December 2004 Archives

Thai soups are perfect for cold season. They're warming, easy to sip, and they'll clear your sinuses. The balance of spice, tart and salt can cut through even the most stuffed up palate. In my parents' La Puente backyard, we have lemongrass, a lime tree, and a kaffir lime tree that grows completely out of control. A couple of years ago, my parents decided to hire a gardener to take care of their thirsty plants out back. When the gardener lopped the tops off the unruly bushes hiding our house from the main road, the lone kaffir lime tree got a little haircut to even out the levels. My mom kind of freaked out about the loss of all of the fragrant kelly green leaves, so the gardener was told to keep his shears away; now the tree grows wildly above the tops of all of its neighbors. I miss having the ingredients fresh and handy, but Bangkok Center Grocery has everything you can't get at the normal markets. You could easily subsitute chicken for shrimp in Tom Yum Goong (which would make it Tom Yum Kai) if you've got something against crustaceans -- just add bone-in chicken bits at the same time as the lemongrass and skim the broth as it cooks. This soup is fairly easy to make, but it doesn't keep very well, so eat up and get well!

Tom yum goong

8 cups water
2 stalks lemongrass
2 inch piece of galangal, sliced into 1/8" pieces
5 smashed cloves of garlic
3 shallots, sliced thinly
5 double-leaves of kaffir lime leaves
2 handfuls oyster mushrooms, cut into large 3" pieces
(you can subsititute enoki mushrooms or canned straw mushrooms, which I am very fond of)
12 shrimp, peeled and deveined (or 8 shrimp, head-on for authenticity and more seafood flavor)
1 tbsp. nam prik phao, roasted chili paste in oil
Whole Thai chilies, optional (for spice fiends)
1 tbsp. fish sauce, plus more to taste
2 limes, juiced, plus more to taste
1/2 cup roughly chopped cilantro

Boil the water. Cut the lemongrass into 4 inch pieces, and smash each piece a couple of times with a mortar and pestle or the back of your knife. Drop them in the boiling water, along with the galangal, garlic, shallots, and lime leaves. Add 1 tbsp. fish sauce. Boil on medium heat for 20 minutes, until the broth is fragrant. Add the oyster mushrooms and optional fresh chilies, cook for another 3 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook until the shrimp is just opaque. Remove from heat. Add the lime juice, nam prik phao, cilantro and more fish sauce to taste.

***

A note on kaffir lime leaves: as you can see here, the kaffir lime leaf grows with two leaves attached on top of each other on a single spine. This is what I refer to as a double-leaf; when I was a kid, my mom sent me out to the garden to get ten leaves from the kaffir lime tree. I came back with five double-leaves, and was promptly sent back out to get five more. The tree has a built in defense system against plunderers, with sharp, inch-long spines growing along every branch, so it can be a tricky, scratchy job. I remember one of the parents at the Thai temple had a blood-red splotch in the whites of one of her eyes. I asked her what happened (being the nosy and insensitive inquirer I was/am) and discovered that one of those needle-like spines had flown into her eye during a kaffir lime leaf snipping. Think about that should you feel like griping about how expensive they are...

Last night I had some friends over for Thai food. I was a little nervous because I haven't cooked Thai food in ages. It's a pain in the ass to round up all of the ingredients -- you gotta go to the Thai store for the herbs, pastes, sauces, etc., then I like to get the organic meats from Whole Foods, the veggies from the Greenmarket, etc. By the time I've gathered everything, I am too exhausted to cook. Thai food and Indian food -- I get a headache just thinking about making them.

The grocery store situation in major cities is definitely changing when it comes to inclusion of international foods. I remember that when I first moved to Windsor Terrace in Brooklyn, a primarily Irish- and Italian-Catholic community, the local Key Food grocery store had an "international foods" aisle which included all the Goya products and a whole array of disgusting La Choy (or whatever it's called) brand products; I was appalled that it was located directly across the aisle from all of the dog food and cat litter. Keep in mind that grocery floor planners know exactly what they're doing -- at my old Berkeley Safeway on College Ave., the tampons and feminine products were located in the same aisle as the PMS friendly cookies and potato chips.

