November 2006 Archives

Name: Mauro Refosco

Occupation: Percussionist

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: in a relationship

What did you eat today?

Coffee with 2 toast with peanut butter and nutella. For dinner we went to Café Mogador on St. Marks Pl. and I had Lamb Tagine and a Mix Mediterranean Plate as appetizer.

What do you never eat?

I eat anything, but since the beginning ot this year I am cutting a lot of red meat. I guess tonight was an exception. But I heard that lamb is one of the best red meat proteins one can get. It is still free of hormones and all those things they feed to cows.

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

Lots of uneaten leftovers. I always get a dog bag, but most of the times it stays there for days, sometimes months until I decide to clean up. Also you can find some carrot juice.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My coffee maker, one of those French types that makes my engines start working in the morning. The size is perfect. I get exactly two cups of coffee with that thing and is all I need.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

It varies from time to time. Recently I have been going to this place called Hummus Place on St. Marks Pl, they make their own hummus in there. Really fresh and good. Also I go to Takahachi, this Japanese place on 6th St and Av A. Close to where I live there is a good Mexican called Taqueria California, I love the food in there and the jukebox is full of Mexican surprises.

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

A very fat “churrasco” of picanha. Picanha is this tender part of the cow that you only get in Brazil. You know that in Brazil the cuts of meat are different than United States? So we get these different parts.
Then I would eat feijoada, the Brazilian national dish, that has lots of pig meat, all the bad parts of the pig. Nose, knees, ears, toes and etc. It s the best.
I would also eat every possible dessert, like milk pudding, ice cream and anything really heavy. Drink a lot of caipirinhas of cachaca, for when the moment that the earth is ending, the only thing you can do is smile.

Every time I see Mauro, doesn't matter if he just got off a 17 hour flight or if he's just finished playing an exhausting 4 hour gig -- he's always off to Nublu to play a late night gig with his band, Forro in the Dark. I've never been able to stay up late enough to watch them, but the F.I.T. Dark dance parties at Nublu are legendary. You can also watch him play his magical zabumba and various percussion with Miho Hatori, David Byrne, Bebel Gilberto, and any number of musicians smart enough to hire him. He also makes kick ass moqueca.

I enjoy the sunny, golden warmth of winter squash soup. I like it with sour cream and pear, like the one I tasted at the Kona Cafe in Cleveland, OH; I like it with roasted garlic, like the one my cousin made for her birthday; I like it with apple; I like it with fried sage leaves; I just got a recipe full of pear, pumpkin and butter that I have to try. I'll probably be tired of it by the end of the year, but for now, I'm totally digging its thick, smooth pap texture and filling warmth.

And even though it's been crazy warm here (68 degrees, wutt wutt?), I wanted to imbue the soup with even more heat, the kind of warmth that radiates from the inside out. I came up with this recipe, which I was going to make for a Thanksgiving amuse, served in shot glasses. Ginger is one of my favorite flavors for winter because of its vaporub-on-the-inside qualities. Cardamom is the spice that gives chai its distinctive peppery heat. I ground up the black seeds from green cardamom pods, but you can just as easily use pre-ground cardamom. If you don't have garam masala on hand, make your own with whatever blend of spices you have.

Butternut squash soup with ginger and cardamom

Olive oil or butter
1 large leek, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 3 inch hunk of ginger, peeled and minced
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 small apple, peeled and chopped
1 pear, peeled and chopped
1 medium butternut squash (about the size of a 1L water bottle), peeled and cubed
Chicken/Vegetable broth (about 4 cups?)
Salt
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1-2 tsp. lemon juice to taste
1/2 c. heavy cream

Possible garnishes:
Tiny pear brunoise
Créme fraiche or sour cream
Minced cilantro
toasted spiced pumpkin seeds or pecans

Sweat the leeks and onions in the olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes til translucent. Add garlic and ginger, saute for a minute. Add carrots, celery, apple and pear and sweat for a few more minutes. Add butternut squash and cover with chicken broth (you may need more or less chicken broth depending on how big your squash is. Also, don't add salt until after you've cooked everything down.)

