Category: Shopping List

Yes, I actually know someone who bought one of these. If the shape weren't off-putting enough, the oddly-trimmed pubes were dripping black onto the rest of the cake and the whole confection was actually sweating in the heat, its helmet oozing to the left. I'll eat chocolate in any form, but I draw the line at big sweaty balls. If you want to gross your prissy friends out too, you can get this beaut from Masturbakers in the East Village.

Went to a glorious wedding in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont this past weekend. We stayed on Caspian Lake, watched fish spawn and die, swam in clear water, and ate lots of Jasper Hill Farm cheese. My friend Val called Constant Bliss the best cheese she's ever had. It's a volcano-shaped puck made of raw cow's milk, a bit smaller than a baseball. Mild and creamy with just enough moldy bite to keep things interesting, it's got a bloomy white rind, an oozy middle layer, and a firm-paste nougat center. Jasper Hill makes American cheese we can all be proud of. It's too bad I can't summer in Greensboro every weekend. Luckily, we can get buy Constant Bliss and Jasper Hill Farm's other delectable milkrot (including the sexy Bayley Hazen Blue) at Saxelby Cheesemongers in the Essex Market.

Need a change from your standby rosé? My friend Francis popped open a bottle of this lovely cider for his birthday celebration on Saturday. It has 5.3% alcohol content, but there's nothing hard about this cider. Made from Redfield apples grown in the Berkshires, it's gently bubbly with a round sweetness and a soft mouthfeel. Isn't it pretty in the glass? Like sipping amber perfume. It was perfect between bites of squeaky sheep's milk gouda. I've got to get some for our annual summer trip to Hudson. According to the website, West County Cider is an artisanal cider made with heirloom apples grown using Integrated Pest Management. It's available at Williamsburg's Uva Wines and Spirits for $15.

I don't know why I bother brunching out. I tried to meet my friend Kathy at Prune on Saturday morning. We decided to meet at 10, thinking we'd beat the brunch rush. Prune was closed, though (til July 11, so don't bother trying to go), so we wound up meeting at Clinton St. Baking Co. instead. We had to wait half an hour. At 10am! Don't people get hungover anymore?

But today, for breakfast over Wimbledon, I made myself a feast of Russ & Daughters pastrami lox over bagels, tofu scallion cream cheese, awesome Greenmarket tomatoes, and thinly sliced spring onions. For second breakfast (one of my favorite meals of the day), I had tiny local strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, and Tonjes Farms fresh ricotta with a strawberry rhubarb compote I made the other day. With cold-brewed iced coffee. Life doesn't get much better. (I would have liked to see Rafa Nadal win, but I liked seeing Federer weep with gratefulness.)

TIP OF THE WEEK: The best stuff from the Greenmarket right now is all the squishy stuff -- berries, tomatoes, cherries, apricots, and soon, peaches! But how do you get ripe specimens home without making sauce in your shopping bag? The thing that has worked best for me so far are these insulated lunch bags with Velcro closures. (Here's an example, but there are plenty to choose from out there.) Get a couple of them, stack smart (raspberries on top of strawberries, pulp cartons on top of clamshells), and then slide them into the corners of your shoulder bag. Voila!, your soft stuff will make it back without bruising. I only have two, and I bought the berry motherload this week so my tomatoes got a little black and blue, but otherwise, they really do the trick. They're also great for perishables like fresh ricotta or sausages. I have a whole system -- backpack for the heavy, warm temp-friendly stuff like roots, shoulder bag for tender greens, another shoulder bag for eggs, insulated bags, and miscellaneous stuff.

Winnie invited me to taste some lambruscos at her work event, so for you, I sacrificed a few hours maxing out on refills of bubbly over some suckling pig, lobster claws, and platters of petit fours. (Hey, you could start a food blog too.) I learned that lambruscos are most often chilled, sparkly reds, except when they're not. And though I liked the sharpish Lini rosé okay and the buzzy blackberry Labrusca Rosso even better, it was the Labrusca Bianco from Emilia that won me over. This white lambrusco is a touch drier than the pear-scented proseccos I usually drink in the summer, with a humming fizz. It's sunny and gentle -- ideal for drinking with rolled up cuffs and white cotton. You can get it at Vino for $15. Apparently they've got a few bottles of champagne method lambrusco too if you're into the yeasty thing.

Vino
121 E. 27th St. between Park and Lex

I'm madly in love with these (new-to-me) raspberries from Fruit Valley Orchards at the Greenmarket. I had the same palate revelation that I did when I first tried a tri-star strawberry -- like, wow, raspberries can taste like this? These greenhouse grown jewels are gorgeous, with hulls that hide little conical cores. They're sweet, complex, floral and firm -- nothing like those tasteless Driscoll's monsters. (I really think Driscoll's epitomizes everything that's wrong with big agritinkering -- scentless, overgrown fruits bred for people who only react to visual cues from their food.) This is fruit you eat one bite at a time, no cream/sugar/pie crust necessary. They're from Oswego, NY, they're wicked expensive ($6/half pint), and summer is short so I'm going to buy them as long as they're around.

Fruit Valley Orchards stand
Union Square Greenmarket, southwest corner on Saturdays
$6/half-pint

First ingredient, water. Third ingredient, high fructose corn syrup. Fuck the salad, why not just snort a little Splenda between your Diet Cokes?

Thanks to Zak Pelaccio and my friend Janet for introducing me to the thigh puckering joys of the Egg Custard King. I'm completely addicted to the Portuguese egg custard -- still warm and slightly jiggly cream-touched egg custard with a broiled, spotty brown top, encased in a many-layered, crisp and flaky tart shell. It's trans-fat heaven for 75 cents a pop.

Egg Custard King
There's one on Mott St. near Canal and one on Grand St. near Chrystie

3 days with my visiting friend Anel have just about undone about four weeks of working out at the gym. I look like one of those Chinese happy Buddha statues right now. Or a Teletubbie. Somebody is probably going to give up their seat on the subway for me tomorrow. I am Olympic champion of water retention. I would like to pop my belly like a zit.

There comes a time in every food writer's life when they have to decide if they're going to go the way of M.F.K. or the way of A.J. I know which way I'd like to go, but it's going to be a battle.

Meanwhile, at a pre-slaughter fattening dinner at Otto with nine people (I gotta say, except for the really loud music, that place is great for groups) we loved this Zaccagnini Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, available at Astor Wines for $13.99. It's dark chocolate-y and smooth. In my very slow and barbaric wine education, I'm finding that I prefer the Italian wines.

Did you know you can buy sheep's heads from the Greenmarket? Violet Hill Farms often has them, frozen and skinned, eyeballs and all. Apparently they're great for curries and stews. People go crazy for that beef cheek ravioli at Babbo. Why not sheep cheek? I won't lie, it's a bit disconcerting to be able to look your dinner in the face. It's like that human jerky Bodies exhibit. But I'd try sheep's head curry sometime.

On a side note, I went to DSW and Century 21 today to try and find a pair of commuter shoes that would be appropriate for when I'm in business drag. Is there anything more torturous than trying to discount shoe shop on a Saturday? I thought, this must be cosmic punishment for not being able to suck it up and pursue a lucrative career like my parents told me to.