Eating jumpstart

Sorry for the lack of posting – I haven't been eating. I've been stressed out, scurrying around like a headless chicken, looking for a new place, packing, ridding my current dwelling of a stubborn mouse, fighting an ant invasion and other nonsense.

Then came the new stress....my quest to eat at all the restaurants where I haven't yet eaten at before I skip town and move south to DC. After packing up enough boxes to make me feel like it won't be a mad dash to the finish and buying a lovvveeely yellow Le Creuset cast iron pot (it is waiting patiently in its box) and lifetime supply of All Clad cookware from the Woodbury outlets, I felt like I could concentrate on eating well, rather than getting perpetual take out from Chipotle (indigestible, according to my farmer's market conditioned stomach), eating hot oatmeal, while trying to console myself in apartment in complete disarray.

After half an apartment's worth of boxes and a cup of emergency coffee from the Mud truck, I had some sense kicked (caffeinated?) into me as if to say "why are you drinking sub par upper east side coffee from around the corner? You should know better than that!!! Now stop eating this garbage." Therefore, I'm on a very serious mission to eat my way through New York City again, a little like the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I started with Abraço. It was so amazing, I've been there twice in two days. three times in 3 days. 5 times in 7 days. The coffee was good and lethal. I've been trying to hard to get there in time to eat their fritatta, but I am always too late. Last weekend, the last slice of fritatta was eaten in front of me, while I diligently waited in line for a consolation prize of Concord grape cake, a cured olive cookie and a rose almond cookie.

Today, instead of a fritatta, I munched on a warm green salad with blanched tomatoes and a grilled eggplant and mozzarella sandwich while contemplating another coffee.



Then there was the time I got some corn soup.





Then there were the two times I got a pork sandwich with Rachel and Melissa (separate days) after coffee.



And then got a cupcake from Butter Lane with Rachel.

7th Street used to have all my favourite stores but it's kinda turned into an eating street, starting with Abraço, then moving down to Porchetta (formerly a boutique called Sugar) and finishing off with Butter Lane.

Last week, like a crazy fiend, I trekked out in the rain for the coffee, meeting my friend John there. After 2 cups, I melted into a semi delirious state, saying how relaxxxxed I was and it was like God had parted the skies and I could see and think clearly again. John glanced sideways at me and said that he felt like he just did drugs with me or something.

Today, I sipped as I looked out of the little counter, envisioning romantic thoughts of me on an Electra Amsterdam cruiser bicycle with FAT tires and a basket, transporting baguettes and running out for coffee in Georgetown, "tooling by the mall", zipping under cherry blossoms on my way to pick up a quiche. Man this coffee is so good.

So if any of you want to hang out and say See You Later before I trade a shoebox apartment for luxurious residence with a dishwasher and separate bedroom, we can make a date at Abraço, or Roebling Tea Room – my other New York love.

Tomme Du Berger

I'm not sure who took this photo – I found it on a blog in Swedish and since my Swedish is limited to the alphabet, tongue twisters (Knut knöt en knut bakom knuten, och när Knut hade knutit knuten så var knuten knuten...anyone? Sex kvistfria kvastskaft?) and uh.."green hedgehog" (grön igelkott)...I am not sure who it belongs to. Anyway, it is a lovely photo, but it is not mine.

I've been eating increasingly stinkier and stinkier cheese. In college I used to wander into Murrays and make all sorts of timid cheese choices. Tasty, but timid. I'd munch on Felino Salami and Pyrenees Brebis (which is a delightful combination, btw) and buy all sorts of interesting cheddar with nettles. Then I started my extreme obsession with Monte Enebro (Spanish goat's milk cheese with a blue ash rind) that I used to have with Grayson or Adrahan. They were wash rind cheeses but they were still pretty civilized, meaty and beefy. I finally hit my Monte Enebro peak when I was in London and had some deep fried and decided that I almost died and went to heaven and subconsciously decided that my imaginary mission of Monte Enebro was complete.

