the adventures of a food-obsessive in nyc
With the temps getting hot (and I mean HOT), there’s no better way to cool off than with delicious ice cream. To that end, Huffington Post compiled a list of the 10 best cold treats in the city.
They look pretty good, though I think the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory in DUMBO should be on the list. So should my new favorite frozen treat, the popsicles from La Newyorkina!
Tomorrow marks the start of the 28th annual Food and Wine Classic in Aspen. For foodies, the event is like an All-Star game of top chefs, restauranteurs, sommeliers and vineyard owners, offering a weekend of tastings, seminars and cooking demos. Everyone is there: Jacques Pepin, Mario Batali, Thomas Keller, Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons, Top Chef winner Michael Voltaggio, Giada di Laurentiis and many, many more.
The full schedule is here, but some of the highlights include a “Secrets of Wine & Food pairing” seminar from Philadelphia sommelier Marnie Old, a “Best of Ligurian Cooking” demo from Batali and a “Create your own Specialty Cocktails” session with the Modern Mixologist himself, Tony Abou-Ganim. I also would love to attend the “It is Easy to be Green: Feasible Farm to Table Practices” seminar with Joe Bastianich, Sam Beall, Jeff Harvey, Michel Nischan and Cindy Pawlcyn. After spending some time at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture for my master’s project, farm to table (or better yet, farm to fork) is something that I’ve become very interested in. Of course, I wouldn’t mind attending some of the tastings either.
All that good food and drink comes at a hefty price — almost $1200 for a weekend pass. Hopefully one day, I’ll get there.
There are a few things that I dislike about Starbucks, but finally I can cross one of those off my list. Starbucks According to The New York Times, CEO Howard Schultz announced today that starting in July, it will offer free Wifi (read the full article here).
Sounds like I’ll be spending a lot more time there from now on …
This is less than half of the open-faced Reuben.
Carnegie Deli is one of those experiences that everyone who lives in — and visits — New York has. The midtown resto is a tourist trap, to be sure, but its piles and piles of meat satisfy all. It must be an old-school deli thing to include excessive amounts of meat, since Carnegie’s biggest (some might say better) competitor Katz’s Delicatessen in the Lower East Side does the same thing.
My uncle from Chicago -- the reason we went -- got the pastrami.
My aunt and I decided to split the Reuben, while my uncle, in from Chicago, got the pastrami on rye. Only pictures can do these sandwiches justice. Too bad I didn’t have a camera on me, so the Blackberry has to suffice.
The sandwiches were good, even a week later as a snack. It didn’t become so popular for no reason!
No joke, thanks to Rhonda Kave.
Kave’s Roni-Sue’s Chocolates, in Essex Market in the Lower East Side, combines bacon, buttercrunch, chocolate and chili-dusted redskin peanuts to make their bacon buttercrunch, a yummy mix of sweet, salty and spicy. For more adventurous choco-baco-holics, there’s the pig candy, better known as chocolate-covered bacon.
Traditional chocolate lovers may balk at the margarita truffle or the beer-and-pretzel caramel, but Roni Sue takes her chocolate seriously. According to Kave’s daughter Allison (the proprietress of First Prize Pies, whose root beer cream pie is the reason we went to Essex Market in the first place), Rhonda makes the chocolate by hand in small batches the store most mornings. …
Since taking office, First Lady Michelle Obama has worked hard to create initiatives to reduce childhood obesity. In March, she launched the Let’s Move campaign, aimed at improving children’s fitness and activity. It coincided with the launch of Meredith and my master’s project on the efforts to improve the nutritional quality school lunches in New York City, What’s for Lunch?.
Seems like Mrs. O took note. Tomorrow, she’ll announce the start of her “Chefs Move to Schools” program, which will pair chefs with schools across the country. The culinary experts will teach students about nutrition and the importance of a well-balanced meal. Participating chefs include Rachael Ray, Food Network chefs Cat Cora, Alex Guarnaschelli and Ellie Krieger (who Meredith met with while reporting for our project!) and Top Chef’s Carla Hall (hooty hoo!) and Bryan Voltaggio.
