August 2005 Archives

...is like watching incredible porn while having sex.*  It doesn't matter how spectacular your dinner seemed before you turned the telly on; whatever Jacques Pepin is doing looks SO MUCH BETTER.



*Not that I know what porn is like, Mae.  Or sex.

After six years of unintentionally but successfully switching boroughs right before receiving jury duty summons, the New York State Justice System finally got my number.  I have to report to Jay St. tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. for my civic duty as a resident of Kings County.  Apparently, I even have to leave my cell phone at home because it has a camera (g-d bells and whistles!).

Got any Brooklyn courthouse-area restaurant recommendations?

Hey kids,

I'm singing back-up for m'lady Miho Hatori this week.  Please come by, shake your groove thing, and get an extra snappy dog from Katz's.  With mustard, onions, and a Cel-Ray.  For me.  And maybe for you too.  I'm only kidding.  Okay, maybe I'm only half-kidding.  But not about the show.  Here are the details:

WHAT              Miho Hatori
WHEN              August 31st, Wednesday, 10:30PM
WHERE             Mercury Lounge
                        217 E.Houston St. (corner of AVE A & Houston)
With                 Thomas Bartlett
                        Oren Bloedow
                        Shelley Burgon
                        Rob Di Pietro
                        Gilmar Gomes
                        Ben Perowsky
                        Ganda Suthivarakom
Tickets            $10

Opening bands are: Joemca & Poets, Mark Geary, and Summer Lawns.   

Name: Allen Wong

Occupation: Student/Overall Amateur

Borough: Brooklyn

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: Two eggs, beaten with half-and-half and then fried. A glass of milk.
Lunch: From home: Rice, sweet potato shoots, and cold chicken smothered in Thai sweet chili sauces and sriracha.
Snack: A yellow peach.
Dinner: Rice, bittermelon and beef, chicken with two types of mushroom, and a packet of ready-to-serve jellyfish (don't get this - ever).

What do you never eat?

Fast food chains, instant [noodles, oatmeal, rice,], and KRAFT products are in my ICK! list. Nothing alive.

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

Ginger, scallions, eggs, and fruit.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

That would be the trusty wok; if all else fails, the wok can do it.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Recently: Ba Xuyen
Chef Liu's (A shanghaiese place a block away from home)
Cho Lon
Not So Recently: Ocean Port (is now named World Tong after a dispute between the owners)

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

Nom yu braised pork trotters with taro, xiaolong bao, and some fried rice with an egg cracked in the middle.

Now you've got me hungry.

Read more of whippersnapper Allen's food thoughts at The Impetuous Epicure. 

Fall is in the air.  Can't you feel it?  I've been bitching and moaning all summer long about the heat, and now that it's leaving...well, I continue to bitch and moan.  As a friend of mine likes to say, as a New Yorker, it's my God-given right to complain.  One thing I can't complain about, however, is the Edenesque abundance at the Greenmarket right now.  The markets are up to their ears in some of my favorite produce, and now that it's cooled down a tiny bit, it's time to make soup with those veggies.  It's a great way to put those end-of-day dollar bags of produce to use.  Here's a mix-and-match summer soup that makes the perfect light dinner on these lovely late summer evenings, maybe with a baked sweet potato or just on its own.

Easy mix-and-match end of summer tomato vegetable soup

Base:
2 chopped onions*
1 chopped carrots*
1 chopped celery stalks*
5 chopped garlic cloves*
6-8 peeled, seeded, chopped large tomatoes*
Lots of Chicken broth
A couple of bay leaves
2 tbsp. fresh thyme*

Roughage:
1 bunch of chopped greens -- Black Tuscan kale*, green kale*, swiss chard*, spinach*, beet tops*, whatever you've got

Add-ins:
4 cups of any mix of the following:
Cooked fresh cranberry beans*  (20 minutes in separate pot of boiling unsalted water til tender)
Raw corn* kernels cut off the cob
Zucchini* or other summer squash* cut into 1/3" cubes
1 cup uncooked Pasta like rotini, penne, elbow macaroni, whatever you've got in the cupboard

Toppings:
Grated cheese of choice -- Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino, Gruyere, whatever bits and bobs you've got hiding on your refrigerator shelf.  If you have rinds that are too hard to grate, chuck them in the soup for flavor.
and/or
Pistou -- throw 1 cup packed basil* leaves, 2 cloves garlic*, and a couple glugs of olive oil into the mortar and pestle and crush til saucy

* starred items are available at the Greenmarket now for pretty cheap

To make:

Saute your mirepoix (onion, carrot, celery) in olive oil in a big-ass pot until onion is translucent.  Add the garlic and cook a minute.  Add your greens of choice and cook until the greens have reduced in volume a bit.  Add tomatoes and cook a minute more. 

Pour lots of chicken broth in -- two of those boxes or more.  You can substitute veggie broth, beef broth, whatever.  Add the bay leaves and the cheese rinds if you've got them.  Cook on medium heat until the greens are tender, maybe 15 minutes. 