But these days, soy sauce, Japanese short-grain rice, miso, and all sorts of Asian staples are readily available at normal supermarkets. It's a far cry from the canned chow mein and water chestnuts days of yore. And it gets better every year as people become more accustomed to foods of different cultures and request products at their local supermarket. Still, Thai ingredients like good curry paste, holy basil, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves make a trip to the Thai market worthwhile. This time, I went to the excellent Bangkok Center Grocery on Mosco St. in Chinatown. (Who knew there was a "Mosco St."? Not I!) They have beautiful fresh kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, fresh curry pastes, frozen specialty vegetables, and the best mortars and pestles in a clean, well-lit and fairly roomy shop.

The menu for the evening:

Tom Yum Goong
Sauteed sweet potato greens
Glass noodle salad
Red curry with beef and pumpkin

The easiest dish (besides the sweet potato leaves), and probably the most impressive, was the red curry with beef and pumpkin. The beef was tender and the pumpkin was creamy and sweet; the curry was incredibly fragrant, redolent with aromatic leaves. My secret, and the secret of practically every Thai family? Store-bought curry paste. I mean, who has time to sit there with the mortar and pestle, taking their frustrations out on some resilient herbs and spices? This time, I used a refrigerated paste they had in packets at the Thai grocery store. Highly recommended.

Red Curry with Beef and Pumpkin

2 cans coconut milk -- do not shake!
2 tbsp. red curry paste
1 lb. stew beef, chunked
1/2 medium kabocha pumpkin, peeled and cut into large chunks
Handful of Thai basil
10 double-leaves of kaffir lime leaves
2 red finger chilies, sliced thinly lengthwise

Turn the heat on high on a large pot or dutch oven. Open up your coconut milk cans and spoon the fatty coconut cream off the top. Melt it down in the dutch oven with the curry paste until bubbly and well mixed, 1 minute. Add your beef and cook until nicely browned, 5 minutes. Pour the remaining coconut milk into the pot along with five lime double-leaves. Cook on medium-low heat for 1 hr. or until the beef is nice and tender. Add the pumpkin and the red chilies and cook til the pumpkin is tender, 5-10 min. Remove from heat. Chiffonade the remaining kaffir lime leaves. At the last minute, add the basil, chiffonaded lime leaves. Serve with jasmine rice.

****

A public service announcement for all you vegetarians, kosher-keepers, and shellfish allergic -- don't eat the curry! One of the main ingredients in curry paste is fermented shrimp paste.

Alright, I'm a sucker.  Yesterday I met Yuka at Astor Wines for a little taste of Krug champagne.  Ah, Krug, my new love, champ of "shamps," as my roommate so charmingly refers to bubbly.  How can I describe the flavor of Krug Grande Cuvee without sounding like one of those pretentious oenophiles? 

It's crisp, Meyer lemony, not too sweet, with a lovely tingly aftertaste of yummy sunshine.  The salesman, doing his job, said, "It's on sale during the tasting, for $110."  And after looking at $200 bottles of Cristal and $350 bottles of vintage Bollinger, it seemed like a good deal.  So I decided, what the hell, I never drink, really, so I'm going to treat myself to something special on New Year's.  New Yorkers my age probably spend, on average, $50/wk on drinks (alcoholics!), so really, spread out over the course of the entire year, that's only $2/wk. 

But now that I've got it, I have this sudden covetous impulse to not share it.  I want to be a snorting little Golem with my Precious, and hide in my closet with my cold, sweaty green bottle and a Cartier flute swiped from my roommate. 

But I won't.

I know all this Christmas stuff is coming up sooner, but I want to talk about my favorite holiday.  I love New Year's.  I seem to be the only person who does.  It's always been my favorite holiday.  I just love its potential, I love the true romance of it, I love the idea of a new year and a new beginning.  I love the cliches, I love the champagne toast, I love that there is a single moment that we all celebrate together along the time zones and across the world.  I love the countdown, I love the kissing, I love the dressing up and the camaraderie.  Sure, it's usually a disappointing affair where we flip the telly on and watch that devilish Dick Clark anti-climactically drop the ball in Times Square, then race around trying to get to the next party before everybody leaves. 

One of the first New Year's I spent here in New York, I wore a white wig, white patent leather platform wedges and a sparkly blue disco mini-dress.  Immediately after midnight, I went and hit the street to catch a cab to the next party.  Of course, being a newbie to the New York nightlife, I didn't realize that it's practically impossible to get a yellow cab just post-midnight on New Year's, and that the only alternative to slow subway rides are the many unmarked gypsy cabs not governed by the Taxi & Limousine Commission who gouge riders with jaw-dropping prices people only begrudgingly pay on New Year's.  So, innocent little lamb that I was, I just stuck my arm out at all the cars, shivering on the sidewalk.  Miraculously, a cab with its off-duty sign lit up pulled up almost immediately.  I got in:

Me:  I'm going to 23rd St. and Lexington please.

