."

She also explained that the ingredients used to make the custard need to be really cold, so they also should be cooled for at least 24 hours before they are churned. This also allows the flavors to blend, thereby making a more delicious treat. After the custard has been cooled for a day, she told me that it takes about 1/2 hour in the machine to turn into ice cream.

Surly put the machine parts away, and said, "After all that, this is what you get," then produced a large glass container from the freezer. With her fancy ice cream scoop (a hollow contraption filled with antifreeze for easy service), spooned up a serving for me and topped it with some pink Himalayan sea salt.

"I LOVE dessert before dinner!" I exclaimed and took the bowl of dessert from Surly's hand... maybe a bit too eagerly. Surly fixed herself a dish, and then handed me a spoon.

OK - I know that I am a bit enthusiastic about the food that people make me, but this, but THIS, might just be the best thing on this site so far. The tastes of the frozen custard hit me in waves: first the sweet, vanilla flavor of the custard, then the earthy tones of the corn, then the savory bits of the sea salt. All that flavor combined with the velvety mouth feel of the frozen cream made for an entirely toothsome dessert.

While my mouth was full with the last bite, I asked for seconds. Surly kindly obliged.

What to do with all that Corn, Part I

2008-10-12T19:35:00.027-04:00

Well readers, it's been a few weeks - my computer crashed, then just when it looked like it was fixed, it crashed again (it's death was final this time). Then my iPod - which doubles as my dictaphone - also died. That sad state of affairs paralyzed my writing for sometime, as the precious interviews and pictures contained within those now dead pieces of equipment were lost.

Luckily, the pictures from my time with Surly Tran, buyer from the wonderful and glorious The Brooklyn Kitchen, were saved from the wreckage (I had the prescience to not obsessively erase them from my camera as I usually do once the images are uploaded to my computer), and I was able to piece together my hand-written notes to salvage that cooking date. However, not all interviews were so lucky.

On to the story...

Surly Tran has been in the retail cooking industry for quite sometime and, before moving to The Brooklyn Kitchen as its buyer, she worked for such prestigious foodie destinations as the Broadway Panhandler and Dean & DeLuca. When I asked Surly, a native Californian, how she ended up in cooking supply retail in New York, she told me "Well, food has always been a passion... my mom is an incredible cook, and growing up, eating and cooking was what we did. Every weekend the entire family - cousins, aunts uncles - ate together, so the jobs were sort of natural, you know? Oh, and New York is New York... who doesn't want to live here?"

Surly is a gourmand's dream - she's incredibly knowledgeable, owns every imaginative cooking tool on the planet, loves to experiment in her own kitchen, is entrenched in much of the New York culinary scene, and, man, does she make a mean cocktail. When I found myself lost in Surly's passionate description of her newly-purchased corn kernel remover, I felt slightly inadequate and realized that, for the first time in a long time, I felt slightly intimidated by someone else's food smarts. Her deep familiarity with kitchen tools as well as their proper usage and care and with home cookery is, frankly, beyond my own.

Surly is Steve DeAngelis' (the subject of my last few posts) roommate and landlord - and when I arrived at her apartment, it was after shopping with Steve at the green market and I was feeling sweaty and a little tired. As soon as Steve introduced Surly to me, he exited to the patio to prep the grill and cook the corn for our lesson (that's right, two lessons in one day!). Upon his exit, Surly guided me to their hot and packed-full-of-gizmos Williamsburg-sized kitchen, and jumped into making some corn ice cream. She was 100% prepared for my visit - she had made one batch of the sweet custard the night before, and had the equipment and ingredients ready for another batch. She had even emailed me the recipe before we began.

"Well, the real first step in this recipe is removing the kernels from the cobs," she said as she showed me how the aforementioned Oxo corn stripper worked, "but I prepped that yesterday. I figured it wasn't a really important step for the blog."

She set the little plastic tool down and produced a bag of cobs and kernels from her enviable stainless-steel refrigerator. "So, once you've removed the kernels, you have to cut the cobs into thirds, well, into at least halves," Surly told me as she removed more ingredients and placed them on her counter.

From outside, Steve interrupted us by yelling (a little too loudly), "Surly! Will you turn that water on?" Surly lit the flame under the gigantic pot that Steve would later use to blanch the tomatoes and she kidded, "The things I do, he's lucky I let him live here, I tell you." I noticed that she had only put the flame on medium-high and suggested that turning the fire all the way up would make it boil faster. "Oh, no, no! Pots and pans really can't take that kind of heat. You should avoid using a high flame if you want your equipment to last a long time." This reasoning may explain why my pans all look like a they have survived a house fire.

On another burner, Surly set a more manageable sauce pan and to it added milk, cream, sugar and the broken cobs. "So, Surly, why corn ice cream? It's an interesting and kind of unusual choice," I asked as she set a shiny black vanilla pod from a jar and began to expertly removed its tiny, sweet-smelling beans with a paring knife.

"Well, I love corn. It's sweet and flavorful and it's the season. I thought it'd go really well with a vanilla bean custard. I made it last week and the flavor is just so complimentary to the vanilla and the sugar..."

She added the beans and the shell to the pot, and commented that using the back of a knife is the easiest way to remove those flavorful little specks from their leathery housing. She then moved aside some cooking tools to get to a small Cuisinart that sat on a counter that contained about 1,000 other kitchen items. "Now, we're going to puree the corn. I wanted the custard to be smooth, and if we break up the kernels, it'll give us more flavor." She dumped the contents of a Ziploc into the food processor and pureed them until they were smooth.

She added the puree to the mixture on the stove, and then we waited for contents of the pot to come to boil. Surly, continuing on our previous conversation thread, began to talk about her mom's homemade food. "She is such a fabulous cook, but her recipes are going to die with her... I don't think she thinks that any of her kids are worthy of them; she's the kind of cook that leaves out a very important ingredient or two."

I then told Surly about my attempts to learn how to make vareneky from the old ladies that cook for a church in the East Village. Even with my Ukrainian friend speaking in their mother tongue and making a strong case for me, their response was that I was welcome to volunteer for their rectory, but that they just didn't have the patience to teach me their tricks. This was, of course, after thoroughly and deliberately looking at me up and down and then made knowing faces at each other.

Surly began to describe some sort of Vietnamese dumplings that her mother makes with relish. "It will be a shame to the world if I don't get my hands on that recipe." The contents of the pot began to bubble and steam, and Surly realized that she had lost herself in talk. "Whoa, you can't let this over boil - the cream will curdle." She said, turning off the flame.

"Now, typically, you'd let this sit and steep for an hour, but since we don't have that kind of time, we're just going to make the whole thing." Surly brought out a dish of egg yolks from the refrigerator and whipped them until they were smooth; then, with a wire basket, removed the cobs and the vanilla pods from the pot.

"But before we do that, let's make a cocktail..."

(For Part II, click here; for recipes, click here.)

Local Flavor:The Recipes

2008-09-29T21:51:00.002-04:00

I just returned from Chicago after an extended stay for the wedding of two close friends. As soon as I got back to New York, I headed to the green market to buy some of the last tomatoes of the season so that I could make this little bit of summer one final time before fall's bitter greens and earthy root vegetables begin to dominate my plate and my palate.

Grilled Corn and Heirloom Tomato Salad
Serves 5
3 large heirloom tomatoes like the Purple Cherokee or Black Beauty varieties
4 ears of corn, grilled, kernels removed
2 T rock salt
1/2 cup olive oil
Few turns of a pepper mill

Place tomatoes in a large pot of boiling water. As soon as their skins begin to blister, remove from the pot and place them in a water bath. Remove tomato skins and chop into 1/2" cubes. Place tomato in a large bowl and add grilled corn kernels, salt, olive oil, and pepper. Serve immediately.

Grilled Atlantic Swordfish with Basil Pistou
Serves 3
1 ¼ cup of basil
3 T virgin olive oil
¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
¾ cup pine nuts
8 scallions
1 tsp ancho chili powder
1.5 lbs of swordfish, cut into three fillets
Chopped scallions for garnish

In a food processor, pulse basil, virgin and extra virgin olive oils until finely chopped. Add pine nuts and scallions, and blend until pureed.

Clean swordfish and dust each fillet with ancho chili powder and drizzle with olive oil. Place on hot barbecue and grill until just cooked - about 4 minutes on each side. Remove from grill and serve topped with pistou and scallions. Serve immediately.

Local Flavor: Part III, the Fish

2008-09-23T06:13:00.013-04:00

Finally, after a two week delay, NYCookery is back. Very, very sadly, my computer crashed two weeks ago and with it all of my interviews and photos. Luckily, I’ve been able to retrieve some of my lost information, including the conclusion of this post and the entirety of the one to come (sweet corn custard! It would have been a travesty to have lost that one). And with that, here is the conclusion of Local Flavor. For Part I, click here and for Part II, here.

While Steve cleaned up his salad chopping area, Surly, who had come outside with her own cocktail, told me about her decision to buy the building on whose patio we were now sitting. “Well” she said “I specifically moved to Williamsburg because of the zip code. 11211. I really like palindromes, and I figured, this place must have a good vibe.” I looked at her a little incredulously, but, when I realized that she was serious, I let out a loud gaffaw. Surly joined me.

As has become tradition with the people I cook with, Surly, of course had a bad apartment story to share with me. Her's though, might take the cake. Let’s just say the story involved a former roommate caught red-handed in a five-knuckle shuffle and apologizing by purchasing Surly a pair of used, dirty women’s work boots with a note clipped to them that said “sorry.” My jaw dropped and face reddened slightly. “That’s worse than any sort of infestation,” I said. Surly, being the good-natured person that she is, replied, “Oh, I don’t know, I guess sometimes these things happen.” Steve shot her a look that and said, "Surly, I hate to tell you this, but that shit just doesn’t 'happen.' We're talking nakedness and work boots here." He had a very valid point.

Steve got up and indicated for me to follow him. We worked our way back inside the apartment through the dark basement, and up the narrow staircase. Once in the kitchen, Steve searched for the blade belonging to the food processor, and told me that pistou, which was what he was about to make, can be differentiated from pesto by its lack of cheese. After locating all parts of the Cuisinart and assembling the machine, Steve produced a beautiful all-clad skillet and placed it on the stove, turning the flame below it on medium-low, and adding pine nuts to it and letting them roast until they were slightly browned and fragrant.

While the nuts cooled, Steve took out the bag of basil that we had bought at the farmers market. He removed the large bunch from its plastic sheath and exclaimed, “Shit! This is all pretty bad!” Indeed many of the leaves were yellowish and some beginning to brown. “We’ll have to figure out something else to add to the sauce.”