Add the 4 cups of add-ins and cook about 10 minutes more or until the add-ins are done.   Make sure there's always enough liquid to cover everything.  Throw in the chopped thyme before you take the soup off the heat, add salt and pepper to taste. 

Serve topped with grated cheese and a dollop of the pistou.  Serves 1 person for many, many days.  If the veggies soak up all the liquid over the course of the next few days, reheat with more broth and adjust seasoning.

Great news in the Times for us West Village worker bees:

Tarts and Brioche, Marching from Brooklyn

Melissa Murphy and Wade Hagenbart have opened a branch of their Brooklyn bakery, Sweet Melissa Pâtisserie, in Manhattan at 75 West Houston Street (West Broadway), on the edge of SoHo. The shop's breakfast pastries, including twice-baked brioche slices, and its creamy tartlets, cookies, cakes and fancy lemon meringue and fruit tarts are all baked in Brooklyn. The shop also sells quiches, sandwiches and salads: (646) 773-2427.

Name: Nicolette Wagoner

Occupation: Urban Planner

Borough: Brooklyn

What did you eat today?

A large coffee w/ milk and 1 equal from Oslo. I'm so glad it was cooler this morning because I hate iced coffee and swear that it has no caffeine in it but some people think it's weird to drink hot coffee when it's 90. I also had a Blue Sky muffin. Blueberry and mango.  A calorifically delicious way to start the day.

A big bottle of Poland Spring.

For lunch I had a grilled vegetable salad with balsamic from Mocca.  Just writing about it makes me want another one.

Nature Valley granola bar, oat and honey. I have a tiny addiction.

11 almonds, unsalted.

A bowl of Pacific Foods roasted red pepper and tomato soup w/ some fresh spinach thrown in to give it that false yet wholly satisfying feeling that I cooked dinner. Accompanied by a few Carr's cracked pepper water crackers with some Emmenthaler cheese. Mmm.

What do you never eat?

Lamb.
McDonald's. Most other fast food, except for Runza and Amigos (in Nebraska)
Ice cream
Flan - ugh.
Chicken that looks remotely vein-y. Double ugh.

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

Tamari
Seltzer
Spinach
Tofu
Amy's burritos (for emergencies)
Silk soy milk, unflavored
Vodka  [Yeah, baby.  -- Ed.]

What is your favorite kitchen item?

It's a tossup between the Scripto lighter i use to light my tiny, scary stove, and my wine key from Cakebread Cellars

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Mostly in the neighborhood - Diner, Bonita, Acqua Santa, SEA. I also tend to end up at Pastis and Schiller's a lot - it's beyond my control.

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

I'd start with bacon-wrapped dates. I'd probably skip the salad unless there was some really fresh arugula around. Then I'd have Humboldt Fog with a loaf of Amy's currant bread, a veggie burrito from El Cid in Chicago, and a filet mignon from my dad's grill. To drink, a dirty Ketel One martini to start and then cabernet with the steak. And for dessert, chocolate peanut butter ice cream from Baskin-Robbins and an espresso. I don't eat ice cream, but it's the end of the world so what the heck.

My top 21, in no particular order:

1.  Fried oysters -- Pearl Oyster Bar
2.  Kanom jeen nam ya -- Sripraphai
3.  Raw Kumamoto oysters -- Balthazar, Blue Ribbon Bakery Brooklyn, or Grand Central Oyster Bar
4.  Chicken liver foie gras mousse -- Balthazar
5.  Casunziei -- al di la
6.  Tofu salad -- Takahachi
7.  Roti with curry sauce -- Nyonya
8.  Pretzel croissant -- City Bakery
9.  Tacos al pastor -- Tacos Matamoros
10.  Vanilla cream puffs -- Beard Papa
11.  Shrimp and chive dumplings -- Dim Sum Go Go
12.  Pizza pomodoro -- Sullivan St. Bakery
13.  Pear and almond muffin -- Panya Bakery
14.  Banana pudding -- Sugar Sweet Sunshine
15.  Salmon onigiri -- Sunrise Mart
16.  Ukranian borscht -- Veselka
17.  Shrimp and watercress dumplings in soup -- Sweet n Tart Cafe
18.  Black sesame milk tea with tapioca -- Green Tea Cafe
19.  Shack burger with fries and a root beer float (yes, that counts as one food) -- Shake Shack
20.  Chocolate truffle with sea salt caramel -- Vosges
21.  Chicken tagine with preserved lemon and olives over couscous -- Cafe Mogador

I'm probably missing a handful, but those are the ones that come to mind.  What foods do you go to a restaurant specifically for?

Don't forget end of the day specials at the Greenmarket.  At 8 pm in Union Square tonight, I got two half-pints of sweet, obscenely voluptuous, positively gory blackberries for $5 (normally $3.50 per half-pint).  Eat fruit while you still can, people!  We've got a long, scurvy-licious winter right around the corner.  I'm just sayin'...