The Wounded Chef

Attention: Wounded Chef has Moved

2009-07-09T12:00:00.003-05:00

The Wounded Chef has moved! I am now blogging as Color Me Green over at http://colormegreenanew.blogspot.com. I merged all of my recipes and food-related content into Color Me Green, where I will continue to write about delicious seasonal food and a lot more, meandering through my slow food, DIY, eco-friendly life in Brooklyn. I hope you will continue to follow me at this new address.

Please remember to update to the new URL (http://colormegreenanew.blogspot.com) on your blogroll, reader, subscriptions, following, bookmarks, etc.

Your browser will be automatically redirected in ten seconds. Thanks and see you there!

Misshapen Dulce de Leche Cupcakes

2009-06-23T13:16:00.001-05:00

I'm wayy behind. Got lots of posts for you.

I made these cupcakes for a coworkers birthday last month with dulce de leche from my trip to Argentina. They came out kind of misshapen because I overreached and tried to have too much going on. I wanted the cake part to have both melted chocolate chips and a dulce de leche center; however the chocolate and dulce de leche both sank to the bottom, hardened, and stuck to the pan. The crumb was also very crumbly, so the cakes fell to pieces when I tried to remove them from the pan. Hence they were very misshapen and small and sad looking, but no one really seemed to care. Coworkers thought they were delicious anyway. Especially the frosting, which I whipped half a jar of dulce de leche into!

I don't remember the recipe so well anymore, so I'm going to leave it out. Suffice it to say, dulce de leche frosting would go well with any standard vanilla or chocolate cupcake recipe. To make the frosting, combine a lot of butter, a lot of dulce de leche, a little powdered sugar, a little milk, and scant vanilla until the taste and consistency seems right to you.

As for the leftover crumbs and scraps, I formed it into a "cupcake detritus ball" and left it in the fridge for some sinful snacking.

Fried Rice with Asparagus and Chicken

2009-05-18T19:00:00.004-05:00

I found some leftover brown rice in my fridge and decided to put together a spring inspired fried rice for dinner last night. I diced asparagus to use in place of peas, which are not yet in season, and Jesse grilled up chicken breast because we try to use the grill as much as possible in warm weather. Jesse actually hates Chinese food, so he was a little worried at first, but in the end he declared it was leagues better than takeout fried rice.

Fried Rice with Asparagus and Chicken
1-2 cups leftover brown rice
1 large onion
1/2 lb asparagus
1/2 lb grilled breast
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
salt
pepper

Heat wok or pan to medium high and coat with olive oil. Chop onion into large pieces and sautee until translucent and browned. Rinse and dice asparagus and add to the pan. Sautee approximately 5 minutes, until asparagus is slightly softened. Add rice and continue to cook over medium high heat for another 5 minutes to flavor the rice. Meanwhile, shred grilled chicken into small pieces and add to pan. Finally, add soy suace, vinegar, tumeric, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper, and toss to coat.

Cupcake Contest Take 2

2009-05-15T16:59:00.006-05:00

Last Monday was the third annual cupcake contest hosted by Brooklyn Kitchen. This year's event featured almost 60 cupcakes, bakers, and testers, packed into Union Pool's backyard.

sister's "Fire Antz" aka spicy chocolate cupcakes
It was impossible to try them all - I think I probably tasted about 20. And I successfully paced myself, limiting my sampling to half or quarter sized bites of the cupcakes, so that I didn't end up with a tummyache at the end of the night like last year.

I didn't win anything again (the competition at this event is always so steep), but I was happy because I got a lot of compliments and my cupcakes were popular enough to have all disappeared by the end of the night. I called them honey babies just because I wanted to come up with some kind of catchy name, but really they have been likened to a great muffin or coffee cake with a light honey spice flavor, topped with amazing frosting. The maple, chopped almonds, and sparkles of sugar are what makes this cupcake sing.

I'm already planning my recipe for next year's contest...I'll definitely be incorporating chocolate.

Honey Babies with Maple Almond Frosting
Recipe:
9 tbsp butter
3/4 cup raw turbinado sugar
heaping 1/4 cup honey
3 eggs
2 tsp bourbon vanilla (bourbon steeped with vanilla beans)
1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup ground almonds (1 cup of almonds ground in the food processor until it resembles coarse flour)
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt

Frosting:
6 tbsp butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp bourbon vanilla
6 tbsp maple syrup
3 tbsp milk
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
raw turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Butter two 12-muffin tins. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in honey, eggs, vanilla and milk.
In a separate bowl, combine remaining dry ingredients. Beat dry ingredients into wet mixture until smooth. Scoop batter into muffin tins and bake for approximately 15 minutes until knife inserted comes out clean.

For frosting, cream butter and powdered sugar. Mix in vanilla, maple syrup, milk, and half the chopped almonds. Adjust sugar and butter to desired consistency (my measurements above are approximate). Frost cupcakes, and then sprinkle remaining almonds and a little sugar over top of each. Makes 24 cupcakes. This recipe can easily be cut by a third to make a batch of 12 large cupcakes.

Smoky Vegetarian Crock Pot Baked Beans

2009-05-15T16:57:00.002-05:00

After a trip to the southern BBQ joint Blue Smoke, I was craving some more warm, tangy baked beans. I figured it would be easy enough to make in my crock pot. I was also lucky enough to receive a jar of Catskills homemade maple syrup as a gift from Jesse's coworker - I don't know how he made it, but his syrup has a crazy smoky flavor! So it was perfect for whipping up a smoky barbecue sauce to coat the beans. Thanks to the special syrup, this recipe tasted great without any bacon or pork (as baked beans traditionally include), but I think I'd be happy making these vegetarian again even without the benefit of the smoke.

Smoky Vegetarian Crock Pot Baked Beans

2 cups dried beans
1 onion, diced
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp smoky maple syrup
2 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp mustard
2 tbsp molasses
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp salt
several grinds of pepper

The night before, place dried beans in bowl to soak, filled with water about two inches above the beans.
Whisk together remaining ingredients and reserve in an airtight container in the fridge overnight.
The next morning, drain and rinse beans. Combine beans, barbecue sauce, and 1 1/2 cup of water in crock pot and stir until beans are coated in sauce. Let cook on low approximately 4 hours, turn to high for 2-3 hours, and then turn to low until ready to serve.

A New Red Hook Ritual

2009-04-21T13:30:00.000-05:00

Once or twice a month Jesse and I delight in taking a shopping trip to Fairway in Red Hook, where we can stock up on bulk goods for cheap, like organic coffee, beans, rice, and so on.

Now we may have found a new ritual to tack onto our Red Hook trips: A stop at Rocky Sullivan's for beer and a snack outside. We'd been to this bar on an assuming corner before and hadn't thought much of it, just a normal working class neighborhood bar. Then I found out about its roof deck, but we weren't able to take advantage of it until the first nice weather hit this weekend. Now we have truly seen the light.

The bar neighbors Sixpoint Brewery, so we were able to get two of our favorite Sixpoint beers, Bengali IPA and Righteous Rye. And Jesse was able to ogle all the Sixpoint kegs lying around. Rocky Sullivan's has a bar menu, but I'm guessing their best food is their brick oven pizza, made fresh to order. We had the margarita pizza, complete with homemade pesto sauce, and it was delish. The crust had a slight buttery flakiness to it, a little like pastry crust, but not too much.

We enjoyed our afternoon snack on their roof deck. We were the only ones up there, and I can't imagine it ever gets too full, so it certainly lives up to its reputation as "serene" I highly recommend checking it out if you're in the hood, although don't tell all your friends because hidden gems are always better when they remain that way!

Breakfast Pizza for Dinner!

2009-04-20T17:00:00.003-05:00

It's ramp season folks. And what do ramps go with better than bacon and eggs? Nothing!

After reading about Motorino's amazing breakfast pizza which "delivers a beautiful pool of gooey cheese, runny yolk, pancetta drippings, and fruity olive oil", I was inspired to make my own version. The original plan called for goat cheese ricotta, bacon, ramps, and sunnyside eggs, but my sister did the shopping and some of the cooking, so she also added in broccoli raabe for a contrasting bitter bite.

First, you need to make the dough. I really prefer my recipe for pizza with a puffier crust, but out of laziness I went for the thin crust recipe that just requires a whizz in the food processor and a wait in plastic bags in the fridge overnight. It makes six dough balls, so I stuck three in the freezer, to leave us with three personal pies for the three people in my household. About two hours before I wanted to cook dinner, I took the dough out of the fridge to let it warm up.

Next, Lisa fried up a few pieces of bacon and let them drain on paper towels. She poured out most of the bacon fat (to reserve for future use), while leaving enough fat in the pan to sautee the greens.

After preheating the oven as hot as it will go (520 in our case), Lisa finely chopped ramps and broccoli raabe. She sauteed them in bacon fat until softened and then continued to cook covered for another ten minutes until wilted.

Next I assemble the pizzas on cornmeal-dusted baking sheets, slowly building them with crumbles of goat cheese ricotta, bacon bits, wilted greens, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper. Finally, I broke an egg into the middle and put them into the oven for about 10 minutes until the crust browned on the bottom and the eggs firmed.

Unfortunately, the crust took longer to cook than the eggs, so the yolks had already firmed by the time the pizza was done and alas, there was no runny yolk to coat the pizza in golden flavor when biting into it. But it was still f*in good.

Jesse rued all times he tried to convince me to cook meat or fish for dinner instead, thinking breakfast pizza for dinner sounded lame. Duh! Of course it would be the best thing ever, and once he saw the beautiful pizza and ate it, he realized the error of his ways.

The Year of Cabbage

2009-04-17T14:45:00.003-05:00

If last winter was the year of kale, then I'd say this winter was the year of cabbage.

It's because last year Garden of Eve kept me stocked with kale all throughout the winter when no one else at the farmers markets had green vegetables. Then this year, I couldn't even find kale regularly. But I could still find cabbage.

Plus this year I first realized how delicious cabbage is when sauteed. Much nicer than in bland braised dishes. Slice it thinly, like you would to make slaw, but then sautee it in olive oil with onions, salt, and pepper, letting the onion and cabbage strips brown a bit over medium heat. Then leave it on low heat covered for about 10 minutes until it wilts a bit. The result is perfectly flavored, tender, but with a nice bite. A great side dish.

Or add it to cooked beans and brown rice with some grated cheese and salsa for flavor, as another version of my "healthy rice and beans", an easy dish that is a Jesse pleaser.

Now that the weather is warming up, hopefully we'll be eating things besides cabbage soon.

Scallops with Israeli Couscous and Kale

2009-04-14T10:24:00.000-05:00

I sauteed finely chopped kale and onion with onions and garlic, and combined it with simmered Israeli couscous, using the Kitchn's method for cooking this pasta-cum-grain with leafy greens. Then Jesse sauteed scallops in olive oil and herbs de Provence to top it off. Here's what he had to say about it to his friend who gave us the herbs a few months ago:

I used the last of the herbs de Provence you gave me to make seared
scallops with Israeli cous cous and kale and may I humbly say that it
was the closest thing to culinary perfection that I have ever
experienced - in the words of Dr. Seuss "If you never have you
should. These things are fun and fun is good."

The Weekend

2009-03-10T17:13:00.005-05:00

It was finally warm enough this weekend to walk outside bare legged (!). Makes SUCH a difference.

After a pre-dinner trip to the Split They Skull festival at Mug's for some strong beers, we were drunk and I was feeling lazy, so I convinced Jesse to cook dinner.

He knows how to cook, he just doesn't do it very often. Risotto was one of the first meals we made together. Sausage and carrot is my favorite. If you don't have wine on hand, you can use Budweiser or another light beer, which is what we often do. Jesse done good.

After a bottle of wine, we got even drunker. And then he danced to funk with the dog.

Eating and Drinking in Argentina

2009-02-28T13:10:00.003-05:00

Bar El Federal in San Telmo was my very first and very last meal in Argentina - and both times it was picada for lunch. Picadas are plates of charcuterie, cheese, olives, and other snacks like peanuts and chips.

When we ordered picada, the waiter first brought just out a small platter of peanuts and chips and I thought, Oh god, this is it, this is all we're getting for lunch for 20 pesos. I guess sometimes picadas are really light snacks and Jesse and I feared for our hungry stomachs.

Until, a few minutes later, he also brought out a bowl of bread and another plate piled high with ham, salami, and other meats and cheeses. It was an amazing turnaround. By the time we had finished after lingering over this giant array of food, we delighted with how quality, filling, and cheap our lunch was!

The bar itself seems like a quintissential corner cafe-bar where people relax inside and outside all throughout the day and night, complete with beautiful wood architecture.

Meag and Guille took us to El Cuartito in Retiro, BA's downtown, for cheap, filling, delicious pizza. They have some other snacks too, like empanadas, and faina (chickpea fritters) that Argentians eat on top of their pizza for some reason (I tried it and still don't really get it). Apparently Anthony Bourdain ate there on an episode of No Reservations, it's that good.

In Rosario, our hosts took us to the "Vomiteria," so called not because the food is bad but because the portions are so large you'll feel so full you want to vomit later. It's true! I ordered pollo milanese, and it was the hugest plate-sized breaded and fried chicken I'd ever seen coated in provolone cheese and tomato sauce. There was no possible way I could finish it. Jesse and I also tried tongue (okay) and intestines (ugh) at that restaurant. Update: Meag has more about our dinner and other yummy places in Rosario here.

Quilmes is the ubiquitous national beer of choice, brewed in Argentina - in fact we passed the brewery on our drive between Rosario and BA. Crisp, refreshing lager - perfect for the height of summer.

After Quilmes, the most popular beers available were Budweiser and Heineken. Because it was so hot that a cool beer almost always sounded better than a glass of wine, I ended up drinking Bud and Heineken way more often than I normally do. Hence I didn't learn too much about the native wines, just that Malbec is the best red wine to drink in Argentina. And that they put ice cubes in their wine during the summer - not something I could come around to.

Milion in BA's ritzy Recoleta neighborhood. A gorgeous old mansion-turned bar with a backyard perfect for afternoon drinks. I hear it's quite hopping at night too.

Home Hotel has a bar with the loveliest backyard that feels like an oasis of green and quiet in bustling urban Buenos Aires. Located in the posh neighborhood Palermo, we were smitten with the looks of this modern boutique Swedish-style hotel, but unfortunately the bar service wasn't as good when we returned with Meag and Guille. Their staff speak English though, which is a plus.

Of course, we brought back some yerba mate (pronounced sherba mah-tay in Argentina), a kind of tea that perks you up with a non-caffeinated stimulant, that we've only drank once so far. The mate cup, which is made out of a hollowed gourd, looks pretty in our living room though.

Other notable metions from our trip:
La Brigada, for traditional parilla (grilled meats) - the best steak of the trip (order the Lomo, a tender medallion of sirloin steak), but also the most expensive by far to my chagrin. We wanted to try El Desnivel, a cheaper parilla nearby in San Telmo, but the electricity was out that night in that neighborhood, and La Brigada was the first open restaurant we came across.

Los Loros in Sal Telmo, for more modern, refined cuisine. And a bit of a romantic atmosphere, perfect for our Valentine's Day dinner. Los Loros has a lot of non-steak options, which I could appreciate, since I'm not the biggest fan of steak (I only like super tender steak; Jesse, however, ate steak four out of the six days we were in Argentina.)

And with that, my Argentina tales have come to an end.

Sightseeing in BA

2009-02-27T13:10:00.000-05:00

For our final days in Argentina, we headed back to BA for our final days in Argentina, with Meag and Guille in tow, for some sightseeing.

The colorful La Boca neighborhood is the quintessential image of Buenos Aires. In fact, this is a historically poor neighborhood on the river (although this pocket of it around El Caminito Street is now overly touristy), and rumor has it that the pretty amalgamation of bright colors actually originated from paint scraps leftover from shipping boats that residents used to spruce up their tin-roofed homes.

Meag led us to Museo de Bellas Artes de la Boca Benito Quinquela Martin, which was once the studio of the artist Benito Quinquela Martin, and features his paintings of boats, as well as the work of other Argentine artists.

There is also an interesting collection of old ship mastheads.

And more sculptures outside on the terrace.

But we were really there for the views of La Boca from the roof.

(Aw, my favorite picture from the trip)

We also visited the amazing Flea Market in the neighborhood of San Telmo, which takes place every Sunday and is a don't miss.

It was way cooler than any flea market I've been to before - lots of antiques - from old rotary phones and gramophones to lace to kitchen items to jewelry and knick knacks and on and on.

Jesse bought a safety razor (I think that's what it's called), which made me happy because I've always wanted him to have one but they're hard to come by. They are more environmentally friendly than plastic disposable razors because the metal razor lasts forever (clearly) and you only need to replace the razor blade.

Argentina tales to be continued

On the Banks of the Muddy River

2009-02-26T17:45:00.003-05:00

Being that we had escaped winter for summer, my vacation plans included time soaking in sun on a beach.

So for our second day in Rosario, Jesse and I headed to the beaches on "The Island" in the Rio de la Plata that you can reach from Rosario via a convenient ferry that runs every half hour.

However, I was still so sunburned that I was actually trying to shield myself from the sun instead of tanning (hence looking like a dork in Jesse's hat).

Luckily we could take refuge in the shaded huts along the beach, where we enjoyed cold beer and more chori-pan.

Which is okay, because I didn't really want to wade in the brown river anyway. Meag also said something about snakes on the island, but we didn't see any.

Argentina tales to be continued

Rosario

2009-02-25T18:44:00.001-05:00

Next up, for the third day of our trip, we headed to Rosario, a city about three hours northwest of Buenos Aires that is home to my friend Meag. Jesse really wanted to rent a car but I didn't because of the cost and the scariness (as I mentioned before, drivers straddle lanes, tailgate, there aren't stoplights or signs in Rosario...) I really wanted to take the bus, which I figured would be more relaxing. I even tried to trick him, by leading us to the bus station on Wednesday morning, telling him when we'd get there we could try to find a car rental place nearby, hoping that would prove too difficult. However, (unfortunately for me) his theory of spontaneity proved right again and we were able find a rental place with cars available that very morning.

I have to say, the driving in Argentina was not as heart attack inducing as I thought it would be. I was stressed out on our ride to Rosario mostly because I hate driving in general, because Jesse refused to keep to the speed limit, and because I couldn't help fearing a car crash with no way to get help since we didn't have a phone on us. Also, the ride was only 2 1/2 hours but felt like FOREVER because we drove through nothing but the same flat plains the whole way.

I used my awesome navigational skills to find our hostel in Rosario without a map! We stayed at Anamundana Guest House, a homey little place with English speaking staff. Mad cheap at 100 pesos ($30) a night. Our room even had a mini balcony (Argentinians love open air spaces)! I'd recommend it, although I think I'm personally over having to share bathrooms at hostels.

After a walk around Rosario's shopping district, I got to see Meag's cute little apartment, which her boyfriend lovingly fixed up with his own sweat equity. We assembled a relaxing afternoon snack of picada on her balcony, complete with grapes leftover from her winemaking attempt.

In the evening, our hosts led us on a tour of Rosario, which has some really pretty riverfront parks, followed by dinner and then drinks on the river. Fun!

Argentina tales to be continued...

Reserva Ecologica

2009-02-23T11:00:00.006-05:00

For our second day in Buenos Aires, I had planned a day full of walking around, exploring neighborhoods and parks, complete with a picnic lunch in the Reserva Ecologica, an ecological park along the water that was created over a former landfill.

However, someone failed to tell me the weather forecasted rain. We made it nearly all the way down Florida, the main pedestrian shopping avenue, strolling and enjoying ourselves, before the rain started coming down. We tried to hide out in bars for a couple hours, but the rain showed no signs of slowing down. Stupidly, we walked/cried/ran all the way home in the pouring rain, completely drenched. I had to ring out my dress three times when we got home. Luckily the lack of humidity there meant that all of our clothes - even our shoes!! - were dry by the next morning. Phew. Crisis averted.

So Wednesday was a do-over of Tuesday. And it involved A LOT of walking - something like five hours of walking. From our apartment, we headed through downtown to Puerto Madero, the factory-turned-hip neighborhood separated from the rest of BA by a canal.

Our goal was the Reserva Ecologica, which has its entrance at the south end of Puerto Madera. We thought we had finally made it when we reached this park.

However, after wandering through the park and ending up on this street, we saw there was still even further to go before we'd reach the entrance. Luckily the street along the Ecological Reserve is lined with grill stands, serving up delicious "chori-pan" aka a big fat grilled sausage on a baguette with chimmichurri and other sauces.

So we stopped to rest, refuel, and enjoy a cool beer before forging on.

The Reserva Ecologica is a network of well-groomed paths with desert-y trees and grasses on either side. Not too exciting, but a pleasant walk. Jesse did see some parrots, but they flew away before we could photograph them.

We felt removed from the big city, yet this view was a reminder to my legs of how far we'd have to walk to return.

We inadvertantly chose the path that took us to a breathtaking little beach along the Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires is not on the Atlantic Ocean proper, but this wide murky brown river that opens up to the ocean. There was just a thin strip of dark brown on the horizon, probably Uruguay, to remind us this was no ocean.

This beach was also missing the quintessential saltiness of sea air, making me long for a trip to the beach back on the Jersey shore.

After finally making it back to the city, my legs wanted to fall off and we were both sunburned lobsters, care of forgetting to wear sunblock. Jesse convince me we should visit a spa to soothe our aching muscles with a soak in a hot tub. This was not something in my original budget, but since we were on vacation...why not? It was fun and kind of surreal to pad around a modernistic spa in a robe and slippers. I think the soak was good for my muscles, but not good for our skin, which stayed red and painful for days - an unusual experience for us since our Mediterranean complexions don't often burn.