To the machine he added 1 ¼ cups of basil leaves, dumped in the pine nuts, and pressed the on button. As the mixture blended, Steve added virgin olive oil then extra virgin olive oil. Then, after searching through the refrigerator for a minute, he rather nonchalantly added a handful of bright-green scallion tops. “We’ll see how this works – we have to have something to thicken this up since the basil isn’t good. I mean it’s not traditional pistou, but, it’ll due.” Steve turned off the machine, removed the bowl, and headed back to the patio taking the sauce with him.

Once again in the backyard, Steve ignited the propane barbecue, rubbing it's iron grills down with a little oil. He placed three, white, red and fresh-looking swordfish steaks (also brushed with oil and sprinkled with just a pinch of ancho chili powder) on the hot metal and closed the lid, letting each side cook for only a few minutes - until the flesh was just cooked through, but not dry.

"So, I added the chili powder to this because the salad will be somewhat sweet. The chili powder will be a nice contrast." Steve said once the fish was done. Very carefully, he removed the flakey and delicate fillets and added them to the top of a scoop of the salad. He garnished the fish with some curly green onion fronds, carefully spooned pistou on the plate, and topped it all with freshly ground black pepper.

It was past 8pm and I was incredibly hungry. Before we dug in, I raised my glass and gave thanks for Surly and Steve's generosity. Then, I quickly dug in.

The corn was crisp and the salad sweet and tangy, well balanced by the oniony pistou, and juicy, spice-rubbed fish. A great summer dish. Fresh, easy, and mostly local.

"When I have meals like this," I said, "I already miss summer." Surly, teasing Steve added "Wow, this is good, you actually made something good." Steve gave her the bird and Surly laughed, "I better watch out, I wouldn't want him to actually stop cooking for me."

While we ate Steve told me about his experience in Boston (a chef at B & G Oysters, a cook at Number 9, managing and buying for a butcher shop, and more), also telling me that he never thought that his passion for food that he developed while an undergrad at Boston University would turn into a fruitful living.

We also talked fuel prices, jobs, and traveling, and then, quite out of the blue, Steve turned the attention to Surly by asking if her "man" was coming over. Surly slightly blushed and looked at my dictaphone. It was clear that the two roommates liked to tease each other relentlessly. "C'mon Surly, tell me, what can I blog about?" I inquired. Surly giggled, and asked me if I wanted more salad. I guess she didn't want me to write about her sex life... ah well. The ancho chile is as spicy as this posting will get.

After three helpings (yes, THREE), I thanked Surly and Steve and headed out into the warm late summer night. On my walk to the subway, a woman flashed me her bosom, and an old man (like 80 years old, old) asked me if he could have my number. A normal New York ending to yet another delicious meal in Brooklyn...

Local Flavor: Part II, the Salad

2008-09-08T20:05:00.006-04:00

Once the water in the giant pot had come to a boil, Steve took the heirloom tomatoes that we had purchased together, and threw them into the pot. We watched together for the dark skins to begin to blister in the bubbling water. As we did, Steve turned to me and asked my opinion on bourbon. When I told him that it happened to be my favorite liquor, he responded with "Great! You're allowed to stay in the house." Steve, it was clear, is my kind of guy.

After about 2 minutes the skin of the tomatoes began to separate from the mealy flesh beneath it. Using an Asian wire strainer, Steve removed the steaming fruits from the pot. "Now, the farmer told me that these were Purple Cherokees, but I know these to be called Black Beauties... maybe they're a similar variety," Steve said as he delicately placed the tomatoes into an ice bath. The tone of his voice made it clear that he did not trust the knowledge of the curmudgeon who had served us at the green market.

The two of us walked together to the patio, where Steve had two large bowls set up and a pile of grilled corn waiting to be shucked. As Steve deskinned the tomatoes, he told me about his grandmother who ignited his passion for food. From her he learned how to make basics of Italian cooking like baccala, pasta fazole, and shrimp scampi; since he was the only grandchild that took interest in her skills, she took care to impart all of her knowledge to him.

We talked European grandmas for a minute, but it was hard for me to hold a conversation with Steve because I was engrossed in watching him cut things up. He was not the quickest chopper - but he possessed some mad knife skills. He took the time to ensure that the scallions that he was slicing turned into perfectly curled strands.

Since I was not being an interesting interviewer, I felt that I could at least help Steve out, so I asked if I could shuck some corn. "Sure," he said, "but it might still be too hot." "Nah," I responded ignoring the steam rising from the pile of ears, "I have asbestos fingers." I very nonchalantly removed a cob from the hot stack, broke off the bottom stem, and began to tear away at the husk and the silk. The corn had been taken off the grill less than five minutes before I had offered to peel them, and, logically, soon after I began shucking that first stalk, my palms and fingers began to burn. Why did I have to make such a dumb ass comment about the heat-resistance of my skin? The stubborn child in me could not let on that I was in pain, and I continued my duty, peeling every cob as if it was nothing. Afterward, I noted that my skin had taken on the hue of raw meat.

As I finished peeling, I handed the cobs to Steve, who cut them in half and sawed off the kernels, placing the brightly colored pieces into a bowl. Once he had worked through the corn, he turned the tomatoes into a pile of juicy, perfectly cubed, 1/2" chunks.

Steve began to tell me about his experience in professional kitchens - he had worked for many years as both a cook and a chef in various restaurants in Boston, had been a buyer for a market, and now acts as a restaurant consultant and teacher (check out his canning workshop here) - and about the deep yearning for the great outdoors he had developed since moving to New York. We commiserated that our hectic daily lives prevented us from getting back to nature as often we would like. After I rather sappily eulogized the beauty of coastal Maine and tried to relate the deep colors of the lichen that grew like a mane on the rocks of the Hood River Valley of Oregon, Steve stopped what he was doing and looked me in the eye. "Well, this calls for a drink," he sighed, and instructed me to go inside to have Surly prepare us some cocktails (which she did promptly and without complaint).

When I returned to the deck with two sweaty glasses filled with a mixture of bourbon, Cointreau, and grapefruit juice, Steve had combined the corn and tomatoes with the frilly scallions. We began to talk about the best place to buy produce and meat in the city. "The thing about New York," Steve paused as began to raise his glass lips, "is that it's so big that it's sometimes daunting to know where to go... a lot of times I just end up at Whole Foods because my mind explodes trying to think of, say, where to get a good cut of fish." In fact, the fish we were about to eat came from that very chain.

Steve finished his swig of the sugary and strong drink and went back to the salad. Once the vegetables were well mixed, he added a healthy pinch of salt to the bowl and a generous pour of olive oil. While the salad marinated, Steve led me inside to begin the pistou for the fish.

Local Flavor: Part I, the Market

2008-09-06T15:00:00.016-04:00

Steve DeAngelis asked me to begin our cooking lesson at the farmers market so that we could buy pick out the produce together for our dinner. So on a beautiful and cloudless Saturday afternoon, I headed to Union Square to meet the young chef.

For those of you who live in New York, you probably know that the Green Market on a beautiful day is more packed than a Monster Truck Rally holding hot dog give away in rural Tennessee. That's no hyperbole - it’s that packed. Steve had found out about NYCookery through a friend of a friend and, therefore, I had never met him. When it was time to find him amongst a throng of New Yorkers who were pressing on the belly buttons of cantaloupes and knocking on watermelons, I had no idea who the hell I was looking for. After about 10-15 plays of phone tag (we kept missing each others' calls because of the drone of market's customers), Steve finally found me. Later, he told me that he was able to identify me not only by the large, cherry-red beads that hung around my neck, but also by the slight look of panic on my face.

After we shook hands and introduced one another, Steve suggested we walk around to decide which stand had the best prices . We had met at 4pm and, since it was the end of the day, the heirloom tomato lady from the ironically named "The Cheerful Cherry" farm had marked down her produce from $5/lb to only $1/lb. Steve picked out six, large, and beautiful-looking purple-y red fruits and handed them to the scowling farmer behind the stand.

"How acidic are these?" Steve asked the woman. Frowning, she replied harshly "They're not acidic. They're heirlooms. The heirlooms aren't acidic." Steve, either not catching on that this woman could care less about his inquiry or wanting to highlight her error, pointed to the druzba varieties and said "Not all of them are low in acid - like those yellowy ones are good for canning because of their high acidity." I was impressed at his knowledge. The farmer clearly was not. She mumbled something, rolled her eyes, and then bagged up the Purple Cherokees that Steve had selected.

I followed Steve like a sheep as we continued walking around the market and as he tore open papery corn husks to check on the freshness of the kernels contained within them, as he squeezed juicy peaches to test their ripeness, and as he picked up bunches basil and shoved them under my nose so that I could get a whiff of their sharp pungency; all the while, he told me about the different peculiarities of each plant, the affect of rainfall on their growth, and the different types of fruits and vegetables that are best for canning. When we finally finished shopping, I felt a little exhausted from the whirlwind tour.

Steve and I walked to the L train station at 3rd Ave and headed for Williamsburg, where Steve resides with his roommate Surly Tran who is the buyer for The Brooklyn Kitchen (and who will also be the next featured cook on this blog). The apartment was, like most New York flats, slightly cramped - it's smaller size accentuated by the seemingly endless assortment of kitchen gadgets and food stuffs that were stacked, piled, and stowed on and in every nook, cranny, shelf, cabinet, and surface of the house... I loved it.

Steve put on a very large pot of water (in fact it might have been the largest pot I have ever seen) and left me to talk with his roommate as he prepared the back yard and the grill for dinner.

A Soupy and Savory Summer, The Recipe

2008-08-22T07:34:00.000-04:00

This is about as easy and delicious of a soup that you will ever find in the vast pages of the interweb. Simple and accentuated with the flavor of curry and the bite of sour cream, it is a perfect summer dish.

Jeanne Hodesh's Simple Zucchini Soup
5 medium sized zucchini
3/4 cup water
1 vegetable bullion cube
1 T curry powder
1/2 cup sour cream (or creme fraiche)

Cut zucchini into 1" discs. Place in pan with water and bullion and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer and add curry powder. Cook zucchini until it almost has a melted texture - about 20 minutes.

Once zucchini is sufficiently cooked, dump contents into a blender (or use a hand blender) to puree until smooth. Return soup to pan and add 1/2 cup sour cream. Over a low flame, heat until warm. Do not bring back to a boil.

May be served hot or cold (if serving cold, do not reheat soup after adding the dairy).

A Soupy and Savory Summer, Part II

2008-08-21T19:02:00.000-04:00

As we waited, Jeanne recited the different dishes that she had considered making me – roasted potato salad, ice cream, lentils – before she had settled on soup. I told her that I had no problem returning to her place for another meal, if she wanted to try out the others. She laughed, and said “anytime!”

Jeanne got up and looked at the now mushy zucchini and stated “This looks pretty done!”

She picked up the pot and scraped its bright yellow-green contents into a blender that looked like it had been found in a thrift store or been handed down to her from her parents. She pressed the on button and, over the loud buzz, told me that she wished that she had “one of those wands” – meaning a hand blender – and that the food mill that her father had given her wasn’t great for big jobs.