As we learned while putting together our master’s project, involving children in the cooking process is a great way to get them interested in what they eat. Kudos to Michelle O. for making this happen!
Memorial Day Weekend marks the start of summer, and for anyone in Maryland, summer means blue crabs. Paired with salad and garlic bread, they make a delicious lunch (and anytime I can use a wooden mallet at the table, I’m golden).
With family in town, my parents decided to order in some crabs — and shrimp for good measure. Steamed and seasoned with Old Bay, a Maryland staple that includes paprika, black and red pepper, mustard, celery salt and other spices, they’re messy and difficult to eat, but so worth the trouble!
Note (from 6/8): Per Nila’s request, a long-delayed (my bad!) photo:
Mmmm ... crab.
As a (now former) student, I do most of my wine-drinking on a budget, which means a lot of three-buck Chuck. There’s the occasional screwtop bottle as well, generally frowned upon by the people at the store — and most of my friends. But I’m pretty unskilled with a corkscrew and I don’t always have one around, so I was very excited to see this article on The Huffington Post.
Kurt Friese makes a good point here:
“imagine if we were just today inventing the idea of wine and of putting it in a bottle. Do you think we would stop up the end with chunks of Portuguese tree bark? Not likely.”
Amen to that!
Roasted veggies, that is.
Since spring is almost over, I had to make asparagus at least once before its season ended. It’s one of my favorite veggies, but a crazy semester left me little time for cooking. There was a sale at the supermarket today, so I pounced and grabbed a bundle. Roasted asparagus tastes delicious, so I thought it would make a great snack while my family waited for my mom to finish making dinner. The recipe is super easy:
Next time remember, please add salt!
Roasted Asparagus
– 1 bundle asparagus
– juice from half a lemon
– 1 clove garlic, minced or grated
– olive oil
– salt and pepper to taste
1) Preheat the oven to 375ËšF. Trim the ends off the asparagus spears, leaving the tops on. Lay them flat on a baking sheet lined with tin foil.
2) Drizzle the olive oil, lemon juice and garlic over the spears. Add salt and pepper.
3) Roast them in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the spears are slightly charred but retain their snap.
Sounds simple, right? Well, of course I managed to mess it up by forgetting to add salt. I didn’t notice the difference, but my family did — they’ll never forget that asparagus!
Though May has been a slow month on this blog, these past few weeks have been pretty insane. I finished grad school, graduated and moved out of my apartment. Real life begins soon, though not without a few days at home to relax, unwind with family and of course, EAT.
I haven’t been home since Thanksgiving, so I’m really looking forward to some home-cooked meals. I’ll also be testing out some long-anticipated recipes, now that I’ve got a fully stocked kitchen and parents to pay the grocery bills. Since I won’t be doing anything else, I’ll be blogging, every bite of the way!
After visiting Sigmund Pretzelshop’s stand at the Hester Street Fair, Keith and I were intrigued. Gruyere and paprika pretzels? Beet horseradish mayo dipping sauce? Pretzel sandwiches?? We decided to check out the actual store in the Lower East Side yesterday for a quick dinner.
The store offers a variety of pretzels, sweet and savory, plus sandwiches, coffee and soda. Keith got a roast beef pretzel sandwich, I got a roast turkey, apple and cheddar sandwich and we split a garlic and parsley pretz with herbed goat cheese dipping sauce. …
In search of some serious brain food, I headed over to my aunt’s a few nights ago. She had just the answer: shrimp with a spicy Singapore-inspired sauce. In light of my recent application for a job at Food & Wine magazine, my aunt scoured their site for a recipe, and found this quick and easy spicy Singapore shrimp offering from Kolkata-born sommelier Rajat Parr.
I don’t really do head-on shrimp, so we just used regular. The recipe also calls for Asian sweet chili sauce, but we just used Sriracha, a red chili sauce commonly found in the international aisle of a grocery store.
They look innocent enough, but those shrimp were spi-cy!