Argentina Adventure tales to be continued...

Our BA digs

2009-02-22T14:28:00.000-05:00

Since this loft we wanted was unavailable, we looked for another apartment we could rent for our week in Buenos Aires. It turns out there are a lot of resources for weekly/short term apartment rentals in BA, but we ended up finding ours on craigslist, since we jumped at the first place that responded to our availability inquiries on such short notice. I was a little nervous, not knowing what to expect, but i told myself that was all part of the trip being an ADVENTURE and it turned out okay. I was really happy with our cute little place, and it was a really good deal for the price.

The pluses:

Our own junior one bedroom, with more room and privacy than a hotel.

A beautiful old Spanish style stone building with courtyards.

Open air windows and doors that we threw open to let in sunlight and breezes.

Humming fans that gently spiraled fresh air over us, heavenly in bed when sleeping or napping or relaxing.

A quiet location set back within the building away from the street, something to value in a place where streets can be noisy all throughout the night.

A futon so we could accommodate our friends for a sleepover toward the end of the trip.

It was mad CHEAP!

The minuses:

The hot water in the shower was finicky and our minimal Spanish kept us from approaching the landlord about it

(Though I didn't mind so much because cold showers were sometimes refreshing in the heat)

We missed having someone around for advice on transportation and nearby restaurants etc, like you can get at hotels and hostels and B&Bs.

The apartment was not technically located in its advertised neighborhood of San Telmo. It was within walking distance to some tourist sights and subway stations (that don't go anywhere convenient in terms of nightlife), but it unfortunately wasn't really within walking distance of good restaurants or bars. Hence taking cabs everywhere. Next time I'd like to stay right in the heart of a cool neighborhood like San Telmo or Palermo.

The "kitchen" was really more of a large closet with a mini-fridge, a sink, and a camping-size stove. Not conducive to cooking romantic dinners, so there was none of that. But I think (hope?) we saved a little money on breakfasts by making our own coffee, cooking up toast and eggs, and being able to have sandwich supplies (and candy) on hand.

Argentina adventures tales to be continued...

Back from Buenos Aires!

2009-02-21T11:24:00.001-05:00

Jesse booked us a flight to Argentina rather spontaneously. With just nine days to plan, I hit the books. We needed surprisingly little time to arrange the trip - the hardest part was finding an available place to stay, but that worked itself out within two days of booking the flight. It made me realize how easy it is to just pick up and go somewhere totally new and different. The trip was something of an adventure, but I had a lot of fun despite all the bumps and stress. I've got the travel bug now.

Although Buenos Aires is known for its European flair, it's still rough around the edges. Jesse was in love from the moment we arrived, but it took me a few days to settle into being in an unfamiliar place. The streets feel louder than in New York City (or maybe just Brooklyn) thanks to diesel-powered vehicles rushing through the streets. Cars drive willy-nilly without regard to lanes or the lack of stop signs. The sidewalks grow diry on garbage days, when people literally pick through all the trash. Not many people speak English, unlike traveling in Europe, which made things kind of difficult since we don't know Spanish. But at the same time - people were nicer than in Europe about encouraging us trying to communicate in haphazard Spanish.

We ended up taking cabs almost everywhere, which I normally never do, because although there are buses on every street, figuring out the intricate maps of it overwhelmed me. And because the blocks there are so much larger than NYC blocks that maps deceived me. Like when what I thought would be a ten minute walk in light rain turned into a twenty minutes walk through a downpour that drenched our clothes because we hadn't thought it necessary to hop in a cab. Ugh, oops. But not to worry, because when you factor in the 3 peso : 1 US$ exchange rate, sometimes taking a cab was as cheap as taking the NYC subway. And the cabs there run on natural gas, so it's kinda better for the environment?

Since it's on the other side of the equator, I was excited about stepping out of winter and into warm summer, but it was overwhelmingly hot - like the sweaty heat of New York City summers. And the sun was so strong, we got muy sunburned. But luckily, it cools down a great deal at night there, probably thanks to a desert-ish climate. It was a drag coming back to winter; now I can't stop daydreaming about my plans for this summer...

But there was so much to see and do and eat. We lingered at cafes and bars; we lost a day because of rain so we didn't get to go for a boat ride up the river delta like I had hoped; we indulged in a hot tub after a day of walking; we saw a traditional Argentine folklore show at La Pena del Colorada; we were entranced by ordinary people dancing tango at a milonga (tango bar) called La Catedral filled with Argentine hipsters, putting Brooklyn bars to shame; we drove through the plains to Rosario, a smaller city up the Rio de la Plata; we drank a lot; and we ate a lot of meat and cheese.

I think my favorite part of the trip was getting to see my friend Meag, who now lives in Argentina in domestic bliss with her boyfriend. We had hardly talked in the six months since she moved, and suddenly there we were together again, the four of us sightseeing and eating and laughing our way through the second half of the trip. Saying goodbye was surreal, to go back to not seeing them again for who knows how many months and years, until the next time one of us makes the trek to the other continent.

So we are planning to go back. With just six days to see two cities, there wasn't enough time to do and see everything that Argentina has to offer. I'd love to go back and take a tango class, stay up in a club till 6am, see more of other areasof Argentina, hike in the wilds of Patagonia, go to a traditional Sunday asado (their version of family barbecues in the summer, with a lot more meat), eat more empanadas. Jesse has a plan for us to take Spanish classes together and then travel all over South America. I don't know about that, but I'll concede to making more of an effort to learning Spanish for our next trip - I want to go to Peru, and Brazil if my sister returns to work there, and back to Argentina of course.

To be continued

New Amsterdam Market Auction!

2009-02-20T11:47:00.006-05:00

New Amsterdam's first fundraiser event may be sold out, but you can still support them by bidding to win one of their many awesome auction prizes!

I am so excited about almost everything on this list, I can't decide what I will bid for! Here are my favorites.....

A Small Repast with Alice Waters

Tour and Lunch with Blue Hill at Stone Barns

Uncork New York! case of wine

Bluepoint Kayaking Tour and Clambake

So head on over and indulge in some fun foodie longings to support New Amsterdam Market, the organization trying to bring a permament monthly indoor farmer and artisan market to New York City.

I'm Off!

2009-02-08T10:14:00.002-05:00

I'm off to Argentina to escape winter for some sunshine, steak, wine, and tango. See you in a week!

photo via flickr

Beet Oreo Cakes

2009-01-25T21:57:00.004-05:00

I've been feeling culinarily challenged lately. What's the point in telling you about the same old dinners all the time? And the internet is annoyingly spotty in my apartment, making it hard to upload photos and post regularly.

But a couple weeks ago I did host two dinner parties, both lovely. I had some extra time to get ready for the second one, so I decided to experiment with using beets in baking. I was aiming for brownies with edges by baking them in cupcake tins, but they really came out more like dense little cakes, not quite fudy enough to be brownies. I also added some oreo crumbs leftover from my last baking endeavor to make an amazing crunchy topping that really set these cakes over the top. The hint of beet flavor made these cakes rich, moist, complex, (and slightly reddish). I'll definitely be using beets more often in my chocolate goods.

adapted from here

Beet Oreo Cakes
about 4 small beets
3.5 oz dark chocolate
6 tbsp butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup crushed oreos
1 tbsp butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350. Boil beets with skins on until fork tender. Let cool, peel, and then puree in a food processor. You should have about 3/4 cup of beet puree.

Melt chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water, stirring until melted completely. Set aside to cool.

Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Whisk in eggs, then chocolate, and beet puree. Add flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder, and beat until smooth.

In a smaller bowl, make oreo topping by combining crushed oreos and butter until butter is incorporated.

Pour batter into two greased muffin pans. Sprinkle oreo topping over each cake. Bake for approximately 20 minutes until knife inserted comes out clean. Enjoy!

Oreo Cupcakes

2009-01-11T19:08:00.002-05:00

My sister and I threw a party on Friday night to welcome her to the hood. She made these fab Oreo Cupcakes, displayed in a new cupcake holder I got for Christmas. Scroll past the pictures for the recipe

Oreo Cupcakes
1 cup butter
1 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 oz melted chocolate
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder
dash cinnamon
dash ginger

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Oreo Frosting
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
chocolate shavings

Combine ingredients, frost cupcakes, and top each with Oreo crumbs and one large Oreo chunk.

Healthy Beans and Rice

2009-01-05T23:30:00.001-05:00

It's a typical story but true - after gorging on food of all sorts over the holidays, I actually couldn't stand the thought of any more sugar and started craving whole grains and greens. So I devised this healthy version of rice and beans, with spinach, brown rice, and quinoa for added nutrition. For flavor, I tossed in salsa and cheddar cheese, but plenty of other cheeses would work well with this. Likewise, feel free to swap in an onion for the leek depending on what you have on hand.

Jesse called it his "favorite thing you've ever made." Of course - this is exactly the kind of one pot dish he loves - a creamy bowl of hearty grains, protein and greens. I only wish I had made more because he ate about 3 straight servings, leaving me without leftovers, so next time I might double the recipe.

Healthy Beans and Rice

1 cup dried black beans (or 2 cans black beans)
1/2 cup brown rice
1/2 cup quinoa
1 leek
1 bunch spinach
1/4 cup grated cheese
1 cup salsa
salt
pepper
crushed hot pepper
cumin

Soak dried beans overnight (or bring to a boil and then let soak for one hour). Rinse beans and then return to pot covered with two inches of water. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender, about 60-90 minutes.

Combine rice, quinoa, and 2 1/2 cups water in a small pot, and simmer for about 40 minutes until rice is tender.

After about 30 minutes, rinse and chop the leek into half moons. In a large pan, sautee leeks over low heat. Then rinse the spinach, chop into small pieces, and sautee until wilted. Add salsa to pan to warm.

When rice and beans are done, combine in pan with spinach, grated cheese, salsa, and spices. Makes about 4 servings.

Xmas Cookies

2008-12-23T00:34:00.002-05:00

I haven't quite gotten into the holiday spirit this year. Instead, I've been feeling stressed and overwhelmed by holiday preparations and life in general. Maybe it's seasonal affective disorder. Who knows.

Anyway, every year I dream of mammoth cookie baking sessions, like the ones I remember with my mom when little, involving several kinds of cookies, sprinkles and decorations, cookie cutters, and Christmas music in the background. I dream of tins filled with a variety of cookies to give to all my near and dear ones. But as with most years, I instead wimp out and cheap out by just making a couple kinds of treats for just a few people.

Last year, I made truffles, but rolling out 60 some truffles was too time intensive and daunting for my jam packed schedule this year. What I chose to do instead was to make a batch of biscotti for my dad again, swapping in almond extract and out the chocolate chips for a pure unadulterated almond biscotti.

In addition, I made two batches of oatmeal cranberry cookies for Jesse's family. Interestingly enough, I thought I used the same recipe, below, for both batches, but that came out oh-so-different. It's because the local Ronnybrook butter I typically use comes in tubs, not sticks, making it hard to measure out in tablespoons. I try to scoop out a tablespoon of butter at a time, but the butter typically isn't soft and pliable enough straight out of the tub and I guess I usually end up with a low approximation. My first batch of oatmeal cranberry cookies (sadly no picture), probably had just 1/4 or 1/3 cup of butter instead of 1/2, and came out tall and caky, like a dense mini muffin, but the sugary taste was amazing.

For the second batch, I used an actual stick (1/2 cup) of vegan Earth Balance to accommodate Jesse's dad who is lactose intolerant, and what a difference it made. These cookies came out thin and crisp with an overwhelming taste of butter (er...vegan butter). I've never had cookies spread so much on the baking sheet, probably because I always skimp on butter. Clearly, I have much to learn in the science of cookie baking. Because I thought the buttery taste was overwhelming this time, I've lowered the butter in the recipe from 8 tbsp (1/2 cup or 1/ stick) to 7 tbsp.

My favorite part of these cookies, whether thick or thin, is the cranberries, which taste like bright jewel tones. Yes, I know jewel tones are colors, but yet I can't stop thinking of that word every time I bite into some oatmeal cranberry goodness. I also recommend trying to find raw sugar if you can, which adds an extra sugary spark to each mouthful. The spices make the cookies more seasonal. And with the goodness of some whole wheat flour, oats, and dried fruit, you can pretend these are good for you!

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
adapted from my friend Luke's recipe

7 tbsp butter (or Earth Balance)
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup all purpose or white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/s tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 1/2 cup oats
1 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Whisk in one egg and then vanilla. Dump flour, baking soda, and spices over top, and mix dry ingredients into wet. Stir in oats and cranberries. Scoop out teaspoon sized mounds and place on greased baking sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes. Makes approximately 36 cookies.

Thanksgiving Recap

2008-12-01T23:53:00.007-05:00

I got my chance to take the lead in cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my family this year. I spread the cooking out over a few days and it was surprisingly unstressful. Thank you to Lisa, my sous chef and my Mom for supervising. Here's the run down:

The turkey
My mom always gets a free turkey from Shoprite and I wasn't about to rain on her parade. I also wasn't about to bring a Greenmarket turkey on a 3 hour public transportation ride along with the rest of the food I needed to bring. Better luck going heritage and free range next year. Mom supervised the turkey, I just did what she told me to do.

Roasted butternut squash with parmesan and thyme
Replaced the traditional baked sweet potatoes that I never liked. These were devoured. Although I thought there was too much thyme and too mushy from too much cooking time.
Lisa's single-rise yeast biscuits with lemon, rosemary, and sage (before baking)
Replaced the traditional Shoprite from-a-can-slice-and-bake rolls. Couldn't taste the lemon. Didn't rise as well as in her test run. Surprisingly similar to the usual rolls = I still liked them.
My parents' remodeled wet bar
Replaced the old wet bar where alcohol was unwelcome and looked like a stereo closet crammed with science fiction paperbacks
Appetizers, including homemade rustic wheat crackers, roasted garlic and herb white bean dip, and hummus
Balsamic marinated roasted beets
My family is afraid of beets so these were not a hit, but at least Jesse ate up the leftovers.
Mashed potatoes
I tried to infuse roasted garlic flavor, but didn't use enough garlic
Steamed broccoli with balsamic-mustard sauce
To replace the plain traditional steamed broccoli. Could have used a little more tang.

Roasted green beans with lemon juice, dill, toasted almonds, and caramelized onions
I finally figured out why my mom serves green beans on Thanksgiving even though it's out of season - because she has a ton in the freezer from her garden and wants to use them. Defrosted green beans don't roast well. The dish also could have used more than one onion for a better green bean-to-onion ratio.
Pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies (before baking)
Not pictured: Stuffing with baguette, celery, apples, and onions (replacing the traditional Pepperidge Farm/Stouffers/whatever it is stuffing from a bag); two gravy dishes, one made with real turkey drippings and one made from a Shoprite gravy packet; Mom's cranberry-cider sauce (replacing the traditional canned cranberry); and most of the desserts: Mom's apple pie, Mom's pumpkin pie, Lisa's real pumpkin pie with whole wheat crust, storebought sweet potato pie, tiramasu, truffles, blueberry muffins, and banana bread

The best part about Thanksgiving: The leftovers

The worst part: My fat belly from sitting around eating and headaches from playing Minesweeper all week.

The Jackpot: Underground Meat! plus Muffins!

2008-11-26T18:00:00.005-05:00

And now, while I slave away toward the Thanksgiving feast, a not very explanatory guest post from my sister Lisa

Out of a refrigerator in a nondescript office space downtown, flowed forth local beef, pork, raw cheese, raw milk, local pickles, salsa, bread...

Plus some butternut squash, turnips, onions, turnip greens, and raw cheddar.

From that came the meal of burgers and mashed turnips above[ed note: at least that's what it looks like]

And for desert!!: butternut squash maple muffins with homemade oat flour

2 cups oat flour [rolled oats ground in a food processor until fine]
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 banana
1/4 cup applesauce
1 cup mashed butternut squash [roasted, cooled, and mashed]
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine ingredients, spoon into greased muffin tins, and crumble brown sugar on top. [I'm guessing you can bake these at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.]

hott!!

thanks Lisa, that was very interesting...

The Usual

2008-11-25T18:54:00.003-05:00

This is how most weeknight dinners in my home end up. I cook a big one-pot dish that includes some form of protein, vegetable, and grain, and then we each eat a bowl or two of it for dinner, and the rest goes into tupperware stored in the fridge and freezer for future lunches/dinners/Jesse's midnight drunk ransacking of the kitchen.

Pictured above is my naive attempt at making Indian food at home: a variation on aloo gobi, with the addition of chickpeas for protein. I simmered dried chickpeas until soft, while cooking brown rice, and while boiling cauliflower and potatoes until tender and while defrosting blanched summer tomatoes from the freezer. Then I sauteed onions in a big pot until translucent, added in the potatoes, cauliflower, chickpeas, and rice with a whole heck of curry powder (probably 2 tbps), tumeric, cumin, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper and simmered it all together a few more minutes. Not as good as what you'd get at an Indian restaurant. But good enough for a healthy, everyday kind of meal.

An Indulgent Weekend

2008-11-24T21:01:00.002-05:00

I wanted to have a nice romantic dinner on Saturday, so I went to the Union Square Greenmarket to get the goods, and here's what I cooked up with Jesse's help. A flat-iron grass-fed bison steak from Elk Trails, seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked in butter in a cast iron pan on medium heat for about 8 minutes on each side. At least I think that's how long it was - it seemed to take a long time. The bison farmer recommended cooking it slowly over relatively low heat, as searing it too hot can overcook the bison quickly. It turned out well, but slightly tough. I usually marinate these cheaper cuts like flat-iron and flank steak, but wanted to see if it could stand on its own. Next time I'll go back to marinating.

On the side we enjoyed brussel sprouts steamed with garlic (nice, but I think roasting would give it more oomph) and our usual fries: potatoes sliced, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasted in the oven until crispy and tender, dipped into green garlic and vinegar spiked mayonnaise. As well as a bottle of nonlocal Malbec from Argentina via Trader Joe's because I was feeling cheap. And the cocoa applesauce muffins before and after dinner.

On Sunday I planned to make chili in the crockpot and let it cook all day while we hung out. Jesse implored "I want to go out for dinner." I responded, "That would put me over my food budget for this month, but we can go get drinks before dinner instead." Which made a nice compromise for both of us, or so we thought.

So we hopped on the G and went to Cherry Tree, which has an excellent draft beer selection, which turned into more beers across the street at Fourth Avenue Pub in Park Slope. By late afternoon, we started to get hungry but knew the chili wouldn't be done yet. So instead of heading straight home, we extended our outing even further with a stop at Flatbush Farm for appetizers.

Their oysters are amazing every time; never bland/hit or miss like at other restaurants. We also shared the Ploughman's Plate of cheddar cheese, salami, and bresaola (I think that's what it all was), but at $12 I felt it was a bit lacking in the meat for the price. Then finally went on home and ate chili and cornbread (baked in the cast iron skillet, again lacking in other baking apparatus). Total money spent in eating and drinking that day: more than if we had just gone out to dinner. Whoops!

Cocoa Applesauce Muffins

2008-11-24T14:50:00.001-05:00

I wanted to make a sweet treat to go with our romantic dinner on Saturday (more on that to come). In thinking about what I had on hand - no chocolate chips but some cocoa powder, as well as lots of old apples going brown and waiting for me to get off my lazy butt and make applesauce - I concocted what I thought was a recipe for fudgy brownies with applesauce.

To make applesauce, I diced the apples, put them in a saucepan covered with a little water, honey, and cinnamon, and simmered for about 30 minutes until tender. Then I mashed the apples with a fork, until they had the consistency of chunky applesauce, and set it aside to cool.

I'm lacking in the baking apparatus (the roommate who recently moved out took her useful bread and cake pans with her), so I poured the batter into muffin tins, thinking they would come out like rich brownie cupcakes. However, I must have used too much flour and baking powder because they rose up instead as moist, hearty muffins, with just a touch of cocoa and spice. The chocolate flavor was very subtle, better serving as a morning treat or afternoon snack than a decadent dessert. For a heightened chocolate flavor, I think you'd have to double the cocoa powder and/or melt in some chocolate. Despite that, these muffins were addictive enough in their own right, and only one was left by the weekend's end.

Cocoa Applesauce Muffins

6 tbsp of butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1 cup applesauce
1/4 cup hot water
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp baking powder

Bring 1/3 cup water to simmer in a saucepan. Melt butter in a large bowl over saucepan. Set bowl aside to cool.

Then pour 1/4 of the hot water into a small bowl of cocoa powder, and whisk to combine. Set aside to cool.

While ingredients cool, preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two muffin tins.

Once cooled, whisk sugar, honey, eggs, applesauce, and cocoa mixture into the melted butter until smooth. Pour flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking powder into the bowl and stir to combine.

Scoop batter into muffin tins and bake for approximately 20 minutes until knife inserted comes out clean. Makes 24 small muffins - or 15 regular muffins (make sure to grease any muffin tins you leave empty).

A Night at the Opera

2008-11-20T18:30:00.000-05:00

I went with friends to see Doctor Atomic at the Metropolitan Opera a couple weeks ago and I really, really didn't like it. My problem was that neither the story/libretto nor the music captivated my attention. So it was three and a half hours of zoning out.

I've liked other music by John Adams, of the lush, repepetitive, tonal, minimal style, and so I blindly went in expecting more of the same, but this was actually an atonal opera. It sounded boring to me, as if they just needed to come up with another note to sing the next word on, without there being any rhyme or reason. I recognize that all music does not have to be purely tonal, but this music just didn't captivate me in any kind of way.