Taximan: (with South Asian accent)  You working?

Me:  (Smiling blankly)  No, not working.  Just going to a party.

Of course, it wasn't until I recounted our exchange with friends later that I understood why I managed to get a cab so quickly at midnight on New Year's and what the cab driver really meant.  (It might take you a second too.  I'll wait.)

So New Year's can be a drag, especially when you're trying to run around town on icy pavement in chopstick heels, rushing from one dying party to another.  But on occasion, New Year's can live up to its potential and you feel that glorious surge of joy in that one moment when the clock strikes twelve.  The New Year's I spent in London was one of those hugely satisfying moments.  I was on my year abroad program, having an absolutely miserable time, being shunned by the rich Brit freshers in my dorm, eating tinned tomatoes for breakfast and cheese and onion pasties for dinner.  (If you thought your dorm food was bad, try English dorm food.  I actually became a vegetarian that year.  I know, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?).  I had been terribly lonely for months, and couldn't wait til my friends from Berkeley could nurse me back to health with some milk of human kindness.  We decided to go all out and be tourists that night, braving the awe-inspiring crowds of Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, where the masses were so thick that when someone tried to cop a feel I had no idea which ebb of people the hand had come from.  Anyway, we finally wound up in Piccadilly Circus as the countdown began.  It seemed like there were thousands of people around us, piercing the air with penny whistles, keeping a constant high-pitched buzz going.  The snow had begun to fall in very light, lazy drifts, glittering in the bright floodlights.  We stood in front of some Swiss building which, naturally, had clocks along its facade.  We turned our faces up to the diamonds in the sky, and when those clocks struck twelve, a deep, ringing roar came up from the crowd, dotted with the bright sound of hundreds of whistles, and I felt joyously, rapturously in the moment, and the total opposite of alone. 

This New Year's, my roommate and I are planning to cook a New Year's Eve dinner for a small group of friends.  The theme is "foods that bring good luck."  Thai people eat long noodles for long life; southerners have Hoppin' John, a dish of black-eyed peas and rice; the Swedes make a pudding with a lucky almond in it -- whoever gets the pudding with the almond will be the next to get married.  We are still putting the menu together and I would love any suggestions.

Those of you who know me know that I don't drink much because whatever I drink usually winds up coming back up soon after it goes down.  (Damn that Asian alcohol syndrome!)  But recently, I went out for a friend's birthday and had a most fabulous time.  I had my first taste of Cristal champagne and was totally hooked -- it slid from the delicate flute down my tongue, cold and slightly syrupy, like the most delicious golden sparkly grape juice, not too sweet or alcohol-fumed.  And most miraculous of all, it did not make me feel immediately ill.  So I've become obsessed with the idea of finding a delicious champagne to share with friends on New Year's.  I'm looking for suggestions for champagnes as well -- while I loved the Cristal, I'd prefer not to pay the $200 I would be required to fork over.

There will be several champagne tastings happening around town right before New Year's.  I'm making tentative ambitious plans to hit several up.  If anyone has any desire to join me, email me and we'll get crunk together, Mariah Carey style.

Astor Wines & Spirits
12 Astor Place
New York, NY 10003
info@astorwines.com
212-674-7500
212-529-7592 fax

Tuesday, December 14; 5-8 PM
Wine from California and Gosset Champagne

Wednesday, December 15; 5-8 PM
New Italian Wines and Krug Champagne

Tuesday, December 21; 5-8 PM
Sumptuous South American Wines and Veuve Clicquot Champagne

Tuesday, December 28; 5-8 PM
Small Producer Champagne

Thursday, December 30; 5-8 PM
Le Ragose Italians, Small Producer Champagnes and Moët & Chandon Champagne

Chelsea Wine Vault
@ THE CHELSEA MARKET
75 NINTH AVENUE
NEW YORK NY 10011
P 212.462.4244

Thursday, December 30, 2004 — 4pm to 7pm — Champagne Tasting

Friday, December 31, 2004 — 4pm to 6pm — Champagne Tasting

And here's a nice article in New York Magazine on a blind tasting of champagnes.