On my birthday this year one of my friends gave me a little piece of Hooligan by Cato Farms...a super stinky cheese that smelled like the insides of boots on a spring day. It was a little nutty and a little sweet but really...pungent, in a dainty way. After that, nothing was ever quite the same. Because then I had some Gres des Vosges. And I was so enthralled, I brought a whole slab of it to my friend's apartment who was put off by it immediately and was quite visibly offended, saying that she loved me but she really could not understand me and stinky cheese...until she tried it. It's a little yeasty and nutty and seems like it would be a good idea to wash it down with some beer.

Then, one day when I was waiting half dazed at the Murray's Cheese counter, the cheesemonger called my number and asked me what I wanted and I pointed to the Tomme du Berger and said I wanted a quarter of a wheel. As well as a staple slab of Monte Enebro and a third of a pound of the strongest Stilton so I could make some roasted pear salad. I'd never had any Tomme du Berger before and I don't even remember the description on the label, but it seemed compelling enough. It's a raw sheep and goat's milk cheese, I think the goat's milk is from Provence. It a bit of a finicky cheese because it goes in and out of season....right now supply is dwindling because there was a drought in Provence, so I recently purchased...quite a lot of it.

It is..........LOVELY.

It is my new favourite cheese of the moment, ousting Monte Enebro. So if you are not in New York (because I kinda want to hoard this cheese for myself), get thee to a cheese shop and buy some Tomme Du Berger before it disappears for the rest of the year.

Flirting with danger: Pizza Making

(Prosciutto, olive and arugula pizza)

I've never had the urge to make pizza because I'm both lazy and intimidated of the thought making the dough. More lazy though, because I know if I start making it, it will be a semi-arduous journey to perfecting it. Also, the store bought ready made crusts look abominable.

I started talking to my friend Angela about pizza and how I read about people trying to fool the thermostats in their ovens so they could get the oven temperature way up high and she got excited and said she had read something like that as well and it inspired her to try. She also said that she used to make her own dough, but now buys the ready-to-roll type from Trader Joe's that costs $0.99 and comes in regular, whole wheat and garlic herb.

So the real secret of making pizza isn't really a secret – it's a really hot oven. But the secret to making great pizza at home is trying to get the oven and cooking surfaces at hot as possible. Sooo, Angela recommended that I preheat the oven to 500 degrees (fahrenheit) WITH the baking stone or tray already in it before doing the pizza assemblage (make sure the pizza dough is thin, because a thick Chicago style crust is also an American abomination). Then, slide it into the oven and turn it up to BROIL. The reason for doing this is so the bottom of the crust gets crispy and doesn't turn soggy from the ingredients on top. When I asked her how long she baked it for, her reply was "until it's almost burning."

OOK. Also, she used a piece of parchment paper while broiling the pizza which seemed a little dangerous because you're not supposed to use it in temperatures beyond 375. To which she said calmly that the paper would be charred, but the pizza would be ok – just monitor the situation.

I was getting worried about setting my kitchen on fire with no renter's insurance.

So as I was stocking up on dough at Trader Joe's, the check out guy recommended a safer way to make pizza. He used to make his own dough but also started using the Trader Joe's dough. He said to bake the dough for 1 or 2 minutes before adding the toppings so the middle wouldn't get soggy. This seemed much safer. Of course, my friend was wary about baking something twice and ruining its texture. I was still all about not setting my kitchen on fire.

Sometime that afternoon, I read about someone who recommended an industrial torch to make creme brulee because the refills were cheaper and it did the same job as the dinky kitchen counter top torch that was three times the price. That was the time I realised that I really appreciated a gutsy cook and decided to make pizza Angela-style.



The first and second times I made it, it was a great success and made it with Prosciutto, artichoke hearts and (with and without) arugula.



The second time I made it, I used a base of pureed tomatoes and some haberno salsa I made the day before. In addition to the mozzarella cheese, I added some Fontina cheese, which made such a difference.

