Holla! Look, proof that I sat at the same table as Ruth Reichl! Looks like you could slice the tip off my chin and dip it in barbecue sauce. Whatevs, they spelled my name right!
I didn't actually do any chef stalking, sadly. I came, I saw, I concurred. And then I went home with a pocket full of mini tabasco bottles and moisturizer samples.
Want to watch people get squinty and possessive? Serve up Truffle Tremor, Cypress Grove's latest and greatest cheese hit. Wasn't enough that they gave us the ever popular Humboldt Fog. This one's not a thinky cheese, it's more of a sexy crowd-pleaser -- snowy, crumbly goat curd is shot through with musky bits of black truffle, enveloped in a thin, melty layer and encased in a soft white rind. The half pound hunk I got was gone in a flash, the hind rind practically licked down for oozy goodness. I'm sure they weren't thinking of earthquakes when they came up with the name -- this is the kind of cheese you could seduce someone with. Throw in some oysters and a bottle of champs and you'll have to beat them off (with a stick).
Truffle Tremor is $22.99/lb. at Murray's.
Who wants to be cooking all night at their own party? I tried to design a menu that could stand on its own at room temperature for the whole evening. I set up a Make Your Own Crostini table (which negates the problem of soggy toasts) with four topping choices: roasted beets with parmigiano and basil (adapted from the Babbo recipe), the chicken liver paté with red onion confit, blackened eggplant puree with red peppers and garlic, and the surprise hit, this roasted butternut squash topping. A little sweet, nutty and bright, it smacks of autumn.
Roasted Butternut Squash Crostini
1 large butternut squash
2 tbsp. chopped sage
olive oil
salt
pepper
1/2 c. pumpkin seeds
hazelnut oil
toasts
Peel and chop the butternut into small dice. Toss with sage, salt, pepper and olive oil. Roast in 400 degree oven on a baking sheet for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until squash is caramelized and tender but not quite jammy. Place into your serving bowl.
While the squash is in the oven, toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry pan over high heat. Throw the pumpkin seeds on top of the squash and anoint the whole thing with a splash of hazelnut oil. Serve at room temp with toasts.
I don't know a ton about how to cook offal, so I've been experimenting with chicken livers lately. Raw livers have a really gelatinous, delicate texture which would probably really freak out those puritans who don't like to touch raw meat. (As I ran my fingers through the bowl of livers, I thought, Maybe the only people who know what this feels like are cooks who like offal and surgeons.) I don't have a whole lot of chicken liver recipes in my cookbook collection. But I did find one curious recipe in Madeleine Kamman's massive tome, The New Making of a Cook, for a Mousse of Blond Livers and Figs. The notes say, "Any good butcher can order the pale-colored livers for you."
While going through my pound of Bell and Evans chicken livers, I noticed that some of the livers were a pale, blondish color and some of them were a darker maroon. This wasn't the case with the tub of chicken livers I had bought from Flying Pigs Farm at the Greenmarket. None of their chicken livers were blond.
Today, I asked Jennifer of Flying Pigs what the color difference meant. She wasn't sure, but she said she'd look into it and let me know. I did a little googling and found that yellow livers are fattier (sounds good to me) and, according to Jacques Pepin, "they tend to have a mellower, richer flavor than deep-red ones."
Jennifer said she'd been chucking the paler livers. I asked her if she'd pack the blond livers and sell me the first tub. Flying Pigs Farm sells 1/2 pint tubs of chicken livers for $4. Note: Bell and Evans livers from Whole Foods were cheaper, but Flying Pigs' livers were a lot cleaner.
This chicken liver paté was a huge hit at my birthday soiree. I served it with olive oiled crostini, cornichons and red wine onion confit. To serve as a civilized lunch or light dinner, add a bit of bittersweet salad like frisee vinaigrette or puntarelle with anchovy lemon dressing. It's easy to make, improves if made ahead of time, and it looks impressive even though it's pretty cheap. I adapted this Epicurious recipe and added elements I liked from a bunch of other recipes; I also adapted a Saveur recipe for the onion confit. For the crostini, I recommend the not-too-holey peasant loaf from Bread Alone's Greenmarket stand.
Chicken Liver Paté
1 lb. chicken livers
1 cup milk
1/3 brick of French butter
2 shallots
1 clove garlic
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. dried marjoram
1/4 tsp. dried sage
pinch of allspice
a good glug of madeira
2 tbsp. creme fraiche
salt and pepper
fresh parsley and sage to decorate
another 1/3 brick of French butter
Clean the livers well, trimming away fat, membranes, veins and green bits (which could be bitter from bile). Soak them in the milk and set aside.
In the meantime, finely mince your shallots and garlic. Melt the first 1/3 brick of butter in a saute pan. Saute the shallots and garlic over medium-low heat til soft but not brown. Add herbs and allspice to the pan. Drain the milk off the livers and add them into the saute pan. Cook over medium heat til livers are browned but still pinkish inside, about 7 minutes. Add your generous glug of madeira and cook 2 minutes more. Remove from heat.