While I toil away in obscurity, the Manhattan User's Guide has written up a bunch of New York-centric food blogs -- and I am NOT included.  Sadly. And my friend Donna alerted me to this month's issue of Bon Appetit which also included a reference to the exciting, tumescent food blogosphere -- with no mention of me and my carpal-tunnel/myopia inducing efforts. 

*Sigh*

Who do I have to whore myself out to for a little recognition? 

I am reminded of a story a friend told of randomly running into a fellow musician in a convenience store in Germany:

My friend: Hey, So-and-so!

So-and-so: Where are the yogurt peanuts?

My friend:  I don't know.

So-and-so:  (Bottom lip curled up) They don't care.

I was talking to my roommate last night about divine dining experiences in New York, which got me thinking about all of the restaurants in the city I've never been to and that I'd like to try someday when, by the grace of God, I am not flat broke.  I'm going to make a wish list here.  Not to be presumptuous, but if your money is burning a hole in your pocket and you need a platonic dining companion, send me an e-mail.  I can either pepper our dinner conversation with snarky commentary, or I can keep my piehole shut and appreciate your patronage in silence.  And if you want to be written about in the blog, I'll be happy to paint you through rose-colored lenses, but if you'd rather be the Anonymous donor on my engraved marble slab of contributors, I will accommodate.  So here is my wish list:

Daniel
Bouley Bakery
Chanterelle
The Spotted Pig
Per Se
Masa/Bar Masa
Donguri
Stone Barns
Kittichai
Applewood
5 Ninth
Alain Ducasse
Fleur de Sel
Babbo (I have been there twice, and was underwhelmed both times, but a friend whose taste I trust insists that I must go back and try it again.)

Are there other places I shouldn't miss?

This morning, I stopped at Panya Bakery for their downy-crumbed apricot pear almond muffin. I walked another block to the Mud Truck in Astor Place and ordered a perfect cappuccino, hot and foamy, with half a sugar and a little cinnamon. I took my breakfast to go, munching and sipping on the slow ride back to Sunset Park. That is my idea of a perfect breakfast.

And I had a little flashback of the time I visited my cousin in Rochester, where he treated me to the "good" local breakfast place, the Panera at the local strip mall, where we ordered half salads, half sandwiches and soups in various permutations. And back when I was in Chicago during a tour, we stopped at the Panera up the block from the Comfort Inn to get dry croissants and coffee before getting back on the road. And most recently, on a girls' day out in L.A., my girlfriend and I saved our appetites, drove out of the La Puente suburb and into town to get our ladies-who-lunch nosh at...Panera.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Panera. Their soups are a little Campbell's-starchy, and their pastries are quite average, but it's affordable and pleasant enough, and it's convenient for burb living. But I have grown to love the way we eat in New York.

I sometimes feel like I'm in that scene in The Pope of Greenwich Village, where the Eric Roberts character goes to one shop for the bread, another shop for the meat, and yet another for the cheese before he sits down to make himself the perfect sandwich. I have my favorite shops, and I'm willing to travel around to get the best of the best. New York is European in that way -- without the suburban sprawl, all of those incredible shops are only minutes from one another. I can get my Parmagiano Reggiano Vacche Rosso from Murray's on Bleecker, then pick up solid raw wildflower honey at the Greenmarket. I can pick up chanterelles, porcini, and even white truffles in the East Village from the same supplier that Le Cirque and Alain Ducasse use. Or I can head to Whole Foods to pick up organic beef and grass-fed lamb, then zip down to Chinatown for dainty baby bok choy and cheap 5 lb. bags of jasmine rice, all on the way home. During the course of an errand running afternoon, I can pick up tart raspberry lemonade and a crystal-crisp, toothsome chocolate chip cookie at City Bakery, or a few slices of pizza pomodoro and a tiny San Pellegrino Aranciata from Sullivan Street Bakery, or a taro bun and sweet milky tea at the Golden Carriage Chinese Bakery, or a snowy lemon ice from Caffe Roma on a hot day, or a hot 60 cent cup of filter coffee with half and half from the corner deli.  I can check every errand off my list, shoot home on the subway, cook myself a light dinner, and then zip back out to meet my friends for a party. (Not that I really do that often, but I like that it's possible.)