I saw an atonal opera at the Met a couple years ago, American Tragedy by Tobias Picker, and likewise wasn't a big fan of the music, but at least that story kept me plugged in and enjoying the experience.

In theory, the story of Doctor Atomic had great potential. It's about the creators of the atomic bomb in the 1940s, during the month leading up to the first test of the bomb in New Mexico. They both feared and hotly anticipated the test, not knowing if it would fail with a whimper, erroneously destroy the whole planet, or work successfully. What a weighty subject.

However, the libretto didn't bring it all together in the amazing way that it could have. Instead, we had a bunch of people onstage arguing with each other about testing the bomb, interjected with seemingly unrelated painfully long monologues by the male and female counterparts of a couple waxing rhapsodically about love. So then I started to think maybe there was a love story in there too, though I could not for the life of me tell the point of all their rhapsodizing or how it related to the rest of the plot. But no, the Playbill explained those songs are just a married couple "pondering love, life, war, and peace" in the most boring way possible, furthering the plot not one bit. No character development. Nothing.

There were lots of other things about the story that were unclear to me until I read the Playbill at intermission. Maybe it was a mistake to not read the Playbill before watching the opera. Maybe this is just a problem with most opera. But come on - I'm reading the text line by line from a little screen in front of my seat. I shouldn't have to also read a plot summary to know what the fuck is going on. You don't have to read a plot summary while watching a movie or a play - the whole point of the theater is that the action should explain itself to you as it goes along. Am I right?

I only liked one part, the massive Bhagavad Gita choir towards the end. The text "Oh shape stupendous" seems particularly relevant as they wait for the giant bomb to drop, as does the power of the music.

Then when the bomb detonated at the opera's finale, a giant sound emanated out of the speaker behind me that was so loud and went on so long that I felt queasily claustrophobic as if the low reverberating sound was smothering me there in our steep, cramped seats, as if the sound might cause the walls to crack and the building to collapse and tilt and me to go tumbling all the way down. And I'm only 23! How must all of the old people (the majority of opera goers) have felt!? Isn't that a health hazard? Yes, it was making a point about the terror and immense power of the atom bomb, and maybe I'm a wimp, but still.....it could have been 20 seconds shorter.

So the point of the story is - while I will accept atonal music, I don't particularly like it. And just because it's an opera doesn't give you an excuse to not tell a story well.

Cornmeal Berry Pancakes

2008-11-15T11:23:00.004-05:00

Now that our storebought buckwheat pancake mix is finally long used up and gone, I get the fun task of making up homemade pancake recipes. Last weekend I made use of cornmeal and berries in my freezer to whip up these babies. I used raspberries because that's what I had in my freezer, which gave the pancakes a surprisingly floral note, but I think blueberries would be better. I did the mixing of the batter and then, as household pancake master, Jesse did the pouring and flipping.

He loved them, and I liked the crispiness of the cornmeal (but maybe maple syrup will make almost any pancake taste good), but I thought he cooked them a little too dark. He said it was because they took too long to cook through the middle. So some kind of recipe tweaking will have to happen on my next batch to prevent that problem.

Cornmeal Berry Pancakes

1 cup flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 tbsp sugar or honey
1 tbsp baking powder
4 tbsp melted butter
1 egg
1 cup plus 2 tbsp milk
1 cup berries
syrup

If using frozen berries, rinse them quickly in water to thaw and let dry on paper towels. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well and stir in wet ingredients. If batter is too thick, add more milk, one tbsp at a time. Gently stir in berries. Heat a spoonful of butter in a skillet until foamy. Pour pancakes out in pan to desired size, flip after a few minutes, and remove when browned. Serve with real maple syrup.

Chicken and Hot Pepper Pizza

2008-11-13T21:44:00.001-05:00

I made pizza again and look at how beautiful it is! I'm always surprised at how it comes out looking and tasting like real pizza, minus the whole charred crust blackened by an 800 degree brick oven of course. This one was topped with tomato sauce, diced chicken, hot pickled peppers, and parmesan.

I know everyone loves Peter Reinhardt's whole wheat pizza dough as featured on 101 Cookboks, but whenever I make it, the crust is just too thin for my liking. It works great for the grill, but now that I've got my oven back, I'm sticking with my other go-to pizza dough recipe, which is what I used here.

Mmm pizza. I guess it's a good thing it's so time intensive with all that rising, or I'd be making and eating pizza to much for my own good.

Roasted Root Vegetable and Bean Casserole

2008-11-13T08:00:00.001-05:00

While the pumpkin was roasting on Sunday night, I also roasted up this squash casserole for dinner. This is one of our favorite go-to fall/winter dishes, so I thought I'd bring it back from the archives for you.

I like making it best with butternut squash, potatoes, onions, and a couple different kind of beans, but you can throw in whatever you have on hand. Other kinds of squash, carrots, parsnips, celery root, and leeks also work well. If you only have a squash and a can of beans, you can make a small batch like that, or you can make a huge casserole with all the vegetables in your fridge, but the fuller your casserole dish, the longer it will take to roast. Either way, at the end you will have a dish of tender roasted vegetables and beans that are slightly softly falling apart on your fork, enhanced by creamy melted parmesan.

Roasted Root Vegetable and Bean Casserole

1 butternut squash
2 small or 1 large potato
2 small or 1 large carrot
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 can white beans
1 can black beans
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper
dried rosemary and/or sage
parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Peel the squash (but not the other vegetables) and chop vegetables into 1 inch pieces. Dice the garlic. Rinse the beans. Coat the bottom of a casserole dish with olive oil. Throw all the ingredients in, add the spices and another glug of olive oil, and lightly stir to create an even mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and cook in the oven for 20-45 minutes until tender. Remove the foil and cook for another 10 minutes, until vegetables are soft and browning slightly. Grate and stir in parmesan cheese.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

2008-11-12T21:42:00.003-05:00

Now that fall has finally come to Brooklyn for real, with leaves turned yellow and fallen on the ground, it's time to start cooking all that hardy squash lying around. I picked up a sugar pie pumpkin from the farmers market and roasted it this weekend so that I'd have real, fresh pumpkin puree instead of canned glop to bake with. Sugar pie pumpkins are a little smaller and darker orange in color, and also better for baking, than regular pumpkins.

Roasting the pumpkin was easy. First I sliced the whole pumpkin in half and scooped out the seeds and stringy bits. Then I laid it in a baking dish with about a half inch of water so it wouldn't burn, and roasted it in the oven at 425-450 degrees for about an hour. Check on it every now and then to make sure you don't overcook it. The pumpkin is done when you can mush down the flesh with a fork. Next, let it cool for a while so you don't burn yourself. Finally, peel off and discard the skin, and mash up the flesh with a fork so you're left with creamy pumpkin puree. Store in an airtight container for future use within about a week.

At first I couldn't decide what type of pumpkin-flavored baked good to make, but I ultimately decided on cookies because that way there's lots to go around when I bring them into work. Lacking chocolate chips and nuts, I decided I needed something else to amp up the cookies, so I decided on a cinnamon-sugar coating, inspired by the yummy snickerdoodles that Jesse's mom always makes so well. But since these are pumpkin cookies, I took things even further and added extra spices like nutmeg and ginger to both the batter and cinnamon-sugar mixture to bring out the autumn cheer.

The cookies came out a little cakier than I'd hoped, as often happens when cooking with moist pumpkin puree, but nevertheless delicious. They're like mini muffins of heaven and spice and crackly sugar. If they stay just as good tomorrow, these will be in the running for Thanksgiving day dessert (because, yes, I'm getting to cook Thanksgiving this year!)

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda

Cinnamon-sugar-spice coating
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream softened butter and sugar until fluffy. Whisk in egg, pumpkin, and vanilla one at a time. Dump remaining dry ingredients in the bowl and stir until all combined. It might seem dry at first, but keep stirring until it comes together as a dough.

In a shallow dish, combine sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon. Take a teaspoon of dough, roll it around in the cinnamon-sugar mixture until coated and then flatten between the palm of your hands, coat with cinnamon-sugar again, and place on a greased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining cookies.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes. Makes about 36 cookies.

Wedding Inspiration Board: Pink and Blue Birds

2008-11-08T15:14:00.007-05:00

Don't worry, I'm not the one getting married. One of my oldest friends, Elaine, just got engaged, and I thought it would be fun to try to put together an inspiration board for her, inspired by all the pretty pictures over at Snippet & Ink. I felt a theme of pale pinks and blues with sweet lovebirds would be fitting for Elaine, my petite, kind,and funny friend. I wanted to show that even though she's probably going to have a fall wedding, the decor doesn't have to be the staid orange and red and brown route that so many fall flower arrangements and events seem to go.

Click the photo for a full size image

1. Birds Nest decor, via Once Wed
2. Hairpiece, by the Tijusai Etsy shop
3. Ring pillow, designed by Debbie Notis, photo by Corbin Gurkin via Once Wed
4. Invitation, by The Paper Door Etsy shop
5. Pink champagne, photo by Joel Flory via Snippet & Ink
6. Cupcakes with bird toppers, from Maple Sugar via Snippet and Ink
7. Designate the bride and groom's seats with pretty ribbon, photo by Billy Winters via Snippet & Ink
8. Mason jars with big pink flowers, photo by Heather Forsythe via Snippet & Ink
9. Blue shirts for the men, photo by Jose Villa via Snippet & Ink
10. Fall foliage, via Once Wed
11. Necklace, by Lisa Leonard
12. Guests can drop kind notes into this birdcage, photo by Allison Garrett via Snippet & Ink
13. Seating cards photo by Still Weddings, via Snippet & Ink
14. Ribbon wands for guests to wave during the ceremony, from Blogger Brides
15. Flowers arranged in rustic pitchers (though the peonies would have to be replaced by another pink flower more in season for the fall), from Peonies and Polaroids
16. Pink bridesmaid dresses, by Ann Taylor Loft, photo by Sandra Coan via The Knot
17. Table number cards by eeBoo
18. Flowy feminine wedding dress, by Kim Grayz via Snippet & Ink
19. Cake by Rebecca Thuss
20. Simple table settings with pink and blue ribbon wrapped around napkins, from Peonies and Polaroids
21. Vintage blue vases with single buds, styled by Molly FitzSimons via Snippet & Ink
22. A bouquet of white, pink, and blue wildflowers, from Martha Stewart Weddings

Rhode Island Style Calamari

2008-11-06T20:51:00.001-05:00

I'm a big fan of fried calamari, and almost always order it when I see it on a menu. On our way back from Maine this summer, Jesse and I stopped in at Portsmouth Brewery for dinner and drinks on a very rainy night. We blindly ordered "Rhode Island style calamari" from their menu, not realizing what that meant until it arrived, fried calamari mixed in with hot peppers - so hot, in fact, that we struggled to finish the dish.

Recently, when I tasted my second batch of pickled peppers this weekend (and whoo boy are they hotter than the first batch - throwing in a couple jalapenos really worked) it immediately called to mind a chance to make Rhode Island style calamari at home. I've been jonesing to make fried calamari for ages, and I figured I would go milder with the spicy peppers by throwing in just in enough for some kick.

This was also my first attempt at deep frying, and I now don't know what I was always so scared of. It takes a lot of oil, but other than that, it's no problem. I heated two inches of olive oil in a big pot over medium heat, and I don't have a cooking thermometer, so I just winged it and figured that the oil was probably hot enough after five minutes or so.

Meanwhile, I removed the squid (pre-cleaned, from the farmers market of course) from from its soak in a bowl of milk, salt, and pepper, drained it, and dredged it in a mixture of half flour-half cornmeal and more salt and pepper. Into the pot they went, about five at a time for about 2 minutes at a time, and then I removed them with a slotted spatula and let them drain on paper towels. Use a LOT of paper towels - the massive oil coming off the calamari soaked right through my paper towels. To finish it off, I warmed up a heaping half cup of tomato sauce with the pickled peppers, and tossed it all together.

As you can also see, the calamari looks rather long and tubular. I stupidly forgot to slice the squid into little rings before dredging and frying them. Don't make that mistake - you'll get more crunchy fried surface area and a more tender bite if you cook them in small pieces. For some reason, a lot of the flour-cornmeal mixture fell off in the cooking process, so it didn't have that restaurant-quality all-around crunchy coating, but it was good enough for us. The peppers, on the other hand, got pushed to the side for being too hot again. Next time I'll leave out the peppers and make a fun mayo dipping sauce.

We Did It!

2008-11-05T10:08:00.003-05:00

via mindseyecards on etsy
A little after 11 last night I was fiddling around in my kitchen to make a grilled cheese sandwich for election-viewing-snacking, when I heard an eruption of screams from the bar next door, and I knew the good news before I even had a chance to turn on the TV and see it for myself. I almost didn't think it would happen, after the last two elections ended in disappointment, but we did it, we beat the greedy Republicans! Standing in line for over an hour to vote was all worth it.

EDIT: I thought I heard a helicopter or plane just circling and circling loudly last night! Chrysanthe has the scoop - apparently police were in riot gear on Bedford too trying to control the crowds.

Kids in Our Hearts

2008-10-30T19:00:00.004-05:00

Lisa is really picking up the slack for my lazy posting. Here's another post from her, reflecting on her past, and future, living with goats.

My two sisters and I grew up on a small hobby goat farm in upstate NY, drinking the milk, eating my mom's simple homeade goat cheese, and milking, birthing, and playing with a bunch of does and kids (mothers and babies). Each was named by my mother or one of us from a list of our favorite flowers: there was Petunia, Iris, Daisy, Edelweiss, Magnolia, Lilac, and then Sparky when I got to name one. As we all got older, the goats somehow phased out of our lives. Pictured above is the lone remaining goat, Aurora, who is just a pet who looks pretty by the barn, and isn't milked.

Yesterday, while searching webrings for local cow and goat farms, sentimentality hit me hard, and I realized how much I missed that life and how jealous I felt every time I'd arrive at the next website of a cute, small goat farm somewhere in Florida.

For some ineffable reason, I've been feeling incredibly driven to this sort of farming - I've thought about working at produce farms and worked at a cow dairy farm, but never really felt any strong feelings for them. So this is the plan for my life: that I will someday in the future have a goat farm (although definitely not in Florida), give them all flower names (unless it's my mischeivous daughter's turn) and (probably illegally) sell the small amount of milk and cheese just to my friends and family and to Julia if she owns a bar in Brooklyn or upstate somewhere someday. Working towards this today, I hope to spend get back to Brazil (where I studied abroad in college) for some time WWOOFing on a goat dairy in Brazil during my upcoming grad school years.

Additional commentary from Julia
Hmm, I'm not sure I can sell "illegal" goat cheese at a bar. I think that might violate health codes somehow. And yes, one of my dreams to open a bar. More on that another day.

Triumph in the Quest for Local Meat

2008-10-30T15:00:00.001-05:00

And another guest post from my sister Lisa in Florida, where finding locally sourced food is much more difficult than the Greenmarket-haven that is New York City.

After asking around at the Sarasota farmer's market about local beef, and only hearing of one farm (that sells only wholesale and incidentally, the restaurant I manage is strictly vegetarian), I asked the guys behind the meat counter at Whole Foods if they knew of any farms in the area. The older, wiser-looking fellow told me sort of discreetly about a buffalo farm in Bradenton. After much google searching, I found the phone number and gave them (Gap Creek Buffalo) an inquiring call.

Yesterday I undertook the trafficy 25 minute drive north to their house where they sell just from two small coolers. The variety was impressive for the size of the operation. 4 or 5 different cuts of steak, ground, burger patties, ground sausage, link sausage, and of course - a cooler full of hearts, lungs, tongues and other delicacies. After buying almost $50 of meat (wanted to stock up because I hate driving in Florida!), I asked them if they knew of any other farms that sell small-scale like they do, and they just told me plain and simple - Nope. There really aren't any. Unless they're only selling by word of mouth and to very few people.

All this was disconcerting, but my mood was quickly elevated back to a state of meaty bliss after grilling the buffalo burgers with some beer and friends over a charcoal grill. I only seasoned them with a little salt, pepper and garlic and found the flavor slightly milder than beef but distinctive and delicious. The extremely low fat content makes them cook faster than beef burgers so there was less waiting, which I appreciated after preparing the patties and the grill and getting my house ready for guests.

Overall, I (and we) loved it... so even though there may not be any local beef, chicken or eggs on the local horizon, at least we can still cook buffalo over the fire any time we want. Next time I'll remember marshmallows.

The Best News Ever

2008-10-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

via Robert Wright for the New York Times

Sixpoint is going to start making bottled beer! It says so in this fascinating article in the New York Times today about a resurgence in beer brewing in Brooklyn, which once produced one fifth of the nation's beer and is now home to only three breweries. Most importantly it announces that Sixpoint Craft Ales is going to open a new facility in Williamsburg that will allow them to produce bottled beer!

Jesse and I are so excited. We looove Sixpoint, and have been eagerly awaiting the day we could enjoy bottles of it in our home, instead of having to trek to a bar or all the way to Bierkraft in Park Slope for a pricey growler. Their beers, which are all characterized by the same fast-acting yeast that lends a distinctive hoppy flavor, have been growing ever more popular over the past couple years, and it's about time. I'll be sure to let you know when the bottles hit stores so y'all can go out and try it too. In the meantime, you can use Beer Menus to find the bar nearest you with Sixpoint on tap.

The Richardson

2008-10-28T20:00:00.005-05:00

via yelp

Now that we're both feeling well enough to do more than just plop into bed after work, Jesse suggested last night that we go get a drink at Pete's Candy Store, the bar next door to our apartment. But I had a better idea. I wanted to go somewhere different, so we went to check out a new bar in the hood, The Richardson. It's known for being a classy speakeasy joint with excellent specialty cocktails, but we didn't know if they much of a beer selection. Well, we were pleasantly surprised that they have several great beers on tap, all from Northeast microwbreweries (except for Guinness and Old Speckled Hen from across the pond). Jesse enjoyed Southern Tier's excellent IPA, which I'd never seen on draft before, and I had Sixpoint's Righteous Rye for a hearty winter beer. Beer prices aren't bad either, mostly $5 a beer, with a few $6 glasses. I'm so glad I convinced Jesse we should go, since we ended up having better beer than we would have at Pete's.

The Richardson's cocktails looked good, especially the Old Fashioned, which intrigued me with its mix of bitters, sugar cube, and bourbon, but at $9 a pop and a month of spending that's left me feeling poor, I decided to try it another time. Oh and they also serve small plates - olives, nuts, toasts, and sandwiches - but sadly, nothing looked particularly appealing to me.

Since The Richardson is only three blocks from my apartment, this might be another new standby for a nice romantic drink. I think I might even have my birthday there, since the interior is spacious, with a few nooks. They did a great job with the simple and sophisticated decor, which features beautiful wallpaper, a long bar, and smooth dark wood tables, chairs, and stools.

The Richardson
451 Graham Ave at Richardson Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn - Graham Ave stop

Guest post: Finding local meat in Florida

2008-10-28T14:29:00.005-05:00

Another guest post from my sister Lisa, who's currently living in Sarasota, Florida, and managing a college campus cafe. The other night she made this delicious looking whole wheat pasta with chicken sausage, and local garlic, onion and arugula. Here's her story:

Celebrating the first week of Worden Farm (the only local, organic farm that sells at the Sarasota farmer's market), I had a Saturday night feast of sauteed garlic, onions and arugula that had the perfect balanced peppery, but mild, taste. Add some non-local chicken sausage from Whole Foods (the quest for local meat in the Sarasota area is still ongoing) and the result was spicy garlic and sausage, sweet vidalia onions and tomato sauce, and filling whole wheat al dente pasta. This was miles better than the pasta dishes I grew up on, which were usually bland and unsatisfying.

Today I will be going to pick up some buffalo meat from a small local farmer, so there may be a new, even more delicous Floridian post awaiting on the horizon.

Save Your Parmesan Rinds!

2008-10-23T20:33:00.005-05:00

The good news is that I got the internet working on my computer again. The bad news is that I'm sick. I stayed home from work today, lounging on my bed with my napping dog to keep me company. Somehow, earlier in the week before I came down with this cold, I had the foresight to make a big batch of soup, which is interesting because I'm usually not much of a soup person. Must be the chilly fall weather.

Well I'm glad I had this tasy lentil vegetable soup to warm my aching bones for lunch this week. Paired with hearty whole wheat toast, it was just what I needed. That, plus hot toddies and lots of sleep and bundling up in warm clothes and episodes of Mad Men and a leisurely walk in the autumn air, have me feeling a lot better this evening.

I had a couple rinds of old parmesan in the freezer, because I'd heard that throwing a parmesan rind in soup is a great way to add flavor. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was true - the rind melted and added much needed salt and richness to what would otherwise be a somewhat bland soup. I will definitely continue to freeze parmesan rinds once they're too stale to grate, and use them in future soups and stocks. It's the thrify way to go!

Lentil soup doesn't require an exact recipe. Here are some guidelines:
Soak a cup of lentils in water for an hour. Meanwhile, dice and sautee vegetables in a big pot until softened - I used 3 carrots, 3 leeks, and a bag full of banana peppers, becase that's what I had in the fridge from the farmers market. Add lentils and parmesan rind to the pot, along with enough chicken or vegetable stock to cover it all by an inch or two, add desired spices such as salt, pepper, oregano, sage, crushed red pepper, and then simmer for about an hour until lentils have softened. Remove parmesan rind, and ta da!

