Category: Home Cooking

Live Poultry Coverage

The New York Times ran a nice little piece on a live-poultry-and-more joint in the Bronx. I’m a big fan of these operations, so it’s nice to see some positive coverage about them, and with a ‘here’s a normal part of the neighborhood’ tone, instead of the ‘what is that mysterious place at the end of the block?’ tone you get in the few other articles that have been published.

Gourmet’s July issue also had a great story about getting a live goat from a halal butcher. Well, it wasn’t alive in the end, obviously, but you know what I mean. The butcher says something to the effect of “Hopefully Americans will come to understand Islam better by enjoying this meat.” That would be great (Ramadan kareem, btw). The article isn’t online, but here’s some info about a documentary on a halal butcher, posted by Ian Knauer, who wrote the original story.

The Anti-Restaurants

Since last week was Blog Black Hole Week, I’m only now catching up….

There was an article, “The Anti-Restaurants,” on bad-ass supper clubs in the New York Times last week.

Initially I was miffed that Tamara and I didn’t get our due for five long years of culinary cool (we were roasting whole lambs on spits when those boar-butchering brats were in diapers!). As usual, as the media usually tells it, all the action is in Brooklyn. Whatev.

But then I got to the very end of the story, and read this:

As she was packing her knives, Ms. Lombard, the professional caterer, gave the dinner a grade of C-. She came as a friend and unpaid helper to learn molecular gastronomy techniques but instead wound up doing everything from washing dishes to taking out the trash. “When this last course comes out,” she said toward the end of her 12-hour shift, “I’m going to go to McDonald’s and get a Big Mac with extra pickles.”

So, basically, Brooklyn’s underground supper-club scene is totally freakin’ rad…but the food sucks? Interesting premise.

Now I’m relieved Sunday Night Dinner (Sometimes on Saturday, or Friday, or Even Wednesday) was not mentioned at all. Not the greatest company, you know? Because SNDSSFEW does A++++ food, goddamnit, and we don’t make Jell-O out of pot liquor (see earlier in the story for this particularly vile idea).

Just sign me,

Keepin’ It Real in Queens

Dream Omelet

Oh, Onion, stop! I can’t breathe, I’m laughing so hard!

Chef Cooks Dream Omelet seems innocuous enough…until you get more of the details of the dream. The reference to teeth falling out is especially resonant.

Later today I’m doing a little cooking demo for our CSA. I’m very, very tempted to take it in this direction.

Two Quality Blogs (and a bonus)

It was a good day browsing. I found:

Vegetarian Duck, by Mark Morse, who lives in Amsterdam and happens to be writing about not only the kind of food I like to eat when I go out (and would like to add more of to the guide I’m working on), but also what I’d like to be cooking in my own kitchen here in A’dam, but am a bit too uninspired by Albert Heijn to pull off

Mexico Cooks!, which I found through Veg Duck, and which I haven’t burrowed into yet, but looks super-enticing

Actually, there’s a third good one, but only in Dutch: Klary Koopman’s Alles Over Eten. This will be the blog I subscribe to to keep my Dutch reading skills up…

Nice to have new troves of info on two of my guidebook beats… Now I’m off to cook myself dinner with my Albert Heijn groceries. Damn–I’d been looking at tinned sardines in the store, and for some reason didn’t get them–and here’s Veg Duck’s perfect reason.

Lard! Glorious Lard!

I hope Rick Bayless was online recently to read The Homesick Texan’s inspiring post on DIY lard.

Bayless is such a lard advocate that Peter and I now imagine him popping up everywhere, magically, like a leprechaun, every time the word lard is uttered, or even thought, and proceeding to rub his hands with glee and proselytize as to its wonders. “Oh, Rick Bayless! How’d you get here? So nice to see you!” we say every time we pull the grease from the fridge.

And he’s definitely on the case when someone is bad-mouthing lard–or confusing it with Crisco. (When I was growing up, I knew a lot of people who used the word “lard” to refer to hydrogenated vegetable shortening. I’m not sure if this was because I was in backward New Mexico, or if it was the times, or what.)

If you’re not already a lard convert, you can start with The Homesick Texan, who explains how to make it at home, and also generally makes it sound appealing–and look beautiful. After that, you’ll be ready for the full-on Bayless baptism.

On the Menu at Winslow Place

Three recipes under consideration here at Roving Gastronome HQ, aka Winslow Place, aka the Astoria Museum of Obsolete Technology, aka David Bowie Fan Club, Queens Branch:

1) Six-Minute Chocolate Cake

Under consideration? Hell, I’m eating it right now! It’s from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home book, and I’m sure I’ve praised it before. It is the consummate mood-lifter. I don’t usually eat for mental health (by which I really mean, eat a pint of ice cream while watching chick flicks to make myself feel better). But sometimes I crave a little sweet. And this ridiculous cake (as in ridiculously easy) has a proven track record: I ate it practically every other day while I lived in Cairo, and got through the year without jumping to my death from atop my pile of Arabic homework.