I don't have to be content with $4 acidic coffee at Starbucks, or frozen margarita birthdays at Chevy's, or McDonald's chicken strips from a drive-thru which has been outsourced to a call center in a nearby town. And the thing is, I'm not content with that anymore. I have been royally spoiled by New York.  When I think about leaving New York, not only do I think about leaving my loved ones; I also think about having to leave Dean and Deluca, Tacos Matamoros, the Greenmarkets, my Chinese bakery right next to my subway stop, the Grand St. pho joints, Pearl Oyster Bar, late night sandwich and frites at Balthazar, 24 hour Korean BBQ house-calls in the wee hours. I have a little map in my head of places to relax with a hot beverage, places to meet new friends after work, places to grab a soda and use the restroom, places to show my out-of-town friends what an amazing city this is. I worked hard to acquaint myself with the many pleasures this city has to offer, and it's hard to think about all of the knowledge I'd have to reacquire in another town.  I'm sure there are places in Chicago, L.A., and maybe even Rochester where a girl can get the perfect muffin and the perfect cappuccino. But my muffin won't be served by a willowy Japanese girl with high-pitched, soft-consonanted English, my cappuccino won't come out of the window of a bright orange refurbished ice cream truck blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival at 10 am, and I certainly won't have the rest of the day ahead of me to enjoy doing and running and visiting and picking up and just being in my most favorite city of all.

Welcome to part 4 of the Dinner Date Guide, aka The Maxim-type Dude's Guide to Getting Laid By Convincing Girl To Come Over For Dinner Even Though Dude Can't Cook Worth Shit! By now we've covered the basics, the Meat and Potatoes girl, the Vegetarian, and the Atkins girl.  Now we move on to the girl nearest and dearest to my heart...

But first, I want to tell you a little morality tale.  A few years ago, I was back in San Francisco doing a gig with the band I was with.  We played at a little club in the Mission, and I sent out the e-mail missive alerting all of my S.F. cronies about the show.  An ex-fling of mine (let's call him Moto) came to the show and we flirted (as exes do) after the gig was over.  He invited me to come to his house for dinner and I accepted.

It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together -- I was going over to his house anticipating a little action outside of the kitchen.  I figure, I'm in town for a second, neither of us has to worry that there are any strings attached, and dinner is only a preliminary, a formality before the main course.  Now I know that I can be an asshole when it comes to food, asserting my opinion when it is sometimes not necessary or solicited.  But I wasn't under any illusions that our little get-together would be about the food.

I arrived dinner time the next day at an apartment building on one of S.F.'s proverbial hills just outside the Tenderloin, wondering what was on the menu for the evening.  We said our hellos and Moto let me know that we were going to cook dinner together. 

Me:  What are we having?

Moto:  I don't know, I have this broccoli, and we could have some pasta alfredo.

Me:  (gulping)  Okay.  Let's get started.

He opened his bare-shelved refrigerator and pulled out the lone fresh resident, some sad, stumpy broccoli with florets that had opened and gone yellow. 

Me:  Um, do you have butter?

Moto:  No, but I have some olive oil.

He pulled a lilliputian bottle of olive oil down from the naked shelves of his cabinet.  It was obvious to me that dinner was not going to be an elaborate affair.  I told him that I would do the broccoli and he could do the pasta. 

In a 2-quart sized pot, he boiled a small amount of water and managed to push the entire box of spaghetti into the few cups of water.  I didn't want to tell Moto that pasta like to swim like free fish in an ocean, not like striped bass in the Chinese restaurant tank.  I didn't want to be rude.  But I was feeling very sorry for that pasta.  In the meantime, I trimmed the broccoli of its (many) inedible bits, found a jar of pre-minced garlic of indeterminate age in the underused refrigerator, and got to work on a saute in the thin steel pan. 

I watched as he grated the shrink-wrapped, perfectly triangular chunk of Sargento "parmesan," heated up some heavy cream in another pan, and nonchalantly threw the cheese into the white pool.  I watched as the cheese melted in clumps that swam around the cream.  He drained the pasta in a tiny plastic colander and poured the pasta into the sauce.

We sat down to eat our dinner of long-dead broccoli and spaghetti in chunky milk.  Now maybe it was the disappointing dinner, and maybe it was the boring slide-show of Moto's cross-country motorcycle travels, but I lost my appetite and went back to the apartment I was staying at, unsated in every way.