Let the livers cool for five minutes. Put the pan contents into a food processor and pulse til pureed but not too smooth. Add creme fraiche. Season aggressively with salt and pepper, tasting to make sure you have enough seasoning. Use rubber spatula to scrape mixture into a terrine. Smooth the top very well. Melt down your second 1/3 brick of butter. Skim the foam. Lay whole sprigs of parsley and whole leaf sage over the top of the paté in the most artistic manner you can muster. Pour the clarified butter over the top of the paté til you've sealed it in. Refrigerate at least one day before you serve it. According to the Epicurious recipe, it keeps for two weeks, sealed in butter
Note: if the clarified butter top scares you, you could also make an aspic glaze as described by Jacques Pepin here.
Red Wine Onion Confit
Melt a generous chunk of butter and olive oil in a pan. Add 3 thinly sliced onions, a tsp. of sugar and some salt & pepper. Sweat down til the onions are translucent and silky soft but not brown, 40 minutes. Add 3/4 c. cabernet or other heavy red wine. Reduce til most of the liquid is gone, 40 minutes. Add another tsp. of sugar if the onions are too tart. Finish with another hunk of butter at the end. Serve warm with paté.
Name: Jonathan Manto
Occupation: student
Borough: Manhattan
Relationship status: married
What did you eat today?
It’s 6:46 am and I’ve just started my day with my usual: a bowl of my oatmeal, lentil, oat bran, flax meal concoction – I whip up a large batch every two weeks or so. [Lentil?! --Ed.]
What do you never eat?
Hot dogs -- they disgust me.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Milk -- it does the body good.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
My milkshake machine – of course.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
The Deluxe – it’s close by and serves up a decent breakfast, my favorite meal of the day. [With lentil?! --Ed.]
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
I’m not much of a meat eater, but I’d have to say, in this case, a really good steak.
This morning, probably just as I was turning 30, I felt a little sting on my eyelid. Sure enough, at about 7:00am, I heard the distinctive buzz buzz of a skeeter in my ear. I managed to smash the little fucker, but now I look like Forest Whitaker. My eyebrow is perma-cocked because my eyelid is so pink and swollen. I'll take a picture when I get home. HAPPY FUCKING 30TH BIRTHDAY QUASIMODO.
Anyway, why the fuck do I have a mosquito problem at the end of October???
It's my 30th birthday. I'm into it.
"Well, as I was saying, it costs a lot to be authentic, ma'am. And one can't be stingy with these things because you are more authentic the more you resemble what you've dreamed of being." -- the drag queen in All About My Mother
"I acquired that drinker's face before I drank. Drink only confirmed it." -- Marguerite Duras, The Lover
"Extra sugar, extra salt, extra oil and MSG." -- Cibo Matto, "Birthday Cake"
3 reasons to watch this clip:
1. Who knew peanut butter and powdered milk could save malnourished children?
2. It's interesting to learn that food allergies are much less prevalent in developing countries. Why do you think that is?
3. It's funny to hear Anderson Cooper say "Plumpynut" over and over again.
1 warning:
Unless you want to hate yourself, do not watch this after eating a big meal.
Great round table of women chefs on NYMag.com. If female chefs are so rare, I think it's statistically interesting that so many of my favorite eateries in New York are helmed by women. Anna Klinger of al di la, Ilene Rosen of City Bakery, Rebecca Charles of Pearl Oyster Bar, Chika Tillman of Chikalicious, Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune, etc. At the Julia Child panel, Dan Barber revealed that he prefers to hire women in his kitchens because they're in it for the food, not the glory, which makes them better cooks.
As I've said before, I think David Chang cooks "male" food, and that's what's so appealing about it -- it's brash and unapologetic. So is there such a thing as a feminine palate/palette? In the article, Rebecca Charles says, "Women’s food is, for the most part, more accessible, it’s easier to understand, it’s friendlier, it’s more comforting, and it doesn’t get bogged down in all these nutty freaking trends." I would say that's true of the chefs I love. Chikalicious is a perfect example of the gender divide -- several of my male friends really don't understand why I love it so much, and most of my girlfriends worship at Chika's altar. On the flip side, I don't really get why Will Goldfarb has gotten so much more ink for his powders, gels and foams.
What about the idea of assigning gender to a dining experience? I ran into my friend Miho at Rai Rai Ken the other night. I had slipped in solo with the idea of slurping up a quick bowl of chahan and soup. Miho said that ramen joints in Tokyo were generally testosterone havens, and that a woman would have to have pretty big cojones to walk into one by herself. But New York women think nothing of it. (Because we have balls or because we don't give a shit if people think we have balls?)
The feminine food associations I can think of aren't exactly flattering to the sex. A deli by my work has a sandwich board which displays their AM offerings, including two kinds of omelettes -- a "hungry man" and a "skinny woman" -- how much you want to bet that the skinny woman means some wan egg white and spinach monstrosity on a cold wheat tortilla? Or "girly drinks", by nature fruity, sweet, and headache inducing. "Mom" and "grandma" associations are generally positive, but they're usually "comfort" foods -- heavy, sleepy dishes designed to knock you out.
Anyway, how about a quick assessment of your favorite restaurants -- are they led by women or men? I'm curious.
In case you were wondering, the "sri" in Sriracha and Sripraphai is pronounced "see" -- not "shree", not "sree". The "r" is silent.
Who cares, right? Well, I care.
