bites out of life

What's For Lunch? We Have the Answer

Finally.

Meredith and I turned in our Master’s project today. What’s for Lunch? is now fully launched, the result of six months of hard work.

Salad bars are one way students are eating healthier in New York City.

The project focuses on the push to improve the quality of food served to students in New York City public schools. Students currently chow down on things like frozen pre-roasted commodity chicken parts and beef with texturized vegetable protein. Yum. (Not.)

A number of wellness organizations are trying to change that by bringing fresh food, especially vegetables, into the schools. We followed two of them around, Wellness in the Schools and New York Coalition for Healthy School Food — in the kitchen, the lunchroom, after school, in class.

We had some great moments in the schools, meeting and talking to kids. There was certainly plenty of frustration as we put the site together, starting literally from blank pages in Dreamweaver and building everything from the ground up (kudos to Meredith!). But it was an amazing experience, and something I’m so proud of.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

A Sandwich Tour of South America

Though I’ve studied Spanish for more than 10 years, I had surprisingly never had an arepa until recently. The pita-like cornmeal breads are common in South America, and often stuffed with some combination of cheese, guacamole, chicken, shredded beef and veggies.

The filling looked almost like guacamole, but tasted less avocado-y thankfully.

To introduce me to the world of Venezuelan arepas (and to see me before she left for Costa Rica, lucky) Mili suggested we go to Caracas Arepas for dinner on Thursday.Â The restaurant is kind of a hole in the wall, but it was packed to the brim — with a line out the door — for the softball-sized sandwiches. I got the Reina Pepiada, a very traditional arepa according to the waitress, which came with shredded chicken and an avocado salad. I’m not a huge fan of avocados, but it was pretty good.

The winner on the menu was the tinto de verano, a wine and lemonade concoction that we used to drink in Madrid. It’s very popular in the AndalucÃa region of southern Spain, and apparently, in Venezuelan restaurants in NYC. …

Remembering Kolkata’s Street Food Scene

I came across this Washington Post article on Kolkata street food the other day and didn’t get a chance to write about it until now. The story makes me miss Kolkata so much, if only because I haven’t had lunch yet today and could really go for a Kati chicken roll.

The reporter, Ted Weesner, mentions Coffee Shop, which was a big hot spot when my parents were in college. Apparently the waiters would allow folks to linger after they finished their coffee, so my parents killed many an hour there after class. Flury’s, the other coffee shop mentioned in the article, is a behemoth on Park Street, the Fifth Avenue of sorts in Kolkata. The cakes are amazing, and I can’t wait to try a capuccino when I go back!

The Kati rolls Weesner mentions at the end of the article are always divine. My favorite (aka my parent’s favorite) are from Badshah, by New Market in the shopping center of the city. They’re perfectly spicy, a little sweet and simply delicious.

And one way to get around the unfiltered phuchka conundrum? Try them without the Tamarind water. Though they might not be authentic, they’re still amazing and best of all, no stomach bug two hours later!

Wafels on a Monday Afternoon

After a rough weekend, I needed something sweet. My sugar fix came in the form of Wafels & Dinges, the Belgian waffle truck that parks itself on Broadway and 113th on Mondays.

I was lucky -- usually the line for waffles is much longer.

It’s kind of absurd that I hadn’t ever been to Wafels & Dinges, considering they’re on my way to class once a week and filmed a Throwdown with Bobby Flay at the Columbia Journalism school last fall. Sadly, I wasn’t able to go then, (darn you class!) though Keith went and ended up on TV! The show aired this January, and even B. Flay couldn’t match the yummyness of the W&D crew.

I got the LiÃ¨ge waffle with spekuloos spread and vanilla ice cream. The LiÃ¨ge is a denser and sweeter than the regular Brussels waffle, with little chunks of pearl sugar that caramelize on the outside of the waffle as it heats up. Spekuloos are cookies common in Belgium and France, and the spread has the same consistency of Nutella, looks like creamy peanut butter and tastes like graham cracker. Apparently the spread is common in Belgium, but is hard to track down — it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page! …

Eating Local — For Free!

Today Meredith and I went to the 10th annual CSA in NYC conference, hosted by Just Food, an organization devoted to linking local farms to city neighborhoods since 1995. CSAs, or community-supported agriculture programs, enable city families to fund farmers in the winter, and then receive the farmer’s wares during harvest season (I explained this more thoroughly in a previous post).