Needless to say, he's just the kind of guy who could have used a little Dinner Date Guide help.  We've already established that I am not the kind of girl you are trying to date anyway, but we food snobs come in all kinds of packages, including lovely shapely ones you Maxim men may desire.  Still, there are a couple of lessons you should learn from this story, should you still want to woo an epicurean asshole like me:

1.  Every meal counts with the epicure, and she has decided to spend a meal with you, despite the fact that you don't seem like the kind of guy who enjoys cooking.  She must like you or she wouldn't have agreed to come over in the first place.  It's almost in the bag, buddy.  Sure, she may have eaten a little something before your date, just in case dinner turned out to be a disaster, but she showed up in spite of her low expectations.  She probably wants it as much as you do.

2.  Even though she agreed to come over, not for the food but for the dessert, it is still possible for you to fuck it up.  Clumpy cheese and rotting veggies are not sexy.  You don't have to be (dreamy) Eric Ripert.  You just need to show her that you cared enough to put the TINIEST bit of effort into the food. 

And so, here we go with contestant #4:

The Girl: The Epicure.  She knows her romanesco from her romesco sauce.  She lives to eat and doesn't understand people who only eat to live.  She's probably orally fixated and good at you-know-what, so if you play your cards right, this could be your lucky night.

The Menu: Braised short ribs.  Roasted Parsnips.  Salad.  Cheese.

Now, we've established that you are not Jacques Pepin, and that's okay.  So we are going to thwart disaster by getting you started with the best ingredients and giving you recipes that are very very difficult to fuck up.

The short ribs:  Okay, I'm going to cheat a little here and refer you to a couple of recipes.  There's one in the Chez Panisse Cafe cookbook and one in the French Laundry cookbook.  They are both easy to follow and incredibly impressive.  Besides, Alice Waters and Thomas Keller can explain the techniques better than I can.  The reason I have chosen this recipe for you is that short ribs are difficult to mess up.  If you forget it's in the oven, no problem -- the longer it cooks, the better it gets.  You should cook them the day before your date -- this way, the flavors will really penetrate the meat and you can strain and de-fat the sauce for reheating the day of.  Also, the fact that you own one of these cookbooks will go a long way with your potential paramour, so make sure that it's lying out conspicuously, maybe with a nice, small smudge of grease and a smattering of flour between the pages.

The parsnips:  They look like carrots but they taste like a cross between a carrot and a sweet potato.  They're wonderful and super easy to prepare.  Peel them, chunk them, toss them in a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until they are tender.  (Originally I thought that roasted jerusalem artichokes would be very impressive and delicious -- but then I remembered that they purportedly cause major gas problems in many diners.  You see how much I care about your welfare?  The only thing worse than having to pass gas in bed is having to pretend your sexy partner didn't just pass gas in bed.  Or is it the other way around?)  Anyway, when she's got you on ball and chain and you have no problem with involuntary bodily functions around each other, you can try the jerusalem artichokes prepared the same way.  Until then, stick to parsnips.

The Salad:  Salad is so easy.  Good lettuces are the key to a good salad.  I personally don't enjoy the standard baby mesclun that's so widely available these days.  There's too much bitter frisee and not enough crispness for my taste.  I like to start with what I once heard chef Peter of Savoy restaurant call "teenage lettuce": lettuce that's bigger than baby, but smaller than headed lettuce.  This way you get the delicate flavor of mesclun and a bit more of a textural crunch, but not the fibrous crudeness of the large heads of lettuce.  Windfall Farms at the Union Square Greenmarket has a nice mix of lettuces that are my absolute favorite -- large, not bitter, but still crisp.  While you're there, you can pick up a variety of greens to add -- silky mache, savory sunflower sprouts,  sexy burgundy amaranth.  You don't drown these living greens in buttermilk ranch or canola oil and dehydrated onion bottled salad dressings.  Just take a dollop of dijon mustard, 2 glugs of good quality extra virgin olive oil, 1 glug of good white wine vinegar, a 1/2 spoon of honey, salt, pepper and some minced chives, whisk, and toss with the greens.  Use your clean hands to toss the salad -- it's very easy, distributes the dressing best, and you won't get lots of unsightly dents in your greens.  You can choose to serve the salad with the meal or after the ribs and parsnips.  I just can't get used to eating salad at the end of the meal.  (I saw an episode of Oprah where some "teen expert" who seemed to be neither a "teen" nor an "expert" said that "tossing the salad" is a euphemism for fellatio.  But the metaphor doesn't work for me so I'm not going to proliferate it.)