Once the zucchini was blended, Jeanne turned off the machine. “When I was in college, I had a group of friends that I used to like to cook with and I kind of became known as the soup queen.” When I told her that I held a similar title amongst my friends, we commenced talking about our best soups and, admittedly, there might have been a little one-upping going on (chilled corn soup and spicy quinoa soup were our most extravagant). "I always liked being known as the girl who could make good soup. It's a great title to have!" I agreed with this assesment - being known as the kid who can cook had its perks.

As Jeanne poured the contents of the blender back into the pot, she explained that one could use crème fraiche in the soup, but that she liked to use sour cream for its bite. With a large spoon, Jeanne dolloped the thickened liquid into the stew and stirred. She returned the flame to low, and heated the mixture until it was heated through.

Jeanne is an effortless chef. She made me feel that she was completely focused on our conversation while she moved gingerly around the kitchen and negotiated knives, cutting boards, bowls, and awkward counterspace. While I pondered aloud the declination of The Hungarian Pastry Shop on the Upper West Side, I realized that Jeanne - with the grace of a ballerina and the sleight of a magician - had placed a bowl of soup in front of me. I had barely noticed that she had even finished cooking!

The soup was brightly colored and smelled heavily of curry. Jeanne dug out a spoon from her full dish drying rack and handed it to me. I dug in, happy that someone had decided to make me something vegetarian (there is so much meat on this blog!). Scrumptious. It was the kind of food that tasted like the season – summery and light, but still thick and flavorful. I loved it and noted that it was the kind of dish that I usually make for myself.

“I almost canceled on you again tonight… but I’m glad I didn’t! The summer is crazy. But things will calm down again in September,” Jeanne said as she took a bite of the still-steaming puree.

Ah, September, how I cannot await for you to arrive! For the entire summer my Google calendar has been a rainbowed patchwork of engagements - some fun, some laborious - and I cannot wait for an evening for my own. As my friend, Sue, once told me - being busy is the sign of becoming a true New Yorker. We were both quiet for a few moments as we savored our bowls of steaming soup.

“When I was at Saveur they were starting to do research on their butter issue, and I feel like it gave me free license to eat as much butter as I wanted to, which I really haven’t gotten over since,” Jeanne laughed, “But Ronnybrook makes amazing butter… so the guy who owns Colson [a patisserie in Park Slope where Jeanne once worked] and I were talking about it and I told him that I had an idea for ice cream and he loaned me his ice cream maker, which I still have.” I didn’t know where Jeanne was going with this conversation thread. She continued, “I made a sweet potato ice cream last winter…with buckwheat honey and it tasted so good with the sweet potato puree. Anyway," she got up and went to the freezer, "I made us apricot ice cream for tonight...” she said and pulled out a tupperware. Ah, that’s where it was going. Not only had Jeanne fed me cheese, crackers, and olives, not only had she with a minimal amount of time made me a delicious soup, but now she was scooping out a large amount of homemade ice cream for me into a dainty green glass. What a perfect dinner!

While we ate the slightly sweet and fruity frozen dessert that was spiked with a hint of cardamom, Jeanne and I commiserated over our problems making a good ice cream with the right consistency, texture, and proper balance of sweet and flavor (it’s not as easy as it seems!). We agreed to enroll together a class at The Brooklyn Kitchen that was to be led by the Van Leeuwen brothers of Brooklyn ice cream fame (alas the class ended up being sold out) to figure out where our faults lie.

We talked more about ice cream (The Bent Spoon in Princeton, we agreed, scoops up some of the best) then continued onto the divergent flavors of cinnamon and of honey from different regions, and the pleasures of cardamom in stone fruit pie. As I finished the last bit of melty goodness at the bottom on my dish, I realized that Jeanne and I had spent the entire evening talking about food – rarely did we deviate from the subject and we both clearly relished it. Jeanne and I, I thought, as I walked home feeling as stuffed as a fattened goose, are going to be good friends.

A Soupy and Savory Summer

2008-08-19T22:17:00.008-04:00

Jeanne Hodesh and I canceled our cooking lesson on each other five, maybe six times. Finally, when the time came for her to teach me a recipe (which she also changed five, maybe six times), I was fifteen minutes late and Jeanne was in a rush because she had an assignment due the next day for her summer journalism class.

When I walked into Jeanne’s shockingly large apartment in Park Slope, she told me that she was tempted to cancel on me again because she had had a beg bug scare (turns out an apartment that she visited earlier in the day had them and she was paranoid that she may have brought them home). Jeanne – Sarah Lawrence graduate, lover of food, and food journalist who runs a newsletter called “Local Gourmands” and a blog called “Jeanne Cooks: Tales from a Yellow Kitchen” – saw the look of horror in my eyes (bed bugs are one of my number one fears) and quickly reassured me that I had nothing to worry. She already had scoured her room for the blood-sucking critters and, luckily, she encountered none.

This brings me to yet another aside about New York apartments. Yes – we’ve all had to handle the occasional rodent and cockroach. But bed bugs! Those horrific hemoglobin-hungry hobgoblins! THAT is where I draw the line. Damn, I love this city, but why, why, why must its denizens suffer through such ridiculous infestations? Can anyone else explain this? I’ve lived in places across the United States and Europe and in none of them do I know people who have experienced such devastatingly gross apartment rankness as my friends and colleagues here the Big Apple. The first person to fully explain this conundrum wins some cookies.

On to the story...

Jeanne had asked me to bring over some Yukon gold potatoes, which I did, but it turned out that she decided to make me a very simple provincial vegetable stew instead. “I had a little bit of stage fright and didn’t know what to cook for you, and I thought ‘potato salad!’ But then today I thought about this simple and fast zucchini soup,” Jeanne told me as she removed squashes from a bag, washed them, and began chopping them into large and fat discs.

“So, how do you do this? Do you want to interview me while I cook?” I responded with, “Sure! That’s how I usually do it.” However, I really was thinking, “You mean I’m supposed to have a process for this?” Clearly I am not as organized or as detailed as Jeanne…or as most people. Typically, I just walk into my subjects’ houses or them into mine and start asking them questions that range from the mundane, to the pointed, to the nosey. Pretty much whatever crosses my mind. Maybe I should rethink my journalistic approach; rather, maybe I should actually have a journalistic approach.

Putting on my best interviewer voice I asked Jeanne where she had learned to make the zucchini soup. Turns out she lived in Toulouse, France with an ex-pat ceramicist who made this dish. The woman loved to play hostess and there was a constant stream of people passing through the woman’s home while Jeanne spent her summer there. Jeanne told me that the experience was like living in an inn; Jeanne did most of the cooking, but the woman had perfected this simple and delicious dish. Jeanne’s experience eating, cooking, and learning in southern France sounded very appealing.

In fact, Jeanne’s whole life seems rather romantic. She was raised for most of her childhood in coastal Maine, where here parents ran bed and breakfast (they even published their own cookbook). Her childhood was spent in the kitchen with the chefs that her father imported from various parts of the world to work for him. Dreamily, I imagined what it would be like to grow up in that gorgeous part of New England, waking up daily to the smell of fresh pastries and the aroma of brewing coffee. Many of the recipes that they made there, Jeanne told me, were from her French grandmother who was a “legendary” cook.

Jeanne produced the cookbook for me and handed it over. “Most of the time, if I follow a recipe it’s from this,” she said as I fingered through the crumpled pages. Recipes from a Down East Inn had an off-white cover and its insides were illustrated with depictions of food (even one of young Jeanne in the kitchen); it was dog-eared and stained with oil and other food stuffs – clearly, a well-loved and highly utilized kitchen favorite. The recipes it contained were mostly French-inspired, simple, and provincial – potato salad, fruit compote, chicken pot pie – but made with good, fresh ingredients.

At 15, her parents sold the inn and relocated to Ann Arbor, where they opened a garden and kitchen store. Jeanne told me she had the best-stocked kitchen of her friends in college. Can you imagine a twenty-year-old with global knives and enameled cookware?

Jeanne took the zucchini and dumped them into a mid-sized stock pot and added a ¼ cup of water. “I’m actually not sure how much water to add here…” She added one vegetable bouillon cube and turned the flame on medium-low.

As Jeanne seasoned, and stewed, she told me how she became interested in food writing. “Where should I start with this long explanation? So, I did this internship at Saveur, where I worked as a fact-checker...”

“Did you know Katie Cancila?” I asked

“What? Are you friends with her? I know her well!”

As turns out, Jeanne worked with my friend. The world is small folks, very, very small.

“Well, so, my friend, Georgia, is now their managing editor…” Jeanne continued, “And she offered me an internship for a few months before I headed to Africa.”

First a summer cooking in France, then an internship at one of the best cooking magazines in the country, and then an opportunity to travel around Africa?! In her 24 years, Jeanne clearly has led an amazingly rich and colorful life. A little pang of jealousy nipped at my insides, but Jeanne is such a humble and likable person, that the feeling quickly passed.

Jeanne stirred the zucchini in the pot as she finished the story of the development of her food career. “While I was at [Saveur] I had to find heirloom watermelons for this year’s summer issue… and it changed my life!” As Jeanne was chasing down different varieties of the juicy, summer fruit for the cover of the magazine, she conversed with farmers from across the country and, in the process, read much on slow and local food movements. By the time she had finished her assignment, she had felt like she had found her calling and had befriended many writers, farmers, and foodies along the way.

After her internship at Saveur and after her trip to Africa, Jeanne found herself jobless back in New York. One day, as she sat at her computer researching the exciting food-based activities going on around the city, she decided to compile a list of events and send them to her friends. Voila! Local Gourmands was born – a comprehensive and well-written, weekly newsletter of all of the food happenings around New York City. In fact – if you’re interested in joining the list, you can email Jeanne at localgourmands@gmail.com.

The hunt for beautiful melons also ultimately led Jeanne to Gabrielle Langholtz, spokeswoman for New York's Green Markets, who she immediately befriended and who helped Jeanne land a job assisting Anna Lappe and writing for the quarterly magazine, Edible Brooklyn. She is one active young woman.

At this point, Jeanne, looked in the pot and added a tablespoon of curry powder and more water to the stew, “I’ve barely been doing any cooking lately because I’ve been running around all over, and now I’m going to be even busier because I’ll be blogging about Slow Food Nation.” She returned the lid, and then plated some olives, crackers, and cheese for us to snack on while we waited for dinner.

We commiserated about our busy lives and about meals that too often consisted of rice cakes and peanut butter – a sad state of affairs for epicures like us, but the reality of living in the bustling and ever exciting Big Apple. While I pondered our full lives, Jeanne got up to check on the soup. She lifted the lid and I could hear the stock bubble; I grew excited to sink my teeth into that summer-inspired dish...