It's so quick to make and always a crowd pleaser and it's something that I make in a pinch, squeezed for time and need something for dinner right away. I still haven't figured out exactly how long it takes to almost burn – it's between 8-11 minutes.

A Near Religious Experience

Last week, I snagged the last of summer blueberries from Samascott Orchard and hoarded them in the fridge for as long as I could. (about a week. Apple cider french toast instead of blueberry chocolate chip pancakes?) This week, I bought a bounty of little plums in an effort to wean myself off blueberries. This weekend I made some onion, tomato and goat cheese omelet with a side of roasted beets to take my mind off blueblerryless pancakes.

So last night after I made an early dinner (poached turbot with oyster mushrooms over barley with some delicious broccoli), I put on some Feist and Seabear (my late night cooking mix) and got to work making a plum crumble that I saw on Orangette, together with some earl grey ice cream. The tea steeped happily with the milk, cream and sugar mixture as I pitted the plums and tossed them up with a coating of crystallized ginger, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. It smelled so delicious even before it was baked. And since the recipe for the topping was so similar to cookie dough..........why not get some extra mileage from the mixer before washing it.

It was near midnight and I smelled of baked goods and earl grey, and probably had flour in my hair like some plum crazy Creulla De Vil. When I finally pulled it out of the oven, the plums looked so lazy as they peeked out of the cracks in the crumble and spilled out around the edges. I was tired and still had to watch the roasting beets and make and cool the custard, but when I spooned out some of the crumble, it was like a religious experience. I think Vipin and I finished off close to half the baking dish yesterday. So much for hoping I could make this stretch out for days – I'm trying to forget that it's camping out in the fridge.

Recipe on the Upper West Side

I realised I've been struggling to find a term for the type of food I like – all this farmer's market local fare, food flavored by the freshness of ingredients themselves and some herbs that don't really have a distinguishing sauce to give themselves a cuisine name (black bean sauce - Chinese food. Terriyaki Sauce – Japanese food. Too much butter – French food.). I'm always asked what type of food I cook at home – you mean you don't cook Chinese food? Chinese food is often garlic, ginger and a lot of sauce. I cook up whatever I find fresh at the market, with minimal sauce, but with garlic and sometimes ginger – what type of food is that?

Over the weekend Salman and I were struggling to find somewhere for dessert and coffee. I held out until almost 3 with no coffee and was quickly turning really cranky. Surreptitiously, we chanced upon Recipe, with unfinished wood beams the inside looked...charming. We didn't really need to contemplate the menu further after seeing 'pork rilettes' and 'foie gras terrine', and made a mad dash inside. I instantly forgave them for not having espresso drinks, downing cup after cup of filter coffee, college diner style in big cheery yellow mugs.

We had such a charming afternoon, I poked around their website to see how they talked about themselves, what they called this type of food.



Salman looking really...strange. and really creepy.

Apparently, it's called Rustic. I think they call it Rustic American, but I would hardly call foie gras terrine American. And I think Rustic is a good word, because it isn't shy and it isn't dainty, but it is hearty and makes you happy. Food in its real state, not deconstructed or wobbling about in a precarious tower. Hearty, Happy and Homemade. As food should be. I found it peculiar that at a restaurant in Zurich, the server announced to us that the creme brulee was fantastic, and it was made in the restaurant itself. I ordered it, but was really bothered by this because shouldn't everything that a restaurant serves be...made...in...the restaurant itself? (Aside: I popped into a cafe that I quite like and they advertised "Homemade Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches" and I automatically assumed that they made the bread and made the jelly, but I spied a bottle of Beth's jam. Incidentally, I have bought Beth's Jam before from the Farmers Market, but I think it is deceiving to advertise HOMEMADE sandwiches when what it REALLY was, was Home-Assembled sandwiches.)