The Cheese:  You are serving cheese for dessert.  I know your brain is reeling from the concept, but it's a perfectly acceptable practice in many parts of the world.  This is the easy part.  Go down to Murray's Cheese shop, or an equivalent excellent cheese shop in your part of the world, and tell the orangey-blond haired Latino guy with the lisp behind the counter (or your local equivalent) that you want three cheeses for an after dinner cheese plate.  Also ask him to get you the sides, like maybe quince paste, date and almond cake, roasted marcona almonds, etc.  He will hook you up.  That guy is a psychic cheese genius.

Amendment, 12/13/04 -- My friend Donna pointed out that cheese breath stinks and may foul the otherwise romantic ambience you have created thus far. I stubbornly protested and said that I didn't think it was a problem (more because I didn't want to admit I was wrong and besides, I was in no mood to re-post). After a cheddar sample at the Greenmarket on Saturday left me tasting fermented milk on my tongue for hours afterwards, I decided she was right and wanted to take this time to give you the alternate anti-halitosis dessert option. Chocolate: My friends, do not underestimate the power of a well-made truffle. Chocolate=seratonin=sex. There are several excellent chocolate shops around town. My current favorite is Vosges Chocolate, with their artful array of inventive chocolates. I love the complex Naga Curry truffle and the caramel dream Sale de Mare truffle. Champagne truffles from Teuscher are classic winners. (I like to think that the first time my dear friend Dottie took a liking to me was when I declared Teuscher the best chocolates ever, to which she looked at me with surprise and replied, "You are a classy lady." -- and that might just be the best compliment I've ever received, considering the very classy source.)

****

And there you have it folks, your guide to cooking and serving ladies of the night.  I didn't discuss alcohol because I don't drink and I don't know the first thing about what to serve with what.  Go to a good wine shop and ask them for help.  To those of you who are sorry/angry/disappointed that the guide has come to a close, I know there are other types of women out there, and that we womyn are not so homogenized that we only fall into four limited categories and blah blah blah.  But if this guide saves one girl from a night of gastronomic disgust, or provides one lonely Maxim dude and one hungry woman with a little warm companionship for an evening, then I'm proud to have helped make it happen. 

And now, I'm tired of you Maxim dude.  Get out of my bed.  But leave the cheese.  And the date and almond cake. 

For those of you who have just tuned in, this is part 3 of the dinner date guide, aka The Maxim-type Dude's Guide to Getting Laid By Convincing Girl To Come Over For Dinner Even Though Dude Can't Cook Worth Shit! We've already covered the basics, the Meat and Potatoes girl and the Vegetarian. Now we move on to higher levels of difficulty.

Contestant #3

The Girl: She's on the Atkins diet. She knows what the fuck "net carbs" means. Breads and pastas are her axis of evil, but she's tired of spreading butter on her bacon. You want to make sure she doesn't go back to looking like she did when you were in high school, you chauvinist pig, so you'd better get your Splenda on.

The Menu: Broiled lamb chops. Cauliflower puree. Haricot verts with lemon vinaigrette. Fresh figs and goat cheese.

This was a tough one. I mean, what are these people thinking? How could being thin possibly taste better than a big bowl of pasta alla amatriciana, slick with olive oil and san marzanos, or a stack of crisp-edged pancakes with a side of maple butter for dunking? I guess I'll never know. I tried to cut out all carbs once, but I became lupine and beady-eyed, stalking my way through the day with a deep insatiable hunger. I admire the Atkins-committed -- you are woven of stronger wool than I. But the question is, what are the key things to think about in making a simple meal without carbohydrates? Variety of texture and color are always important in a meal, but perhaps they play an even larger role when the cook is trying to hide the fact that something is missing.

The lamb chops: I prefer the tiny grass-fed lamb chops from New Zealand -- they are juicy, tender, and super-flavorful. I think a lot of American chops are grain-fed -- they tend to be streaky with fat and not as soft. Rub them with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Put them close to the broiler for 2 minutes on each side. If you go out and get a grill pan, you can do them on top of the stove for the same amount of time and get those nice barbecue marks on your wee chops.