For part two of this story, click here.

Double the Meat, Hold the Shame - The Recipe

2008-08-12T23:53:00.008-04:00

I woke up the day after Scott and I had cooked together excited to have some goat for lunch. To my disdain, when I went to pack up my lunch bag, the large dish that contained the leftovers was not to be found in my refrigerator. I ventured into the living room, and there sat Mayme, my roommate, eating the cold stew with a spoon. "This makes a delicious breakfast!" she exclaimed. I gave her a sidelong glance and said, "If there's not enough of that left for me, I'll kill you." Visions of Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter" passed through my mind. Mayme, realizing how serious I was, took a few more bites and handed the bowl over. Nothing comes between me and my goat.

Scott Gold's Goat Stew
2 pounds boneless goat, cubed, silver skin removed, but some fat intact
2 medium onions, chopped
3 tablespoons butter
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon chopped parsley and rosemary
1 can tomato paste (6 ounce)
1 cup white wine
The juice of two lemons
2 T bourbon
salt and pepper

Melt butter in stew pan or Dutch oven; add meat, onion, garlic, parsley, rosemary, salt and pepper; brown over medium fire, stirring constantly. The gentle braising of the meat is the secret to success with this recipe.

When all of the ingredients are delicately browned, add tomato paste diluted in 2 cups water; add wine, lemon juice and bourbon; stir; lower fire and simmer for about 1 and 1/2 hours.

This goat stew is the basis for a wide variety of combinations with fresh or frozen vegetables and various spices.

Double the Meat, Hold the Shame - Part Deux

2008-08-08T16:30:00.005-04:00

While we alternately drank beers and ate appetizers on the roof and checked on the stew, I asked Scott what was his favorite meat that he had tried while writing his book.

“Llama!” Scott had ordered this traditionally South American animal from Exotic Meats USA, but that he had not prepared it in any traditional way. He told me of the pleasures of that wild game and continued on to about his love of hot dogs, chili, and his mom’s cooking. Then, suddenly Scott stopped his monologue, and looked at me quizzically. There was an awkward pause. “Are you related to Mandy Patinkin?” I nodded. Scott enthusiastically exclaimed, “That is the coolest thing EVER!”

Again?! He’s not even that famous, people! Here it is world: MANDY PATINKIN IS MY FIRST COUSIN TWICE REMOVED.

Some facts you should know:

The last time I saw Mandy was in the early 1990s.
Mandy is not my father, my grandfather, my brother or my uncle.
I cannot convince Mandy to come have a casual cup of coffee with you, to sing songs at your Shabbat dinner, to sign your latest DVD set of Criminal Minds, or to record your voice message with “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!”
If you are really curious about who else I am related to, you can click here.

Now, back to the story.

Of course, Scott had no idea that I am asked about Mandy with irritating regularity, so I smiled and said, “Yes. The whole Patinkin family is related... mostly the cause of a made up name when we all came over in the boat.”

“Ah, similar stock to the Gold family.”

“Jewish?” I asked.

"Affirmative."

Why has almost everyone on this blog been Jewish? I think that I am subconsciously trying to bring out my Semitic roots through cooking…or maybe this is just New York. As my boss tells me, everyone in the Big Apple is at least a little Jewish.

I continued, “I’ve randomly met a lot of southern Jews lately.”

“Really, that’s funny because I know all six of them." Scott joked. "Though I do know a lot of them because of the whole summer camp thing…the Henry S. Jacobs Camp for Living Judaism in Utica Mississippi. The Uticans refer to it as the Jew camp”

“Do you think it’s safe isolate all Jewish kids in Utica like that?” We both laughed and Scott then told me about the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience. Who knew? We were back in the kitchen now checking on the stew’s progress and filling our plates with appetizers. Scott disappeared into my living room and reemerged with a digital SLR camera and began taking shots of the cooking stew. “I don’t know why I do this. I have so many pictures of things simmering and I do nothing with them. Oh well.” He took a few more shots and then set down the camera. The meat juices and tomato paste had mixed to turn the stew into an appetizing orangey-red color. I was getting seriously hungry - a little bit longer and we could stuff our faces. I decided to make some Israeli couscous to accompany the stew. Looking back, I wonder if all that talk about being Jewish influenced that decision.

We headed back up to the roof and continued talking about food and life while we munched on roasted artichokes with aioli and an eggplant with polenta. I heard all about Scott’s experiences eating those deep-fried balls (completely inoffensive) and the bull’s penis (not recommended – Scott describes the texture of cooked cock as a “ball of solid grizzle.” Barf.), about his participation on Feed Me: The Brooklyn Dating Show, his ascension from being a bad cook to an able cook, about his love for Back to the Future (Marty McFly inspired him to play the guitar), and about the changing perception of taste as one grows older. In turn I told him about the loss of my entire music collection to my ex (Scott kindly offered to have his parents pick it up for me in New Orleans), what makes a tagine a tagine, my time as the nanny for Harry Waters Jr.’s kids (Marvin Berry from Back to the Future), and my love for a good fried oyster po’ boy, which Scott sadly told me was one authentic food stuff not to be found in New York.

Sitting on my roof, while I gazed out at the Williamsburg Bridge, it dawned on me – what Brooklyn needed was a po’ boy shop! Scott is the type of person who is very passionate about life and its possibilities, so he was very titillated by the idea. All those Pratt kids living on their parents’ dime! They’d take a few bong rips and then flock to our restaurant. Can't you imagine all those stoned 18 year-old art students fighting each other in line to be the first to get a steak fry po’ boy drenched in roast beef au jus?! We’d have to bar the doors from the local pregnant ladies with a craving for mayonnaise and fried meats! We would be rich! Scott and I spent almost a half an hour talking about po' boy possibilities - specifically, the kinds of sandwiches we would offer.

All this talk of bread, fried things, and general deliciousness reminded us that we had a stew cooking in the kitchen. We bounded down the stairs and Scott lifted the lid to the pot and the smell of the cooking meat filled the kitchen. He dipped in a spoon, took a bite, and closed his eyes. "Oh yea, that's really good... I'm kind of shocked at how lamby it tastes." Scott handed me the spoon; I dipped it in the bubbling stew, removed a chunk of goat, and took a bite - it was almost there. We both agreed that it needed another 15-20 minutes before it reached the appropriate tenderness.

As I replaced the lid to the pot, the house suddenly shook accompanied by a large boom. Scott ran to the living room window and reported that there was a fireworks show happening somewhere in the distance. The glare of the exploding lights reflected in the building across the street. Neither of us knew what mid-week holiday could possibly beget such a large fanfare. According to our calendars, it was not the 4th of July, it was not Bastille Day, it was not even Cinco de Mayo. I did a quick Google search and they only possible thing that came up was National Lasagna Day. Food-inspired fireworks seemed especially fitting for an evening dedicated to cooking.

Finally, when fifteen minutes had passed, we tested the stew again. It was done. I spooned it into bowls and topped it with parsley - there was so much that even after dishing out two servings, Scott and I barely made a dent. Even before eating dinner, I was excited to have leftovers.

We headed back to the roof and sat down at my dingy plastic table. I sat down and immediately dug into the goaty goodness. Scott and I ate in silence for several minutes. "Well," I said between chews, "this is really good." The stew was very simple, but the complex flavor of the goat imbued the stock with a deep, gamey goodness. I was surprised at how similar goat tasted to lamb, but noted that it still possessed a distinctive flavor. That easily-identifiable lamby flavor - that tangy, gamey spiciness - is more intense in goat, which also has a more dense mouth feel than lamb. Overall, the stew made was a sort of delicious, deconstructed peasant fare.

After we had seconds, Scott proclaimed, "Nap time! Go goat!" We raised our glasses to the goat and drank. As Scott was leaving my house, he turned to me and said, "I know, next time I'll make you rattle snake!" In another life Scott, in another life.

For the goat stew recipe, click here.

Double the Meat, Hold the Shame

2008-08-06T20:40:00.035-04:00

Scott Gold just adores meat. He loves to eat it, prepare it, learn about it, talk about it, conceptualize it, ponder its significance, and - naturally - he loves to write about it. In fact, Scott's adoration for cooked flesh is so unflagging and so deep that he decided to dedicate an entire book to it. The Shameless Carnivore: A Manifesto for Meat Lovers is Scott's first published work and narrates his adventure eating through 31 different hides in as many days.

Knowing the premise of Shameless and the varied palette of animal carcass that Scott had consumed during his research and since, I was not sure what to expect when I requested that he teach me a recipe using an unusual meat. As I have newly re-entered the world of carnivorism, I was a bit nervous - terrified really - that Scott was going to show up at my door with one of the more exotic cuts that he had tried. Frankly, I completely lack both the culinary daring and the steely bowels to attempt a meal of offal, bull's penis, or deep-fried balls as Scott so courageously has done. To my relief, he did not choose to make me sheep's eyes or butchered squirrel, instead Scott chose to make me one of his favorite animals: goat.

Scott arrived at my door fifteen minutes late, flustered, and with just over four pounds of freshly butchered goat in tow. A native New Orleanian and resident of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, his studio lacked the proper amenities (like a kitchen) to cook such a hunk of meat, so it was necessary to do the cooking lesson at my house.

As I opened the door to my apartment building, Scott followed me hurriedly up the stairs saying repeatedly that we had to get started right away. When we reached the kitchen, Scott threw the bag of bloody meat onto the counter. It landed with a heavy and fleshy thud that made me cringe. Every time I eat animal, I have to forcibly prevent myself from dwelling on the fact that I am eating something that was once alive, and I feel pangs of nausea and guilt when I think about it too much. Eying the bag of meat on the counter, I couldn't help but remember the many hours I spent in Mississippi petting my ex-boyfriend's parents' goats. My hesitance toward the impending meal only increased when Scott produced a bag of hacked-up bones and held it in my face. "Look at this!" He said excitedly, "Maybe if we have time we can cook these down and suck out the marrow!" I wondered if Scott noticed my face whiten. Scott put the bones in my refrigerator and said, “Or maybe I’ll just keep those for stock.” My heart lightened.

Removing an assortment of ingredients from his backpack, Scott – in Bill Piersol style – disclaimed the meal he was about to make, “I wish we had a long time to cook, especially because Frank said this meat came from an older goat." The Frank Scott was referring to is Frank Ottomanelli of Ottomanelli & Sons Prime Meat Market - a venerable butcher in the West Village. Scott had called Frank the day before we cooked to order the goat. At least it was fresh and local.