As for the bread I paired this with, it was a whole wheat loaf from the farmers market, because the bread I made myself last weekend was inedible. A sad waste of flour. I had no idea what went wrong, since the two loaves of dough felt perfect in my hands until they headed into the oven. As you can see, the crust puffed up , while the bottom layer of dough remained gummy, with a huge pocket of air in between. I had never seen anything like it, and I thought I did something wrong, but it turns out that our oven is broken! This also explains the undercooked eggplant in the eggplant parmesan I made last week, and our inability to bake potatoes into fries in the oven this week. We're getting a new oven this weekend, and I cannot wait to bake some cookies or pumpkin bread or some other tasty fall treat. It's fall, it's cold, and our landlord doesn't like to turn on the heat, so I'm dying to do some baking to warm/cozy up the apartment!

Pickled Peppers

2008-10-16T20:21:00.003-05:00

As we move deeper into fall and away from the bounty of summer's harvest, I've made some efforts to preserve some summery foods recently, knowing full well what long months of potatoes, kale, and root vegetables lie ahead after last winter. But it's been a kind of half-hearted effort because there's not much you can fit into this freezer. I could have tried to can stuff, but that scares me and I was too lazy to do enough research to figure out how to get over my fear of botulism.

You can't see it all very well because it's hidden by more usual freezer goods such as tupperwared lunches and various flours and coffee, but my freezer now contains: five ears of corn; six quarts of raspberries; two quarts of oven-dried grape tomatoes,; about 8 oven-dried red pepper strips; and three small bags of quartered tomatoes. I can't imagine that will last me very long this coming winter, but it will at least be good for some casseroles, flavored dips and breads, soups and pastas. I let the berries freeze spread out on a flat tray at first, before combining them in a tupperware, so that I'll be able to scoop them out for smoothies, baked goods, and pancakes as needed.

My mom grew an overabundance of cubanelle and banana peppers in her vegetable garden this year, so I've happily taken a bunch off her hands to make pickled peppers. Jesse loves jars of hot peperoncinis, which is what inspired me to try making something similar at home. The recipe is based loosely off Jen's recipe for pickling cucumbers, adapted for making just one pint jar at a time and based on what I have on hand. My first batch didn't have enough heat for the mister, so I also added some jalapenos from the Greenmarket into my most recent batch, and hopefully they'll turn out hotter and spicier. I also must say that I think I like pickled peppers better than my homemade pickled cucumbers (that's why you never even heard about them on here). And I think these peppers would be great on a turkey and cheese sandwich...in fact I might just make that for a picnic this weekend.

Pickled Banana Peppers

3/4 cup hot tap water
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
4 cloves garlic
1 tsbp pickling spice
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tbsp whole peppercorns
Several (about a quart) of banana or cubanelle peppers
A few jalapeno or other hot peppers

Combine brine ingredients in a large liquid measuring cup (this will make it easier to pour into the jar later than if you were using a bowl) and stir until salt and sugar are dissolved.

Chop peppers into desired size - strips, chunks, or (my favorite) round crossections.

Place one third of the peppers into a clean glass pint jar, and pour a third of the brine over the peppers. Repeat until jar is full, compressing peppers as needed (a lot more will fit in one jar than you might expect!), and make sure to scoop any straggler spices out of the measuring cup and into the jar.

Refrigerate for a week before eating; pickles will stay good in the fridge for up to a month.

Operation Homestyle: Sneak Peak

2008-10-07T11:22:00.010-05:00

I've been away for too long. This week my excuse is that the internet's been spotty. Last week it was because I was busy with "operation homestyle," which involved multiple trips to ikea and a lot of making lists of future improvements while Jesse assembled the ikea furniture like a good handyman.

So there's a sneak peak, for now, at the kitchen. The microwave and toaster have been relegated to the living room (so New York City-cramped-apartment-style of us!) and now, look at that pretty shiny new dish drying rack, and glorious counter space with a wondeful big wooden cutting board that allows me to chop and knead bread right there in the actual kitchen next to the stove, instead of ferrying ingredients back and forth from the living room (I never use that darn microwave anyway).

Also in this little nook of a kitchen is this red sweetheart chair, which doubles as a stool for hard-to-reach cabinets, and is one of a set made by Jesse's grandfather that have "sweetened" with age as layers of multicolored paint have chipped away.

I'm really happy with this cute red tray I picked up at a garage sale in Brooklyn. It's a nice decorative item that enhances the red accents in the room, but it's also handy for serving up one of my greatest loves that is also my greatest downfall - aka whiskey, along with other drinks. Yes, that measuring cup is what suffices for measuring out shots until I find a new shot glass. Like I said, more improvements to come.

No-Sew Napkins

2008-09-30T15:03:00.007-05:00

Here's a great idea I came across yesterday on a backyard wedding. She made napkins for her wedding by finding sheets from thrift stores and cutting them into size with pinking shears. I love the use of pinking shears, which hide the lack of stitched seams with fun angles. Not only does this DIY method save money, but it's also eco-friendly to repurpose old cloth instead of buying new, and it adds a nice personal touch to an event, whether it's a wedding or a dinner party. Or in my case, I keep meaning to make cloth napkins for my slobby boyfriend so he'll stop destroying the planet with his bazillion crumpled paper napkins.

from a backyard wedding

Staycation's All I Ever Wanted

2008-09-28T15:10:00.005-05:00

With my parents away on a real vacation in Europe, I thought it would be a nice time to take a staycation at their place, to get out of the city, kind of like going to a B&B except it's free. And unlike a B&B, I had to feed the ornery goat that resides in our backyard barn. Interestingly, I'm so used to living in 550 square feet in the city, that my former home in the country felt too large, with its dark, empty, creaky, dusty open spaces.

I had envisioned a gorgeous fall weekend of colorful foliage, hiking, apple picking, and so on. Instead it was dreary gray and miserably drizzly all weekend. We still managed to fit in a visit to Applewood Orchards & Winery - I think it was the only winery left in the Hudson Valley that we hadn't yet visited.
I couldn't tell the difference, but Jesse thought Applewood's wines bested them all, so we actually bought a whole case, when normally we'd politely buy just one or two bottles.

Applewood also features orchards for picking, but we weren't in the mood, so we just walked around, saw their pretty gardens, and headed back home.

The chilly gray day called for a warm, hearty dinner. I made chili, using the wealth of banana peppers and tomatoes from my mom's vegetable garden, along with some local onions, half a bottle of beer, and ground turkey (nonlocal and nonorganic because there wasn't much selection at the Warwick Shoprite). The chili wasn't very spicy because of the dearth of spices available in my mom's kitchen, but it was simple, fresh, colorful, and yummy. I put Jesse in charge of making cornbread, using the recipe on the back of the Bob's Red Mill course-ground cornmeal package, and it actually turned out great. He's a good sous chef. We paired it with Applewood's hard cider, a perfect accompaniment.

Now I'm back at the grind, back in the city. I finally managed to get a shot of the view from the deck of the apartment I don't really live in. The huge monolith of a building on the right is some kind of Verizon station, and the tall buildings straight ahead are the Bushwick projects.

As promised

2008-09-26T18:31:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Luke for this fab picture of me pretending I'm drinking with the bigwigs at a work gala, while really we were just having a blast imbibing wine and taking photos of each other behind the scenes. Another great night with my lovely coworkers :-)

Cheap Wine Glasses

2008-09-25T01:10:00.004-05:00

Why are wine glasses so easy to break? I just broke another one tonight to add to many broken past glasses - while mildly washing a champagne flute with with an angry drunken disposition - leaving me with a bloody finger, and just one red wine glass, one white wine glass, and one champagne flute in my kitchen cabinet. Can someone in design please do something about that?

I'm really into design and decor and hairpieces lately. Like oh my deer's gorgeous hairpieces below. She has more for sale on her etsy. Can I just say I finally get etsy? It's filled with tons of pretty handmade one-of-a-kind things - jewelry, clothes, aprons, crafty things galore - the kind of things that I think, oh I could make something like that myself - or I could let these talented people do a better job for me, and they don't tend to charge that much either.

Appropriately enough, a picture of me with a flower in my hair at the event that caused aforesaid drunkenness is forthcoming.

Heart Attack Day

2008-09-22T15:56:00.008-05:00

I hadn't had red meat in a while, and I'd been craving it for weeks. Finally, last Friday I picked up a package of bacon from Flying Pigs and a cut of Grazin' Angus Acres steak, and then unintentially cooked both meats last Sunday, on what you might call "Heart Attack Day." Except since I eat pork and steak so infrequently, I think it's okay to treat myself once in a while.

Brunch was a spiffed up breakfast sandwich featuring sunnyside eggs, bacon, and sliced tomato on toasted rye bread.

I usually put Jesse in charge of cooking the bacon, but this time I wanted to experiment by cooking one batch in the oven and one batch on the stovetop. Google led me to many rave reviews about how awesome oven-baked bacon is - crisp meat and simple cleanup. But I cannot agree. As directed, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees, lined a baking pan with aluminum foil, laid my bacon down, and put it in the oven. And kept checking. And checking. Recipes indicated that it would only need about 15 minutes in the oven, but after more than 30 minutes it still wasn't crispy, even after turning the heat up to 400. So I took it out and ate it as it was - which was fine, it just wasn't that awesome crunch I was craving.

My stovetop bacon was undoubtedly superior - crispy to the point of crunchy - which was the way I like it. It was done in under ten minutes, and I didn't think cleaning out my pan was all that hard. So I definitely fall in the stovetop bacon camp.

Once brunch was devoured, I set to work at marinating my steak. I bought a flat iron steak, because it was the only cheap cut he had left. I read that this is a relatively new cut in the world of meat, taken from the shoulder, and it tastes best after marinating, much like flank steak. After trimming off a ton of fat from the steak, I laid it in my usual marinade mixture of balsamic vinegar, mustard, lemon juice, water, diced garlic, salt, and pepper - and this time I added some chopped fresh sage from my deck.

I let the steak marinate for about eight hours while I enjoyed a very relaxing Sunday....dreamily reading through pretty magazines on my sundappled bed, and then a scrabble game and pumpkin ale in Black Rabbit's pretty green backyard.

In the evening, I put Jesse to work at the grill. He achieved a beautiful charred crust on the steak, though I have no idea how, because he wouldn't tell me - he's keeping it a "chef's secret"!

For a side, I whipped up colorful smashed potatoes and rainbow swiss chard (the purple tint comes from a mixture of Adriondack blue potato and yukon gold potato). I was going for a cross between potato salad, with its crunch and mayo-mustardy flavor, and colcannon mashed potatoes, dotted with creamy greens. I ingeniously chopped the swiss chard stems into little pieces to stand in for the traditional celery of potato salad, while swiss chard stood in for the cabbage that's traditionally mashed into colcannon. It turned out as deliciously as I had dreamed. I meant to save some for lunch the next day, but it was so good I ate it all at dinner - oops! Together with the hearty iron-rich steak, this dinner was exactly what my body needed!

Smashed Potatoes and Swiss Chard
2 medium-large sized potatoes
1 bunch swiss chard
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 1/2 tsp mustard
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt
pepper

Rinse and chop potatoes into 2 inch pieces. Add potatoes to a pot of salted boiling water and simmer for about 20 minutes, until tender. Drain in colander, reserving a tablespoon of cooking water.

Rinse swiss chard. Chop stems into small pieces and set aside. Chop swiss chard leaves into chiffonade. Sautee swiss chard leaves in olive oil over medium low heat until wilted.

Combine potatoes, wilted swiss chard, and swiss chard stems in a bowl. Add reserved cooking water, mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine and then mash with a fork or wooden spoon to desired smashed consistency. Serves 2 as a side dish.

White Bean Dip

2008-09-15T10:58:00.005-05:00

I haven't felt very inspired when it comes to cooking lately. My life is still all out of sorts, and I've moved but not really, so half of my cooking supplies are in one apartment, and half of them are in another. I made a couple of meals this week, but neither is worth dishing out to the blogosphere (pasta with roasted tomatoes and chicken; attempted indian spiced crock pot vegetables).

There's just one thing I've made recently that was a huge hit, unexpectedly. I had a "housewarming" party (for an apartment I haven't really been living in) last weekend, so I whipped up a white bean dip on the fly, not sure what to expect having never tried making a spread with white beans before, but everyone loved it. White bean dip is so flexible. I thought it would taste great with sundried tomatoes or roasted red peppers, but I didn't have time to procure those, while fresh herbs beckoned from my deck.

This week, as cool fall air begins to set in, I've really been itching to bake up a storm of sweet treats to satisfy my daily afternoon chocolate cravings, so hopefully you'll see some delectable baked goodies on here soon.

Roasted Garlic and Herb White Bean Dip

1 can white beans

2 cloves garlic, whole, unpeeled

1/4 cup olive oil

small handful fresh rosemary

small handful fresh thyme

zest and juice of 1/4 lemon

salt

pepper

Through the garlic onto the baking sheet while making crackers. After about ten minutes, when the crackers are done, squeeze the garlic out of its peels. Throw all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Add additional seasoning as needed. Spoon into a serving dish. Reserve a few of the fresh herbs to sprinkle over top. Serve alongside crackers.

APLS: What affluence means to me

2008-09-01T10:25:00.009-05:00

In another excuse to procrastinate from packing, I'm going to blog some more. There is this new blog carnival called ALPS: Affluent Persons Living Sustainably. I missed the boat on their first monthly roundup, but here goes for their September question, which is really me ranting about my issues with money.

Affluence. What do you think of the term? Does it apply to you? Do you dislike the word? Feel uncomfortable with it? Are there certain responsibilities that come with accepting that term?

I'm not sure if I would define myself as affluent. Affluence is all relative. I could be considered affluent in comparison to others, but when one further looks up the scale, I could look poor and miserly. Growing up, it always felt like we scrimped and saved, and those values have stayed with me my whole life. I'm obsessed with saving, I'm guessing because my parents are too. My mom still shops at places like Kohl's for clothes (kind of like a smaller slightly classier Walmart) even though she doesn't need to anymore. I realize now that my parents must have more money than we did when I was little, so I can reasonably classify our family as upper middle class. Putting three kids through college, owning a second home - those things take money. I didn't have any student loans to pay off when I got out of college two years ago, and during college I didn't think anything of it, but now I know I am very lucky, because it has really put me ahead. I'm able to save money, unlike my friends who are just making ends meet by slaving away to pay their loans every month.

I tend not to think of myself as rich. I work in the nonprofit sector. I can probably expect it to take me at least a few years to reach the salary range that is Jesse's salary now after he received a raise six months into his first job. I don't really ever expect to reach the 100k salary bracket, not on my own.

But, all of my saving means that I have more money saved than anyone else I know my age - except for those trust fund kids or others with built in life savings care of their parents - I don't even want to imagine how much they have. It's nice, having this cushion of money that means I can take a vacation if I want, or buy a friend dinner if I want, or not have to worry about the recent expenses associated with moving, etc. But I also have decisions to make. Like yesterday - I went out to buy sheets, and I had the choice between cheap regular cotton sheets or to pay more for supposedly sustainable, nontoxic, nonpesticide sheets. But those sheets weren't even organic (the store didn't even carry organic), and I questioned how green they really were. And I really didn't want to pay the higher price. Because even though I can, I don't want to. I want more money in the bank, because it means I will be able to buy my own apartment/house all the faster. Now I realize I should have done research first, and went to a store that I knew would have reasonably priced sheets. I feel guilty. I think, I'm not as green as I think I am. But at this point, I have to sleep on a new bed tonight and I need sheets now and I don't have time to go poking around hellish big box stores throughout this city.

So even though I don't spend money on typical girlie things like clothes and body products, what I do spend it on is food. Now, I think I spend a lot of money on food, because I spend about $340-400 per month, which includes about $20-35/week at the farmers market, about $90 per month at Fairway for bulk groceries, other small grocery trips, eating out, and just things like buying a bagel on the street. Every month I try to make that number go down, but that range has been pretty steady for the past year or so, and I know it's accurate because I religiously track all of my spending. And that's just for one person - Jesse probably spends another $300 something on his share of our food and his own lunches and diners out. And $700 for two people is a lot! I know theoretically two people should be able to feed themselves on much less. But we are in New York City, one of the most expensive places on the planet. I'd be curious to hear how much others spend on food.

Then, I read Jen's recent post on Last Night's Dinner revealing how much her and her husband spend on food. I've always marveled at her blog, which I browse for inspiration. She takes stunning photographs of beautifully crafted meals, made with fresh, local ingredients, seemingly restaurant quality. It turns out they most recently spent $100/week at the farmers market and another $100/week at Whole Foods! And I'm sure that does not include miscellaneous bites out to eat and so on. No wonder I've always felt like I can't keep up in the goal to make beautiful meals like hers every night. From time to time, she remarks on how she feels privileged and lucky that she has the money to eat quality food. I totally agree that it is good to spend money on food, which is something that nourishes and feeds our bodies and souls, and I am lucky that I can spend as much as I do, even if I am not lucky enough to have as much money to spend as Jen. I think realizing that you are in a place of privilege is a mark of affluence. I see so many poor children in this city eating McDonald's or chips or candy on the subway, their little bodies puffed out unbelievably, wishing there was something I could do to help them.

I also think we take our cues on who is rich based on how people choose to use their money. Because I like to save money instead of spending it, I know I do not look rich. I wear clothes over and over until they're disheveled and torn, and then I still wear them. I feel so much more comfortable in Brooklyn, where people wear whatever relaxed outfits they want with windblown hair, than I do in Manhattan, where I feel awkward everytime I go out to a bar, among preppy kids with their perfectly styled hair and make up and pricey dresses.

Then there is Jesse, who comes from a neighborhood where everyone. is. rich. I have seriously never experienced that before. My hometown is a mixed bag. But when we drive through his town, every single house looks two times as big as it needs to be. It truly baffles me. It's really hard for me to understand that people have that much money in the first place and it's hard for me to understand how they choose to spend it. Once when we went out with his friends from home, we pointed out to each other that I was wearing $11 boots from Payless whereas those girls were probably wearing $300 designer boots. I can definitively say they are affluent.

When I think about what I would do if I had a lot of money, here are my ideas: Maybe I would buy a nice apartment in Brooklyn with a pretty grassy yard. Or I would buy a house in the country. Or maybe I would buy a tiny second home in the woods or on a rural beach. Or I would buy a B&B in the country and run an eco-friendly B&B for work. Or I would open up a bar decorated with flea market found furniture and a garden in the back serving only Northeast craft beers and NY state wine. Or I would travel more. Or I would invest in real estate and not be an evil landlord. I would give to charities that really need it - health and environmental causes - not gifts so that cultural organizations can all try to outcompete each other for the biggest baddest hundred million dollar building while people are starving and all that rebuilding is destroying the planet. Among these ideas are prime examples of how you need money to make money. I think I would love to open a B&B, but first I would need the money. And how do you get that money? By staying on the treadmill of 9-5 cubicle jobs, paying my dues, plugging along and saving money, like I'm doing. That's the plan.

Another Barbecue

2008-08-31T17:14:00.005-05:00

Another weekend, another barbecue, trying to fit them all in before summer slips away. I invited friends over last night for a low key gathering, and wasn't sure how many people would come, so I ended up with a lot of leftovers, both food and alcohol-wise. I guess that's a good thing, except it means I'll have to move all of it (see below).

I made grass fed burgers using ground beef from Elk Trails with my signature fresh sage (from my deck) and worcestershire sauce combination. I grilled them myself - it was the first time I'd ever personally made hamburgers on the grill, and they came out perfectly medium and yummy.

I baked up the crisp flatbread again, this time using 1 cup local whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup white flour, and mixing in fresh ground pepper instead of rosemary, and I thought it had much better depth of flavor.

For dipping, I made hummus and baba ghanoush. I bought eggplants from a new, mad cheap vendor at the Union Square Greenmarket, but I was unlucky and it turned out they had tons of seeds, so I did my best to remove them to keep the baba ghanoush from being overly bitter. I'm not going to post the recipe I used because it was kind of fly-by-my-pants and didn't come out quite as magical as I hoped. I also ended up with less than stellar corn, that was small and not especially sweet, but people enjoyed it anyway, especially topped with some Ronnybrook butter.

And now, I should probably continue packing, since I'm moving into my new apartment tomorrow. I like to think I don't own a lot of posessions, but I've realized that my obsession with food means I will have to ferry box after box after box of foodstuffs and kitchen accoutrements. Moving is a bitch.

Changing?

2008-08-23T17:45:00.009-05:00

Things are changing in the world of the Wounded Chef.

But despite this, I still managed to get some fresh local foods in me. Last weekend, I grilled a chicken breast from Quattro and a red pepper, and so my lunch for the week was sandwiches of homemade whole wheat bread, garlic marinated grilled red peppers, and grilled chicken.

Just now for dinner, I made myself another peanut sauce stirfry with broccoli, pepper, onion, and the rest of the grilled chicken.

And yesterday I helped prepare food for a very vegetarian friendly barbecue. Earlier in the day I went to the farmers market to pick out goods for vegetable kebobs - peppers of varying colors, deliciously sweet cherry tomatoes, onion, zucchini, and mushrooms (from the supermarket because there were no mushroom vendors at the market yesterday). I chopped everything into 2-inch pices and then marinated them for an hour in a marinade using what my friend Cassie had in her pantry - soy sauce, water, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and garlic powder. Then we painstakingly skewered all of the kebobs,and thankfully someone else did the grilling work. They were a big hit. Thanks to Cassie for hosting an amazing party - the high point might have been when a room full of singers belted out old-school angsty Alanis Morisette songs.

