Here's hoping that all your loved ones in New Orleans and Mississippi are safe and sound. If you've ever wanted to make a donation to the Red Cross, or donate blood, now might be a very good time to do it. I've only been lucky enough to go to New Orleans once, on a much-too-brief business trip, but it's a place that lives in the imaginations of writers, dreamers and cooks everywhere. Here, a reprint and a recipe, originally written when a sudden spate of warm spring weather got everyone thinking sultry thoughts of Spanish moss and wrought-iron balconies, tarot card readings in Jackson Square and beignets and coffee at 3 am.
This is one of the best ways I know to eat shrimp, marinated and smothered in a fiery, sweet-spicy sauce that begs to be sopped up with a big loaf of hot French bread. My mother, who got this recipe from a little spiral-bound cookbook bought in New Orleans, used to make it with unpeeled shrimp, thinking (rightly) that the shells added additional flavor to the sauce. However, this meant each person had to peel his or her boiling-hot, immersed-in-sauce shrimp one by one at the table, which was a wildly sloppy (and finger-burning) business. Thus I would recommend peeling your shrimp at the beginning, unless you really want to end up with sauce up to your elbows. Even with the shrimp already peeled, this is a dish that will get you good and messy, what with tearing off hunks of bread to swipe through the sauce and the inevitable orange spatters on the tablecloth.
Now, I know this isn't what a real New Orleans resident would know as barbecued shrimp. I've had locals make me real bbq shrimp, and it's nothing like this. Instead, it's shrimp cooked in a whole lot of incredibly delicious, garlicky-spicy butter, and eating it, like eating snails, is a reason to kiss the ground and thank god for butter. This is different--not authentic, but good.
For dessert, peach pie, figs roasted until just plump and bursting, or a last box of tiny Tristar strawberries. Nip the hulls off, then toss the fruit with a little sugar and an almond-fragrant splash of amaretto, and let them stand for a few minutes while you clear the dinner plates. The sugar will dissolve into the berry juice, surrounding the berries with a puddle of brilliant red liquid that tastes like the essence of strawberry jam. Plain heavy cream, whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream would be good on top, or you can just enjoy them straight up, flush with the flavor of warmer seasons to come. Or you can save a final box of berries until all the guests save one have packed up their mandolins and harmonicas and gone home. Run a bath, light some candles, sprinkle in rose petals and eucalyptus bath salts, and serve that lucky person a bowl of chocolate pudding for two sprinkled with almonds and topped with strawberries. Sit on the edge of the tub, sink your feet in the scented water, and eat your chocolatey strawberries. Seek, kiss, eat, breathe.
Barbecued shrimp, New Orleans style
1 12-ounce bottle chili sauce, such as Heinz's
2 lemons, sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
4 Tbs butter
2 tsp each oregano, paprika, and cayenne pepper
3 Tbs lemon juice
3 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp hot sauce, or to taste
2 lb raw shrimp, peeled but tails left on
2 Tbs chopped parsley
Sweet baguettes, warmed
Mix all sauce ingredients in a deep saucepan. Over low heat, warm until the butter is melted and the mixture is just beginning to simmer. Let cool, then pour over peeled shrimp in a deep bowl. Cover and refrigerate for several hours. Pour back in a wide saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring, until shrimp are just pink and opaque. Remove from heat and sprinkle with parsley. Serve in wide bowls with bread on the side.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Saturday, August 27, 2005
tomato wonderland
Today it was all about the tomatoes. Went over to J.'s house down the street for an impromptu dinner...when I arrived, A. was dusting three big butterflied trout with flour mixed with a little tarragon and some of Eatwell Farms' excellent lavender salt. I brought out my bag of squishy-ripe tomatoes from all over--two from last weekend's trip to the farmstands of Rt. 14, red as a happy heart, a rainbow of golden-red marvel striped from the CSA box, brandywines, black prince, and green zebra from the Tuesday farmers market at Borough Hall. And, of course, a dainty handful of grape tomatoes from my very own fire-escape plant. Too ripe to slice, they all got chunked up in a big yellow bowl and sprinkled with lavender salt, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, and lots and lots of purple basil (from the new garden plot!) and green basil from the CSA. It was summer on a plate, and I was humble and full of gratitude every time I came across one of my resilent but sweet little home-grown babies.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Summer Sweet
Coming home with the aforementioned local cantaloupe, I had a sudden craving for this salad as I walked down the hot pavement of Court Street on my way to water the garden (and pluck a little harvest of purple basil and lemon balm). I have to admit, I've never made it at home--yet!--but here is the recipe, begged from the chef, plus some other late-August musings.