Scott produced a large knife housed in a special plastic case from his bag. “I brought my knife just in case.” I was glad he did – I just moved and right now only have one knife that can barely cut through the flesh of a tomato. “I love this knife. It’s a Shun. Eight inch.” As Scott handed me an onion to chop, I asked him if the utensil had been a gift. “In fact, it was, but I picked it out. Why?” “Well,” I said, “I find that almost every kitchen accessory that I own was given to me by my mom… she figured out a long time ago not to buy me clothing or, really, anything else. That’s how I’ve ended up with things like a ravioli cutter, a hand blender, Le Creuset pots, and that whistling ceramic bird that let’s me know when my pies are done. Some are more useful than others…”

Scott was so concentrated on getting the dish going that he only responded with a distracted “Oh.” No chit chat. After a minute or two of silence I asked Scott when had first tried goat. “Have you checked out the book?” He asked. Guiltily, I shook my head no. He continued, “The first time I had goat was when I first got started on the book,” he said as he heated butter and olive oil a large pot. As he spoke, I made quick work of three garlic cloves. “I was on my way to a barbecue and I just happened to see goat being sold at a stand and I decided to buy some; it was great! Why aren’t people more gaga over goat? It’s every bit as delicious as lamb.”

Scott added the onions to the heated fat and stirred them with a large wooden spoon. The kitchen began to fill with the appetizing aroma of the cooking vegetable. After a few minutes he added the minced garlic and previously prepped and chopped rosemary and parsley. He removed the goat from its plastic sack and cleaved it in two, returning one half to the bag and sticking it in my refrigerator. “Wow, this looks really nice! It’s lovely, rosy, lamb-like… Mmmm!” Scott exclaimed as he began removing the silver skin from the meat. He cut the meat again in two, and passed me a half. As we worked to remove the tough fascia from the meat, I asked Scott if food had always been a passion for him.

“Always, always,” he replied, “I’m a New Orleanian, darling! Food is the passion of the city. A very big part of my life growing up. I didn’t even notice until I left!” Before Shameless, Scott explained to me that he never really cooked much, but that researching for the book was like a culinary awakening for him – one in which he relied heavily on his mother’s extensive knowledge of food to make successful recipes.

Scott stirred the onions and then added the meat. The goat smelled almost identically to lamb, but slightly more pungent. Leaning his head near the top of the pot, Scott took giant whiff of the rising steam. “Smells good!” I walked over to the stove, looked in the pan, and took a deep breath. That lamby gamey aroma reminded me of the meal that I had made with Michele Amar (who, incidentally introduced me to Scott), and it indeed smelled delicious. Like a yoga exercise, my meat-eating-induced guilt dissipated as I exhaled.

“Have you had goat before?” Scott asked. When I replied no, his face lit up. “Great! Goat virgin! You’re going to LOVE it!” Scott not only was about to be present for my first bite of goat, but he also happened to have the luck to watch me eat my first burger - cooked medium rare and smothered in Gruyere and sauteed wild mushrooms - in over a decade (at DuMont Burger and it was, put simply, fucking awesome). He told me he was proud to be a part of my meat-eating history.

We talked family while we waited for the meat to sufficiently braise. Interestingly, Scott has a brother who is a devout Buddhist, and, as you can imagine, he does not much appreciate Scott's carnivorous pursuits. Contrarily, the opposite has ocurred in my family - when I told my mom that I was eating meat again, I could practically hear her smiling on the other end of the phone. No more searching for vegetarian turkey substitutes and meat-free recipes at holiday dinners.

After about 10 minutes, the meat was a deep beige-brown color and highly odorous – signs that the meat was done braising. Scott poured a cup of water and a dash of wine into the pot and then glooped in some tomato paste. Since he is also a self-proclaimed “acid freak” he also added the juice of two lemons and a dash of bourbon (I guess that's the New Orleanian in him). I commented to Scott that the name of this dish should be lemon-bourbon goat. Writing it now, that sounds like something TGI Fridays would make up to attract local populations in the Caribbean or Central America or in another goat-loving nation.

Looking at his watch, Scott said, “Ok, so now it’s about 10 to 8, at about 9:15 this will be done.” He laughed nervously – he seemed very concerned to be taking up so much of my time. “Do you have somewhere to go?” I asked him and he shook his head. “Then let’s drink some beers and hang out on the roof – I’m not going anywhere either.” As soon as I said the word “beer,” Scott seemed to relax. I produced a couple of brews from the fridge and we headed up to the outdoors while we waited for the stew to stew.

For part two, click here.

A Search for Authentic Chinese Cuisine

2008-07-30T07:50:00.010-04:00

I just finished Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuschia Dunlop and, though some of the cuisine that she describes seems revolting (A hot pot of goose intestines?! Stir fried rabbit heads?!), the majority of the crispy, spicy, smelly, and tangy Chinese food that Donlop presents in the book sounds deliciously tempting. I recommend checking out this quick read - Dunlop artfully and entertainingly intertwines her amazing experiences eating in China with recipes, techniques, and glossaries.

Rather serendipitously, it seems that Chinese cuisine is also on the minds of my fellow New Yorkers, as it has been the subject of some recent articles. I can't wait to head to Flushing (I know, I know, it's not Brooklyn, but, hey, I'm not cooking there am I?) to eat some butter cookies with seaweed at Sun Mary Bakery and to Brooklyn's China town to slurp up some noodles from Lan Zhou.

Read more about these local Chinese food adventures here:

Let the Meals Begin: Finding Beijing in Flushing
Grocery Guy Field Trip: Brooklyn’s Chinatown

Bon apetit! Rather, 慢慢吃!

Daddy on the Spot: The Recipes

2008-07-21T21:15:00.003-04:00

Bill Piersol's Adobo Chicken
1 cup soy sauce (2 year brewed, high quality)
1 cup water
½ cup white or rice vinegar
1 bay leaf
4-5 garlic cloves, minced
Pepper to taste
8-10 chicken thighs or breasts, skin on, bone in

Garnish
2 cups cilantro, chopped
lemon/lime wedges

Bring soy sauce, water, vinegar, bay leaf, garlic and pepper to a boil over high heat in a large dutch oven or other heavy pot. Carefully place chicken in the pot and bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to low. Cover and poach for 1/2 hour, turning the chicken after 15 minutes.

If grilling, start the grill as soon as you begin poaching the chicken. While chicken poaches, reduce the sauce until it is about half of it's original volume, then pass the sauce through a sieve. Let sit and then spoon off excess chicken fat, or pass through a fat separator to remove the excess fat.

Using tongs, remove chicken from poaching medium and place on a large platter. Lightly pat the chicken dry with a paper towel. Place chicken on barbecue and grill for five minutes. Turn the chicken and grill for 4-5 more minutes, or until the meat and skin are crisp. Serve hot garnished with cilantro, lime wedges, and the reduced poaching liquid.

Daddy on the Spot: The Conclusion

2008-07-18T23:03:00.021-04:00

This is the conclusion of "Daddy on the Spot." For the previous post, click here.

While we waited for the chicken to poach, the conversation eventually turned to talking about the Patinkin family. Felicia and I had only seen each other a few times in the past twenty years – she moved to New York to go to Syracuse University when I was nine, and we never had the chance to establish a relationship; now that we are both adults and living within a mile of each other, we have begun to see each other with some regularity. When we had that first cup of coffee after I moved to New York, I was really surprised to find how similar we are (sarcastic, smart, curious, fro-headed). Can't escape genes, I suppose.

Felicia and I got so caught up in our conversation about cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, dads, the Midwest, the North Shore (meaning the northern suburbs of Chicago for you non-natives), etc. that when Bill escaped to the kitchen, he did so unnoticed. When I heard the sound of a knife against a cutting board, I realized that he had continued to cook without me! I ran over to him and asked what he was doing. “Oh, just chopping up some cilantro, which we’ll use as garnish.”

He then removed the chicken from the pots...

... and patted them dry, so that they would crisp up more quickly on the grill.

We took our conversation outside with the chicken. The patio was spattered with large, slimy slugs. "These mother fuckers are huge!” I exclaimed and took my camera out to take a picture. “Don’t take pictures of the slugs,” Bill reprimanded me. Apparently, he didn’t want nasty bugs associated with his cooking. When his back was turned, I did it anyway. Here it is:

One by one, Bill placed the thighs on the grill.

“Do you eat the skins?” I asked. “I know you’re reentering carnivorism, but you’re a self-proclaimed foodie – of course you do! But you can totally pull it off - I won’t make you eat it." After a few minutes, Bill turned the chicken and let it grill for another five minutes.

He placed the chicken on a large platter and took them inside.

Bill went over to the stove, picked up the large pots that he had left on the burners, and poured the leftover poaching liquid into a fat separator. Then, after skimming the fat, he poured the sauce into a serving dish.

With a spoon, he took a quick taste, and frowning said, "Well this is a little saltier than I'd want it to be... sometimes I'll put a little honey into it to reduce the saltiness." Felicia and I sat down to eat and Bill set the table with rice, the remaining sauce, a bowl of cilantro, and another filled with limes. He filled our wine glasses, and we gave a cheers to family and chicken.

I asked Bill and Felicia to pose for the camera, and, of course, they acted like goofs. After I took their picture Bill said, "Wait! Can you take a regular picture now, so that we don't look like complete assholes?" I complied, but, uh, I prefer this one:

Finally, we dug in and piled food high onto our plates. I doused my chicken in the salty reduction and with an improbable amount of cilantro, and then squeezed a mess of lime juice over the mass. I took a large, juicy bite. Wow. The chicken was incredibly moist and the skin crisp and deliciously savory. The flavor of the meat was deep - salty and garlicky with a hint of smoke from the grill. Totally, totally NOT sucky. Somehow, I managed to fit three whole whole chicken thighs in my belly.

"You know, for all your excusing, this is really, really good." I told Bill. He smiled, clearly proud of himself. "Well, it's just a little one pot peasant dish. Nothing special." I asked Bill what his food history was like. Did he eat a lot of meat growing up in South Dakota? Was he exposed to a variety of foods while stuck in the Midwest?

"Well," Bill said, "I'll tell you something - I was a very spoiled little child. My mother is a very good cook... She loves food and lives for food... It was literally like some deliciously cooked meat, fish, fowl, or vegetable every night, two sides, a starch and often times dessert, and this is when my mother was working fulltime! She cooked her way through Julia Child and trained herself to become a very good cook. So anyway, this is a horrible little story, but I was at a friend of mine's place when I was a kid and his mother serves meat - a beef - that even he knew was really kind of gross, and he said 'Ew. This is bad!' and I said, 'Why don't you just add a bearnaise sauce?' I was seven years old! Because that's what my mother did - she'd serve steak and there'd be bearnaise sauce... As one does, of course."

Clearly, a food snob from birth.

We hungrily and silently ate our food for a few minutes. Then, Felicia - quite out of nowhere and with a mouth full of tender chicken - asked, “So, let us live vicariously through you – who are you dating?”

“No one really," I vaguely responded. Something about her tone reminded me of my mom and I tensed up. I looked down at my plate, hoping that lack of direct eye contact and tightened shoulders would dissuade her from continuing this conversation thread, but it wasn't.