For the party I also made tabbouleh, a Mediterranean dish that is best eaten scooped up with pita chips, crackers, or flatbread. Last night we ate it with pita chips, but I saved some tabbouleh to bring to another bbq tomorrow, so to accompany that, I just made the rosemary flatbread from July Gourmet that Deb recently spoke so highly of. The recipe is similar to that of homemade crackers I've made before, but the addition of baking powder really lightens things up into a beautifully crisp and tasty flatbread, perfect for snacking. My past cracker were heavy and not crisp, no matter how thin I rolled the dough. Although, actually, I almost think this flatbread is too light - I would sub in half whole wheat flour next time to give it a little more flavor and heft.It's is going to be my new base recipe that I use whenever I want to make some kind of cracker.

Tabbouleh

1 cup bulgur
1 1/2 cup boiling water
2 tomatoes
1 cucumber
handful of fresh herbs such as mint, parsley, basil
1/2 red onion
3 cloves garlic
1/2 lemon
2 tsp red wine vinegar
salt
pepper

Pour boiling water over bulgur in a bowl, stir, and let sit for 20-30 minutes until water is mostly absorbed and bulgur has softened. It will still be a little crunchy. Drain any extra water.

Meanwhile, chop vegetables and herbs into a fine dice and combine in a large bowl. Add the zest and juice of half a lemon, along with the red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper. When the bulgur is ready, add to the large bowl and stir to combine. It is best if made ahead of time and kept in the fridge for at least a few hours to allow the flavors to mingle.

Grilled Pizza with Arugula and Goat Cheese

2008-08-17T19:34:00.003-05:00

Another grilled pizza success, using dough balls that I had kept in the freezer since last time I made pizza. I changed up the topping by making simple arugula and goat cheese pizzas. I drizzled olive oil over the top, scattered a handful of fresh arugula leaves, dotted it with goat cheese, shredded some parmesan, and finished it off with a little salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning spices. The peppery argulua wilted down nicely and goes oh so well with creamy goat cheese. As you can see above, I didn't use so much goat cheese - because I find my local Patches of Star goat cheese to be really rich and like it best in small, savored doses.

After making two such pizzas, I ran out of arugula - what to put on the third? Then I spied a mushy Heirloom tomato that needed to be eaten soon in my fruit bowl, so I sliced the tomato thinly and placed it atop all the ingredients on the pizza, minus the arugula. Also delicious - how can anything with crispy bread and sweet heirloom tomatoes not be?

Reworked Skirt

2008-08-14T00:12:00.004-05:00

I had a pair of comfy stretchy jeans since sometime in college (or maybe longer?), but last year the crotch ripped, so I hid it away into my dresser with plans to transform it into a new creation at some point. I had cut off the legs and tried to reuse them as rags, but the "rags" crumbled and bled when put to work, so those were tossed. Two weekends ago I finally had the free time to finish hand sewing this into a skirt, painstakingly cutting, arranging the pieces, pinnng, trying on and repinning again and again until it looked right, and sewing with good old needle and thread.

Ta da! My new favorite skirt. The length and fit feels just right, although it is too tight to wear on my bike. The great thing is that I hand sewed a loose stitch, because I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to sewing, but it still looks like one of those store-bought faux-faded-and-torn skirts. Too bad I can't wear it to work because no jeans are allowed :-( I am worried about how it will fray when I try to wash it, and tearing over time. But since I sewed it, I hope I can patch it up if need be (??)

This is now the second jeans-turned-skirt I own - the first one wasn't made by me or anyone I know, it was just a skirt my sister found at her college free table, and then gave to me. She gets the best clothes from that free table!

I can't help but think, how very "Fix" of me! It feels great to turn an old favorite into a new favorite, to have pride in something I created, and to recycle fabric instead of buying new, which is better for the environment and my wallet.

A Busy Night

2008-08-12T23:17:00.006-05:00

I came home tonight and cooked for about 2 1/2 hours straight. I didn't need to. I guess I just felt like getting all this food prepared in one go to make the rest of my week easier. And, when I made pizza dough this weekend, I had the foresight to freeze a few dough balls, so I also have my eye on giving pizza another try later this week with the rest of the arugula and chevre. Again no pictures because Jesse has retaken possssion of his camera and I keep forgetting to ask him where he's hiding it.

- dinner tonight: first bruschetta of the season! with heirloom tomato, garlic, basil from my deck, and olive oil on homemade whole wheat toast

- dessert: a decadent peach and nectarine smoothie with Ronnybrook ice cream instead of yogurt

- into the fridge for lunch tomorrow: salad of arugula, radishes, beets, hard boiled egg, Patches of Star chevre, and an olive oil-red wine vinaigrette

- into the fridge for a future dinner: caponata to have with toast and chevre

- into the fridge for a future snack: boiled and balsamic marinated beets

- into the freezer: steamed beet greens, which probably will be eaten in tacos at some point

Dog Ate My Pizza

2008-08-11T22:28:00.004-05:00

Yeah, there he goes looking all cute and innocent again until...

First the good news. Last time I tried to make grilled pizza, it was a gummy disaster. I think that dough recipe, which works wonders in the oven, was probably just too thick for the grill. Meanwhile, tons of people out in the blogosphere have made grilled pizza with no problems. So I was determined to try again using a different, thinner dough. I wisely chose the mother of all thin crusts: Heidi's whole wheat pizza dough, also following her grilled pizza tips.

Tonight, I came (home from work), I saw (raw sausage and radish leaves turn into a delightful sauteed topping), I conquered (grilled pizza). However, I was so worried about the giving the pizza ample time to cook through in the middle that I let the first couple pizzas burn a tad, but at least it was edible and delicious, compared to last time. Heidi's pizzas are actually so thin that they don't really have a middle, just crispness, so there was no need to worry. Next time, I will leave my dough a little laxer instead of stretching it out parchment thin as she recommended.

But here comes the bad news. I made three pizzas tonight with my own blood, sweat, and tears (okay more just like a little easy labor with the help of a friend). We ate up two of the pizzas but didn't touch the third. It lay there waiting patiently to be packaged into an amazing lunch for tomorrow. I walked my friend to the door when she left. I was gone for about TWO minutes. I came back upstairs. Huge gasp - the pizza is gone! Without a trace. Because my dog ate my pizza!!!

Devil dog strikes again. All of my hard work wasted on his already-fed stomach. What misfortune will he bring next? Only his pea sized brain can tell. And that's why I have no pictures to show for my work, either, because as you could say, the dog ate my homework!

Veal Chops to Die For

2008-08-06T00:24:00.003-05:00

Guest post from my sister Lisa, who worked at Bobolink farm this summer selling bread and cheese, and is in Brooklyn for the week. Dinner last night:
Veal chops with caremelized onion, baby garlic, currants and sage and wine
Salad of baby greens, spearmint and basil
Mashed New Potatoes

Last night I finally got the chance to cook the two veal chops I had fatefully acquired (without paying $40!) from Bobolink Farms where I work. They had been sitting in my freezer for 3 weeks begging me to cook them. But who was I to share them with? There were but two chops.
Long story short, last night there was a gourmet meal, Luke and Lisa style, featuring the chops. I can't even describe how amazing they were. My tongue was at a loss for words. A lot of that is probably owed to Luke's repeated recomendation of "mo' buttaaa!" And the fact that this was one of the happiest little calves in the history of veal, roaming free on the land of Bobolink farm for all its short life. While working at the farmers market in Warwick this past Sunday I was also the joyous recipient of a whole load of vegetables to incorporate. And then my mom's garden in Warwick supplied the rest. So basically this meal was as free as it could get!
Veal Chops with Reduced Wine, Onion, and Sage Sauce
3 small white onions
a bunch of small cloves of garlic
lots of sage!
2 veal chops
some white wine (we used vinho verde - $4 at trader joes)
butter
olive oil

1) sautee onions, garlic, sage, salt, pepper in 1 tbsp each butter and olive oil until caremelized
2) take out of pan
3) add 1 more tbsp each of butter and olive oil
4) cook the chops 5 minutes medium heat on both sides (sprinkle on salt and pepper generously in the first few minutes)
5) remove from pan
6) pour 1/3 cup white wine into pan and scrape around
7) add onion mixture back in and let reduce until thick and delicous looking
8) pour this over the chops
9 ) eat!!
10) ready to die yet? I am

The Dog Days

2008-08-04T22:25:00.010-05:00

A simple dinner tonight of pasta caponata and a smoothie, that I forgot to photograph. So here are some pictures of my dog Spencer instead; more on him below.

I first made caponata last week, and munched into it atop toasted whole wheat bread spread with goat cheese, inspired by lunch I had a while ago at Landmarc in the Time Warner Center. Caponata is a Sicilian dish of eggplants, peppers, and/or tomatoes and other veggies, diced and cooked together until soft and mushy, spiced with olives and capers. However, olives and capers aren't local or budget friendly, so I left them out, and didn't find my caponata lacking at all. Instead I spiced it up with lemon, crushed red pepper, and red wine vinegar, which were already handy in my pantry.

Tonight I had tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers from the farmers market waiting patiently in the fridge to become caponata again. But I didn't have enough bread to serve it on, so I decided it would work just as well with pasta. And it did, though I found myself craving a little sausage in there too. Most recipes for caponata call for you to roast the eggplant first, but in New York City's oppressive summer heat, I grilled the eggplant, and it was a much quicker way to tenderize rounds of slightly-chared and oiled eggplant.

For dessert I made a peach and nectarine smoothie with Ronnybrook yogurt. I don't like to eat fruit or yogurt on its own, but I do like them in smoothies and baked goods. So I decided I would buy the ingredients at the farmers market to make smoothies, in a concerted effort to be healthier. Since I'm not a big fan of peach flavor, I also threw in the last of some frozen strawberries that had been hanging around in my fridge for, oh at least six months, to brighten the flavor - but if you like peach, then plain ice cubes will do just fine for cooling down your drink.

And as for the dog days...does anyone have advice for remedying a sweet-turned-vicious dog? We adopted our dog from the shelter and accepted his growling nature toward other dogs as a hazard of his troubled past. Because he's just so darned cute, and, though he doesn't like other dogs, he loves people and is a bit of a whore with seeking out petting from other people on the street.

Until suddenly after two years, for the past two weeks straight he has started growling and trying to bite random people. For no apparent reason. The people he targets run the gamut of teenagers, old ladies, construction workers, and guys just sitting on their stoop. It's scary, and I don't know what to do. And it's so bizarre! It's bad enough that I have to walk this guy every day when I could be getting a few more minutes of precious sleep or gallavanting about town instead of coming straight home after work, that we leave the energy guzzling AC on during the day for him (at 75-77 degrees), and that he gets a full third of the bed at night! And now he's turned into a devil dog! But then he's just so darned cute and lovable with us, and you have to forgive him/forget all his sins...

Grilled Eggplant Caponata
olive oil
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
3 green peppers
3 tomatoes
1 large or 2 small eggplants
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
1 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
salt
pepper

Dice onion and mince garlic and sautee in olive oil over low heat. Dice peppers and then tomatoes and add to pan. Let cook over low heat, with the tomato juices simmering away slightly.

Meanwhile, slice eggplant into thin rounds, brush with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Grill over medium heat, about 4 minutes on each side, until eggplant is tender with browned grill marks. Remove from grill. After eggplant has cooled a few minutes, dice eggplant and add to the pan, along with the remaining ingredients. Continue to sautee another 5-10 minutes, until vegetable mixture is evenly softened and flavored.

Serving suggestions:
Toast slices of bread, top with goat cheese or mozzerella, and then top with caponata.
Let caponata cool in the fridge, and then eat with pita chips on a hot summer day.
Make 4 servings of pasta, toss pasta with caponata along with 1 tbsp olive oil and 1/3 cup grated parmesan for caponata pasta.
As an accompaniment to fish or chicken.

Peach and Nectarine Smoothie
1 small peach
1 small nectarine
2/3 cup yogurt
1 1/2 tsp honey
2 frozen strawberries or ice cubes

Wash and roughly chop peach and nectarine. Add yogurt and honey to blender, followed by the fruit and frozen strawberries or ice cubes. Blend until smooth. Makes one whopping glass or two small glasses.

The Perfect Summer Day

2008-08-03T20:50:00.006-05:00

Boyfriend makes me blueberry pancakes for breakfast (made with local buckwheat flour, honey, milk, eggs, fresh blueberries, and maple syrup). Early afternoon out on Brighton Beach with friends on the clearest summer day. Lying in the hot sun, gaining a tan, till the heat drives me to stand ankle deep in cold waves.

Back home, some cooking, some cleaning, some preparing for a romantic dinner. A short run around McCarren Park. I haven't been exercising much lately, but these short runs remind me of my past, the dirt path under trees reminiscent of summer runs during college, although those Vassar trees were much older, more powerful, more beautiful, than these few trees trailing around a people-populated park. Finishing my run on the track, the smell of that red rubber reminds me of high school. Seemingly half my high school life was spent on the track, stretching, pep talks, running, sweating, giggling, ogling hot bare-chested teenage boys, running up and down grassy hills, and out onto those sun-dappled country roads before returning back to the track. This track is instead filled with die-hard soccer players, amateur runners, families enjoying their weekend, and lounging hipsters.

Finally, dinner in the waning light on the deck with my loved one: grilled hake (a white fish), marinated cucumber and radish salad, and potato salad. Divine. All made with local ingredients, except for the vinegar, mayo, mustard, and spices. And to drink, mojitos made with mint grown on the deck. No mojito recipe because mine could use some tweaking. I followed a recipe for two glasses, and ended up with four strong mojitos that we couldn't possibly finish on this Sunday night.

Marinated Cucumber and Radish Salad
1/2 large cucumber
2 radishes
1/2 small onion
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
few grinds of black pepper
3 sprigs fresh mint, torn into small pieces (and/or other fresh herbs such as parsley)

Thinly slice cucumber, radish, and onion. In a bowl, combine olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and fresh herbs. Add cucumber, radish, and onion, and toss to coat. Let marinate in fridge for at least 15 minutes, or longer. Serves 3 as a side dish.

Potato Salad
4 medium new potatoes
1/2 small red onion
2 celery stalks
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 1/2 tbsp vinegar
2 tsp mustard
1 tsp salt
five grinds of black pepper
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

Chop potatoes into 1 inch pieces. Place potatoes in a pot of salted water, bring to a boil, and then let simmer 10-20 minutes until fork tender. Meanwhile, dice onion and celery, and combine with remaining ingredients in a large bowl. When potatoes are tender, drain and add to bowl, tossing to coat. Can make ahead and keep in fridge until serving. Serves 3 as a side dish.

Tortilla and Tomato Time!

2008-07-31T08:00:00.001-05:00

As soon as tomatoes and corn both came into season last week, I couldn't wait to make tacos with beans, fresh salsa, and homemade tortillas. And then I liked my tacos so much that I couldn't wait to make them again for dinner last night.
I am not happy that most tortillas I can find in stores around here are filled with incomprehensible ingredients, including the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. Then I saw Liz making her own tortillas and wanted to give it a try. After all, it is easier and faster than making bread because yeast isn't even involved!

I ended up adapting Orangette's recipe and cut it in half because I didn't want to push my luck on this floury experiment; replaced half the flour with local whole wheat flour; and replaced the shortening with butter. My first time around, I made the mistake of greasing the skillet and dividing the dough into too few tortillas, so I ended up with some huge greasy creatures. On my second try last night, I cooked the tortillas dry in my cast-iron skillet and they came out a little more uniform and pliable. They were not at all like store-bought tortillas, but were thick, hearty, and chewy, owing to the high proportion of whole wheat flour. Once I pick up more all purpose flour, I will try making lighter versions of these tortillas. Nevertheless, I liked them enough to gobble up the extra tortillas plain (both times I made them!) Oops. All the more reason to make them again!

And so, last night's dinner: tacos with homemade tortillas made with local whole wheat flour; dried pinto beans soaked and simmered until tender (not local); fresh salsa featuring sweet farmers market tomatoes, corn, and onions, cilantro from my deck, along with a handful of the meager tomato harvest from my deck (so far just one Big Boy and a bunch of tart cherry tomatoes); and a touch of grated Bobolink cave-aged cheddar. And lucky me, I have two more tacos all wrapped up in foil awaiting me for lunch again today!
Whole Wheat Tortillas
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup water
3 tbsp butter
3/4 tsp salt

Bring about 1 cup of water to boil. Meanwhile, combine flour and salt in a bowl, and mix in butter. Add half of the boiling water and stir to combine. Continue to add water slowly, using only enough water as necessary until it comes together into a dough. With floured hands, knead the dough for 3-5 minutes in the bowl (this is my trick - your bowl is probably big enough to just knead in the bowl instead of dirtying another surface). Form dough into a ball, place back in bowl, and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rest at least 20-60 minutes. (Or up to one day in the fridge, and then let the dough come to room temperature again before rolling out.)

With floured hands, divide dough into about 10 small balls. Heat a dry skillet. On a floured surface, roll out tortilla as thin as you can get it. Cook on skillet over medium low heat for 1-2 minutes until it puffs slightly and the bottom turns golden brown. Flip tortilla and cook 1 minute longer, until the other side turns golden brown. While this tortilla cooks, roll out the next one so that it is ready to place on the skillet as soon as the first one is done. The idea is to keep rolling out the next tortilla while the previous one cooks. Repeat until you are finally done with all that rolling and flipping, and you can sit and fill your tortillas and feast. Makes 10 fajita-size tortillas (I like to eat my tacos on fajita-size tortillas - but I'm guessing this would probably made about 15 taco-size tortillas or 7 burrito-size tortillas).

Fresh Tomato and Corn Salsa
3 tomatoes
2 ears of corn
1 onion
1 handful cilantro
salt
pepper
cayenne pepper
pot of water

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Meanwhile, shuck the corn. Once the water is boiling, add the corn to the pot, bring it back to a boil, and then shut off the heat and let it sit for five to ten minutes before removing corn with tongs to cool.

Meanwhile, dice onion, cilantro, and tomatoes and combine in a bowl. Once the corn is cool enough to handle, slice the corn off the cob and mix it in with the rest of the salsa, along with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Maine Part V: Drinking in Bar Harbor

2008-07-23T12:19:00.009-05:00

Here are some places in Bar Harbor (the main town on Mount Desert Island) that we enjoyed for outdoor drinks in the afternoon during our vacation:

[And by the way - how awesome was it that we only had two (!) meals inside the whole week - thanks to the beautiful weather and our choice of restaurants, we were mostly able to feast and drink en plein air with our doggy by our side.]

Bar Harbor Blueberry beer with lunch at Rupununi, a sustainably-minded restaurant along Main Street in Bar Harbor.

Amazing crab roll and fries at Rupununi - all crab meat, and local too! Jesse's burger at Rupununi, all-natural ground beef from from Northeast family farms An afternoon drink at Lompoc Cafe & BrewPub, which serves several locally brewed ales from Atlantic Brewing Company on tap.

Lompoc has a bocce court and hosts concerts on weekend nights that seem to run in indie rein, so I'm guessing this is where the young indie crowd hangs out at night. We didn't get a chance to experience Bar Harbor's nightlife while camping, but we were just lucky enough to enjoy a relaxing afternoon drink in Lompoc's quiet garden.

Another day, another afternoon drink, this time at Jack Russell's Steakhouse & Brewery just north of Bar Harbor on Route 3. We tried a sampler of their house-brewed beers, and liked their "Gold" beer best for its mild flavor. Jesse was hungry, so he ordered the salad, composed entirely of the lettuces and herbs growing around us.

And so, after all that relaxing in the beauty of nature and savoring the bounty of Maine seas and breweries, the return to reality - sticky sweaty New York City with its workweeks - was harsh but now complete. What I've been eating since I returned is forthcoming.

Other posts in the Maine vacation saga:

IV. Lobster Pounds on Mount Desert Island

III. Cooking Locally at the Campsite

II. Camping in Acadia National Park

I. A Night on the Town in Portland

Maine Part IV: Lobster Pounds on Mount Desert Island

2008-07-23T12:14:00.006-05:00

As much as we enjoyed cooking fresh fish and vegetables at our campsite, we also enjoyed more than a few meals and drinks out and about. In addition to our lobster dinner at Gilbert's in Portland, we had lobster three more times while on Mount Desert Island (Jesse was a bit obsessed). Maine abounds with lobster pounds, which are casual affairs that have limited menus along the lines of: lobster of varying sizes, lobster rolls served with chips, crab rolls, steamed clams, mussels, chowder or soup, corn on the cob, blueberry pies and cakes for dessert, and depending on the place, a few other options.

Generally, you put in your order, they pull your live lobster out of the water, and then you head to picnic style tables to wait while your lobster is cooked to order. Food is served unpretentiously on trays with paper plates and beer is poured into plastic cups (I felt guilty, but tried to overlook these environmentally un-friendly ways, because when in Maine...) Decor often unintentionally includes lobster traps, which I took as a sign that they are always bringing in fresh-caught lobster.

Our first night, we headed to Thurston's Lobster Pound in Bernard, on an out-of-the-way southwestern tip of the island. It boasts a screened-in porch right on the water with postcard-perfect views.