Late summer, bountiful time, and I'm been dreaming about ravishingly multihued tomatoes, swinging from suave to acid and back again. Intensely perfumed melons, deep orange and yellow, begging for lime. The swift crunch of a knife going through the green skin of the coldest, ruby-hearted watermelon. A watermelon (sandia) agua fresca at La Taqueria at 25th and Mission (in San Francisco), pulling the sandy bits of melon up through a straw in between bites of a veggie taco with extra tomatillo sauce and a hefty slather of avocado. Melons are the true beauties of late summer, holding all the season's musky heat in their sunset-colored, dripping flesh.
Everyone goes on and on about the beauty of figs (even me--see below to "Figs Are Sexy"), their sexy plumpness, their sticky, seed-crunched pulp. And yes, they're nice. But there's no tang to a fig, no snap of acid to pique your appetite. It's the same with white peaches: delectable, but not piquant. And in summer, piquant is what you need, something that rolls like a breeze over your tongue. Ceviche, gazpacho, lemonade, the tangy brine of seafood. I'm still charmed by a salad I had at the now-closed Chickenbone Cafe, on a hot July night during one of my first weeks in Williamsburg. The chef, Zak Pelaccio, who'd trained at the French Laundry (and now runs the kitchen at 5 Ninth), built a crisscross stack of watermelon batons topped with whorls of grilled squid. Interspersed were frilled shreds of mint and cilantro, salty bits of feta, and down at the bottom, tiny, tiny sweet-sour cubes of pickled watermelon rind. It was delicious, and also witty: watermelon two ways, both of them unexpected.
Melon – watermelon especially – goes better with salt and savory than you might expect. With something salty, and something hot, and something savory (what the flavor experts call umami, the Japanese term for the sort of savoriness you find in soy sauce or Parmesan cheese), you can fill out almost the whole flavor pantheon in one dish. And the heat doesn't have to come from pepper: the bite of a red onion will work, in a Greek-style salad of watermelon, onion, and feta drizzled with olive oil and showered with mint. Or the classic, unbeatable combination of ripe cantaloupe and sheer slices of prosciutto. Grilled or boiled shrimp on skewers with cubes of pale green honeydew, dunked in lime juice and sprinkled with red pepper.
But my favorite melon salad ever comes from a dish I've had – and had again, whenever I could – at Ponzu in SF. Asian fusion is a tricky genre; go too authentic and you'll leave your clientele wondering why they didn't just keep walking up Eddy Street for the same thing at a Formica table for half the price; go too Western and you miss the point. At Ponzu, though, the Bangkok melon salad (originated by former executive chef John Beardsley, now at Le Colonial) is something I'd eat all summer long. At a dinner with a friend a couple of years ago, we ordered one as an appetizer, and then, at the end of the meal, another one as dessert: full circle, as round as a melon, and both times we ate the whole thing.
Bangkok Melon Salad
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 stalk lemongrass, finely chopped
2 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced (or grated zest of 1 lime)
1/2 cup each lemon juice, lime juice, and Vietnamese fish sauce
1 fresh red chile, minced
1 lb each cantaloupe and honeydew, peeled and cubed
1/2 a small watermelon, peeled and diced
1/2 bunch Thai basil leaves
grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup toasted, chopped peanuts
Combine water, sugar, ginger, lemongrass, and lime leaves or zest in a medium pot and bring to a simmer. Turn off heat and let steep for 10 minutes. Strain, discarding solids. Add juices, fish sauce, and chile and chill. Toss cubed melons with basil leaves and lemon zest. Add dressing to taste*. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts just before serving. You could also add mint and cilantro just before serving, too.
*This recipe sounds like it will make a whole lot of dressing. Not that this should be a problem--it sounds like something you could pour over anything--cold noodles, salad, your bare hands--and be thrilled with.
Late summer, bountiful time, and I'm been dreaming about ravishingly multihued tomatoes, swinging from suave to acid and back again. Intensely perfumed melons, deep orange and yellow, begging for lime. The swift crunch of a knife going through the green skin of the coldest, ruby-hearted watermelon. A watermelon (sandia) agua fresca at La Taqueria at 25th and Mission (in San Francisco), pulling the sandy bits of melon up through a straw in between bites of a veggie taco with extra tomatillo sauce and a hefty slather of avocado. Melons are the true beauties of late summer, holding all the season's musky heat in their sunset-colored, dripping flesh.