2) Caramelized Onion Tart with Poppy Seeds, Bacon and Dates

OK, I already ate this too. Except I didn’t have the poppy seeds, or the creme fraiche it called for. So I used nothing and yogurt, respectively. This is from Ana Sortun’s fantastic book, Spice, which Tamara has already cooked like a madwoman from. But I was out of town for that (and so couldn’t avert the Starch Stampede), so last week I flipped open the book, I Ching-like, and there was bacon and dates. Like a sign from heaven!

The upshot is that, with the yogurt substitution, it basically wound up tasting like the standard pasta I make, a Greek-before-effed-it-up thing with yogurt, caramelized onions and bacon. Now I’m wondering if I should add dates to that?

3) Central Park Egg

“Into a 12-ounce glass draw 1 ounce of blood orange syrup and 1 ounce of pineapple syrup. Into this break an egg, add a few dashes of acid phosphate and a little finely shaved ice. Shake thoroughly and fill with carbonated water, as is done in preparing all egg phosphates. Strain into a clean glass and serve. Charge 10 cents.”

I’m bawling. I don’t know why. I wasn’t even alive when The Dispenser’s Formulary or Soda Water Guide was published, in 1915. I don’t even know what acid phosphate is. Or that things with the word “egg” in the name actually had an egg in them (you’re saying “Duh!” but I’m thinking “Egg cream!”).

Our friend Katie gave Peter this book, and John, if you’re reading this, yes, it should’ve been yours. But spring has sprung, and a whole season of refreshing fizzy-water drinks is about to open. I’m also considering the Mexican Mint Glace (“The name is suggested by the fact that the beverage duplicates the colors of the Mexican flag”), the Hyacintha (American saffron, juniper berries and dates are the first three ingredients–gets crazier from there–but to be fair, I think it’s a fermented business) and, what the heck, the Celery Cocoa (just what it sounds like).

Yes, I’m getting completely stir-crazy. Hopefully when I’m done reading the next book in the stack, Darra Goldstein’s The Georgian Feast(sour plum sauce? Whaaa?), and done eating all this damn cake I made, summer will be here, for real.

PS: I planted grapevines. Can’t wait.

The Joy of Cooking, Forever and Always

Peter pointed out this nice essay in the NY Times by Kate Stone Lombardi: The Joy of (Still) Cooking.

She’s practical–talking about the fun of listening to music while you cook, and of using up all the leftovers–but I think I like this bit best:

I equate feeding my family with love, which is why I cannot imagine stopping now. What would that say to my husband? What would it say to me? I have a friend who opens the freezer every night and selects a Lean Cuisine to microwave for herself and her husband. They seem very happily married, which remains a complete mystery to me.

Yes, the idea of being a nice wife and cooking a nice dinner for my lovely husband makes me gag. But the practice of it is actually quite enjoyable. Just one of those postfeminism disconnects. And of course it helps that Peter does the same for me.

White People Love Dinner Parties!

Stuff White People Like gave a shoutout to dinner parties recently. With 743 comments and counting, it seems to have struck a special chord.

This is either bad for my professional future (I am engaging in something that everyone is about to be _totally over_), or it’s really really good–I mean, there are tons of white people in the world, right? And a lot of them need me and Tamara to tell them how to have dinner parties.

First, of course, we’d tell them that they don’t have to worry about most of the crap mentioned in the SWPL post. In fact, leave out the Us Weekly! My god–what kind of beasts would scour their house clean of Us Weekly to impress their friends? They need new friends!

Sunday Night Dinner Flipbook: The Classy One

Because Peter isn’t as much a fan of found art as I am, he went on to tinker with the flipbook.

OK, fine, so it no longer threatens to give you a seizure–I _guess_ that’s an improvement. Still…I liked the simple insta-elegance of the first one–well, if you can call me sticking my whole avocado-covered hand in my mouth elegant.

Here’s the link to New Improved Sunday Night Dinner a la Mexicana Flipbook.

Sunday Night Dinner Flipbook Action

File under Found Art:

Last Sunday, Karl took 526 photos. (That’s a lot, but not a lot more than he usually takes.)

Peter strung it together with his movie-maker software, and added a little sound loop.

(It’s 8MB–takes a sec to load.)

(What we made, if you’re curious: guacamole–with Mexican avocados, of course; jicama sprinkled with chile and salt–that’s what the French-fry-looking-things are; sopes with goat cheese and salsa roja–the little fried guys; chicken broth with mushrooms and epazote; duck legs with red mole; wild rice; steamed purslane and chayote; Caesar salad; flambe bananas with chocolate sauce, which wound up being the nastiest-looking dessert ever. Spaten provided the beer–classy!)