Jesse ordered a lobster and corn on the cob, while I had a hankering for a lobster roll. I thought the roll, which was served on a plain hotdog bun with a little lettuce, was decent, but nothing special. It also took me about five seconds to eat, compared to Jesse's efforts to dig into his lobster. So it felt like a lesser lobster experience in comparison. I tried a bit of Jesse's lobster, and that too was good, though not as sweet as Gilbert's lobster, probably because hard shell tends to be less sweet than soft shell. And because nothing can top your first experience!
A couple nights later we had a lobster craving again, and this time headed to Captain Beal's Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor, also on the western side of Mount Desert Island. This place similarly features picnic tables right on the water, which was beautiful at sunset. Their menu has a wider selection than other lobster pounds, as it also includes fried foods and more seafood options. Here we both feasted on lobster, along with delicious steamed clams and corn on the cob. Steamers, or steamed clams, are not to be missed in Maine, where they are incredibly fresh and tasty.Our final lobster (*tear*) of the trip was lunch at Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound on our drive home. It's technically not on Mount Desert Island, since it's just past the bridge once you reach the mainland, in the town of Trenton, but close enough. This place had been recommended to us, and it was indeed packed at lunchtime, but I was still a bit wary that it was nothing more than a tourist trap, after reading Blake's review, in which his lobster was overcooked into rubbery oblivion.They have big wood-fired lobster bake ovens right out in front, and you can watch them haul lobsters in and out of the ovens in mesh bags. Luckily, Jesse's lobster turned out fine - it was just as good as all of the other lobster we'd eaten in Maine. So hopefully Blake's experience was just a fluke. I wasn't as satisfied, however. I wanted to try one more lobster roll, but this one was disappointing, mostly because it was served on plain disgusting slices of white bread that weren't buttered or toasted or anything, and I have never been a fan of white bread. I asked if they could toast it, but they said they didn't have the capability for that (this is a very no-frills place that doesn't even serve beer). And by this point, I was sick of eating unhealthy Lay's potato chips alongside my food. Blegh.

Interestingly, I have yet to experience the perfect lobster meat to bread ratio in a lobster roll. I've had the lobster roll at Mary's Fish Camp in New York City, which was similar to Thurston's in that the meat falls out of the hot dog bun because it doesn't all fit. In comparison, the Trenton lobster sandwich didn't have enough meat to fill out all the bread. I would rather be able to get a bit of bun and meat in each bite. I'm still in search of the perfect lobster roll, which I think I will only be able to find by preparing it for myself sometime this summer. I think this is my dream lobster roll: a buttered toasted brioche hamburger-size bun, plenty of just-cooked still-warm lobster meat, and the slightest touch of mayonnaise, lemon juice, celery, and herbs.

To be continued...

Other posts in the Maine vacation saga:
V. Drinking in Bar Harbor
III. Cooking Locally at the Campsite
II. Camping in Acadia National Park
I. A Night on the Town in Portland

Maine Part III: Cooking Locally at the Campsite

2008-07-20T20:26:00.007-05:00

I was disappointed to learn that I would miss both the Portland and Bar Harbor Farmers Markets by just a few hours each due to our traveling schedule. To compensate, I packed food from the Union Square Greenmarket that I thought could stand the trip - butter, honey, maple syrup, potatoes, onions, zucchini, and eggs. I was also buoyed by the fact that restaurants in Maine make an effort to serve locally produced food - more on that later. And I figured there would be plenty of farm stands to provide fresh veggies during our week-long stay.

Since we ended up going out to eat more than I expected, we only needed to pick up groceries a couple times. One of those times was a trek to the western side of the island to Beech Hill Farm, an organic farm run by College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. Their farm stand offers produce from Beech Hill, along with produce, meat, dairy, etc from other local farms. We picked up dried blueberries (which went into pancakes), milk (into coffee and pancakes), bacon (an impulse buy from Jesse that I eventually appreciated because it helped a morning hangover and was cooked with scallops below), and swiss chard (cooked with tacos and scallops below).We got a terrific recommendation from our server at a bar to go to Parson's (64 Eagle Lake Rd/Rt 233 near Bar Harbor) for fresh fish to cook. It's a total mom and pop operation where the fish comes in fresh everyday (though you never know exactly when and what she'll have in stock!) She said everything is caught locally in Maine, which made me happy.

At our first visit to Parson's, we picked up haddock and clams. Jesse does most of the cooking when we go camping because he knows how to light the camping stove and I don't - ha! I sliced zucchini (from NY farmers market), sprinkled it with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and put it over the fire in an aluminum pouch. It took a while, but it did actually work, unlike our previous foible with potatoes. Meanwhile, Jesse cooked quinoa over the stove, steamed clams in a Bar Harbor ale, and finally sauteed the haddock with olive oil, salt, and pepper. The end result was a huge heaping meal. I yelled at Jesse for getting too much fish (a pound and a half for two people!), but the leftovers went into fantastic tacos with tortillas, beans, salsa, and local swiss chard the next night.
After getting bacon from Beech Hill, Jesse became possessed with the idea of making bacon-wrapped scallops. We visited Parson's the next day, but they were already out of scallops. Back we went the next morning with a mission on our mind. This time, the scallop guy hadn't yet made his delivery. We went again to Parson's that afternoon, and still no scallops. Finally, an hour later after some beers in nearby Bar Harbor, we were rewarded with scallops!

Following Liz's advice, this time I threw an aluminum pouch of chopped potatoes (coated with olive oil, salt, and pepper of course) right into the fire. A few of them burned, but the rest cooked right into tender bites before the rest of our dinner was done. Amazing!

Meanwhile, I cooked just one strip of bacon in a pot, then tore it up and threw it back in the pan with swiss chard and onions in the same pan to soak up all the bacon flavor. Jesse painstakingly wrapped the scallops in the rest of the bacon and sauteed them until browned and firm. It was another delicious and overwhelmingly huge meal, with all those bacon and scallops. The leftovers went into tacos again with more smooshed beans, onions, and hot sauce (out of salsa at that point) for a surprisingly delicious breakfast. We made more intricate meals than we have on past camping trips, as our priorities change, and it made us happy to eat like kings, as Jesse put it.

To be continued...

Other posts in the Maine vacation saga:

V. Drinking in Bar Harbor
IV. Lobster Pounds on Mount Desert Island

II. Camping in Acadia National Park

I. A Night on the Town in Portland

Maine Part II: Camping in Acadia National Park

2008-07-20T18:06:00.004-05:00

Following our night in Portland, we headed three and a half hours north to Mount Desert Island, where we camped in Acadia National Park for five nights. We stayed at one of the park's campgrounds, Blackwoods Campground. There are plenty of private campgrounds on the island, but they tend to be slightly more expensive and don't all allow dogs like Blackwoods, so this one was good enough for us. Unfortunately, the sites weren't as private as we hoped - in addition to the tent you can see in the background below, there were two other sites that we could see right into. Instead of waking to the lovely sound of birds chirping, we woke to the screeches of neighboring children. Kids were everywhere on this trip! We're not used to that, since our neighborhood seems to be populated exclusively by 20- and 30-something hipsters and old Polish and Italian folks.

Despite the lack of privacy, we still really enjoyed our camping venture. It didn't rain once! And it was warm during the day and mild at night! Which is good, because there is nothing I hate more than being cold and damp and unable to get warm while camping. The campground was indeed surrounded by pretty woods, and it featured a short trail to the ocean with a stunning rocky overlook.

Some highlights of our trip:

A drive up Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the Eastern seaboard. Unfortunately, it was bizarrely foggy and windy at the summit, even though it was sunny below, so all the hoped-for views were obstructed. We could have hiked up the mountain on another day, but we ended up being kind of lazy on this trip so we could relax, just doing a couple easy hikes and lounging around.

An easy hike around Jordan pond

Sitting out at Eagle Lake for an afternoon

The first time up the Ocean Path, I dropped my camera and we spent an hour furiously looking for it before finding it in the most obvious place. Don't you hate that?
The Ocean Path stretches along the coast for two miles, with gorgeous views. We had to stop at Thunder Hole, where big waves crash into a hole under the rocks, froth considerably, and create a booming thunderous sound. Pretty Marsh at sunsetI have to give a shout-out to this ingenious dog bowl. I thought Jesse was silly for buying it, but it's actually the best thing ever. We used it as both Spencer's food and water bowl, it's made of some kind of waterproof fabric so it dries out quickly, and it folds down into a small size that easily fits into a backpack so that we could stop and give Spencer water along hikes.
One thing I didn't like about this trip was all the time in the car. I knew it was 9 hours away, but I didn't realize how long that would feel, sweating it out in the heat in traffic and long drives. And I didn't realize we would spend so much time driving around Mount Desert Island. We didn't plan things out well enough, so we'd end up traveling to the other side of the island (which took half an hour) and doing the same thing again the next day to visit some other place over there, or going in circles, because we'd need to get something from town, like ice or groceries, but then would have to drop it off at the campground before going out again for a hike. The fact that the Park Loop Road only goes one way doesn't help the going in circles problem.

Acadia actually has a really fabulous free bus system, but sadly we didn't end up using it. The ranger told us dogs were allowed on the bus, but we still felt wary of bringing Spencer on it. We were also wary of having to transfer to get to our destination, and having to carry supplies back in the bus after shopping trips. I guess this is all our fault for being prissy, and I felt guilty about driving so much, but we still did it. Now that I'm back in the city, I don't want to see the car again for a while.

Other posts in the Maine vacation saga:

V. Drinking in Bar Harbor
IV. Lobster Pounds on Mount Desert Island

III. Cooking Locally at the Campsite

I. A Night on the Town in Portland

Maine Part I: A Night on the Town in Portland

2008-07-20T16:36:00.004-05:00

Our weeklong camping vacation in Maine began with a stopover in Portland on the way to Acadia National Park, not wanting to drive the full nine hours from New York City in one day. So we shelled out for a hotel in Portland - amazingly just one night in a "cheap" hotel like Days Inn costs more than the fee for six nights of camping! What a rip off. Just so you can have hotel amenities we never even use, like a pool and a disgusting complimentary breakfast and dressers and an ironing board, etc. I don't get hotels. Anyway...back to Portland...

After reading Blake's gushing accounts of meals at Fore Street in Portland, I had my heart set on dinner there - not only are they committed to cooking up the freshest food produced locally in Maine but they have a reputation as one of the finest restaurants in the country. But when I called to make a reservation more than two weeks before the trip, the earliest they had left for the night was 9:30! I couldn't believe it. I decided instead to aim to get there early and wait a bit, since they hold several tables for walk-ins.

However, life had other plans. Because of Jesse's exhausting workweek that didn't really end until 1am the night before we were due to leave, we ended up jetting out of Brooklyn later than expected. And by the time we got to Portland, I didn't feel in the mood to wait around for a multicourse fancy dinner. We just wanted to relax. So instead we decided to casually explore Portland.

We started off with a relaxing drink in the backyard of The Great Lost Bear, one of the top beer bars of the country. They have sixty beers on tap, featuring beer from fifteen Maine microbreweries along with other Northeast craft beers. The great thing about Maine is that it is a haven for local beer enthusiasts. Every restaurant and bar we went on our trip served Maine-brewed beers on tap, making it easy (and delicious) to drink locally in Maine. During our trip, we sampled beers such as Geary's Special Hampshire Ale (Jesse's favorite), Allagash White, Atlantic Bar Harbor Real Ale, Bar Harbor Thunder Hole Ale, and so on. Great Lost Bear was a great place to kick off our trip. They also serve food, but their focus is on burgers and burritos and bar food, so we headed elsewhere for dinner because we wanted LOBSTER!

On the recommendation of our nice server at Great Lost Bear, we headed to downtown Portland along the water to Gilbert's Chowder House. Chowder may be in the name, but I had the best lobster of my life there. We were able to get two lobsters and corn for just $30, something unheard of in New York City. This Maine-caught lobster was new shell, also known as soft-shell - apparently at this time in the season, you can either get hard-shell lobsters, which are meatier, or soft-shell creatures, which are sweeter and more succulent, and easier to eat because you can break the shells with your hands, but they contain less meat. The lobster meat was so fresh, moist and rich that I hardly touched the accompanying melted butter. Sweet corn was the perfect side dish. Coincidentally, we got to sit on Gilbert's deck and watch the sun go down over the water while overhearing a Moe concert at a nearby venue.

Afterward, we wanted to keep exploring, so we headed to a joint also on the water that we'd passed earlier, J's Oyster Bar. It's a dark old-fashioned looking place with small tables arranged around a large central bar, with oysters on ice waiting in the middle for lucky patrons. They also have outdoor seating, but that was full, so we were inside. We simply ordered beers and a dozen oysters. Jesse and I both agreed that while the oysters were good, they weren't as good as oysters we've had in the past. I assume because these oysters were caught somewhere nearby in Maine. Whereas restaurants like Marlow & Sons in Brooklyn choose their oysters more selectively for the best taste they can find. That's my guess.

We also went to Gritty McDuff's , another brewpub that was hopping on this Saturday night. Hanging over the bar are numbered mugs for regulars to drink out of, which I think is a fun idea (and a green one if those regulars use that mug all night) that I would definitely steal if I ever own a bar. We each tried their house cask beers. But at that point in the night, I don't remember much, except how confusing it was to find our way back to the hotel.

Other posts in the Maine vacation saga:

V. Drinking in Bar Harbor
IV. Lobster Pounds on Mount Desert Island

III. Cooking Locally at the Campsite

II. Camping in Acadia National Park

Adventures in Freeganism

2008-07-09T21:42:00.009-05:00

I was happy to join fellow blogger, Megan of Fix, at a freegan dinner this week. Called Grub, the dinner is hosted biweekly (or maybe monthly?) by In Our Hearts and is open to anyone who chooses to wander into this out-of-the-way space in Brooklyn. Jesse was a confused by my interest in freeganism, and he envisioned lots of stale donuts and bagels and rotting food that would make me sick. Moreover, he argued, the quality of this food goes against your interest in eating fresh, locally grown food. Which is a good point, but I also believe in the value of keeping food out of the trash and finding ways to stem the tides of waste of our throwaway society. Adam on Wild Green Yonder has an excellent discussion of the extent of food waste in New York City, and the New York Times also recently reported on freeganism as a growing trend.

Neither I nor Megan were sure what to expect, but I was certainly pleasantly surprised by the delicious array of vegetables on the menu. It felt like one of the healthiest meals I'd eaten in a while. Not all of the food was freegan, some of it coming from someone's garden and from a CSA, in addition to grocery store dumpsters. Amazingly in all, this multicourse meal for forty people cost the hosts only $36, for which they accepted donations. We ate dinner on the roof, where there was a garden and a "lovely" view of the BQE (unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera up there). I brought along couple beers because the post said BYOB, but no one was drinking so the beers came back home with me. Proof that the world does not revolve around alcohol (ahem Jesse).

This is not to say I am about to become a freegan, although I am curious to go on a dumpster diving run and see how it goes down, how people even know where to look for the food. It was a refreshing change of pace to go out, do something on my own, meet new people - things I wish I could push myself to do more often. I enjoyed chatting and biking with Megan, and perhaps not surprisingly, I ran into a few people I know peripherally. I really liked Grub's message about "looking for practical ways to build community" because a sense of community is something that I've found lacking in New York City. I miss the time spent with friends at the cooperative dorm on my alma mater, where the residents shared the responsibilities of cooking and cleaning and ate communal dinners. After two years of post-graduate life in New York City, I still have no semblance of a community, with everyone scattered throughout the city, plans too hard to make. I didn't find a new community on Sunday night, but maybe this will motivate me to seek out more new experiences that interest me.

After dinner, many bags of lettuce and greens (from the CSA I think) and bread were leftover, and I was happy to take some away at their urging. But once home, I realized that this left me with the question of how to use up all the extra food I myself now possessed. A condundrum made worse by the fact that I'm leaving for a long vacation on Friday.

So I decided to pass on the goodwill by using all these veggies to cook dinner for a friend. Tonight, another Meagan came over, and I made a vegetarian peanut sauce stir fry. I sauteed an onion, carrot, and half a zucchini from the greenmarket in olive oil, then added baby bok choy from Grub until wilted, while lentils and rice from my pantry simmered away in separate pots. I whisked together a peanut sauce from a couple tablespoons of peanut butter, a teaspoon of tahini, a tablespoon of soy sauce, about a cup of warrm water, along with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper for a spicy kick. Once plated, I draped it in the peanut sauce and garnished the meal with sunflower sprouts from Grub. Peanut sauce stir fry was one of my favorite go-to meals in college, which I haven't made much since then because Jesse is not a fan, so it was nice to return to this simple (cheap!) and delicious dish.

Continuing to work through the perishables in my fridge, I also prepared myself a healthy grilled zucchini sandwich for lunch tomorrow. I sliced the other half of the zucchini, loaded it up with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then grilled until charred and tender. I don't like zucchini much, but grilling somehow transforms it into tastiness. The zucchini strips went on a sandwich with homemade tofu cream cheese, a few basil leaves from my deck, and the rest of the sunflower sprouts.

I made the tofu cream cheese last week with my sister's guidance and wanted to use it up, since I figured it probably won't last as long as store-bought tofu cream cheese. It was easy to make by throwing half a package of tofu (pressed for an hour first) into the food processor with a couple garlic scapes, salt, pepper, a handful of almonds, a handful of parsley, several shakes of nutritional yeast, a dash of cayenne pepper, a few teaspoons of vinegar, and a few teaspoons of water too. Similar to the tofu garlic scape pesto salad, but in spreadable form. Really whatever spices you have on hand will work, and cashews can be used in place of almonds. My sister also recommends making tofu cream cheese with sundried tomatoes and herbs.

This picture is a good literal representation of where my mind frequently wanders: into the kitchen wondering what to cook next. I've now successfully eaten or cooked for later all my produce for the week, with the exception of kale from Grub, which my roommate promises me she will eat while I'm gone. I'm thinking of transforming some of it into a kale basil pesto first to take along my camping trip, but I'm not sure how long that will stay good in the cooler. So although i was unable to make any completely local meals this week for One Local Summer, Greenmarket and CSA ingredients found their way into every meal, and by participating in Grub, I helped to divert food waste from the landfill, so I'd say that balances it out.

PS. If I don't post again for a couple weeks, it's because I'm on a camping vacation in Maine, enjoying the woods, ocean, lobster, blueberries, and beer!

Asparagus Frittata with Grated Carrots and Beets

2008-07-03T20:22:00.006-05:00

Frittatas are a great way to use up whatever vegetables you have laying around. I had some asparagus in my freezer that I originally intended to turn into soup. But then remembering that I don't actually like my homemade pureed soups, I decided to throw the asparagus in a frittata instead after letting it thaw. And in an extreme example of not wasting food, into the frittata also went garlic scapes that had been steamed with mussels but not actually eaten that night.

Making the frittata was easy as pie, especially with the help of my sister, who's in town again. I love eggs in all forms, so I thought this frittata was great, but it could have used more cheese, so I raised the volume to half a cup for the recipe below. I used an cheddary alpine cheese from Consider Bardwell Farm, but parmesan, swiss, or gruyere would also work well.

I wanted a side salad, but didn't want to buy a whole head of lettuce that would inevitably go bad before we could eat it all, since we're going away this weekend. So instead I bought ruby red beets with large veiny leaves from the farmers market to make Clothilde's Grated Carrots and Beets. To my shock, everyone else near me who was buying beets requested that the beet greens be chopped off. Yes, it does make it easier to transport them, but what a waste of food!

The beet and carrot salad was good, but it wasn't as fantastic as Clothilde's raving led me to believe. For some reason, I didn't expect it to taste so much like carrots. Duh. So of course because I don't love raw carrots, I didn't love this. I even tried adding fresh mint from my deck, but its flavor was too subtle. But if you are a carrot fan, give it a whirl.

Asparagus Frittata

olive oil
1/2 onion
2 or 3 garlic scapes
1 lb asparagus
6 eggs
1/2 cup grated cheese
2 tbsp milk
salt
pepper
dash of cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Heat olive oil in an ovenproof pan. Dice onion and sautee over medium low heat until softened. Meanwhile, break woody ends off asparagus and chop into 1 inch pieces. Likewise, chop garlic scapes into 1 inch pieces. Add asparagus and scapes to pan and sautee another few minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together remaining ingredients. Pour egg mixture over vegetables and turn the heat up to medium. Cook for five minutes, until the frittata begins to set. Then move the frittata into the oven for another 8-10 minutes until cooked through.

Maple Hazelnut Muffins

2008-07-01T21:18:00.004-05:00

These maple hazelnut muffins were amazing. They came out of the oven browned with a crispy sweet exterior, thanks to the raw sugar topping. Inside, they had a warm hint of maple flavor and a sweet crunch of hazelnuts. I included buckwheat flour because it has been lying around in my freezer forever, and because buckwheat and maple are a traditional flavor pairing, but unlike my buckwheat apple & chocolate chip muffins, buckwheat takes the back stage here to sweet maple and sugar. You could easily replace the buckwheat flour with whole wheat pastry flour or more all purpose flour. Likewise, I used raw turbinado sugar, but brown sugar would also work well. I've heard that Grade B syrup produces a more pronounced maple flavor, but I used Grade A and was happy with the results. Hailing all the way from Turkey, the hazelnuts are decidedly not local, but the flour, egg, milk, and maple syrup all came from within 150 miles.

I think I left these in the oven a little too long, until they were slightly dried out, so I recommend taking them out earlier rather than later. Even if there's still a little maple goo sticking to your test toothpick, just tell yourself they'll probably keep cooking on the inside after you take them out of the oven.

Now if only I didn't have to bring these to work tomorrow and could keep them for myself and my loved ones...

Maple Hazelnut Muffins

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup canola oil (or melted butter)
1/4 cup raw turbinado sugar
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp maple syrup
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1 cup hazelnuts, chopped into halves or slivers
extra sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Grease one muffin tin for 12 large muffins or two muffin tins for about 16 small muffins. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk together wet ingredients. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Add hazelnuts. Spoon mixture into muffin tins and sprinkle sugar over top of each muffin. Bake for approximately 20 minutes.