"Well - what happened to that guy you were going out with awhile ago?"

"Oh you know, he pulled the typical too soon 'let's be serious' bullshit... and I just can't be bothered with that sort of thing."

"Wait a couple of years - it'll get even worse. You won't be able to escape it!"

I responded with a barfing noise and Felicia laughed. Changing the subject, I turned to Bill and asked, "Do you shop at the farmers market often?" The focus turned off me as Bill immediately started to wax eloquent about farm fresh mushrooms - naming the varieties that he loved most along with his favorite fungal preparations in a way that reminded me of that scene in Forrest Gump. You know the one.

We talked more, ate more, and drank more and finished the meal with my famous homemade chocolate chip cookies. After one last glass of wine, it was time to go home. I walked out into the balmy Park Slope night sated and content. The humid air clung to my clothes and a dense mist made the neighborhood seem dreamlike and inviting. A wave of happiness washed over me - I felt one with the world, with the adobo chicken, with the rats hiding in the piles of filled garbage bags along 7th Avenue, with the man screaming "get out of the fucking road!" at me as I crossed the street against the light. In an ecstatic craze, I looked up to the sky and had an overwhelming urge to yell, "Brooklyn - I love you!" And then, with a belch, I realized that I was drunk.

Daddy on the Spot: The Poaching

2008-07-15T19:01:00.005-04:00

While Bill removed various ingredients and placed them on the counter, he explained how he became interested in food. Turns out that before he was Couric’s Senior Producer and before he was a producer for Good Morning America and before a stint with Now with Bill Moyers and even before he was a freelance journalist and writer he worked for Simon & Schuster and Random House. There he had the opportunity to work for an “excellent” editor who also happened to be a Cordon Bleu-trained chef who could work her way through any recipe, and know immediately whether or not it was well-written enough for publication.

With a thud, Bill placed two large pots on the oven burners and removed the baby protectors that were covering the knobs. As he did this he told me about the various cookbooks he had the opportunity to work on – by chefs as varied as Pierre Franey, Bradley Ogden, and Larry Forgione (whatever happened to him?) – and that that was the beginning of his interest in food. “Of course, at that time,” Bill said, “I didn’t cook. I just ate.”

"You guys!” Felicia interrupted as she excitedly returned from putting Maren to bed, “ I might be wrong, but I think Maren was just singing Band on the Run to me!” As she wondered aloud how Maren could have picked up that song (and be so cool), Bill minced a handful of garlic cloves.

“So,” Bill began as he expertly chopped, using the tip of his knife as a pivot, “having talked with my friend who is Filipino, there are a few liberties I take with this dish. The addition of water is atypical, but I like the sauce to be a little thinner. Oh, and I crisp it up on the grill. That’s different. [My friend] also told me that this is this dish – with pork or chicken – is like the one pot dish that everybody eats all the time there.” He finished chopping the garlic and began opening and closing the doors to the cabinets in the kitchen – looking without success for a bottle of vinegar. Finally, after looking through each kitchen cabinet, he found it in the refrigerator, and mumbled, “Who puts vinegar in the fridge!” and “There’s no reason to refrigerate vinegar.” As soon as he added 1/2 cup of the pungent liquid to each of the large pots, he returned the bottle back to the ice box. I imagine that he goes through this little ritual of looking and finding each time he needs to use the stuff.

To the pots he added one cup of high quality soy sauce (like Kimlan brand), then the chopped garlic, a bay leaf, and a little pepper. He turned the heat to high to bring the mixture to a boil.

“Could anything in the world be fucking simpler than this?!” Bill declared as we waited for the mixture to heat thoroughly. “Guess I should watch my language on tape.” I told him that expletives would spice up the interview and that nothing could compare to my lesson with Tara Broughel – by the time I had removed all the four-letter words from the transcription, there was very little actual dialogue to work with. It was like some sort of a common man’s Anthony Bourdain experience.

“Is Tara the girl who did the ‘Slut Walk’ [click on the link for an explanation] video?” Bill asked me. I explained that, no, that the video – in which I participated as an extra – was the brainchild of the brilliant comedienne, Shayna Ferm (who I hope will cook with me when I get to Queens). “It’s called the ‘Walk of Shame,’ Bill.” Felicia added, “Slut walk! Ha! Bill’s so old he never had the walk of shame.” Bill shot Felicia a look, “Believe me, honey, I shame walked many a time in my life. Beee-leeeve me.” Felicia and I shot disbelieving glances at one another while Bill checked on his poaching medium.

Bill began to prep the free-range, bone-in, skin-on, chicken thighs – removing them from their plastic casing, washing them in the sink, and then laying them out on a platter – while Felicia started making basmati rice to accompany the dish.

The liquid in the large pots began to boil and Bill carefully added the thighs, one-by-one, into the pot with a pair of thongs. “Why poach the chicken first?” I asked Bill.

“Well,” he said, “The soy sauce poaching really adds a sort of depth of flavor that I really like, and, traditionally, the dish is just poached and that’s it. I grill it because I like the texture, it adds sort of a smokiness to it, which is good.”

We had thirty minutes before the chicken would be done poaching, so we sat on the couch, ate cornichon, and drank wine. Bill regaled us with his massive amount of knowledge on everything from cooking to music to books and we gossiped about our extended family, shared stories about growing up in the Midwest, talked about goofy children's performances that they had taken Maren to (animal theaters, barge-based circuses, etc.), perused Facebook, and drank more wine. Soon we would eat...

Daddy on the Spot: The Epilogue

2008-07-12T13:37:00.014-04:00

Bill Piersol originally asked me to come over on a Thursday evening to learn how to make his famous Adobo chicken. The Monday before our lesson, Bill’s wife, Felicia Patinkin (full disclosure, my first cousin), emailed and – amongst a litany of apologies like “I know you’re young and probably have already have really fun plans,” and “We’ll end early enough so that you can go out with your friends” – asked if we could switch to a Friday instruction instead. Bill (Senior Producer for the Katie Couric show) and she (currently a freelance TV producer) had had a busy week, and a weeknight lesson was going to be rough. Despite their worries that they were ruining my social life, I agreed to come over at the start of the weekend. Seemingly unbeknownst to them, they are both fun to be around.

When I arrived, Maren, their 2 and ½ year old daughter sheepishly answered the door with a “Hi cousin Ewin.” She then ran screaming inside into her dad’s arms.

Felicia and Bill welcomed me with hugs and then Bill immediately started disclaiming the dish he was about to make with comments like:

“This is just a boring dish, I mean, I just thought I’d do something quick.”
“You’re not going to like this – everything else that you’ve made has been delicious-sounding. This is the first time you’ll eat something that sucks.”
“This is just a quick, Dad just came home from work meal. It’s really not that good.”

I tried to calm Bill’s fears and promised I wouldn’t be too harsh on him in the blogging world. Even if I was, only four people read this thing anyway, so he really had nothing to worry about.

While Bill continued his self-deprecating soliloquy, Maren used the “potty” and came running out screaming and giggling with her dress over her head, and then began to show me her toys. Bill poured us wine and we gave a cheers to cooking and good health.

As the three adults drank, Felicia inquired as to whether anything new and exciting was going on in my life. I mean, duh, of course there was – principally I was moving to a new, fabulous apartment in Clinton Hill. As I described the place – the original details, the marble fireplaces, the backyard, the two floors, the bathrooms (yes plural) – Felicia chimed in with remarks like “nice” and “oooh” and “wow.” Bill sort of just stared at me blankly while I talked; when I got to the part about the size of the kitchen, Bill interrupted me and said to his wife, “Wait. Wait! How come she rents and she has these beautiful places and we own and have this grotty little hovel?” “Don’t call this place – our home – a grotty little hovel. Thank you,” Felicia chimed.

Maren interrupted a possible marital dispute by yelling, “I saw the waterfall today! I want to go up in the air, daddy!” Perfect timing, little Maren.

A timer bell went off, and Felicia produced a tray of toasted goat cheese-stuffed dates wrapped in prosciutto and garnished with basil (yum) – a recipe of Leslie Patinkin, Felicia’s sister and my other cousin. While we ate, we lounged around the kitchen counter talking about our favorite Brooklyn restaurants. Namely, our affinity for Franny’s and Maren’s love of olives. Olives! At 2 and 1/2, no less. A burgeoning gourmand…

Bill sat on the couch and in between giving Maren raspberries, again began to disclaim the food he was about to cook. “You have all these great cooks on this site, and I totally have performance anxiety because I’ve read all this stuff [Imitating a woman’s voice] ‘I learned how to cook all this stuff because I lived in Spay-yane for three years, blah, blah, blah.’” I denied that supposition – many people that I had been cooking with had only perfected one or two dishes. Very few have been seasoned chefs.

He continued, “Ok, well, then here’s the deal. I am a lousy cook...”

Felicia interrupted, saying, “this is where I’m supposed to pipe in and say ‘no you’re not honey! You’re a GREAT cook.” Bill – ignoring the teasing – added, “...a lot of times I have to cook on the fly - very quickly - so I think my entry should be called the ‘domesticity dish.’” “What about 'Dad on a Dime?'” I inquired. Bill responded with “How about, ‘Dad with No Time’ or, even better, ‘Daddy on the Spot.’” Another raspberry - Maren squeeled.

Bill was being modest. He has read Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques. He knows who Jonathan Waxman is. He owns a fat separator. When he drinks wine, he swirls it in the glass and smells it before taking a sip. He likes truffles and caper berries. He talks proudly of the deal he got on his massive Le Creuset Dutch oven. Despite the insecure monologue, there was no denying it - dude is gourmet.

Finishing up his appetizer and wine, Bill told me that he was going to be making me a “stupid” and “decidedly un-grand” chicken dish that he and Felicia rely on often during their busy weeks. Felicia told me that the dish wasn’t as easy as Bill was letting on, and in all seriousness said, “It’s really not that simple – there’s boiling that has to happen you know.” Boiling: the most complicated of kitchen techniques.

Bill, eating a date, said, “I actually have composed this whole epilogue in my mind before we started to night... I come with a challenge, I have a handicap - I’m a father, I work 13 hours a day, and so I have to maximize my cooking time.” An ever-important thing when you’re a busy New Yorker. Bill took another swig of wine.

I downed an appetizer and told Felicia that the date and basil was an interesting duo. The combination of sweet and salty is one of my favorites, and the combined textures of the date, crispy proscuitto, and creamy cheese was very satisfying. She took a swig of wine and told us it was time to start the bedtime ritual and headed down the hall with Maren to her bedroom.

“So Bill,” I said, “I asked you what you were going to make me and you gave me a very long diatribe, but you actually didn’t tell me what you were going to make.”