After making it, my aunt and I found that we didn’t really taste the lemongrass and probably won’t use it next time — why buy it if you don’t have to? We’d also add more soy sauce and Sriracha, to kick up the Asian flavors. I had it with steamed broccoli and white rice, but I think it would be delicious with brown rice too. …
Yesterday, Keith and I were hungry and had some cash, so we decided to eat our way through the Hester Street Fair in the Lower East Side. We had only tried the popsicles beforehand, but there were plenty of other stands that I couldn’t wait to try. I had heard a lot about the lobster rolls from Luke’s Lobster in the East Village, so we went there first. They seemed a little pricey — $14 for a large lobster roll, $8 for a small — but I had a craving I needed to fulfill. They were good, with plenty of fresh lobster and a perfectly butter-griddled hot dog roll, though they could have used a little more flavor. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but next time more mayo, please.
Our next stop was Arianciata’s, which sells Italian-style rice balls. They’re new, and only sell at the Hester Street Fair (so far). We tried the broccoli and bechamel, which tasted like creamed broccoli with rice, with a crispy fried outer shell. It was good — with that combo of ingredients, how could it not be? I really want to try their sweet rice ball, for which they boil the rice in milk with cinnamon and other spices, then put in a Nutella filling and coat the fried ball in cinnamon sugar when it’s done. Sounds delish!
I needed something sweet after the rice ball and lobster roll, so we went to the Macaron Parlour stand. This stall caught my eye when we first walked into the fair. Macarons are a French treat that I can’t seem to find here (at least good ones … ) so the idea of gourmet macarons had me excited. Keith immediately gravitated to the candied bacon with maple cream cheese. I was a little skeptical — nowadays, people gratuitously put bacon in everything — but the macaron was A-MAZING. It was the perfect balance between sweet and savory, with a little piece of real bacon and subtle maple flavor. I woke up today craving one, so there’s a good chance I’ll be dragging Keith back … …
Since my school year is rapidly to a close, all of the Journalism School’s end-of-the-year happenings started this week. As a part of that, I submitted photos to the J-school’s Photo Award contest. Though I have zero shot of winning, I thought it would be a nice way to cap off a year in which I held a digital SLR camera for the first time.
While sorting through an array of photos, I realized that I never posted the photo sequence I shot at East Village bakery Butter Lane. This was an early assignment in my Visual Storytelling class, to shoot a sequence. I went to Butter Lane to document the frosting of a cupcake.
The East Village bakery Butter Lane frosts cupcakes to order.
Leigh Bomer is the power icer at Butter Lane.
The bakery does most of its business during the week through orders, though in-house sales pick up greatly on weekends.
There are three kinds of cake and about a dozen different frostings offered daily at the bakery.
Bomer usually takes 10 seconds per cake when frosting an order.
Customers can either pick up their orders or get them delivered in Manhattan.
Toppings are the finishing touch to Butter Lane's cupcakes.
The Hester Street Fair opened last weekend in the little park between Hester and Essex streets. Its write-up in New York Magazine compared the fair to the Brooklyn Flea, the long-running street fair/flea market in Fort Greene and DUMBO. As a fan of the Flea, I was excited to go, especially after reading NY Mag’s piece on La Newyorkina, a gourmet popsicle stand serving up Mexican-style paletas. Chefs Hannah Goldberg and Fany Gerson had never sold their popsicles in the city before April 24, so the buzz surrounding their products was especially impressive.
Flavors like mango chile, avocado and hibiscus meant I had to try this stand. But by the time we got there last weekend, La Newyorkina was sold out. We went back this Saturday — a perfect popsicle day, since it was unbearably hot — and finally got our pops.
Keith’s passionfruit was a little sour for me, but my raspberry hibiscus was delish. It had actual raspberries frozen in it, and was just what I needed to cool off in the 85-degree heat. Unfortunately it was a little difficult to take a picture while holding the popsicles, but that’s all the more reason for me to try them again soon.
Though Meatball Shop opened in the Lower East Side two months ago, the crowds were so daunting that I didn’t visit the place until recently. After weeks of hearing how amazing the house-ground balls were, I had to check it out. Keith and I braved an hour’s wait on Thursday night, and finally (FINALLY!) had our meatballs.