Kitchen Disasters

2008-06-29T21:02:00.004-05:00

That was a beautiful and delicious pizza I made last week with local flour, turkey sausage and radish greens, and nonlocal tomato sauce and parmesan. Yes, you can eat the greens that come with a bunch of radishes. I wash them thoroughly, sautee them, and they wilt down a lot. They're a little bitter, but add a nice complexity to pizza.

I loved the pizza so much that I tried to make it again this week, but with the sick humidity crushing us this week, I decided to try my hand at making grilled pizza. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but I tried twice with two pizzas, and both times the edges of the dough grew colored and crispy, almost burnt, while the gummy inner dough refused to cook through, no matter how long I let them linger on the hot grill or in the toaster oven afterward. They looked tasty like they wanted me to eat them, but I couldn't. I salvaged the sausage and radish greens by scraping them off and throwing together with quick-cooking orzo for a meal, while the pizza remains above sadly went into the garbage.

I have three theories - I should have used a dough that reliably produces a thin crust since my recipe usually puffs up a bunch; I shouldn't have topped it with so much sauce and sausage; I should have let the first side cook longer before I flipped it over. We'll see. For now, it's back to my tried and true method for making pizza in the oven, despite the heat.

This meal that we made for dinner last night looks great, but it wasn't actually, because it was pervaded by bitterness. I was so excited about being able to eat radish leaves, that I decided to give carrot tops a try. The bunch that came with my carrots from the Greenmarket looked so pretty and frilly that it seemed a shame to just throw them away.

I made a salad of lolo rosso lettuce, grated carrots, and a garnish of chopped carrot tops, with a roasted garlic dressing. The dressing was a gift from Jesse's mom and was pleasant. But the lettuce was overwhelmingly bitter, and the carrot greens didn't help, being chewy and bitter and not fun to eat. I couldn't even finish my salad. I guess there's a reason why people always throw out carrot tops.

Knowing how much Jesse loves Sixpoint beer, which is brewed in nearby Red Hook Brooklyn, Jesse's mom also surprised us with this terrific growler of Sixpoint Gorilla Warfare, a rich stout. I decided we should use it to cook the mussels. We sauteed garlic scapes and another handful of carrot greens in olive oil, then added mussels and half a pint of beer, and let it cook, covered, until the mussels opened.

I had been craving mussels all week, but it was a bit disappointing. The garlic scapes weren't potent enough to lend the dish a garlicky aroma like I hoped, the wilted carrot greens weren't much to taste, and the stout gave the mussels a slightly bitter taste. I should have known that a mild lager or white wine works better for mussels. It wasn't a total disaster, like the failed grilled pizza, but it wasn't the rich warm broth of mussels that I had hoped for.

But that's how it goes with cooking. You experiment, and you learn from your mistakes. And post them on the Internet for others to learn from as well.

The Other White Meat

2008-06-26T21:43:00.007-05:00

Tofu's not something I cook with often. I used to eat it more when I was a semi-vegetarian in college, for no better reason really than being wary of handling raw meat, but since careening down the path of eating local, whole, farm fresh foods, I left tofu behind, along with all the other "Chik Patties" and overprocessed fake meats I stopped eating.

But after work the other day, I made a rare trip to Whole Foods to check out their organic chicken selection, since I wasn't able to stop at the farmers market the day before, and I needed more food for dinner that night. To my surprise, Whole Foods' organic chicken breasts are more expensive than at the Greenmarket! Why would I pay $10 a pound for factory farmed meat when I can get happy chicken breasts from Quattro's Game Farm for $6-7 a pound? No thanks. Seeking an alternate source of protein, I ambled (more like pushed and dodged) my way over to the tofu section. And what did I behold but a tofu package beaming "Local Tofu" back at me, made in Nyack, NY. No, it is unlikely that the soybeans were grown in the area, but I was happy to at least be supporting a local vendor. And at $1.99/package, tofu definitely trumps chicken in terms of keeping my savings in my pocket.

I've realized lately that I am spending more money than I'd like to on food, probably as a natural consequence of being a foodie. Of the money I spend, most of it goes toward food (and some to alcohol), since due to my anticonsumerism stance, I don't buy much clothes, or makeup or books or movies at all (thank you library). And yes, I totally espouse the idea that it's good to pay more to buy sustainable food, because it's important to pay the true cost of food. But I still don't like to see my money disappear. So I've been making a concerted effort to cut down costs by buying cheaper cuts of meat like sausage, cooking less meat, cooking with dried beans (at $1-2/lb in bulk, they are the cheapest protein ever!), baking my own bread, buying the less fancy vegetables like radishes that have dual uses (roots and greens), growing my own herbs, and meal planning up the wazoo to make sure food in my fridge gets eaten or frozen in some form before it goes bad. As food prices rise, we all want to find ways to cut costs, and Cathy also recently posted helpful suggestions on how to "combat soaring food prices."

So speaking of meal planning and using up what's on hand - after dinner that night (radish, bok choy, and tofu stir fry with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and quinoa), I combined the rest of the tofu with my leftover garlic scape pesto, this time adding parmesan and almonds to beef up the pesto. I left the tofu pesto salad in the fridge for a couple days to let the flavors mingle. Then, amidst all the running around before camping last weekend, it made the perfect lunch served on homemade bread with fresh lettuce. The tofu pesto salad sandwich was creamy and had a nice spicy kick from all the garlic scapes. I thought it would also taste good blended into a tofu cream cheese (speaking of which, I really need to attempt that), or warmed up on the stove a bit, for a form of imitation scrambled eggs. Something tells me we'll be seeing tofu a little more often around here.

Camping at Little Pond

2008-06-24T21:20:00.010-05:00

I don't recommend camping just for a night - it's too much prep work to drag out camping gear, figure out food, pack everything up, set everything up, and do it all in reverse again the next day. But that's what we did anyway Saturday, as we found ourselves on a long drive up Route 17 to camp in the Catskills. We stayed at Little Pond Campground, a state campground that actually features a rather large pond with a beach, picnic areas, and hiking trails. There are even some campsites situated tranquilly right on the water, but those were already taken by the time we made our reservation.

The campsites were quiet and more secluded from each other than other campgrounds I've stayed at. Our site was bizarrely large, as you can see below.
Near dinnertime, I tried to grill potatoes in foil, but our fire wouldn't stay consistently hot. After over an hour the potatoes were still raw and hard. We have much to learn in the art of fire-making for our next camping trip. Our propane-powered camping stove is great for cooking, but I would also like to be able to harness the fire's energy for cooking like Liz.

After giving up on the potatoes and chucking them back into the cooler to be cooked later in the week, we turned to making the rest of dinner: burgers on homemade toast (made with local flour before we left) and topped with beer-braised swiss chard. We simply sauteed half a bunch of swiss chard in olive oil and then let it braise in half a can of beer for about ten minutes. It could have used some more spices, but that was all we had on hand and it worked. Then Jesse came up with the idea to put the swiss chard on the burgers, which was brilliant.

The burgers were grass finished black angus from a new Greenmarket vendor, Grazin' Angus Acres. Their farm in Columbia County uses wind power and they also raise chickens to provide the farm's nitrogen needs, inspired by Joel Salatin's sustainable farm described in Omnivore's Dilemna. I recommend taking a look at their website, which has informative information on the health and ecological benefits of grass fed meat. Not to mention that the burger was delicious. And of course, what camping trip is complete without cheap beer? I forgot to pick up tastier local beer, so Jesse's Bud is what I was stuck drinking.

It rained just as we woke in the morning, so we stayed inside the tent until the torrents passed. Unfortunately that meant we didn't have time to cook breakfast before we had to pack up and check out, so breakfast was at Roscoe Diner.

I don't recommend it unless you like institutional style food, down to the bagel that was toast in the shape of a bagel. As I ate it, I realized it's been years since I've eaten that poorly. Luckily, I wasn't a foodie back in the days of my Aramark-catered dining hall, or I don't know what I would have eaten throughout college.

The sun perked up during our long drive home to Brooklyn so I could fully enjoy the lush green landscapes of the Hudson Valley and cry a little inside about not living in the country anymore. Summer in the Hudson Valley is my favorite thing ever. We took a detour on the way to pick up my sister from my hometown and ferry her to the city.

While there, we also stopped at Rosner Soap in nearby Sugarloaf, a cute crafts village, so I could stock up on soap. They make my favorite soap - it comes in a multitude of flavors like lemongrass oatmeal and peppermint tea tree that smell heavenly, it lathers well, it doesn't contain scary chemicals like store-bought soaps, and at $4.50 a bar it's much cheaper than certain $8 Brooklyn-made soaps. Add to that their colorfully painted stores and beautiful flowers, and I get the feel-good buzz of supporting a local vendor.

Inspiration

2008-06-15T21:06:00.008-05:00

Like its sister and nextdoor restaurant, Diner, Marlow & Sons is one of my favorite restaurants for its fine selection of oysters, cheeses, and local ingredients cooked in seasonal meals with flawless execution. I forgot to tell you, but when I was there with my youngest sister on a rainy late night in April, we shared a divine ramp soup and their crispy-skinned brick pressed chicken, which is among the best chicken I've ever head. I hadn't been in a while, but it reminded me that Marlow & Sons surprises me everytime by taking simple sounding dishes and making them the most delicious things ever.

A couple weeks ago on a supremely hot early evening, we coincidentally took my other sister to Marlow & Sons too. We shared a baby kale salad with a simple dressing of olive oil and lemon juice and coated in thinly shaved parmesan. Meanwhile, Jesse had to himself a warm squid salad with a broth-like dressing over Bibb lettuce. Our meal was exquisite as always. However, this time I felt a bit more depressed than usual about their prices. I understand the worth of paying more money to eat local foods made wth care, but $10 for a salad of greens and parmesan?

Let's take it back to earlier this spring, when I planted a container of mixed green seeds on my deck. Most of what came up was baby kale, bitter greens, and sad small light leaves, and after a winter full of bitter green salads from the farmers market, it didn't look too appetizing. When the lettuces started to wilt in last week's 90 degree heat, I decided it was time to rip 'em out, eat 'em, and replace 'em with more fun herbs.

I harvested about a big salad worth of greens. Then one night when Jesse was working late and I could eat however simply I liked, I wanted to have a plain salad for dinner and set out to imitate Marlow & Sons baby kale salad. I mixed a vinaigrette of extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, dried herbs, and a couple splashes of lemon juice. Then I topped it off with grated parmesan. Ta da! Though mine may not have had the same soft brush of kale leaves, it was delicious and at a cost of essentially $0 vs $10, I say Marlow & Sons 0 Julia 1.

Likewise, Jesse's scrumptious squid salad at Marlow & Sons motivated us to pick up some squid from the Greenmarket this weekend. I've always been confused about how long to cook squid so I did some research. Apparently when sauteeing squid, you either need to cook it for under two minutes (after that it turns rubbery) or for more than 20 minutes (when the squid becomes tender again). Jesse chose to go with the long cooking version as he's done in the past. He sauteed it with olive oil and garlic, added a few splashes of vermouth and water, covered it, and let it cook for about 30 minutes until tender. The aroma that filled our apartment as the squid braised was salty and wonderful.

As for the salad we served it over, I didn't replicate Marlow & Sons' bibb lettuce saald exactly, but just used what I had on hand. Romaine lettuce, thinly sliced radishes and baby carrots (first of the season!), warm sauteed squid, that same olive oil-red wine vinaigrette, and parmesan. Surprisingly, it worked. I think you could refine it further by serving it over greens that have more structure and flavor, like mustard greens, and leaving out the carrots and parmesan. But for our purposes we enjoyed digging into a big healthy salad with perfectly tender small bites of squid, tasting of the sea.

Inspired by Jen from her ever-inspirational blog Last Night's Dinner, we also grilled clams and topped them with a garlic scape pesto. The pesto was made simply in the food processor using a few garlic scapes, a handful of parsley from my deck, the zest and juice of half a lemon, salt, pepper, parmesan, a handful of almonds, a few tablespoons of olive oil, and a tablespoon of water. It was lovely, but I think I prefer eating clams by their lonesome to enjoy their distinctive taste.

Locavore Potluck

2008-06-12T20:47:00.008-05:00

Last Saturday was my much anticipated locavore potluck. I had been awaiting the day since I first thought up the idea sometime over winter - to bring together my friends for the most noblest of potlucks, encouraging them to seek out local food sources. I'll have it in March, I planned, naively expecting that by then the bounty of spring would appear in the farmers markets. And when March continued in winter's fashion, I hoped April would bring fresh vegetables. Until April also did not seem flush enough with green. I almost had a date set in May, once asparagus and lettuce appeared, but scheduling conflicts pushed it back another month.

Then of course nature pulled a trick and jolted into summer with a heat wave, thick and oppressive and blowing hot air and sweat around our bodies. But the show must go on, so I planned to get most of the cooking done in the morning with the hopes that the apartment would cool off before the party. The morning found me at Union Square (bizarrely with larger crowds at 9am than I'd ever seen on a Saturday) to pick up a pork roast from Flying Pigs. Stupidly I hadn't asked for it to be defrosted when I ordered it, so it was frozen solid. Luckily after an hour an and a half in a water bath at home, it seemed mostly defrosted, so into the crockpot along with a sliced onion, barbeque sauce, salt, pepper, and a little water. This is my usual method for making pulled pork, and it couldn't be easier. You just leave it in there for hours and hours on low in the crock pot, maybe turn it up to high for a couple hours, and then back to low, and after about 8-10 hours it shreds when you go to cut it.

While the pork defrosted, I got to work on buns for the pulled pork. I thought the heat would help these babies rise into fluffy buns even more beautifully than last time, but instead they refused to rise and ended up as tight undercooked mini buns. I have no idea what happened, but they sufficed for the purpose. And the mini buns meant that people piled less pulled pork onto their sandwiches, leaving me with more leftovers (muhaha!)

While the oven preheated for the buns, I also roasted some potatoes into fries. Now common sense would dictate that you would not be silly like me and turn your oven on and instead buy hamburger buns and make something like a cold potato salad. But I was determined to use my local flour for the buns. And Jesse insisted on having roasted potatoes since he doesn't like potato salad, and since we had an overflow of potatoes from last week's party, I had to do something with them. So all my sweating in a sauna of a kitchen was my own fault.

I also picked up garlic scapes, which are young garlic shoots, at the market that morning. They are often transformed into garlic scape pestos, but I thought they would be perfect in aioli for dipping the fries. Aioli is essentially garlic mayonnaise, and I found it to be easier to make than I expected. I noticed, though, that I didn't seem to need as much olive oil as the recipe called for, probably because my eggs were on the smaller side. So I recommend slowly whisking in the oil and stopping when the mixture has reached the right consistency, even if you have some oil left over. Mine was creamy and thinner than commercial mayonnaise, but with a much brighter, richer flavor. Now that I know how easy it is, I'll definitely be making my own mayonnaise again, except this time I'll store some in the fridge right away so I can enjoy it later in the week - instead of leaving it all out in my 90 degree living room for more than three hours during the party and then tossing the leftovers from fear.

Although I finished cooking by 2pm, the apartment wasn't any cooler by partytime, but everyone seemed to have a good time despite the heat. Now, the party wasn't entirely local - the invitation just asked that everyone try to bring something incorporating at least one local ingredient. Eating locally is new to most of my friends, so I wanted it to be an encouraging, not daunting, challenge. I was impressed that my guests all made an effort to bring something local, and enjoyed trying all their great food. There was nary a bag of chips or can of PBR to be found.

My sister (who is working at Bobolink for the summer since it's only a 5 minute drive from our parent's home - how cool is that?) brought rosemary bread she'd baked that morning, and one of Bobolink's new spring cheeses, Tarte de Vache (Cow Pie), which was medium soft, grassy and pungent. Two vegetarian couples coincidentally both brought tortellini salad, and another standout was a jar of curry-pickled baby turnips and radishes. There was also a brilliant strawberry rhubarb bruschetta with fresh mint. As well as my pulled pork sandwiches, fries, and heavenly aioli, all local except for the yeast, barbecue sauce, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and vinegar.

For dessert there was a chocolate chip loaf from a Greenmarket bakery, ice cream from Ronnybrook and 5 Boroughs (warning: their Cha Cha Chocolate is super spicy), strawberries, and locally made marshmallows from Whole Foods. And of course, a few bottles of New York state wine, and lots and lots of Brooklyn, Bluepoint, and Southampton beer. The party didn't end until late in the night when all the booze ran out and I was ready to slip into a food and drink-induced coma.

Garlic Scape Aioli

2 stalks garlic scapes
1 tbsp fresh parsley
salt
pepper
1 egg yolk
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Combine garlic scapes, parsley, salt, and pepper in a food processor. Alternately, you can mince them finely, or use a mortar and pestle, but my mortar and pestle doesn't seem to do much so I went the mechanic route.

Scrape garlic mixture into a bowl and whisk in egg and then lemon juice and vinegar.

With one hand, pour olive oil very slowly into the bowl, while whisking briskly and continually with the other hand. (Not as hard as it sounds.) If you add too much oil at once, just pause your pouring and whisk until it is incorporated. Taste occasionally, and once the mixture has reached your desired consistency and taste, stop adding oil.

Store immediately in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to five days. Serve with fries, fish, asparagus, or spread on sandwiches.

A Pleasant Surprise

2008-06-04T11:00:00.000-05:00

So my sister's aforementioned graduation party took place this past weekend. The menu we planned sounded impressive, but in the end I felt it all fell a little flat. My rosemary roasted potatoes nicely browned but then grew soggy in the hours before they were served. My brownies came out neither fudgy nor cakey, but chalky. The chocolate coating for the strawberries was pasty and watery due to the low quality chocolate chips my mother procured from Shoprite. Then there was the oozing overly lemon zested icing on the lemon ricotta cake; the gummy rice in my rice, chickpea, and asparagus pilaf; the overly lemony hummus and the overly garlicky white bean and spinach dip. We love to cook, but aren't always that great in executing our menus. But everyone still ate most of the food and seemed to like it, so I wouldn't call it a failure by any means.

While at home in Warwick for the weekend, which is positively verdant this time of year, we had the chance to not only enjoy a double feature at the drive in despite the rainy forecast, but to check out the Warwick Farmers Market. It wasn't too large, but featured lots of baked goods, wine, homemade gourmet goods, plants, and a couple meat and vegetable stands. Since my hometown is about 50 miles outside of New York City, there is some overlap between our farmers markets. I was thrilled to see Dines Farms, which used to be my main meat guy until they were kicked out of the McCarren Park Greenmarket for some reason. I had a reliable source of tasty chicken up until then, and haven't had much chicken since. So we got a huge chicken breast and some mushrooms from Dines Farms to cook up for dinner, as well as some kind of wild green from Rogowski farm, which they told us was a kind of Mexican spinach, so I think it was quelites.

We rounded out our dinner plans with a bottle of Seyval Chardonnay Reserve from Applewood winery, which is aged in oak, making it more complex than Applewood's slightly cheaper regular Seyval Chardonnay blend.

We planned on taking a hike but got lazy and read books instead in my sunny backyard before taking our booty back to Brooklyn to cook up dinner. Can you blame us?

I wanted to keep our things really simple, so I didn't even add onions or garlic or any spices. I just chopped up the mushrooms and the quelites, sauteed them in olive oil with a couple glugs of the wine and shakes of salt and pepper, and covered the pan for about 15 minutes until wilted. So simple in fact, that that's really all of a recipe you need.

Meanwhile, Jesse grilled the hunka chicken along with a couple buttery yellow potatoes from Berried Treasures in a pocket of foil because we are potato addicts. We ate about a third of the chicken that night and smartly saved the rest in the fridge for future use (such as in the yummy chicken, radish, lettuce, and mayonnaise sandwich I just ate for dinner tonight).

But back to that night's dinner. I quartered the potatoes and slathered them with Ronnybrook butter and a sprinkle of fresh sage from my container garden. Then I sliced up the chicken and laid it over the sauteed quelites and mushrooms to practice my plating skills. Plunked down a glass of that white wine. And yum. Now, I've never liked mushrooms very much, but I really enjoyed these. Something about the earthy sour smell usually turns me off, but I always had this hope that maybe it would be different with mushrooms from the farmers market. So that's what led me to give these mushrooms a whirl, and it was a pleasant surprise - their smell and flavor was mild enough to just give a meaty oomph to the sauteed greens without overpowering my nosebuds. Success! If only I knew what they were called so I could find them again. Name that mushroom? Anyone?

It feels like the Dark Days Challenge just ended, yet here is two months later, moving on into One Local Summer. The challenge is this: to prepare and blog about one meal each week using only locally grown ingredients - the exceptions are oil, salt and pepper, and spices. Reading One Local Summer was what inspired me to start cooking local meals in the first place last summer, but I was too late in the game to join. Now that eating local is old hat, here goes another delicious summer, starting with this very first OLS entry of the summer.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

2008-06-03T22:00:00.001-05:00

I meant to post this months ago after I went to a Mets game but forgot...since this was the last season at Shea Stadium I might as well post now to commemorate my experiences with it:

Did you know that beers at Shea Stadium are $8? For a Bud or a Bud Light, with no other choice?

Did you know that the size of the sponsor logos outshadow the tiny sign for the Mets?

Did you know that it's hard to watch the game from the bleachers because the diamond is too small an area for my eyes to focus on for very long? I kept missing things because my eyes wandered.

