June 2005 Archives

Quick but important lesson here, folks.  Last weekend I made a Thai style cucumber salad for a potluck birthday party, but I had just run out of Tiparos fish sauce.  Since I wasn't about to go into Chinatown just to pick up fish sauce for my dish, I decided to go ahead and try the Kame fish sauce my roommate had in the cupboard, unopened.  The faux-Asian font should have tipped me off to its quality, but I soldiered on anyway.

It tasted like...nothing.  Like salt water.  Fish sauce is supposed to have a pungency, an umami if you will, that lends complexity to Southeast Asian foods.  The Kame had nothing.  As you can see, I had to use half the little bottle for my salad, which in true fish sauce would be enough salt to cure whale meat.  Kame lists the ingredients as: water, salt, high fructose corn syrup (que? quoi? wha?), and "fish extract".  I had to compensate for the lack of flavor by grinding down extra dried shrimp.

Today I went to the excellent Thai grocery on Mosco St. and bought a squeeze bottle of trusty Squid fish sauce (which has no squid in it, by the way -- Squid is just the brand name.)  Squid lists the ingredients as a whopping 60% fish, 38% salt, and 2% granulated white sugar.  The label points out that there are no added preservatives.  Alright, I know there's gotta be water somewhere in there too, but the point is, it's fishier, it's saltier, and it doesn't have any high fructose gobbledygook.

The 207 mL Kame, which was probably purchased at Garden of Eden, was $2.85 according to the still attached price tag.  The 750 mL Squid fish sauce was $1.50.  And the price printed on the bottle is 23 baht, which is about 55 cents.  So even though the vastly inferior Kame is more than five times the price of the Squid, the fine folks at the Bangkok Center Grocery who sell the Squid can still turn a pretty profit.

The moral of the story?  Don't ever buy anything with the faux Asian font on it.  And you don't always get what you pay for.  Don't be a sucka.  I recommend Tiparos fish sauce and Squid fish sauce, the two brands I grew up with.

(Incidentally, Squid used to not add sugar to their fish sauce.  But Tiparos became the #1 brand of fish sauce in Thailand, and their formula required a touch of sugar.  So, interestingly enough, Squid now adds sugar too.)

Like, omigod, I'm totally going to Cali tomorrow, I'm SO EXCITED?  To visit my family?  For July 4th weekend?  I can totally eat egg white omelets, like, everyday?

I can't drive for shit even though I grew up in Hell.A., so my parents still have to drive me around, or my friends have to come pick me up.  Which they do, thank God, because there's nothing to do within reasonable walking distance of my house in La Puente except loiter at the Stater Bros. supermarket, loiter at the am/pm gas mart, or go fishing for bionic crawdads in the cement drainage ditch behind my house. I shit you not.

I'm happy to be leaving Sunset Park for July 4 because some nut has been distributing fireworks to the amateur pyros in the hood.  Last week, while waiting to meet folks at Tacos Matamoros, the explosive pops and the burning objects shooting every which way were really putting me on edge.  I always think shotgun and drive-by when I hear loud pops like that.  Another unfortunate leftover of my La Puente childhood.

I don't want to give you the wrong impression -- I don't hate L.A. the way I did when I was 16.  In fact, I'm looking forward to seeing people I love, soaking in some smog-filtered sunshine, and eating well.  I'm planning to eat a meal at my MOST FAVORITE THAI RESTAURANT, Ruen Pair on Hollywood Blvd.  My parents will also be barbecueing at home for my cousins and my brother and his friends.  Reports TK if I remember to pack my digital cam.

In the meantime, be good.  Don't get drunk and fall off someone's roof.   And remember, Somebody in California Loves You!

Not that I have any business going to McDonald's, but I had a craving for their caramel sundae.  I went to the Times Square McD's while I was in the hood with my cousin -- NO CARAMEL SUNDAES.  I went to the McD's by my train station -- NO CARAMEL SUNDAES.  McDonald's, this is the only item on your whole menu I will go out of my way to get.  It is the only thing I think you do better than anyone else (even Shake Shack, whose caramel sauce is drippy and a little burnt). 