Everyone goes on and on about the beauty of figs (even me--see below to "Figs Are Sexy"), their sexy plumpness, their sticky, seed-crunched pulp. And yes, they're nice. But there's no tang to a fig, no snap of acid to pique your appetite. It's the same with white peaches: delectable, but not piquant. And in summer, piquant is what you need, something that rolls like a breeze over your tongue. Ceviche, gazpacho, lemonade, the tangy brine of seafood. I'm still charmed by a salad I had at the now-closed Chickenbone Cafe, on a hot July night during one of my first weeks in Williamsburg. The chef, Zak Pelaccio, who'd trained at the French Laundry (and now runs the kitchen at 5 Ninth), built a crisscross stack of watermelon batons topped with whorls of grilled squid. Interspersed were frilled shreds of mint and cilantro, salty bits of feta, and down at the bottom, tiny, tiny sweet-sour cubes of pickled watermelon rind. It was delicious, and also witty: watermelon two ways, both of them unexpected.
Melon – watermelon especially – goes better with salt and savory than you might expect. With something salty, and something hot, and something savory (what the flavor experts call umami, the Japanese term for the sort of savoriness you find in soy sauce or Parmesan cheese), you can fill out almost the whole flavor pantheon in one dish. And the heat doesn't have to come from pepper: the bite of a red onion will work, in a Greek-style salad of watermelon, onion, and feta drizzled with olive oil and showered with mint. Or the classic, unbeatable combination of ripe cantaloupe and sheer slices of prosciutto. Grilled or boiled shrimp on skewers with cubes of pale green honeydew, dunked in lime juice and sprinkled with red pepper.
But my favorite melon salad ever comes from a dish I've had – and had again, whenever I could – at Ponzu in SF. Asian fusion is a tricky genre; go too authentic and you'll leave your clientele wondering why they didn't just keep walking up Eddy Street for the same thing at a Formica table for half the price; go too Western and you miss the point. At Ponzu, though, the Bangkok melon salad (originated by former executive chef John Beardsley, now at Le Colonial) is something I'd eat all summer long. At a dinner with a friend a couple of years ago, we ordered one as an appetizer, and then, at the end of the meal, another one as dessert: full circle, as round as a melon, and both times we ate the whole thing.
Bangkok Melon Salad
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 stalk lemongrass, finely chopped
2 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced (or grated zest of 1 lime)
1/2 cup each lemon juice, lime juice, and Vietnamese fish sauce
1 fresh red chile, minced
1 lb each cantaloupe and honeydew, peeled and cubed
1/2 a small watermelon, peeled and diced
1/2 bunch Thai basil leaves
grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup toasted, chopped peanuts
Combine water, sugar, ginger, lemongrass, and lime leaves or zest in a medium pot and bring to a simmer. Turn off heat and let steep for 10 minutes. Strain, discarding solids. Add juices, fish sauce, and chile and chill. Toss cubed melons with basil leaves and lemon zest. Add dressing to taste*. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts just before serving. You could also add mint and cilantro just before serving, too.
*This recipe sounds like it will make a whole lot of dressing. Not that this should be a problem--it sounds like something you could pour over anything--cold noodles, salad, your bare hands--and be thrilled with.
under the waterfalls
Far from Brooklyn, in lovely Watkins Glen, NY. Waterfalls galore...and farm stands everywhere along the shores of Seneca Lake, with little slots for the money and coffee cans full of DIY change. Came home with a quart of fat ripe tomatoes and a canteloupe whose insistent sweetness perfumed the whole bus. Walking along the water in Sacketts Harbor on a wind-whipped morning, I kept pointing out all the fruit growing in tangles alongside the old battlefields--tiny gnarled apples, shiny bitter crabapples, wild Concord grapes.
And speaking of harvests, Thanksgiving may be months away, but the birds are fattening up at Stone Barns. Put your order in now for one of their farm-raised, heritage-breed turkeys, who will have had a short but happy life scratching around in the dirt eating bugs and enjoying nature the Rockefeller way up in the Hudson River valley. They're also having a big Harvest Festival, with the requisite bluegrass band and hayrides, on Sat., Oct. 1st. Best of all, there's a pie baking contest! Sweet or savory, local fruit & veggies only, please.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Brooklyn Pie Socialists, Unite!