Meredith and I went to CSA in NYC as a part of our Master’s project on the efforts to improve lunches in New York City schools. The all-day conference at the Teacher’s College of Columbia University focused on all aspects of bringing local food to cities: the challenges on the farm, the challenges for buyers in the city, the environmental and logistical elements of small farms, the problem of access for low-income households. Just Food began as an organization whose aim was to bring the farm to the city, but as their popularity (and the CSA movement in general) has grown, their focus has shifted now to systemic changes through advocacy and policy. Our interest was in the changes taking place to bring local food to New York City’s School Food program, but we learned a lot about the local food movement in general. …

Memorias fromÂ Madrid

Snow and ice rain have paralyzed New York City today, to the point where Columbia actually canceled classes yay! The cold always puts me in the mood for hot chocolate, and there’s nothing more warming and filling than the hotÂ chocolate I used to have in Madrid.

Spanish hot chocolate is more like a liquid candy bar than anything else. It is so rich and thick that a spoon can sit on top of it (yes, I’ve tried), and Spaniards usually dip churros in them. In Madrid, the hot spot for chocolate con churros is Chocolateria San Gines, in the center of the city. It’s only open from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and caters to hungry late-night clubbers and revelers waiting for the metro to re-open in the morning.

I wasn’t a big fan of the hot chocolate after a night of partying, because it doesn’t tend to sit well in the stomach (though I did enjoy many a night there). But when my parents came to visit me we went to San Gines, and for the first time, I actually could appreciate the richness of the chocolate and the lightly greasy churros. They were delish. I found the recipe on Food Network, and if I’m bored enough by the snow, I may just try it out!

Frosting Lessons at Butter Lane

Yesterday I visited Butter Lane for a photo assignment. Clearly I was there strictly for the photos, and not because it’s a cupcake place or anything.

Butter Lane has some interesting toppings for their cupcake combos as well.

The East Village bakery has been open since last November, in an area that could use the sugar rush. While the West Village is rife with bakeries and sweet shops, its counterpart is more about the bar scene than anything else. And the folks at Butter Lane take full advantage of that. The store is open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays (11 p.m. on weekdays) to cater to the late-night crowd, and even offers $1 frosting shots.

Frosting is one of Butter Lane’s big draws. They offer a variety of flavors, including maple pecan, grapefruit and ginger, cinnamon honey and blueberry. They also offer three types of cake: vanilla, chocolate or banana. Choose any combination you like, and they’ll frost the cake for you right as you wait, hence the photo assignment showing the process of frosting a cupcake.

Yes, it tasted as good as it looks.

The most popular cupcake combo, according to “power icer” Leigh Bromer? The Elvis, a banana cake with peanut butter frosting, topped with marshmallows. I wasn’t that adventurous, and instead got the maple pecan frosting on chocolate cake, recommended by the day manager Marco Lopez. The frosting was super light and the sugared pecans a nice touch. The cake was pleasantly crumbly, though it took me a few blocks to realize I was walking around Lower Manhattan with crumbs all down the front of my coat …

Note: Butter Lane will be on “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” on Food Network this Friday at 10 p.m.

From Farm to Fork

Since October, Iâ€™ve been working on a multimedia Masterâ€™s project on the efforts to improve the nutritional quality of New York City public school lunches. My partner Meredith and I have been to schools in Harlem and Brooklyn, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and last night, we filmed a dinner at the home of Pamela Koch, of the Teacher’s College at Columbia University. Koch develops children’s curricula focused on nutrition and awareness of where food comes from.

Pamela Koch cooks dinner with her sons.

At home, Koch often cooks with her sons, who are 11 and 8, and is a big believer in using local food. She lives in Morningside Heights, and therefore can take advantage of both the Columbia farmerâ€™s market and the Community-Supported Agriculture program in the church on Broadway and 114^th (or as I call it, the church next to Starbucks).