The cauliflower: Steam the cauliflower til quite tender. Heat up some cream and butter. Mash the cauliflower using a fork. Add the cream, butter, and 1/2 cup of freshly grated parmesan (and of course you understand that I am referring to block of cheese, not cardboard can or even labeled plastic tupperware).

The haricots verts: Haricots verts are just baby green beans. You can get them at any good upscale grocery store. In a pinch you can use adult green beans -- just look for the smallest ones you can find. Yes, I mean go through the pile by hand and pick out the good ones. Trim the stem ends. Boil them in a lot of rapidly boiling, salted water, for 3-4 min. or until they are tender and not crisp. (Again, I do not believe in crisp green beans. They should be green and brightly flavored, but they should be tender to the tooth.) Transfer into ice water to stop them from cooking further. Prepare a vinaigrette with the juice of half a lemon, 2 glugs of olive oil, sea salt, pepper, and a tsp. of dijon mustard. Add 1/2 tsp. of honey (she'll never know) and whisk. Toss with drained green beans and serve at room temperature.

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When I was working at Whole Foods in the produce department, all of the haricots verts and mini-pattypan squashes were coming out of Guatemala. I used to imagine miniature farms with Guatemalan hobbit pickers plucking all the tiny veggies from spindly vines. I also used to imagine that the little rotten cherry tomatoes were feeling ill and vomiting their juicy innards in protest. I imagined that the Granny Smiths were in some sort of fruity daisy chain, lined up protuberance to puckered asshole in their military rows. The fat, contentious grapefruit were elbowing each other for room in their crowded pen, occasionally fussing so much that they had to take their disputes to the ground, where they could roll around in fisticuffs. When you silently stack fruits and vegetables for eight hours a day, you have a lot of time to think about really random shit.

Next up, the epicure.

This is the second installment of the dinner date guide, aka The Maxim-type Dude's Guide to Getting Laid By Convincing Girl To Come Over For Dinner Even Though Dude Can't Cook Worth Shit! For the basics and a run-down of contestant #1, the Meat and Potatoes girl, read the Dinner Date Guide! Part 1.

Without further adieu, contestant #2:

The Girl: She's a vegetarian. She tries not to wear leather, though she does like milk and honey in her morning cup of chai. She cried while explaining the plight of Proctor & Gamble's laboratory animals, but you didn't hear a word she said past the phrase "shaved bunnies."

The Menu: Edamame with sea salt. Spicy Eggplant with Tofu and Basil over Brown Rice. Ciao Bella coconut sorbet.

The Edamame: Look, every idiot, you Maxim-dude included, can make edamame. Serving edamame to your guest may even suggest that you are the kind, sensitive, worldly man she would want to lay down with. Buy frozen edamame pods. Boil them. Season with coarse sea salt, preferably some nice fleur de sel or some moist coarse Asian sea salt, which will elevate your plain boiled legumes into a thing of beauty.

Now, about the main course: stir-fries are simple fast-food. All you need is protein, veg, allium (garlic/onion/scallion family) and sauce. There are tons of cooking sauces out there which are delicious and easy to use. Your stir-fries need not be limited to soy sauce, sugar, and cornstarch. There are ready-to-use sauces like black bean and garlic, yellow bean sauce, oyster sauce, ponzu, curry pastes, fish sauce, etc. Get familiar with these sauces, as a composer gets to know the instruments of an orchestra. Some are loud, some are subtle, all are useful for making delicious food at a moment's notice.

The Eggplant: Cook your brown rice according to directions. Take phallic Chinese or Japanese Eggplant, cut in half lengthwise and cut into 3 inch chunks. Steam the eggplant until just tender. In a large wok or frying pan over high heat, quickly saute a little minced garlic and 1/2 a sliced red onion. Add 1/2 sliced red bell pepper and sliced long green chili, saute another minute. Add cubed block of soft tofu (not silken), eggplant, 1 1/2 tbsp. Lee Kum Kee vegetarian stir-fry sauce (which is made from mushroom extract) and cook til heated through. Add a large handful of torn Thai basil or green basil and remove from heat. Serve immediately.

*A note on chopsticks: Thai people only use chopsticks with noodles. When it comes to rice dishes, they eat with a spoon in the right hand and a fork in the left, the fork doing the duties usually relegated to the knife in Western-style eating. So if your chopsticks struggle in a losing battle with delicate clumps of rice, you don't have to be ashamed: ditch 'em and pick up the fork. An entire Asian nation stands behind you.