Anyway! We had a lovely afternoon. What was originally meant to be coffee and cake turned into brunch #2 (blueberry chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast), and we polished off toffee banana goodness and a delightful pignoli tart. This competes with my other love, The Roebling Tea Room, another Rustic sort of place.

Sweet Dreams

I was surfing youtube after I rewatched Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie, which always reminds me of fall and the last time I started the school year, sweaters and of New York being a little too cold, of melancholy and hope and anticipation. I've come to love fall and the cold that comes with it, snuggling in white comforters, waiting for vegetables to roast and chicken to brown.

I digress! So as I was surfing, I found this other stop motion video by Kristen Lepore which is so cute, sweet and heartbreaking. It also shows why vegetables are better than sugar.

Sweet Dreams from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

Dinner date with lovely weather

A couple of months ago, popped over to Cornwall, when I pit stopped in London for a long time. (Popped over, meaning taking the 8 hour overnight train from London to St Ives. It is the best way to do it, in my opinion.) Cornwall is pretty spread out, so it takes a couple of days to explore and eat. Cornish food is probably some of the best in the United Kingdom. Almost everything is near the coast, which means seafood is plentiful, there are tons of free roaming cows and dairy products are excellent and all things point to a generally tasty time.



What I usually did was ate a ridiculous breakfast at the bed and breakfast and went off out of St Ives for the day, walked and saw gardens and beaches and came back for dinner. On the last evening, I got back to St Ives and climbed over the hill to the other beach (there is a beach at the St Ives train station as well as on the other side of the town), and had dinner at the Porthmeor Cafe Bar.

Cornwall as a little bit of a surreal time. Especially since there was excellent weather. Grumpy warned me not to bring any shorts because I wouldn't need them and to bring a woolly sweater (jumper?) It was so hot, that I had to stretch the summer portion of my bag so thin, and got a sunburn on top of that. The locals said that this sort of weather was unheard of, but I was none the wiser, meandering through tiny cobbled streets on the way to the train station early early in the morning, with seagulls screeching intermittently overhead. The roads are so windy and little and the town was so small I didn't bother with a map. In the 4 1/2 days I was there, I didn't manage to pin down a route to or from the train station. Inevitably I'd slip into another road and I'd go off on a walking tangent.



This was about a 5 minute walk down a steep incline from my bed and breakfast, and maybe a 10 slow uphill struggle from the cafe back up. My favourite thing to drink while I was there was elderflower cordial/water/juice/soda.



I had some ricotta fritters and some turbot with potatoes that were scrrrrumptious, curled up with a Cornish food magazine that used some matte paper stock and had a large fish on the cover and watched crazy people swim in the ocean. God it was cold water. Then, before attempting to drag myself up the REALLLY STEEP HILL back to a HOT SHOWER, I came across a mini Stone Henge on the beach:

Roast and Borough Market

I just got back from a week and a half vacation with my grandparents in London and Zürich and after pots of fondue, slabs of delicious raclette, schnitzel, wurst, chocolate and so much cheese, I hurried to the farmer's market this morning and bought so many vegetables and steamed up the most flavorful broccoli, roasted some eggplant and snacked on grapes and felt somewhat cleansed after last week's epic eating.

Roast sits above Borough Market, and has a great view of everything. We sat near a window, but you can also choose a table with a view of their kitchen. They were also voted best breakfast by the Times. And you know you're in for a good time when the menu lists the sources/farms they buy from at the back of the menu:



We ordered some toast, which came with some homemade jam (gooseberry (most delicious), marmalade and strawberry) with a cylindrical mound of butter.



And when we came in, I saw POTS OF JAM sitting by the kitchen with the dates that they were made clearly marked on the sides. Our jam was about a day old.



Then we ORDERED.



Too afraid to order a side of award winning Cumberland sausage by myself, I asked my granpa if he wanted to share. He agreed. But we were so stuffed, that by the time we attacked our sausage side, we both ended up eating half a sausage each. My granma ordered some kippers, which looked like.......a prehistoric fossil. It might as well have been because it was like an archaeological dig through all the bones. They were a little strange tasting....