Cook it down over medium low heat til the vegs are very tender, about 30 minutes. Add cardamom, garam masala, with lemon juice and salt to taste. Remove from heat. Puree with a hand blender or in an upright blender til smooth. The flavor should be bright and warm with cardamom. Add your cream and blend a little more. Serve piping hot with your choice of garnishes.

I asked Doug to pick up coffee and allspice berries for Thanksgiving, and in the overwhelming nightmare that is pre T-Day Whole Foods, he forgot to get them. Luckily, I figured that Eagle Provisions, the awesome Polish/Euro grocer in my hood, would have allspice berries. When I didn't find coffee there, though, I remembered that there was a little coffee shop somewhere nearby.

Has Beans, a tiny, modest little coffee drink and bean outlet, is on the same block of 17th St. and 5th Ave. in Brooklyn. I picked up 1/4 pound of organic mocha java and a 1/4 pound of decaf house blend, figuring it would be disappointing coffee but probably better than Cafe Bustelo. After all, how good could coffee from some little nondescript shop on some little nondescript, unhip Brooklyn block be?

Well, as it turns out, the organic mocha java was really excellent coffee. I mean, really good. So good that we had to pull back after a sip and talk about how good it was. It's very dark and smooth, with chocolate tones and a slick syrup texture, but none of that sourness I hate in some lighter blends.

Now I know that, like my beloved Peet's coffee, it's roasted on the west coast, in Mt. Shasta, CA. And at $9.50/lb., it's a whole lot cheaper than the $14.99 bags of Peet's I've been picking up at Whole Foods. AND I can pick it up in Brooklyn, at a shop that's practically in walking distance of my house.

Right now I'm working on a bag of Gorilla Coffee's Sumatra Gayoland blend, and it's good too; obvs it's roasted a lot closer to home, and I like that they buy fair trade beans (though I don't really know what that entails). But if you're in my hood, save yourself some bus fare and check out this unassuming little shop on one of the South Slope's great culinary corners.

Has Beans
5th Ave. between 16th and 17th St. in Brooklyn

I'd been squirreling food away for about a week, so when it came to pre T-Day Wednesday, I just felt like everything had gone a little too smoothly. We cooked til 1 a.m., brining the turkey, preparing the pies, cleaning the vegetables and baking the dressing. On Thanksgiving Day, I had momentary anxiety about not having enough food, and I considered making a butternut squash soup amuse bouche (I've got an idea in my head and will hopefully be experimenting with a recipe later today). Doug, ever the voice of reason, convinced me that we would have enough food even without the turkey.

I have to say, I'm really loving this whole dinner party thing. Doug got me a gorgeous set of champagne glasses for my birthday, and we used his china set. Now that everything (or almost everything) is sparkly and clean, I can't wait for the next one. It was a remarkably civilized affair for NYC. My friends joke that coming out to our house is like going out to the country, but I love that. We ate dessert and had coffee (in matching cups and saucers!) by the crackling fire.

My thoughts on dinner parties:

- It's always lovely to start with a few bottles of sparkling wine. If you're a guest, it's always friendly to bring a bottle of sparkling wine. It doesn't have to be champagne. I'm going to do a run down of my favorite cheap sparklers in time for the holidays.

- I leave the fancy footwork to restaurant chefs. When I'm having a dinner party, I want to maximize time with my guests and minimize time spent with fussy foods that require too much of my attention. Make ahead, clean ahead.

- Set the table before hand and put out a few hors d'oeuvres. I didn't get around to doing hors d'oeuvres this time, but I will next time. Most of the time, your guests arrive before the food is completely done. Cheese and crackers, maybe some olives, are perfectly sufficient. You have to give them something to do besides drink and get wasted before they can appreciate your culinary skills. This is also important when you have guests who don't know each other very well.