In a concerted effort to figure out whether or not it's been permanently removed from the menu, I went to the website, where I discovered this shiny dangling carrot.

Oh my Buddha, I never realized how much McDonald's cared about me and my family!  In honor of the Year of the Rooster (which I learned all about on their website), I am going to go get some Chicken Selects and eat them with my people's Sweet n' Sour Sauce and Hot Mustard.  I will reflect on the humble greatness of Yao Ming and how "our diverse cultures and our everyday American lifestyle are becoming one."

UPDATE!  Last night, I was passing by a McD's in Bay Ridge and went to look at their menu -- no caramel, and the word "caramel" was covered up with a piece of tape on the menu.  Looks like they've very quietly rubbed the caramel out, guys.  It's probably for the best.  Who knows what goes into that stuff...

The Strong Buzz points to Harriett's Tomato this week, an excellent NYC based food blog focusing on high-class home cooking.  Author Michele Gentille looks like she stepped out of a Mucha drawing, her French is probably impeccable (she attended La Varenne Culinary School in Paris and Burgundy), her recipes are well-documented and her stories seem nicely researched.  If you must go, go there.  But please come back.  I may be more Matisse than Mucha, but I've still got a couple of dirty Twinkies jokes up my sleeve.

I hit Fire Island with some friends on Saturday and had a most relaxing day napping in the sun to the sound of the ocean.  I look like a June strawberry in spots where I didn't slather the sunscreen thoroughly, and I've got an unfortunate lily-white X marking up my roasted back, but I'm as happy as an unharvested clam in red-tide Massachussetts.

Hopefully this will be the first of many beach field trips this year, and it got me thinking -- what kind of picnic should one bring to the beach?  I think there are two kinds of picnickers:

A.  The kind they show in J. Crew ads who think that a picnic should be a 12-course feast packed into a wicker basket, with Dixie plates balanced on poised, slender laps

and

B.  The kind who want to nap in peace and hopefully not starve while at the beach.

I am a type B on this one, which may come as a surprise.  If I want a fancy meal, I want to have it at home, where I am close to my pantry and my stove and I can eat on a real table with real silverware and a real plate.  I don't want to lug something heavy and fancy all the way to the beach, only to have it spoil in the heat, get sloshed around or crushed in my bag, and completely annoy me with how much space it is taking up on the train.  I am not bringing a big-ass Coleman cooler with ice packs the way my L.A.  suburban parents did -- they never had to deal with the subway, the LIRR, and the ferry. 

To this end, I have a couple of rules of thumb about picnic food, which can also be applied to airplane snacks:

1.  No utensils or plates required
2.  No tupperware you have to bring back home
3.  No fragile foods
4.  Must be delicious and unspoiled at beach temperature (way above room temperature)

So what does that leave you?  Here are some suggestions for your next beach trip:

Sandwiches -- What genius decided to put meat between two pieces of bread and take it to go?  The English credit the Earl of Sandwich, though part of me suspects that was a good P.R. campaign.  But this is the best time for a well-composed, not overfilled sandwich.  If you're bored with the sandwiches you eat everyday at work, try some different fillings -- I love mortadella, San Daniele prosciutto, serrano ham, soppresata; ask Cielo at Murray's to pair them with some great cheeses like the sheepy Pecorino Pepato we had on the mortadella sandwich. 

For road trips, I think airing on the dry side is better.  Make your sandwich with tomato and you'll wind up with a soggy mess by the time you get to the sand.  I prefer to add easy to chew through roasted vegetables like summer squash and red pepper; a little roasted garlic, pesto, caponata, or avocado spread on one side of the bread is very chic.

A nice sturdy bread will hold up well even if you save your snack for the train ride back to town.  This weekend, I hollowed out Amy's Bread's $2 mini rustic Italian -- perfect for a sandwich for two.  Any boule or ciabatta loaf makes a great sandwich, and as an added bonus, the hollowed out whole loaves tend to hold the sandwich together better than two flat slices of bread.  Throw a little recloseable jar of cornichons and a bag of chips in your backpack and you're good to go.