NYC foodies know that CSAs are the next big thing in urban local food. Customers pay a fee upfront to join the program, which is basically seed money for farmers (literally. Ha). Then,Â each week from June to November, farmers drop off pre-specified amounts of 7-10 different veggies, depending on the season. Some CSAs, including Koch’s, also provide winter shares of root vegetables or greens. Shares typically provide enough food to feed a small family, and are usually delivered once a week. There are CSAs throughout Manhattan, and in all five boroughs. …

The Quickest Way to a Man’s Heart

And mine, is through the stomach.

Keith knows that well, so for Valentine’s Day, he took me out to dinner at 10 Downing in Greenwich Village. The restaurant was offering a special four-course prix fixe menu for the night, plus an amuse-bouche. I’d wanted to go to 10 Downing for Restaurant Week, so it was nice that I finally got a chance to go.

I'm not sure if I like beets, but they sure are pretty.

The restaurant was decked out for V-Day, with flower petals on the tables and candles everywhere. The amuse was “eggs and caviar,” a little cup of soft-scrambled eggs and black caviar. It was my first time eating caviar, and I’m not sure I’ll ever eat it again — way too fishy for me. …

Brunch, Scandinavian-Style

Though I had never noticed it before, it’s been a year since White Slab Palace opened on the corner of Allen and Delancey in the Lower East Side. After a long night, I needed a good brunch and stumbled into the restaurant yesterday afternoon.

The room was gorgeous. Walls of windows streamed in late afternoon winter sunshine (the best kind, in my opinion), and bright purple tulips added bursts of color to the grays and whites of the restaurant’s decor. The restaurant looked very Scandinavian, as did the menu.

For starters, we got jalapeÃ±o poppers (okay, not remotely Scandinavian I know, but they sounded so good!). They were yummy, with little bits of lobster and cheese. They came with a side of red cabbage dressed lightly with olive oil. Not sure if it was the hunger, but I’ve never eaten cabbage so quickly! …

The Sweet Life: a Sweet Find

For Valentine’s Day, Keith took me out to dinner at 10 Downing. In return, I got him chocolate. Clearly it was an even exchange, especially given that he doesn’t really like chocolate…

Hand-made chocolate beats Godiva any day.

But I found a little store in the Lower East Side called The Sweet Life and we went this afternoon to check it out. It’s been in the neighborhood since 1982, and it is the epitome of “mom-and-pop candy store.” There was a wall of jelly beans, gumballs the size of my head and every type of dried fruit dipped in chocolate imaginable.

Remarkably, they make most of the chocolate by hand in the back of the store. We bought the sea salt caramels, butter toffee crunch and dark chocolate chipotle caramels. It was relatively inexpensive too — $12 for 12 pieces. Yum!

Cauliflower Soup with Parmesan Crisps

After missing out on the first wave of snow-mageddon last weekend, New York City finally felt the fury of Mother Nature today. A blizzard dumped six inches of snow on the street by early afternoon, and it hasn’t stopped yet.

Naturally with a storm outside, my thoughts turned to food (although let’s be honest — my thoughts always turn to food). To warm us up, Keith and I made cauliflower soup with parmesan crisps. The recipe is very simple, from Food Network’s Dave Lieberman. Because we’re on a student budget and didn’t want to buy both grated and shredded Parmesan, we used a recipe for Parmigiano Reggiano crisps from Whole Foods instead of the one with the soup recipe. …

A Simple Spinach Salad to Savor

How’s that for alliteration?

Last night, I couldn’t figure out what I wanted for dinner. After aimlessly wandering through Whole Foods for a good 20 minutes, Keith suggested we make spinach salad with goat cheese and pancetta, a light meal for our not-so-hungry selves. Well, of course, while shopping hunger inevitably struck, so we decided to scrap the pancetta and make BLTs to go with the “new” spinach salad with goat cheese and bacon.

The salad is easy and tasty, both in the summer and the night before a blizzard.

Gaga forÂ GarlicÂ Bread

Is there a better side for pasta than garlic bread? (Clearly the Atkins diet is lost on me…) Keith has a very simple, delicious recipe that we make with spaghetti, soup, salads — basically any chance we get!

FamiliarÂ Favorites

I was still getting over the flu this weekend, so I wanted to relax. Of course that meant comfort food, or in my case, food I’m comfortable with. You know what I mean — those places that you go to time and again, even when you’ve tried everything on the menu. There are no surprises, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Doughnut Plant is a not-so-well-kept secret in the Lower East Side. It’s been on Throwdown with Bobby Flay and even Ugly Betty, and Saturday morning lines often snake through the closet-sized store and out onto Grand Street.