- Water is as important as wine. It should be on the table, at the very least as a reminder for the drinkers that water is an option that should be taken every once in a while. Over the summer, I made the mistake of having three open bottles of red wine, free flowing prosecco, lemon drops, but no readily available water at the dinner table. One of our guests passed out sitting up at the dining table after the rest of my high tolerance friends had retired to the living room. My fault.

- Make your dinner music mixes beforehand, and make them for at least three hours. Have one mix for cooking (I like rock, R&B singalongs), one mix for dinner (cheery, gentle music in languages I don't understand), one mix for after dinner (maybe something upbeat to keep people from lapsing into food coma) and one mix for the drunken dance party (always the mark of a successful dinner party; this mix can also be a repeat of your cooking music).

- Have coffee and tea available at the end of the meal. My guests usually have a long way to travel before they get home. It's a civilized way to end the meal. And since you haven't gotten ALL the dishes dirty yet, coffee service will put you over the top.

UPDATED: In case you were wondering, here was our menu:

Turkey -- brined in the style of Chez Panisse. Came out great! Highly recommended. Next time I'll add more herbs to the butter I stuff under the skin (not in the recipe, but I believe in gilding the lily.)

Mashed potatoes -- mix of russets and yukon golds, lots of cream and butter and roasted garlic. No skins.

Mesclun with mint, chives, roasted beets, lemon vinaigrette -- all local vegs.

Gravy -- made with pan drippings by Doug.

Roasted brussels sprouts -- olive oil, salt and pepper, 400 degrees for 40 minutes, from the Greenmarket

Jerusalem artichoke gratin -- from the Paffenroths

Potato bread dressing -- simple, with celery, onion, stock and egg for added richness

Wild rice dressing -- made by my friend Miho, chock full of shiitake mushrooms, almonds, chestnuts, apple, dried apricots, rosemary, thyme, parsley, and three kinds of rice. Really amazing and deservedly famous.

Sweet potato pie and pecan pie with Godiva liqueur whipped cream -- made by Doug, Cook's Illustrated recipe

Prosecco, champagne, many red wines.

I'm hosting Thanksgiving in Sunset Park for the first time. The number of attendees keeps expanding, and being the kind of hostess that would be mortified to not have enough food, I'm trying to come up with extra side dishes for each additional guest.

I went to visit my friends the Paffenroths this morning to load up on their gorgeous Jerusalem artichokes. Not sure if I've discussed them here, but Jerusalem artichokes aren't actually from Jerusalem. They get their name from the Italian word for sunflowers, girasole, and they're the tuber of a kind of sunflower (hence their alternative name, sunchokes). Most of the time, they come in the shape of knobby, ginger-like playing jacks, but Alex Paffenroth grows a variety that's slim and cylindrical, easy to clean and handle. His sunchokes are favored by restaurants like Craft and City Bakery.

Raw, they're crisp, sweet and nutty, like jicama or water chestnuts. They're excellent roasted City Bakery style, with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, but this year I'm going to reprise a dish I made for my first New York Thanksgiving -- Jerusalem artichoke gratin. It's chic, rich, and couldn't be simpler -- and it's a great way to take advantage of some unique, seasonal, local produce. Make it the day before or the morning of, before the turkey goes in; reheat on a free rack in the oven while the turkey rests.

Jerusalem artichoke gratin

1 clove garlic
Butter
Jerusalem artichokes (1/3 to 1/2 lb. per person, depending on how many sides you already have)
Heavy cream
Nutmeg
Salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Smash the clove of garlic with the flat side of your knife. Rub the dry gratin dish with the garlic clove. (I have an oval Emile Henry enameled ceramic that's perfect for gratins -- you can also use a pyrex baking dish, Le Creuset, individual ramekins or even a cake pan, but preferably something heavy that conducts heat evenly.) Grease the garlicked dish with butter.