“Oh, that’s funny. Wait I did tell you – I’m making a stupid, stupid dish. It’s called Adobo chicken and it’s a Filipino dish. So, despite the name, it’s not like Mexican at all. It’s poached in soy sauce and a few other things and then crisped up on the grill.”

“Did you make it up?”

“Oh no, I heard about it, and searched out recipes and then found one. So there’s no real sense of authenticity. It’s a very very simple dish. It’s your one stop shopping summer silly dish. It’s really stupid.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had Filipino food.”

“Who has?”

“Filipinos, I assume.”

Bill laughed and said, “I’m guessing your right. They’ve probably had a lot of it.” He ate one last date, wiped his hands together, and produced a large quantity of chicken thighs from the refrigerator and placed them on the counter.

Finally, it was time to cook.

The Whole Story

2008-07-03T08:00:00.007-04:00

Since I've done several posts about white bread lately, a friend of mine thought it important to send me a video that clearly spells out the benefits of whole grains. The video is just so right on the money that I could not resist sharing it with my faithful readers out there.

You can check out the video here.

End of post.

Pizza Pro-ism: The Recipes

2008-07-02T08:41:00.001-04:00

These are the recipes from the Pizza Pro-ism series. For Part I, click here and for Part II, click here.

Jeremy’s Tomato Sauce
(adapted from Mario Batali’s “Simple Tomato Sauce Recipe”)

2 28 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes
4 cloves garlic thinly-sliced
1/2 medium carrot shredded
1 Spanish onion finely diced

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in large sauce pan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown...keep stirring occasionally to avoid burning.

Add the carrot and cook until the carrot is soft--about 5 minutes

Add the tomatoes with their juice and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer until as thick as hot cereal – about 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

A note from Jeremy: “I think the carrots make give it the nice sweetness, and the San Marzano tomatoes are key for flavor.”

Pizza Dough
(from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking)

3 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast dissolved in 1 cup water
1 T olive oil for dough and 1 tsp for a for the bowl
1/2 T salt (Jeremy notes that he uses less than this amount)

Once the yeast has fully proofed (about 10 minutes after adding it to the water), mix together all the ingredients in a standing mixer fitted with a hook attachment until it forms a uniform ball – about 4-5 minutes.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 – 1.5 hours, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat oven as high as it will go before it hits broil, usually about 500 degrees. If you have one, place your pizza stone in the oven.

Punch down the dough and reform it into a ball. Cut dough in half and, on a flour surface, shape each half into 6” in discs and let stand for 10 minutes.

Using the heal of your hand and starting from the middle of the dough, press the dough outwards until it reaches 8-10” in diameter. Pick the dough up and using a hand-over-hand motion with the back of your fists, stretch the dough to 12”. Repeat the process with the other disc.

If using a pizza stone, place dough on a paddle and dress it with desire toppings, then slide onto the stone. If you don't have a pizza stone or a paddle, place the dough on a cookie sheet and then dress. Cook for 10-12 minutes.

*Note: dough can last for up to 3 days in a refrigerator before using.

Pizza Pro-ism, Part II: Rolling, Baking, and Eating

2008-07-01T18:34:00.018-04:00

This is Part II of Pizza Pro-ism. For Part I, click here.

While Jeremy and I waited for the oven to heat, he put me to work doing my all time favorite activity - grating cheese (um, did he not read this story?). As I worked my way through some whole milk mozzarella, Jeremy explained the pizza baking process.

"In your home oven, you want to set the oven as high as it can go. You'd like it to be 7, 800, 900 degrees, but that's not going to happen.... It takes Lucali only two minutes to cook a pizza because the oven is so hot. It's, like, such direct heat because of the flame in it." Jeremy really enjoyed telling me about his pizza experience, and it was fun to hear about the complicated process of making the dough. "It's such a weird science," I told Jeremy. His eyes lit up, "I know! That thing is like - those ovens are alive almost!"

Jeremy removed some sliced portabellas and onions from the refrigerator. He explained that he learned to roast the vegetables first because that way the pizzas did not get soggy. He placed the veggies in a baking pan, coated them with oil, and placed them in the hot oven.

While Jeremy was preparing the veggies, I asked him what he thought was the best pizza in Brookln. "Totonno's - it's in Coney Island. It was him and Lombardi back in the day that were like the first two. It's really bare bones... the crust is great, super thin, it has that great charred bottom. The saurce is good, a little sweet. I like Grimaldi's, too, but I can't deal with the line. It's insane!" We continued to talk about Brooklyn pizza's - Fornino's pretentiousness, Baci and Abbracci's tasty, but under-appreciated pies, the quality of Franny's ingredients - while I finished the mozzarella and began shredding some Fontina.

At this point, Tova - who teaches high school in the South Bronx and, like Tara and Becky, got her Masters in Education through the New York Teaching Fellows program - entered into the kitchen to check on our process. I asked Tova is she was a cook. "I'm more of a baker, " she responded, "my specialties are cookies and Rugelach." A girl after my own heart and sweet tooth.

The three of us chatted about life, teaching, work, commutes, and plans for the future while Jeremy floured his counter and while the vegetables cooked. After about ten minutes in the oven, Jeremy removed the vegetables, and then layered them with paper towels on a plate.

"So, the other thing that I sort of realized in retrospect that I was doing wrong was that I was kind of afraid of the flour," Jeremy said as he set aside the roasted vegetables and began to spread the flour over the surface of his countertop. “I didn’t want to use too much – which you don’t want to do – but I was always using too little, so the dough would always stick. Going to that class and having to make so much dough in repetition was good because I just made a bunch of dough while I was there and I realized that it wasn’t the end of the world if you could see some flour."

While Jeremy talked he removed one of the balls of raw crust from under its protective plastic sheath, and placed it on the center of his work surface. He walked to the oven and turned it as high as it could go. “Tova baked earlier today and I had her put the baking stone in then. You want to make sure that it’s really heated through."

Jeremy picked up the ball of dough and pulled it together so that it looked like a little mushroom cap and the bottom like a punched-in ball.

With his hands, Jeremy then flattened the ball into about a 6 inch disc and then let it sit for about 10 minutes. I told Jeremy that this was exactly like working with sweet dough, but he didn’t get the reference. “Jeremy doesn’t like to bake, but he sure likes to eat that stuff,” Tova chimed in.

Once a sixth of an hour had passed, Jeremy got to work and, starting from the center, pushed the dough with the heal of his hand into a larger circle.

Once the disc was about 8 inches in diameter, Jeremy picked it up and with the back of his fists and using a “hand-over-hand” process, he stretched the dough until it reached about 12 inches.

Jeremy removed a large wooden paddle from his wall, and spread cornmeal on it. Then he placed the dough on its surface and began dressing the pizza. “Do you just slide the pizza onto the stone using the paddle?” I asked Jeremy. His response was affirmative. “You should have seen it when I tried to do it,” Tova said, “the whole thing ended up in the garbage.” Jeremy chuckled and added, “Well that was back in the day-“ Tova interrupted, “-That’s what motivated him to take the class.”

With a spoon, Jeremy spread some of his homemade, chunky, and delicious-looking sauce over the top of the pizza.

“I’ll make about a gallon of this stuff and freeze some of it,” Jeremy told me as he picked up the shredded mozzarella and spread it on top of the almost-made pizza.

Picking up the paddle with two hands, Jeremy said “Ok, now here comes the photo op,” opened the oven, and slid the pizza onto the stone.

“Always try to keep the pizza moving a little as you’re pulling the paddle out from underneath it, otherwise it will stick. Oh, and I forgot to say – don’t be shy with your ingredients…. I’ll put the basil on after it comes out and some parmesan, too.”

Jeremy told me of the benefits of the paddle and that before he had it, it was difficult to get the pizza on the stone with other kitchen utensils (he had experimented with two knives, spatulas, plates, and more). While the pizza cooked, Jeremy rolled out the second lump of pizza dough.

“Oh what I forgot to do was throw in a cup of water into the broiler,” Jeremy told me as he removed the first pizza from the oven and covered it with foil to keep it warm. “Why do you do that? It doesn’t make it soggy?” I asked. “Apparently, it does the opposite – and makes the crust crispy,” Jeremy responded as he removed the first pizza from the oven...

... and then slid it off the paddle onto the counter. He covered the red pie with foil, then rolled out and dressed the second pizza, drizzled it with olive oil, and spread the vegetables and cheese on top of it.

The second lump of dough spread much quicker because it had sat out longer and the gluten had, according to Jeremy, “loosened up.” While the white pie cooked, he topped the margherita with basil and parmesan. Twelve more minutes until we could dig in. I couldn’t wait.

The science of pizza dough making reminded me of Alton Brown and I asked Jeremy if he had ever watched the TV star's Good Eats. Tova answered the question by saying, “Yes he has – and guess who’s learned from Mr. Brown how to slow cook everything,” she said pointing to Jeremy who immediately denied any comparison to the nerdy chef.

“This is looking great!” I proclaimed, picking up the foil covering the first pizza. “Good, I don’t want this blog besmirching my name,” Jeremy responded as he checked on the pizza. During the wait, we talked about Chicago style pizza and our collective dislike of the stuffed pie (I know, I know, how un-Chicagoan of me).

After the pizza had baked for about six minutes, Tova noticed that Jeremy had not added the water to the oven, and did it for him. “What would you do without me?” she asked and then headed out of the kitchen to set the dining room table.

Finally, the second pie was ready. We sat down at the table and popped open some beers – my favorite pizza accompaniment – and gave a cheers to pizza and Brooklyn. Jeremy sliced the pies and gave each of us a piece of the red and the white (which Jeremy had drizzled with truffle oil and topped with parmesan after removing it from the oven).

Both pies were great – the red was slightly sweet from Jeremy’s homemade sauce, the cheese ooey and gooey, and the basil fresh and spicy, but the white – oh the white – now that had a punch. The vegetables had a great roasted flavor and the cheese provided a pungent kick. The truffle oil was deep and earthy tasting and brought out the flavor of the roasted mushrooms and onions. Jeremy and I agreed that the crust of the white pizza was less spongy and more flavorful than the red. Probably due to the fact, Jeremy indicated, that that crust had sat out longer and added, “…the first one was a little weird… yea I’m sure there’s some sort of equilibrium point that’s perfect, but I’m not sure what it is yet.” However, the difference was slight and, honestly, both crusts were really tasty. They were thin, slightly salty, and crisp - just the way I like my ‘za.

While we ate we talked about everything from Oprah to jobs to graduate school to hot chips to kids’ diets to the cost of living in New York to our fear of growing old and moving to the suburbs to our disdain for the craze over ethanol. After stuffing our faces with pizza, Jeremy asked, “Dessert? Who’s up for it?” Tova and I both raised our hands and Jeremy served up the smooth and delicious rhubarb pudding cake that Tova had made for us and Tova brewed some iced espressos. It was the royal treatment.