But my smoked trout and scrambled eggs were so DELICIOUS



When we were good and stuffed, we walked around the market, checking out fresh produce and cooked food, lots of salami and cheese. You can get full on samples alone in the market





AN OBSCENE BOUNTY!!!!







I nearly balked at the price of fava beans. Surely 4 pounds a pound for fava beans is completely and absolutely ridiculous since you need to shell them, then boil them, then you remove their skin after that. What you're left with is a delicious bean but you generate much more vegetable scrap for not much bean productivity. The price of artichokes was also a little questionable. BUT! from their leaves and forks at the end of them, you can tell that they are the real deal, and probably will taste spectacular, not like their friendlier looking but bitter tasting counterparts.



Then there was fresh fish and...horseshoe crabs? I wonder what it is like to eat a dinosaur.




Then I bought some gooseberry and elderflower jam



and some Damson yogurt made with raw milk



The USDA has outlawed unpasteurized milk in America. It is dumb, but also exciting if you can get your hands on illegal cheese, I'll bet it would be super tasty. I had some Illegal-in-America yogurt, which was lovely and delightful.

By the time I came across this, I could only bemoan the fact that I was too stuffed to eat, so I might have to...replicate a similar delicacy.....

So does this mean that there is bacon mixed into the baguette dough? Or bacon in the baguette? OR BOTH?!

London

MAN, I am so slow. I was behind on my vacation posts from a vacation that happened 2 months ago and never got around to writing fully about London and Cornwall, and now I've lapped myself. Trench-coat clad, I had some roast duck, roast pork and more roast pork with some delicious vegetables and more rice than I've had in a month, which can only mean that I am in London.

I am also very jet lagged.

After a long long long and restless flight, I spent the 3 hours after it sleeping across 3 chairs in a transit lounge in Zurich with a hoodie pulled so far over my head that it covered my eyes. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon in a haze and groggy. Now I am so alert I'm not sure what to do with myself.

My grandpa wanted to take me to The New Covent Garden in Vauxhall tomorrow morning, a wholesale market that is what the original Covent Garden was. However, it is a little hardcore. It starts at 4am and ends at 10am. Should I still be awake at 4am, I will know where to go. Instead, I'm opting for normal person hours, a kick start to the day at Roast (voted Best Breakfast by The Times....which Times, I'm not sure, but I'm sure we'll have good times), overlooking Borough Market. Then we will feast on ice cream as we feast our eyes on fresh produce and mountains of cheese. (As I'm typing, I'm getting more and more curious about this wholesale market......I think I will go on Monday morning at the crack of dawn.)

But rewind to two months ago!

I was soooooo sick, so soo sick in London, I didn't really eat much of anything except for some yogurt, fresh picked strawberries and coffee. So during the time I was well enough to stand on two feet, I perused the candy aisle at Harvey Nicks (above) and found ADORABLE cakes at M&S.



A HEDGEHOG cake?! I wanted desperately to have a hedgehog themed birthday party with hedgehog themed loot, but it fell through in a major way....if only I had access to this cake!!!!!!!



Then I spent an afternoon contemplating chocolate and cute candy at Fortum & Mason after seeing the Waterhouse Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art.

Wiping out the fridge

In an attempt to finish all the fresh produce in my fridge before I leave tomorrow for a week and a half, I woke up early, frantically shucking corn and carving up leeks so I could toss the scraps in with the rest of my compost so I could haul it to the farmers market and dump it out.



I'd already made my college speciality the night before – zucchini and mint sauce with Parmesan, all ready to be frozen. It sounds odd, a zucchini and mint pasta sauce. But I remember having lunch at an Italian place with a friend that I have never been able to find again and they had a zucchini and mint pasta. I was determined to replicate it and I've made this so many times now that I'm not sure what the original tasted like. But this has a load of zucchini, a bunch of mint (be very generous), cook them together in the pan and blend with olive oil. Then mix in Parmesan and sprinkle some of it on top. I ate it with some sirloin and what I thought were the last of the tomatoes.