And, for the love of god, don't put sprouts on your sandwich.  While working in the produce department of a grocery store, I learned that by law, sprouts must be kept below a certain temperature in those refrigerated cases -- otherwise, they are susceptible to E. Coli and other sickness-inducing bacteria (I know, I always thought E. Coli was a meat bacteria, so don't ask me why it gets into sprouts because I don't know why.)  Besides, as far as I'm concerned, those sprouts are mostly disgusting and belong in the soil, not in your food.

Sticky rice and fried beef jerky -- glutinous sticky rice is the traditional to go food for Thai families.  You eat it with your hands, it sticks to your ribs, and it's plenty delicious at room temperature.  My aunt used to make a sort of sticky rice sushi -- fried beef jerky rolled up in the middle of a log of sticky rice -- which we kids all fought over.   With a sliced kirby cucumber, it makes an easy to carry, yet surprisingly satisfying mid-day meal.

Onigiri -- same idea, different format: rice with cooked salted salmon, salted plum, or some other filling, shaped into a triangle and wrapped with a big piece of seaweed.  The best ones to purchase are from Sunrise Mart, though the keep-dry packaging on the JAS mart rice balls is very cool. 

Cheese -- Cheeses are great to share with friends -- just one plastic knife necessary.  But steer clear of the softer cheeses like brie, chevre and mozzarella, which will just melt, get squished around and make a mess in your bag.  Instead, bring semi-hard and hard cheeses.  Prima Donna, a semi-hard gouda made with Italian cultures, was a big hit on our trip, and didn't start melting grease right through the wrapping paper the way the Lord of the Hundreds sheep's milk did.  Hard cheeses like Parmigiano Reggiano and the crumbly Provolone Mandorone are also easy to share and nibble, especially with crisp everything-seasoned flatbreads and black pepper crackers.

Crudite -- need fiber?  Carrots and celery are fine, but why not try sliced jicama, French Breakfast radishes, blanched green beans, sugar snap peas, and a little disposable container with chutney for dipping?

Fruits -- fruit is great for the beach, especially since summertime brings us a cornucopia of yummy locally grown choices.  But as we discovered on our little jaunt, soft, ripe strawberries are not happy being jostled around in the cooler.  However, the early cherries fared quite well.  Grapes, cherries, blueberries, whole plums will travel well -- just wash them before you leave the house because chances are, you'll be far away from a spigot of potable water.  Cut fruits tend to get a little juicy and messy, but pineapple, cantaloupe and honeydew will probably fare better in a ziploc than the softer papaya, peach and mango.   (Besides, peaches are nowhere near ready yet, and if you're not eating a local peach that was picked ripe from a tri-state tree, you are not eating a peach.)

Cookies -- Forget the cakes, forget the pie and go with cookies.  They're already in individual serving sizes, they can withstand being tossed around in a beach bag, and everyone loves a good cookie.  Chocolate chips may melt and make a mess, though, so try making oatmeal cranberry, peanut butter or, one of my favorites, cinnamon  anointed snickerdoodles.

Water -- Don't waste your energy carting thirst-increasing soda to the beach.  Bring a huge jug of water with you, like I did, but unlike me, drink it.  It's easy to get heat stroke, even when those ocean breezes seem to be cooling you pleasantly.  I think I lost some brain mass from dehydration while baking out at Sunken Forest, and I'm definitely going to lose a layer of epidermis. 

Have fun in the sun, and don't be chicken about asking your friends to platonically put sunscreen on your back!

Name:  Adam Kuban

Occupation:  Copy editor at Martha Stewart Living magazine

Borough:  The BK. (Park Slope represent.)

What did you eat today?

8 a.m., breakfast: Cracklin' Oat Bran in organic whole milk, with a baby banana, thinly sliced into the bowl.

1 p.m., lunch: Small chicken and basmati rice with veggies, chickpeas, and hot and white sauce, from the Trini-Paki Boyz street cart on 43rd and Sixth Ave. Great stuff, and at $2.50 for a small serving -- the perfect amount for a pizza/burger blogger watching his weight -- a great deal. And a cold, cold can of Coke.