Peel the Jerusalem artichokes if desired. (I'm sure I won't, but I'm not fussy about skin.) Slice the Jerusalem artichokes on the bias into 1/3 inch slices. Toss with salt, pepper, and freshly grated nutmeg (not too much nutmeg -- think 7 gratings of nutmeg for each pound of Jerusalem artichokes). Arrange the slices in the dish so there are as few air pockets as possible.

Pour cream over the Jerusalem artichokes til just covered. (I know it's a lot of cream, but it's Thanksgiving!) Bake in the oven, undisturbed, for 45 minutes? an hour? or so, til Jerusalem artichokes are potato tender but not mushy. Set aside. Just before you're ready to serve, reheat for 15 minutes in a hot oven.

Boy, Kampuchea Noodle Bar is really getting their money's worth from their PR. But before all the food writers 'round town start disseminating misinformation, I need a little clarification. I was always under the impression that pho was a Vietnamese thing. But I'm hoping that Cambodian noodle soup, like Thai noodle soup, is a wholly different animal from pho. So just as I wouldn't say baguette instead of bagel, I don't think we should be calling Cambodian noodles pho. And yes, I am one uptight stick-in-the-mud nerd.

I called Kampuchea Noodle Bar to clarify and got this e-mail:

"Pho is primarily Vietnamese. Our restaurant serves Southeast Asian food but focuses on Cambodian cuisine the most. The dish similar to Pho would be Ka Tech for Cambodia.
We hope you check us out!"

UPDATED: I also called the restaurant's PR contact (which I got from the website. My bad. From the press release:

"Kampuchea’s menu is divided into six sections, and the Noodle Soups (Pho), Cold Noodles and Stews are Chau's specialty."

Weird that a place called "Kampuchea Noodle Bar" would use the Vietnamese name for their noodle soups. But I'll bite -- a cuisine from the country sandwiched between southeast Thailand and French Vietnam, cooked by a former Fleur de Sel guy is worth checking out. They're hoping to open the week of 11/27.

***
Also, remember when the Bluths hired a PR person?

BUSTER: I will be neither seen nor heard.

From: Ganda
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 10:47 AM
To: Doug
Subject: pumpkin muffins

There are pumpkin muffins in a ziploc on the kitchen table -- please help me eat them so I don't wind up eating all 7 for dinner. Last night I had three for dinner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Doug
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 11:07 AM
To: Ganda
Subject: Re: pumpkin muffins

uhm, no. i got on the scale two days ago, and obviously it's broken. i weigh [redacted]!!!

so every day is yom kippur for me.

d
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ganda
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 11:11 AM
To: Doug
Subject: Re: pumpkin muffins

also, does the fact that they have flax seeds on them help any?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Doug
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 11:27 AM
To: Ganda
Subject: Re: pumpkin muffins

awesome--i'll pick off the seeds.

(of course i'm going to have one this morning)

I went to a dinner with a bunch of food writers a few months ago, where I bravely posited that cheap ethnic eats in L.A. were deeper, more varied, and better than in New York. Obviously, this is a position that is often met with indignance bordering on furor. I really only said it because there was a little too much peacock talk about New York food's superiority. New York has great cheap ethnic eats, but to say it's the BEST place in the country for cheap ethnic eats isn't quite right. I'm as proud as any New Yorker, but one can't deny that L.A. has a high number of ass-kicking, undiluted, deep ethnic restaurants. Rent is cheaper, communities are more homogenous.

Case in point: my mom took my uncle, aunt and me to Baimon Restaurant in Rowland Heights, a mere 5 minute drive from our house. It's not in a notable neighborhood; it's not the kind of restaurant that will ever get a Saveur profile. The dish to order is the rad nah. Wide, soft rice noodle ribbons or fine rice vermicelli are pan fried with dark, sweet soy sauce. The noodles are topped with a small pond of thin, cornstarch slurry-thickened gravy with earthy whole bean sauce, emerald green, bittersweet Chinese broccoli sliced on the bias, and your choice of meat.