Did you know that the Mets and the Yankees are both building new stadiums right alongside the old ones, for no other reason I can understand than hubris?

I didn't know these things before, but I do now. I'm not a big baseball fan, or a fan of any sports in general really, but I was excited when I get free tickets to a Mets game because I wanted to see what it was all about. And that's what I did, just took it all in - the big stadium, the big lights, the big ads, the view of Queens beyond, the big prices, the big speakers, and the guy shouting Yankee Cookie behind me (not sure what that was all about, but I guess he doesn't like the Yankees).

It wouldn't be a baseball game without the beer, so I made an exception and drank Bud, which I almost never do (being a beer snob who sticks to microbrews). But having spent all our money on beer, we headed home after the fifth inning when we got hungry for dinner, instead of shelling out for those peanuts and cracker jack. So no food review here. Sorry. and Good night.

Playing Catch Up

2008-06-02T18:45:00.008-05:00

Did you know that just a 75 minute drive from New York City lies a serene state park where hiking trails abound and a blue lake awaits you? It's called Clarence Fahnestock State Park and I had passed it many times on so many drives up and down the Taconic during college, but had never ventured inward until this Memorial Day weekend.

With our beach plans thwarted, Jesse and I wanted some other naturesque escape from the city's grey blocks. Guessing that Bear Mountain would be crowded with similar-minded Memorial weekend escapees, we decided on Fahnestock park, which is much less known, left at 2pm, and found ourselves there after what felt like a short drive later. Even better, entrance was free! The park covers a larger area than I had imagined, filled with hiking trails, and smoky campsites, and a clear blue lake perfect for exploration via canoes and rowboats. It also supposedly boasts a beautiful white sand beach, but that did cost money, so we didn't get to see it.

After a couple hours traversing a short pass over the Appalachian trail we simply headed back home and were back in Brooklyn for dinnertime. It seemed almost too easy of a getaway. But those simple hours in the woods restored our hearts and minds and prepared us for the remainder of the alcohol hazed weekend.

On the way home we stopped at Fairway to pick up soft shell crabs. I'd been wanting to try them for so long, since Jesse had extolled their virtues as a seasonal delicacy. He grilled them to perfection according to Jen's directions on Last Night's Dinner, along with grilled asparagus. Meanwhile, I prepared a lemon thyme vinaigrette for a simple salad with fresh lettuce. We usually put together balsamic vinaigrette for our salads, so I wanted to try something new. It wasn't quite right - the flavor of the olive oil was too prominent. But it was a nice change of pace, and certainly heading in the right direction for bright summery salads.

As for the soft shell crabs, I wasn't the biggest fan. The texture of the shell wasn't as crispy as I expected and was just a little too tough. I found myself hankering for the pure unadulterated crab meat inside, but couldn't get a bite without the exoskeleton. I have hope though that maybe it's a taste that will grow on me - after all, Jesse wasn't such a fan the first time he tried soft shell crabs, but he oohed and aahed over his creation this time.

As for the rest of our long weekend, it involved an easy bike ride down to our favorite spot in Prospect Park, at the bottom of the lake, where we had beer and sandwiches from Bierkraft nestled against a tree with the wide blue lake before us;

pitchers of margaritas out in the sun on Flatbush Avenue; many more bars; and burgers delivered to our rooftop gathering because it was too much to ask everyone to coordinate a potluck barbecue when all we wanted to do was go on drinking and relaxing some more in the sun and the night. And now back to the workweek.

Lemon Thyme Vinaigrette
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried thyme, or 1 tsp fresh thyme (I used dried because my thyme plant isn't looking quite big enough yet)
2 stalks spring garlic, minced
1/2 tsp mustard
salt
pepper

Whisk ingredients together and adjust to taste. Serve over fresh lettuces for a delightful salad.

Learning to Love Turnips

2008-05-22T22:26:00.006-05:00

The fun part about eating seasonally is getting to try new things. There has been a lot of that so far this spring, what with the ramps and spring garlic. When I was at Union Square last week on one of my semi-regular lunchtime farmers market trips, I came upon turnip greens, and realized they would be the perfect side to the bison flank steak I had marinating in the fridge for dinner. At this time of year, the turnip greens are attached to little turnips freshly plucked from the ground, so you can eat the whole plant.

my how dirty you are

I feel like Alice Waters, cooing over baby vegetables emerging from the earth, such as turnips and radishes, that can be sliced and eaten raw in salads or dipped in mayonnaise or butter and popped whole into one's mouth. I added some baby turnips to a variation on my Greek salad last week and they served me just fine.

before: raw potatoes and turnips

However, I've never been a fan of roasted or mashed turnips, which always seem to more sour and bitter than their raw counterparts. But give that I'd only ever roasted old turnips that had been stored winter-long, I thought I would give these baby turnips the benefit of the doubt and hope that they would come out sweeter. They didn't.

after: rosemary roasted potatoes and turnips

But luckily, I also roasted potatoes alongside the turnips to round things out. I scattered olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried rosemary from my container garden over the veggies, and roasted them until they browned on the bottom. Mmm. I managed to eat all of my turnips, with the help of mouthfuls of roasted potatoes.

before: just-washed turnip greens

As for the turnip greens, I wasn't sure how to cook them. I ended up steaming them and then sauteeing similar to my typical kale preparation, which seemed appropriate because its shape, broad leaves intersected by thick stems, reminded me of kale. However, unlike kale, these greens actually do wilt down - from what seemed to be an overwhelming bunch of greens that I feared we would be eating for days, down to two manageable side portions. And those two portions were delicious, healthy, and restorative - a deep green, a little sweet and not so bitter, warmed up with lemon and mustard. Apparently turnip greens are so full of vitamins that they are on the list of the world's healthiest foods. Paired with garlic, also on the list of world's healthiest foods, extra virgin cold pressed olive oil, lean and iron-rich bison steak, and roasted potatoesand turnips, this was one healthy meal indeed. Nothing like devouring a terrific meal and feeling good about myself while I do it.

after: sauteed turnip greens and spring garlic

Sauteed Turnip Greens and Spring Garlic

1 bunch turnip greens
extra virgin olive oil
2 stalks spring garlic
1 tbsp mustard
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
salt
pepper
crushed red pepper

Chop baby turnip roots off turnip greens and reserve the turnips for another use. Rinse greens thoroughly. Trim off the stems, and chop rough pieces.

Steam over simmering water for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the turnip greens are mostly wilted.

Meanwhile, mince spring garlic and sautee the garlic in olive oil over medium low heat until softened and slightly browed. Add turnip greens and continue to sautee, turning the heat down to low. Whisk together mustard, lemon juice, water, and spices in a bowl, and then add to the pan, stirring to combine. Cook another few minutes, until greens are completely wilted.

Rice Pilaf with Chickpeas and Spring Vegetables

2008-05-21T21:47:00.009-05:00

My dear fun sister Lisa is graduating from college next week, and what would graduation be without a party to celebrate? My mother has relinquished cooking responsibilities for her graduation party to Lisa and I, our family's resident foodies. I love planning and cooking for parties so it wasn't long before we started brainstorming ideas, some of which will surely appear here after the fact. Among those ideas was a light pasta with spring vegetables, which transformed into a rice pilaf instead, because I have a hard time warming up to tomato-sauce-less pasta. I made a test run tonight, and the healthful combination of rice, chickpeas, and tender green vegetables was so wonderful that this one is being added to my rotation.

Spring garlic, also known as green garlic, has just come into season and is making the rounds on the blogosphere. I was eager to try it when I saw it at Union Square today, especially because I figured it would go perfectly in the rice pilaf I had planned for dinner. Spring garlic looks, slices, and cooks like the texture of a small leek, but with a sharper garlic taste and smell. I wasn't sure if I could cook the whole plant, since google resulted in conflicting advice. In his artful New York Times article, Daniel Patterson seems to be telling us only to use the white and light green parts. Meanwhile, Farmgirl Fare encourages us to go ahead and use the whole thing. So I did what seemed right, which was to use the whole stalk, minus the tough outer dark green leaves. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

This dish is brilliant and warm and very green, like early spring. The creamy chickpeas, heightened by an hour of simmering and a bright tinge of lemon, contrasted perfectly with crunches of asparagus and mouthfuls of soft rice. It would have been more perfect if I were capable of cooking fluffy rice instead of the gummy wet rice that always comes out of my saucepans, but that's a challege for another day. I used a mixture of brown short grain rice and black himalayan rice, lending it a colorfully dark hue, but any rice that pleases you would suit this, as would bulgur or orzo I think.

Likewise, other spring vegetables such as peas or fava beans (which are not yet in season here in New York) would also do well in this dish. I couldn't much discern the green garlic, but I'm sure it helped things along. The parsley came from my herb garden, where it is flourishing over all the other herbs, straight on its way to becoming a veritable bush of parsley. And the cheese is optional, but cheese makes everything better, don't you think? I was out of parmesan, so I used a sharp Edam-like cheese, or a swiss cheese would work.

Rice Pilaf with Chickpeas and Spring Vegetables

3/4 cup dried chickpeas
1 cup rice
2 stalks spring garlic
1 bunch asparagus
couple handfuls baby bok choy
1 tsp lemon juice

The day before or that morning, place chickpeas in a pot covered with a couple inches of water to let soak.

After 6-24 hours, drain chickpeas, rinse, and return to pot. Refill with water, again covering chickpeas by a couple inches, and add a pinch of salt to water. Bring to a boil and then let simmer 45-90 minutes until chickpeas are tender. Drain and set aside.

Just after starting chickpeas, combine rice with 2 cups water and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and let simmer until rice is tender.

While chickpeas and rice simmer away, clean spring garlic as you would leeks and dice its stalks, discarding tough dark green leaves. Sautee spring garlic in olive oil over medium low heat.

Rinse asparagus and break off woody ends where the asparagus naturally breaks in your hand. (Reserve ends for future use, such as soup or dip.) Chop asparagus into one-inch pieces and sautee with garlic for a couple minutes.

Rinse and roughly chop baby bok choy and add to sautee pan. Continue to sautee another few minutes until wilted.

Combine chickpeas and rice in pan with vegetables. Stir in lemon juice and salt pepper and pepper to taste. Add grated cheese, if desired, and garnish with parsley.

Brooklyn Kitchen Cupcake Cookoff

2008-05-12T20:28:00.005-05:00

dark chocolate buckwheat almond cupcakes with coconut and almond frosting aka almond joy cupcakes

"I'm full of cupcakes," was the refrain tonight at Brooklyn Kitchen's 2nd Annual Cupcake Cookoff. I missed it last year, so I was determined to make it this year. And part of being able to make it tonight involved quitting my choir early in the season. I guess at this point, food has trumped music as the no. 1 interest in my life.

I rushed home from work, changed, fed and walked the dog, downed a shot of whiskey, frosted cupcakes, and raced over to Union Pool, all in less than an hour. Then I was all by my lonesome feeling awkward among the hipsters and meat market men of Union Pool, and thirty entries of fantastic-looking cupcakes everywhere. Luckily my friends Meag and Jess showed up to save the day. Once the cupcake tasting started, everyone was quickly overwhelmed by sugar. Some geniuses started the trend of cutting their cupcakes in halves, or even quarters, to aid the sampling process. It was indeed so overwhelming that I probably only tried about a third of the cupcakes. So when it came time to vote, I felt bad about not being a fair voter.

I voted for a peach champagne cupcake as well as a ginger spice cupcake, and my own almond joy cupcake of course. The ginger cupcake was just my style - hearty and cinnamony. At one point, I had even contempated making gingerbread cupcakes with vanilla frosting and red hots. But I didn't. Because the combination of chocolate and coconut always wins the day for me. So at least if I didn't win, I was pleased to see the ginger cupcakes win a prize. It made me wish I had made my cupcakes a little heartier, with more whole wheat, true to my own heart.

the judges take stock of their picks during announcement time

The inventive flavors ran the gamut - from rainbow red velvet to mint julep to pistachio to mint chocolate chip to boston creme to chocolate stout with salted caramel (the ultimate best in show), and so on. So the comptetition was original and fierce, and I didn't win any prizes. Sad day in cupcake land. I wasn't really expecting to win, though, because I know I'm not a good baker. Or maybe I'm just too hard on myself, like Jesse says, because he loves everything I make. In any case, we thought these cupcakes were delicious, even if everyone eles didn't agree.

I was going for a rich dark chocolate with subtle hints of nutty flavor from the buckwheat flour, ground almonds, and almond extract. And a rich almond joy-like frosting because, as I said, I love coconut and nuts. The recipe was somewhat modeled after my German chocolate cupcakes, adding in a darker chocolate and cocoa powder for a more intense, less cloying chocolate flavor. I think the end result is an improvement on my German chocolate cupcakes. So here goes, made with mostly local and organic ingredients, of course:

Almond Joy Cupcakes
dry ingredients
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

wet ingredients
5 tbsp butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg (or 2 smaller eggs, mine was humongous!)
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 oz dark chocolate (70% or 85% percent cocoa)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup boiling water
3/4 cup milk

frosting
2 cups powdered sugar
4 tbsp butter
1 tbsp + 1/2 tsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup coconut flakes

Toast 1 cup slivered almonds in a dry pan over medium heat for about five minutes until some of the almonds turn golden-brown. Most of them may not look toasted, but it will subtly enhance their flavor nonetheless. Do not let them burn. Remove from heat and let cool.

Meanwhile, bring 1/3 cup water to boil. Break chocolate into pieces and combine in a bowl with cup cocoa powder. Pour boiling water over chocolate and stir until dissolved. Let cool.

Preheat oven to 350 and grease two cupcake tins.

Process 1/2 cup toasted almonds in a food processor until finely ground. Reserve remaining 1/2 cup toasted almonds for frosting.

In a bowl, cream butter and sugar until combined and fluffy. Beat in one egg and then the almond extract. Add chocolate mixture and then milk, stirring continually until combined.

Combine flour, ground almonds, and baking soda in a larger bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and fold in wet mixture. Beat until smooth. Fill cupcake tins two-thirds of the way full and bake in the oven for 12-18 minutes. Make sure to check so they don't burn. Cupcakes are done when a knife or toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool.

Meanwhile, combine the frosting ingredients in a bowl, beating until smooth. Add additional sugar or milk or butter depending on how stiff or creamy you like your frosting. I like mine stiff and sugar-coma-inducing over soft-grocery-store-like buttercream.

Combine coconut and toasted almond slivers in a small bowl. Frost each cupcake and then dip upside down in coconut almond mixture to coat. Continue until all cupcakes are frosted. Makes 12 large or 18 small cupcakes.

Impromptu Greek Salad and Homemade Hamburgers

2008-05-09T22:45:00.007-05:00

Ever since I eagerly devoured an awesome Greek salad at Westville in the West Village, I have been craving the combination of leafy greens and creamy feta. So Wednesday during lunch I followed my cravings. I wandered through the Union Square Greenmarket, beginning with a selection of a variety of lettuces, bright red radishes that were calling out to me, a red onion, and finally, feta cheese from Lynnhaven Farms. Back in midtown, I stole little plastic cups of balsamic vinegar from the deli across the street (shhhh). Then at my desk, I chopped and assembled the. best. impromptu lunch ever. The lettuces had that lively tenderness that signaled freshness.

So I assembled the same salad to accompany burgers for dinner that night, and then for lunch a couple of days later. By then, it was clear that two days in the refrigerator had taken their toll on the lettuce, and they now had the more wilted quality of supermarket mixed greens. See, the difference is noticeable! And although $6 per little tub, the feta cheese was worth it for its creamy, salty tang. It was reminiscent of the goat cheese my mom made when I was a child from the milk of the goats raised in our backyard barn. I didn't know how good I had it then.

As for the burgers, the meat was ground chuck from Hawthorne Valley Farm, picked up from the Greenmarket a week ago and frozen solid. While it took its time defrosting in a water bath, I improvised some hamburger buns that came together surprisingly quickly. The key was taking the necessary amount of flour and yeast out of the refrigerator that morning so they were nice and warm when it was time for baking after work. I used half whole wheat and half all purpose flour to give it a little more fluff than my usual dense all whole wheat bread.

It was a test run for my locavore potluck next month, and they came out good enough that I will be serving them again then. They may not be perfectly round and airy like store-bought buns, but they will be wholesome, made with simple ingredients, and hot from the oven. The recipe below is more for my reference so I can replicate it. And not so much a hard and fast recipe. Because there are things I'm not sure about. Like the ideal size of the pan, and whether the pan needs to have sides so that the buns rise upward. Advice is welcome.

Jesse prepared the burgers with worcestershire sauce, and some freshly chopped sage from the deck. He grilled them to medium-rare perfection served with those salad ingredients again - sliced red onions, lettuce, and feta cheese, albeit non-local ketchup of course. Yum. I'm glad it's grilling season again, that our grill is fixed after a two week hiatus, and that we have another package of local hamburger meat awaiting us in the freezer for a future barbecue.

Hamburger Buns
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup warm water
1 tbsp olive oil

Combine yeast and 1/2 cup warm water and let sit a few minutes until bubbly.
Meanwhile, combine flour and salt. Then add olive oil, yeast mixture, and half the remaining water. Combine in bowl with a rubber spatula. Add additional water as necessary until a slightly sticky dough forms.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and need 10 minutes, adding flour as needed so it doesn't stick to everything. Return to bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place in warm place for 40-60 minutes until doubled in size. (My warm place is inside my gas oven with the door propped open, and in that situation, the dough was over-ready and sighing back on itself when I poked holes into it at 45 minutes, so make sure you check on it periodically.)

Preheat oven to 400. Grease two small or one large baking pan. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and gently press down, pressing out air bubbles. Divide in half and set one half aside under the bowl. Divide each half into five balls (ten balls total) and place on pan. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let sit 25-35 minutes until proofed - the rolls will touch each other slightly. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, removing when rolls are golden brown and hollow when you tap the underside.

Bicycling vs Spinning

2008-05-04T11:42:00.003-05:00

May is Bike Month here in NYC, and I think I know why...because it's finally consistently warm enough to encourage the public to ride outside. Likewise, I've been biking a lot more these days. Although my bike is an old piece of junk that clanks obnoxiously, it still plugs along reliably, and I've gained enough confidence that I can now ride solo in Manhattan. Just this week, I commuted to work by bike for the first time, and I can't wait to do it again next week. Although, as I crawled across the steady upward incline of the Queensborough bridge, I thought to myself, it must be like childbirth, whereby you only get yourself to do it again by blatantly ignoring the pain it takes...BUT the "biker's high" I get afterward helps too.

Last weekend, I rode about 25 miles in one day, beginning with a refreshing but leisurely paced morning 10 mile ride: we got up early for the Brooklyn Greenway Waterfront Tour. Although we were running late (thanks to Jesse aka Mr. Morning Dawdler), we were lucky enough to catch up with the mass of bikers at the East River Park in Williamsburg and continue southward on Kent Ave in Williamsburg, where they have just approved construction of a protected bike lane. The tour continued into the gated-off industrial innards of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They're in negotations with the development corporation to push back their fences for a Greenway alongside the water.

Next we had a pit stop at Empire Fulton-Ferry State Park, where they were nice enough to set up port-a-potties and offer water and donuts (which I happily used my willpower to reject). We headed past the future site of the Brooklyn Bridge park, where they have already started to demolish pier structures, and then down the first actual completed segment of the Greenway on the Columbia Street waterfront. It looks like an elevated paved sidewalk/bike path, and they had just planted little trees earlier that morning! Our tour finished at Valentino Park in Red Hook where there's a nice view of the Statue of Liberty. It was an interesting ride, although disappointing to learn how long they expect the completed waterfront to take (approximately another 5-10 years), but I really respect the vision and dedication of the Brooklyn Greenway organization.

Last week I also went to a spinning class at the gym with coworkers. I was curious to try it out and see if it would be a good way to train for biking outdoors on bad weather days. In truth, I found it to be godawful boring and torturous. I often have that experience with gym classes, since I'd much rather be working at my own pace or stop when I want to stop. In this case, it felt pathetic to be biking and sweating away in a black box or a room, spinning our wheels, and going nowhere.

Like A New Old-Fashioned Gal has said, in olden days, life incorporated a lot more manual labor, including the exercise involved in transporting oneself around. It seems silly the way people stop and take the time to run in place on treadmills at the gym. To that end, I really like the idea of getting my exercise by commuting by bike or walking partway to work on perfect-weather days.

Pros for Biking:
- Great exercise
- Contributes to my health
- Get home earlier than I would if I went to the gym after work
- Fun
- Biker's high afterward
- Makes me feel badass
- Helps me indulge my inner map geek when I figure out routes
- Could save money on metrocard if I bike enough
- Could save money by cancelling my gym membership, but see below
- Electricity-free workout (unlike the gym)
- Gas-free transportation (unlike the subway or Jesse's car)

Cons against Biking:
- I sweat. A lot. As a result I get weird helmet hair.
- I have to get up earlier in the morning to have time to stop at the gym near my office to shower off my sweat before work.
- Bridges or anything resembling a hill is hard (New York City may look flat, but as soon as you're on a bike you learn it's not)
- Higher risk of intaking the pollutants from New York City air

And the pros outweight the cons! The bike wins! Now let's see if I can keep it up. And if I ever find a nicer bike. If you want to join the fun, check out all Transportation Alternatives for rides, resources, and volunteer opportunities, and Bike Month for bike events this May...like National Bike to Work Day next Friday May 16, complete with snacks provided by eco-friendly City Bakery at all East River bridges. Guess who's looking forward to that?!