When I finished, I leaned back in my chair and thought about heading home and sleeping off my food coma, but then Jeremy reminded me that we had to finish making the crust that we started when I first came over.

A little begrudgingly, I headed back into the kitchen with Jeremy – I was so stuffed I just wanted to sit in the cool and comfortable dining room, and mused about being socially inept enough to take over Tova and Jeremy’s couch and unbutton my way-too-tight jeans.

Back in the sweltering kitchen, Jeremy showed me the dough, which had risen to twice its size...

...and then, aking off the plastic wrap from the oiled bowl of the standing mixer, Jeremy told me “all we do is punch it down.” He formed a fist and did just that.

As Jeremy reformed the dough into a ball, he said “Usually, I’d just put this in the fridge, but I’m going to try to roll it out and freeze it. We’ll see if it works.” He left it on the counter to deal with later. We returned to the dining room and finished our iced coffees.

On my way out I thanked Jeremy and Tova for the delicious meal. When I got home, I threw myself on the couch, and, with a sigh, unbuttoned the booty pants. Sated, I fell asleep.

Pizza Pro-ism, Part I: Making the Dough

2008-06-30T08:00:00.002-04:00

When I first began NYCookery, I sent out an email to hundreds of friends and acquaintances asking them to spread the word about my blog and to help me find cooks in Brooklyn who would be interested in partaking in the project. A few days later I received an email from Jeremy Cesarec; he had just finished his own attempt to create the perfect pizza crust and wanted to teach me the tricks that he had learned.

Jeremy and I met a long, long time ago through our mutual friend, novelist Patrick Somerville. Jeremy and I kept us in somewhat sporadic contact, but by the time Jeremy emailed me about making pizza pie, we had talked/seen each other only a few times in seven years.

I walked up to Jeremy’s quaint Carroll Gardens apartment (that he shares with his lovely girlfriend, Tova Sacks) and, as I reached the top of the stairs, I had one of those “Oh, God, is this going to be awkward moments?” So far I have only cooked with people that I know well or not at all – the former provides a familiarity that begets conviviality and the latter provides a blank social canvas waiting to be filled. Cooking with someone I sort of knew inspired apprehension – was I going to be forced to fill in the details of the last (almost) decade of my life? Sometimes in those sorts of catching-up situations, I find myself overtaken by a socially anxious panic, rendering me incapable of lively conversation. For example, recently I went out for a cocktail with someone I had not seen since high school and that gnawing “oh, god, what are we going to talk about?” feeling started to brew in the pit of my stomach; before I knew it, I was telling her about my frustrations with the Internal Revenue Service. That's right, I talked about the IRS, and for a good 20 minutes at that. Total snoozesville! I’m surprised she didn’t fall asleep in her beer.

Anyway, my trepidation was quickly allayed. As soon as I stepped in his kitchen, Jeremy proved that he was ready to cook; luckily, there would be no moments filled with banal stories about, say, my last dental visit.

The kitchen in Jeremy's apartment was long and narrow - two people could barely stand next to each other in it. The cabinets were worn and there was little counter space, but it was a well stocked space and high-end gadgets and other cooking accessories - Global knives, a stainless steel Cuisinart, and a standing KitchenAid mixer - lined Jeremy's shelves. In fact, noting that Jeremy's kitchen was better stocked than my own, I felt a twang of jealousy.

Jeremy produced a zip lock bag filled with dough and presented it to me like some sort of well-won prize. “I made this yesterday; I make it a day ahead and throw it in the fridge because it tastes better when you wait a day.” Jeremy removed the dough from the bag and cut it in half with his Global knife. "These should each weigh about 500 g," he said removing a kitchen scale from his cabinet and placing the dough on it, "yep, this weighs about a pound and a half." I was impressed with Jeremy's professionalism, and also his ability to guess the weight of the dough.

My mind wandered as Jeremy futzed around the kitchen and I fantasized that Jeremy's knack for guessing the raw crust's weight was some sort of hidden talent. I found myself imagining Jeremy at an exclusive soiree, impressing crowds of well-dressed New Yorkers by accurately guessing the weight of women and baked goods alike.

Jeremy woke me from my day dream by loudly replacing his kitchen scale in a cabinet. He returned to the counter and placed the balls of unbaked crust on it and covered them with plastic wrap (to let them come to room temperature before forming them). He then explained that because it took the pizza so long to rise, we would use the pre-made crust for our dinner, but that he would make a new batch so I could get the gist of the whole process.

Jeremy works for marketing for Harper Collins, but he is also a freelance writer and he often is hired by Metromix to do stories about food. For one of his most recent journalistic efforts, titled “Pizza schmo to pizza pro,” Jeremy spent hours learning the tricks of a perfect crust by the maestros of, uh, pizza crustery.

"Basically the reason that I did that piece was because I had tried to make pizza dough with a lot of bumps along the road and it didn't work out well... One of my main problems was that I would want to push through and would struggle, but I've learned you've just got to step away when that happens."

All of a sudden thunder struck; it was so strong that it shook the house. We both stopped talking and looked out the window. The backyard - covered with AstroTurf and decorated with various ceramic cherubs and other kitsch - was drenched.

As Jeremy set up, I asked him if he had been to DiFara's pizza in Brooklyn (purportedly the best around). "Yea, DiFara I like, but it's so much olive oil it's insane," Jeremy chuckled, "it's like a gallon of olive oil. Each piece has gotta be a 1,000 calories." More thunder. The rain started pelting the cherubs. The humidity became intense in the little kitchen.

Jeremy began pointing at the ingredients that he laid out on the counter - homemade tomato sauce (from Batali's Molto Italiano), basil, cheeses, truffle oil, olives, and vegetables. We would be making two pizzas - one red (for you pizza novices out there, that means with tomato sauce) and one white (no red sauce). I told Jeremy that as a native Chicagoan, I felt that having a dinner of pizza without a red pie seemed like blasphemy. Jeremy, also a Midwesterner, agreed.

It was time to make the dough. Jeremy took down his standing mixer from the top of the refrigerator and plugged it into a power strip that was hanging from the wall, and thereby blocking access to the refrigerator. "This is pretty ghetto - I can't open the fridge when I have my appliances plugged in." Ah, the quirks of New York apartments - it's such a recurring theme in this blog that I'm thinking I should rename the site "Cooking in the Slum Kitchens of New York."

Jeremy unplugged the KitchenAid and took some yeast from the refrigerator. He poured a cup of water in a bowl, added some yeast to it, and in the bowl of the standing mixer he added all purpose flour. Jeremy explained the differences of flour (tippo double zero, all purpose) and the effect that they had on the dough. He told me that all purpose was the easiest to start with, but that with practice one could start to add things like semolina or other types of flour (like the more glutenous tippo double zero).

While Jeremy was looking at the recipe for the crust, we talked more about - you guessed it - New York apartments! Jeremy moved to Brooklyn about nine months ago after five years living in cramped conditions on the Lower East Side where he had experienced, like me, a major mice infestation and a drippy, disgusting ceiling. We both agreed that Brooklyn was a much more reasonable place to live and Jeremy definitively announced that he was "here to stay."

After we lamented the douche-bag gentrification of the Lower East Side (and of the rest of Manhattan), I recounted my Williamsburg apartment horror story to him. As I got to the part of the tale wherein the rats began to taunt my roommates and I by throwing pots and pans off of our kitchen shelves in the middle of the night, I realized that I truly relished this narrative. It somehow proves my New York worthiness - like some sort urban survival merit badge that should be sewn to a brightly-colored sash and proudly worn.

Jeremy told me that he had read in New York magazine that 30% of residences make a rat complaint in any given year. "I mean one in three! That's insane! I mean probably a quarter of those people are crazy and think that mice are rats, but that's horrendous!" Jeremy exclaimed as he added flour to his KitchenAid mixer.

Jeremy changed the subject from rodents to the fickleness of pizza dough - and indicated that humidity (and God it was humid) affects the dough. So he would determine how much flour to use for the crust as he was mixing it together. He started with one and a half cups of flour, which he poured into the mixing bowl, and added a pinch of salt, half of the yeast mixture, and some olive oil. With the mixer's dough attachment (the one that looks like a hook), he began combining the ingredients.

"How much does using the KitchenAid reduce the kneading time?" I asked Jeremy. "Well in the KitchenAid it takes about 3-4 minutes and by hand it takes about 10." I wondered aloud why I had ever even messed with the whole bicep-building kneading process.

Jeremy turned the machine off, added more flour and more of the yeast mixture, and then turned the machine on again. As he let the machine run, he paid close attention to the burgeoning dough's consistency, adding more water several times.

"This is the third batch I'm making in two days because yesterday, I got up, went to my friends pool, went out, picked up my stuff from the CSA [Community Supported Agriculture], and then realized that I forgot to punch it down." He laughed and turned off the mixer. "It was ruined. So now this is my third..." Jeremy trailed off as he ran the mixer and then said, "So, mix this up until a ball forms - until it's in one lump. Then it's pretty much ready."

Jeremy removed the dough, rinsed out the bowl, coated it with olive oil, then picked up the floury ball and squeezed it. "Do you want to feel this?" Jeremy asked and handed me the dense lump. It was smooth, but still a little bumpy and slightly tacky to the touch. It lacked the silkiness of the challah that Becky had made for me. I handed it back to Jeremy and he placed the dough in the oiled dish.

"Now that will take about a hour, hour and a half to rise. Since it's hot it will take less time." Turns out bread is one capricious bitch!

It was time to make the pizza from the premade dough. Jeremy set the oven to 400 and we took a quick water break.

Click here for Part II of the story...

BBQing Banditry

2008-06-27T19:19:00.000-04:00

Looks like Park Slopers want the grills to stay in backyards. Oh, but wait, most people in Brooklyn don't have backyards. In my humble opinion, with the abysmal lack of outdoor space afforded to apartments throughout the borough, nine designated barbecuing areas is simply not enough.

Check out what I'm talking about here:

Park is BBQ Crazy!

End of post.

Champion Mignon, The Recipe

2008-06-24T07:32:00.002-04:00

And now, the recipe for Vanessa's delicious steak.

Porcini-Encrusted Filet Mignon with Herbed Butter

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
1 small garlic clove, pressed
1 (1/2-ounce) package dried porcini mushrooms*
6 1-inch-thick filet mignon steaks

Mix first 4 ingredients in small bowl for herb butter. Season butter to taste with salt and pepper. Process dried porcini mushrooms in spice grinder to fine powder. Transfer powder to plate. Sprinkle steaks with salt and pepper. Press steaks into porcini powder to coat both sides well.

Melt 2 tablespoons herb butter in heavy large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add steaks to skillet and cook to desired doneness, about 6 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer steaks to plates. Spoon rounded tablespoon of herb butter atop each steak and serve.