Rad nah is not a flashy dish. It seems simple enough. There are probably less than 10 ingredients in the whole dish -- not very many for a Thai dish. There are no spicy, colorful fireworks like there are in a good papaya salad. The level of difficulty in composition isn't as obvious as it is in hor mok, an elegantly banana leaf-wrapped, steamed fish curry.

Good examples can be found, but great examples are few and far between. I still remember the rad nah we used to get from the pak soi, which means "mouth of the road", where we turned in to go to my uncle's house in Thailand. The sauce was the perfect viscosity and salinity, the noodles soft and gently, sweetly charred in places, the Chinese broccoli crisp and bright.

Baimon's rad nah matches the excellence of the one from my romantic memories of the stand at the pak soi, which no longer exists. Yeah, it's that good. As my uncle said, digging in with concentration and gusto, it's "one of the best." He liked it so much, he ate it three times in the week that he spent in La Puente. We covered the table with four gravy filled platters of rad nah and pretty much cleaned our plates, which is really saying something considering my aunt, uncle and mom's dwindling appetites. Can't vouch for anything else on the menu, but I probably won't ever order anything but the rad nah anyway.

Baimon Restaurant
1741 Fullerton Rd.
Rowland Heights, CA
(626) 964-6851

Name: Jon Fasman

Occupation: Writer

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: I’m all hitched up

What did you eat today?
Breakfast: Special K, no milk (I know, I know: I just don’t like the taste of milk, or the idea of putting juice on my cereal).
Lunch: Focaccia with eggplant, crushed tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella from the Italian grocery on DeGraw and Court, washed down with lime seltzer, followed by 3 Ricolas and a Granny Smith apple. We were home for dinner, so I made a yellow-bean shrimp curry with bean sprouts and brown rice. Dessert was some salty licorice a friend brought me from Holland, and, once again, a Granny Smith apple.

What do you never eat?

Eggs and bananas make me retch. So does the idea of drinking a glass of milk. I don’t think I’d cry if I never ate liver or blue cheese again. On a more restrained level of loathing, I guess I’m also not a big fan of raisins. Or fruit-meat combinations. Keep your cranberries and orange peel away from my animal protein. [What is it with you fruit and meat haters? You’ll eat salty licorice before you'd eat duck a l’orange? --Ed.]

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

White miso, Gala or Granny Smith apples, lime seltzer, and, if you look far back enough, new life forms.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

It was my immersion blender, until I absent-mindedly chucked it into a sink full of water, plug and all. Assuming its position atop the heap is a wonderful Santoku knife my brother and sister got me, which I love so much I’m a little reluctant to use it.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Zaytoons, Grand Sichuan, Kum Gang San, the taqueria (I think that’s what it’s called: on 5th, right near the Commonwealth Bar), and now Nicky’s on Smith Street.

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

Oh, boy. Just one last meal? I suppose start with three pieces of nigiri – sea urchin, eel, ikura – and three oysters on the half-shell. I’m not picky about the type, but they have to come from the northeast Atlantic. Then the bacon appetizer from Peter Luger’s (that’s the real reason to go: a steak is always just a steak, but treat a pig right and you get poetry). The main dish would of course be my mother’s roast chicken with lemons, garlic and thyme, with her roast potatoes and the sautéed hollow vegetables from Nha Trang on the side. Just for nibbling on the side I’d want a pork chop banh mi from Nicky’s, and a few cha xiu bao from the Roastie Shop With Neither Name Nor Equal in Kowloon. For dessert I’d like a Del’s Frozen Lemonade, along with a nice fat warm brownie sprinkled heavily with cinnamon, cocoa powder, one of the finer incarnations of lorazepam, and pot. Do not go gentle into that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

So maybe you've been wondering, whither the restaurant reviews? Doesn't Ganda eat out anymore? Let me tell you something: My duodenum's been sitting on the couch watching TV in stiff boxers all day for many years, but I've got news for it. It's gonna start paying rent around here or it's gonna get K-Feded to the curb.

Introducing the first of what I hope will be many reviews on websites and in publications I let my Mae look at:

Bettola review on NYMag.com

More to come...