Keith got the spicy pork with parmesan cream, while I got the classic beef with spicy meat sauce. Both were light and flavorful, and the focaccia that came with it was delicious. To go with our meatballs, we ordered the risotto and the polenta. The risotto was underwhelming — it was a little nutty (not in a good way) and could have been cooked a few more minutes. The polenta was perfect though, creamy and slightly sweet. We also got collard greens braised in garlic, which were slightly flavorless. But nothing could detract from the meatballs. …
It seems like the Lower East Side is full of little hole-in-the-walls serving street food with a twist (Baohaus is a personal fave).
The shop looks like a retro diner, with stools lining the main counter. There's also some seating in the back.
Mikey’s Burgers on Ludlow Street is no exception. Chinese bacon, Kewpie mayo and Vietnamese coffee milkshakes all find their place on the menu. The burger joint’s distinct Asian twist is no surprise — its owner is Vietnamese chef Michael “Bao” Huynh, of Baoguette fame. Huynh is all about taking street food and making it more exciting, and Mikey’s Burger follows in this vein.
I got the Mikey’s burger, which comes with corned beef hash, grilled onions and mustard. Keith got a BLT burger, with the Chinese bacon and Kewpie mayo, which our server said was an Asian mayo that tastes pretty much the same (it’s from Japan and I’m no mayo fan, so it tasted the same to me). The Chinese bacon was slightly sweeter than regular bacon, which Keith was not a fan of. I thought my burger was delish, as were the chili cheese fries we got. I’m not exactly sure what the Vietnamese part of the Vietnamese coffee milkshake was, but it was amazing nonetheless. I practically finished it myself!
It’s a nice neighborhood find, so I’m sure I’ll be back soon.
April 15. Probably the most frenzied day of the year — at least if you’re a procrastinor/last-minute person like me …
But to ease tax day frustrations, a bunch of places have special deals. Starbucks is giving out free coffee (iced, too!) to anyone who comes in with a reusable travel mug. Of course, they’re doing it to save trees and better the environment, but free coffee certainly helps ease the pain of dealing with Turbo Tax.
And for when you’re done filing, all alcohol is 50 percent off at any of the BLT restaurants in the city. McCormick and Schmick’s in Midtown has a nice deal too. Dinner and drink specials are $10.40 at the bar — in honor of that wretched 1040 form — and diners also get a certificate for $10.40.
After eating kind of unhealthily for a few days, I needed a good and good-for-me meal badly. Where else to turn to but my aunt? I went over last week for some delish home-cooking.
She made me baked fish, sauteed swiss chard and zucchini. I had a photo assignment, so I took some pictures of the cooking process. They’re my first real try using a flash, but they came out better than expected. The food, as always, lived up to its extremely high expectations — and I don’t even like fish!
The swiss chard was so colorful.
The fish was super simple and surprisingly good -- I'll have to get the recipe from her.
Zucchini with mustard seeds is a common Indian dish.
I saw this article about people who photograph food in The New York Times yesterday, and naturally it jumped out at me. It’s about people who photograph every meal and then post the pictures online. While I’m not that fastidious about my meal-photographing, I’ve been known to whip out my camera at the dinner table pretty often — much to the chagrin of my fellow diners, especially Keith. The article was a self-reflection of sorts, and it was interesting to read this:
“In the unconscious mind, food equals love because food is our deepest and earliest connection with our caretaker,†said Kathryn Zerbe, a psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders and food fixations at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. “So it makes sense that people would want to capture, collect, catalog, brag about and show off their food.â€
I suppose that’s true personally, though I always assumed that I just like talking about good food. Thankfully, I haven’t reached an obsessive level. Yet.
Steak dinners in the city can easily cost hundreds of dollars. They’re not something I have often, as a student on a budget. Tonight, Keith proved that a delicious steak dinner doesn’t have to cost very much at all — as long as you make it yourself.
On the menu: sirloin with red wine sauce. We had it with leftover risotto and Alexia rosemary and olive oil oven fries. The steak was very easy:
The sauce was a great complement to the risotto.
Sirloin with Red Wine Sauce
– 10 ounces sirloin steak
– 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
– 1 teaspoon sugar
– 2 cups red wine
– salt and pepper
– 1 shallot, minced
– 1 teaspoon minced garlic (or 1 clove, minced)
– olive oil
1) Preheat the oven to 375˚F. Trim any fat off the steak.