2 p.m., coworker's birthday party: 3 chocolate chip cookies with milk; tortilla chips with freshly made guacamole; a homemade toasted-coconut, caramel, and chocolate bar cookie à la those delicious Girl Scout cookies; one miniature "brownie bite"; half a Sour Power watermelon strip (too sour to finish). And a can of Coke.

3 p.m., mid-afternoon snack: Two sticks of Glico Pizza Pretz. [Ed.--Two sticks?  How can you stop at two?  That's Herculean.]

4:30 p.m., late-afternoon snack: Hershey's new Take Five candy bar, a tasty combination of pretzels, peanuts AND peanut butter, chocolate, and caramel.

10:20 p.m., dinner: 1/2-pound hamburger, cooked medium-rare, with cheddar and a slice of crisp white onion. Side of fries. And a pickle. Two Brooklyn Lagers.

What do you never eat?

Vegetables, judging from the day's meal. Actually, I'll try just about anything, but I really don't like olives. Pretty strange for a pizza guy, huh? Olive oil: Mmm, so so good. Whole olives: Not so much.

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Liquid rennet, for making homemade mozzarella. It's a small bottle, but a little goes a long way, and I'm nowhere near finishing it. (And, unfortunately, I haven't made mutz in a long time.)

Dr Pepper.

Oh, and like most everyone, condiments and sauces: a few different mustards, ketchup, tonkatsu sauce, etc.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

"Big Red," my stand mixer, which is, you guessed it, red. Specifically "Empire Red," as per the Kitchen Aid company. As long as I keep my electric bill paid, there's no need to knead dough by hand in this guy's apartment. Close second: the CD player. Good music
always makes cooking more enjoyable.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Honestly? Pret. I usually forget to pack a lunch, and it's one of the best food dispensaries near the office, which is in the food-poor section of the city known as Midtown. I'm notoriously impatient and hate lines (DiFara Pizza and Shake Shack, therefore, are great sources of angst in my world). So Pret's premade sandwiches and
brigade of cashiers does me right.

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

Oh my. That's quite a doozy. Hmm. Well, I'd like to have a picnic on a certain beach with friends. On the menu:
A sack of White Castle hamburgers and cheeseburgers.
Onion rings -- real rings from the sweetest, crispest onions I could find (not those mushy diced things that all New York diners seem to serve), with a light batter perfectly fried to a light-golden hue.
Corn dogs.
Cold, cold Mexican Coca-Cola -- the kind made with real cane sugar and bottled in curvy glass bottles.
Assorted beers.
Funnel cake for dessert.
And vanilla chocolate chip ice cream in a waffle cone with a chocolate-sprinkle rim.
(Basically a county fair in a nutshell.)

Adam Kuban is editor and publisher of Slice NY and A Hamburger Today. 

Pork used to taste different, didn't it?  When my dad made pork chops, he'd fry them up with a little fish sauce and pepper -- no brine, just fat and the pungent salt of fish sauce, the savory richness of the bone marrow, and meat that pulled apart easily, loosely held together in the corners along the bone by the gossamer webs of fat between the grain. 

These days, when I try to fry up a pork chop that way, I get tight white meat, dense and difficult to cut through, and dry as a bone.  I can appreciate the juiciness of brined chops, but that ham-like quality is not what I remember, what I crave, when I think of a good pork chop. 

But this Saturday, I spent some cash at the Violet Hill Farms stand at the Greenmarket.  I'd been ecstatically surprised by the savory oomph of their ground pork in the past, despite the fact that it was always frozen when I bought it.  Was I crazy?  I mean, it's just ground pork.  But I sent my friend Winnie there and she had the same reaction.  I've enjoyed their meaty, rich and smoky bacon many mornings, the crisp, thick chunks dipped in New York maple syrup.  I decided to give their chops a try, with high hopes.

