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.