2) Drizzle half of the balsamic vinegar over the steak. Add salt and pepper and half the sugar. Flip the steak and repeat. Let it sit for 10 minutes.
3) In a saucepan, heat olive oil and saute the garlic and shallots. When the shallots are clear, add the red wine. Cook the red wine on medium heat until it is slightly thickened, stirring as needed.
4) Put a separate pan on high heat. Drizzle olive oil over the steak on both sides. Place the steak in the hot pan and cook 1-2 minutes per side.
5) Ladle the red wine sauce onto the steaks. Put the pan in the oven for 8-10 minutes, depending on how you like your steak.
6) It’s VERY important after taking the steaks out of the oven to let them rest for at least 5 minutes before cutting. Then, enjoy!
The steak was amazing. It was a simple, budget-friendly way to have a really nice meal.
Spring is finally here, which means a whole new basket of vegetables to cook with. I love spring veggies. Asparagus, snow peas, baby carrots and leafy greens like spinach — what’s not to like?
Yesterday, I learned a quick and easy risotto recipe that takes full advantage of the new bounty, courtesy of Keith’s sister.
Springboard Risotto
Recipe from Kim
– 1-1/2 cups Arborio rice
– 7 cups chicken stock (or you can use any mix of white wine, water and stock, and use vegetable stock rather than chicken if you want to keep it vegetarian-friendly)
– 6 tablespoons butter, softened
– 1 medium onion (or 4 shallots, finely chopped)
– 2 tablespoons olive oil
– 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
– salt and pepper to taste
1) Heat the olive oil and butter in a large pot. Saute the onions until they are lightly browned.
2) Add the rice and 6 cups of chicken stock. Cook until absorbed, adding stock as necessary.
3) Toss in the Parmesan. Add salt and pepper.
The recipe is super easy, and can be altered to include any combination of your favorite spring vegetables. Try it with asparagus and snow peas: steam the asparagus and peas in chicken broth (or vegetable broth or water) for a few minutes and then run them under cold water (or stick them in a bowl of ice water) to keep them nice and green. Add them to the risotto in Step 3.
Note: If you’re in the mood for a spinach salad, check out this recipe from Keith.
Bill Oram interned with me at The Washington Post. Earlier this week, he asked me for dinner recipes to make for his girlfriend. I was happy to oblige, provided he write about the experience:
I came from a casserole family. It’s not a knock on my tuna-and-noodle loving parents, nor is it an indictment of my tastes. I very much enjoy cooking. The problem is that I’m not good at it. I can follow a recipe to the teaspoon and still find a way to screw it up. A French-trained chef friend insists the secret is controlling the heat. Again, that’s something I’ve never mastered. My eggs inevitably turn out gray on the bottom, and the edges curl upward, like the disbelieving dead chefs, rising halfway from their graves to offer scorn.
So how does a bad cook wind up on a blog dedicated to good food? Well, this is a redemption story. Earlier this week I wanted to make dinner — something simple yet elegant for my girlfriend. We recently moved to a new city, and since she unpacked while I worked, I thought something nice was in order. So I turned to Ishita Singh, the proprietress of this blog, who by all accounts could whip up a five course meal with one hand while dribbling a basketball with the other. [Ed. note: Undeserved flattery was a requirement for his post.]
Her recommendation: flank steak, goat cheese and spinach pasta and pancetta-wrapped asparagus.
Uhh…
But I went with it. The idea of me whipping up something that even sounded gourmet historically would have scared me out of the kitchen. …
Note (from 3/27): The audio slideshow of Free Cone Day is now posted above.
Free cones for everyone!
Today is Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s, one of my favorite days of the year. Wait in line for 20 min. (if you’re lucky) and your reward is free ice cream — what could be better than that?
I covered Free Cone Day for my Visual Storytelling class, and I’ll be putting together an audio slideshow of the day soon. Check back to see when it’s up!
Note: March 23 must be a big day — today was also Free Pastry Day at Starbucks. Today is also the day Patrick Henry delivered his famous “Give me liberty or give me death speech” in 1775, and Day of Hungarian-Polish Friendship in Hungary and Poland. Who knew? (besides Wikipedia … )