Don't be scared of the vacuum pack, because this is what a chop should look like.  Not pale pink like the distant supermarket cousin, but gorgeous rosy-beige in the loin, 1 1/2 inches thick, with exposed rib marrow and a snowy 1 inch "fat cap", as Alice Waters calls it in the Chez Panisse Cafe cookbook.  I followed her simple-cure recipe, which required some crushed bay leaf, a little allspice, salt and pepper, and I rubbed the beautiful chops before letting them sit covered overnight in the fridge.

The next day, I let them sit out for an hour to get them closer to room temperature.  I heated a little bit of olive oil my new All-Clad 4 qt. saute pan and gently laid those chops down in the smoking oil.  The fat cap melted down a bit and hugged the loin a little tighter.  5 minutes on each side without any movement disturbances gave the loin a rich goldenrod browning I haven't seen on a chop in a long time.  Then 5 minutes in a 350 degree oven to help the insides cook through.  When they were finished, I set them aside to rest.

I heated up some butter and tossed my pre-blanched white turnips, baby carrots, and peas (frozen, alas).  Let me tell you something, a pork chop like this is the KING of meats.  It was sticky-fatty, not watery, seasoned all the way through; crisp along the edges and tender through the grain; salty and savory set off by the sweetness of the buttered early summer veg.  In my mind, a chop like this can stand up proudly against any ritzy beer-fed, massaged beef filet.

If you've forgotten what pork should taste like (because, contrary to the marketing campaign, pork was never meant to be the Other White Meat), you MUST try these chops.  The Chez Panisse Cafe cookbook says these are best grilled, 7 minutes per side, but these pan-frieds were just right for me. 

Violet Hill Farms
Union Square Greenmarket
Saturdays
Southwest corner of the square, on the dog run side

About $10 for two chops

The years I worked for the Paffenroths, they had limited success growing chervil, and year after year the chefs and customers requested it.  The past few years, Farmer Alex has figured this finicky green out, and they have generous, sprightly bunches of chervil for only $1.  Cooking it will destroy its delicate aroma, so chop the lacy, pinky-nail sized leaves and add at the last minute to fish dishes; sprinkle some over your buttered carrots or omelette; its anise-y flavor lends itself well to Asian foods too, as it did in my green salad with radishes and soy ginger garlic dressing.  And if you've got lots leftover after you're done cooking (which wouldn't be a surprise considering the fistful you get for a dollar), you have a sophisticated, pretty garnish for EVERYTHING.

Paffenroth Gardens
Union Square Greenmarket
North Side of Union Square on Wednesdays, in front of Barnes & Noble
West Side of Union Square on Saturdays, in front of Union Square Cafe

Justin, mover and shaker over at New Release, says that tomorrow, June 21, a corporately-sponsored 20-ton, 2 1/2 story kiwi strawberry ice pop will be erected (heh heh) in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for biggest ice phallus and to sell more pink sugar juice.

I would go take a picture for you but I don't want to be maimed by a falling pink ice shaft.  Despite the fact that I am now insured.

******

For those of you who haven't mastered reading my mind yet, this is happening in Union Square.  The event starts at 10 am, but the pop will be unveiled at noon; event ends at 2 pm.  But weather.com says it's going to be 82 degrees tomorrow so if you don't want to take a picture of a melty Snapple puddle, I suggest you gawk on the early side.

******

UPDATE!  Mmmmmmmmmmmkay?!  I guess it was so hot, they couldn't even get it up (heh heh). 

(Lunch at Pearl Oyster Bar -- REBECCA is having the pan-fried cod sandwich, DOUG* is having the fried oyster roll, GANDA* is having fried oysters and Caesar salad with extra anchovy; we are discussing the merits of the Spider-Man movies.)

REBECCA:  My friend saw Tobey Maguire in L.A. and said he looked awful.

DOUG:  He must be a druggie.

REBECCA:  No, he wasn't on drugs, but he was pasty, like he was...uh...

DOUG:  A vegetarian?**

------

*This, despite the fact that red tide has shut down Massachussetts shellfishing and the fact that my friend Dottie says no oysters in months without R.  But I trust Rebecca Charles not to kill me and fried oysters just sounded so GOOD.

**Note to Doug -- Don't think I'm not going to use this against you when you journey towards the dark side of the force and stop eating meat, as you keep promising to do.