The crystallized ginger and passionfruit doughnuts from Doughnut Plant.

The tres leches doughnut is heaven, creamy and gooey without being sickly sweet. Sadly, they were out on the Friday evening that Keith and I went. Instead, we tried their Chinese New Year special, crystallized ginger, and their Valentine’s Day special, passionfruit. I was skeptical at first, since they were not typical doughnut flavors, but if anyone knows how to do weird doughnuts, it’s Doughnut Plant founder Mark Israel. They were good, but no tres leches (though few things in life are…). Of course, I went back Saturday morning — and waited in line for 15 minutes — for my delicious condensed-milk goo.

For dinner Saturday night, Keith and I went to Otto, Mario Batali’s rustic pizzeria in Greenwich Village. I first visited Otto on a whim during my last year at NYU, and I can’t stop going back. The pizza is delicious, the pasta divine and the gelato … mmmm the gelato. I got my usual carbonara, and Keith got the balsamic onion and goat cheese pizza. Both were good as usual. We were “same old, same old” for dessert too: a trio of olive oil, crÃ¨me fraicheÂ and salted caramel gelatos, amazing as always. …

You Win Some, You LoseÂ Some

My second experience with Restaurant Week was a reminder that finding a simple, well-cooked meal is harder than it seems in New York City. Keith and I went to North Square in Greenwich Village for dinner, and while the menu looked delicious, sometimes some things are better in idea form than on a plate.

For appetizers, I ordered the clams, while Keith had the tomato soup. This sounds meaner than I intend it to be, but the soup reminded me a little too much of the Spaghetti-Os sauce for my liking. The clams were almost really good, with a delicate sweetness in the combination of the clams, corn, leeks and saffron broth. The salty slivers of chorizo were jarring and in my opinion, unnecessary.

I had the duck second. The best part of the dish was the spiced couscous, which was light and flavorful, with little pieces of dried fruit and vegetables to vary the texture and balance the spice. The duck was a little too “duck”-y, and too chewy for my taste. Keith had the short ribs, which came with bacon, cabbage, spinach, mashed potatoes and fried potato chips — way too many sides, but not enough to compensate for the poorly-cooked meat. …

Masoor Dal (Red Split Lentils)

After a rough Sunday, I needed something to lift my spirits. Since there was no snow in the forecast — or pop-tarts — I found myself craving some home cooking. My aunt lives two blocks from me and I drop by every now and then when I need a good meal. I had an upset stomach all weekend, and she had exactly the right remedy: white rice, mashed red potatoes with just a little bit of butter and plain dal, the lentil soup that is a staple in most Indian homes. The recipe is quite simple.

Creamy Tomato Soup: You Say Tomato, I Say …

…soup.

The weather begged for something warm so Keith and I made creamy tomato soup for dinner. We started making soup a few months ago, and used a bunch of different recipes. In time, all those recipes melded into one. This is a creamy, spicy, roasted tomato-and-carrot soup, one that could be a 30-minute meal if not for the fact that I’m really slow at cutting vegetables.

The First BiteÂ â€¦

… into something new is always a risk. Is it too hot? Is it too salty? Is it any good?

This is my first real bite into blogging. I’ve worked with blogs for classes (as a journalism student at NYU and Columbia) and as an intern (mostly unpaid) at various news organizations. But I’ve never done one myself. But I figured, as someone who studies Digital Media and is alive in the 21st century, it was high time to get a blog.

And if I’m going to write about anything, it might as well be what I think about for at least 19 hours of the day, food.

I’m no gourmand — I like my Cheetos as much as the next girl. I think of myself more as a food-obsessive: someone who Googles recipes all the time, watches Food Network like it’s her job and eats constantly. Here you’ll find:

1) Stories of my disasters (and occasional triumphs) in the kitchen

2) “Reviews” (I use the term loosely) of restaurants and meals from around NYC

3) Interesting recipes I come across, or sometimes make up

4) Random food-related thoughts — there is nothing I can’t ultimately connect back to food

5) And because when I’m not thinking about food, I’m thinking about my schoolwork at Columbia’s journalism school, that’ll probably come up every now and then too …

Dig in!

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