Then I made blueberry sauce with the 2 pints of blueberries I impulsively bought 2 days ago. And then I planned something for the fairytale eggplant and the swiss chard.



When you roast fairytale eggplant, it is exactly like a fairytale and more magical than Cinderella's glass slipper. The long dark purple ones were my favourite. Then I made the corn and the leeks and set them aside.

The ingredients seemed to be growing by the minute. I have a quart of milk to finish. I hate milk, so I have plans to turn it into chocolate milk before bedtime. Then I unearthed a potato. Then a bunch of onions. Then I remembered the heirloom tomatoes. How did I squirrel away so much food?! Then to my dismay, I uncovered 2 ENORMOUS artichokes. They are so large that only one of them fits in my little pot at a time. I had a little one two days before.



So tiny and so cute.



But this one was a MONSTER. Once I found it, I immediately consumed it, and was rewarded with a big juicy heart. So now I only have one more to go.

In between loads of laundry, I have to squeeze in loads of eating in a rush to save all my food from spoilage. I bought some flounder to go with the vegetable overload that I'm subjecting myself to. And just when I think that all is calm in my kitchen and my stomach and everything is under control, I remember the container of vichyssoise in the fridge.

Pancakes, again. and again. And a blueberry massacre.

Grumpy invited me over for breakfast last week for pannncakes and a delicious time. I brought some orange juice and stinky cheese (Gres des Vosges) It is incredibly stinky. It is actually supremely stinky. But its bark is worse than its bite..it is light, creamy and tastes a little yeasty, like beer.





Perfect fluffy rising pancakessss...one on each burnerrrrr. They were light and delicate and delicious.

I can't really go a week without having pancakes. It's like I'm on a timer – not the compulsive caffeine frenzy routine every morning to avert a headache and minor mood disasters, but more like a flip of a switch and the swift automated assemblage of dry ingredients and dairy early on Sunday mornings.

I invited Melissa over for brunch and decided when my feet hit the floor that I wanted to make blueberry sauce to go with chocolate chip pancakes.

(Melissa's romper matched my chair)



So I went to the farmer's market opposite the low income housing in the lower 90s on 1st Ave. I was horrified. Whoooooooooooooo in their RIGHT MIND charges $2 a head of garlic when you're trying to sell to sell to people who probably can't afford to pay that much for some garlic. Even I am unwilling to pay $2 for garlic. Are you CRAZY Norwich Meadows Farm? And $5 for half a pint of raspberries is outrageous. Think about who you're selling to. I ignored the farm stands and went across the street and bought 2 pints of the most legit blueberries I could find in the store.

Anyway. Melissa brought the orange juice and we had some lemon curd biscuits, while the blueberry sauce stood by. I poached some eggs. Fished out some roasted beets from the fridge. Made some toast. And some coffee. And tea.



I adapted the pancake mix and blueberry sauce from Ask Aida. She says to use 1 1/2 cups of blueberries and 1 cup of maple syrup. No wonder type 2 diabetes rampant. I used a pint of blueberries and probably about an eighth of a cup of maple syrup (maybe a little more) and simmered it until it was thick and luscious. She also calls for half a cup of melted butter into the pancake mix, which I also think is questionable. I put in probably about 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter and used some whole wheat flour.



They were a little more cakey and thicker than Grumpy's, but still as delicious. Every pancake is different and special. I loooove pancakes. It totally made up for my failed spätzle experiment which yielded delicious spätzle, but I ended up with dough all over the stove, all over the sink, all over different pots and all over myself. It was a right mess. So were these chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes, but at least it was a result of eating and not in the making process.



The blueberry massacre. Delicious sauce.