If you've hung around my kitchen for any length of time, you've probably heard about the mad fun that was last year's Brooklyn Pie Social. Well, now you too can be a Pie Socialist, feeding the multitudes, garnering kudos, and baking for a good cause! Last year's social raised four grand for the lovely Brooklyn Bridge Park (home of mulberry trees, double-bridge views, and outdoor movies) and the nice folks at Bubby's and the B-B Park Conservancy have high hopes of hauling in even more dough this time around.
Personally, I love the chance to check out how other people bake pies. My pies will always look like me; they're as easy for me to pick out in a crowd as my own shoes. But how do you make your pies? It's like finding out how a stranger kisses.
And little did I know until today that I am, indeed, the BROOKLYN PIE SOCIAL POSTER GIRL! Must have been the gingham apron....you can check out what I did for the Pie Effort here.
Here's how it works: You bake a pie (or two). You put on a cute outfit and a big smile and bring your pies down to the cobblestone streets in front of the park (Main and Plymouth Sts). Then you stand there for a couple of hours and hand out slices of your pie to the hungry hordes. In return, you get a handful of tickets enabling you to wander round and taste the pies of your friends and neighbors. No restaurant or bakery pies--this is strictly a home-kitchen operation, which makes it really sweet and bizarrely down-home for the big city. There will be live music, balloons and face-painting for the kiddies, coffee and lemonade, gorgeous views, and LOTS OF PIE!!!
Just want to EAT PIE? Then come on down that afternoon (earlier is better, before the good pies all get eaten) and buy your pie-eating tickets--one ticket, one slice.
Here's all the info, courtesy of Bubby's:
****
Date: September 17, 2005
Time:12-4pm
Your entry fee and homemade pie entitle you to 5 free tasting tickets (you can share them) and a big blue ribbon.
Entry fees: One pie, $10; two pies, $5 (if you register by 9/10--after that, the fees go up)
Bakers report at 10:30 for check-in and free coffee. We recommend bringing pies that do not need refrigeration (no cream, ice cream, or custard pies, since they're likely to melt and/or spoil sitting out in the sun for several hours).
We are encouraging savory pies as a good counterpoint to all of the dessert pies. We are also encouraging a strong turnout from our youngest bakers.
To get an application for the 2005 pie social stop by Bubby's in dumbo or tribeca, or go to bubby's website or the brooklyn bridge park conservancy's website.
*****
Of course, as the Pie Queen, I will be there, tiara, big blue ribbon and gingham apron at the ready (and, of course, last year's nifty "Pie Socialists" red T-shirt...) Learning from last year, I'm going to make something bright and shiny with visible (and summery) fruit, like an open-faced tart. (Faced with much competition, people do not want a beige dessert. I had to hustle hard to sell off my apple pie last year. Here in NYC, people want glamour, baby. If you could eat glitter, it would sell.) And then perhaps something NOT sweet, since people get a little sugar crazy and start licking their own arms for salt about an hour into the deal. Suggestions? Bring the kids and hope to see you there! Bake pies!
****
And while we're talking about baking, a big shout-out to Chestnut on Smith St again, this time for their so-fab chocolate-chunk scones and plump popovers. We were the first ones in the door at 11am for Sunday brunch, so we won the pastry prize--a free plate of Matt's hot-from-the-oven goodies, including those scones, those popovers, and two bite-sized little biscuits. And the heirloom-tomato frittata was big as a plate and enough for brunch and lunch the next day. They'll be closed for a couple of weeks of vacation starting soon, so be sure to call before you go, or just wait til Sept.
Best things, Sunday night:
Getting caught--twice!--in the warm rain without an umbrella, listening to the thunder and taking cover under the awnings of all the Italian restaurants on Bleeker Street after a 6pm showing of Junebug at the Angelika, swiping a chocolate-chip cookie from the thank-you plate by the door of Home restaurant on Cornelia St, waiting for a bubbling-hot slice from Joe's Pizza, and getting caught in a torrential downpour yet again, just outside my house.
Personally, I love the chance to check out how other people bake pies. My pies will always look like me; they're as easy for me to pick out in a crowd as my own shoes. But how do you make your pies? It's like finding out how a stranger kisses.
And little did I know until today that I am, indeed, the BROOKLYN PIE SOCIAL POSTER GIRL! Must have been the gingham apron....you can check out what I did for the Pie Effort here.
Here's how it works: You bake a pie (or two). You put on a cute outfit and a big smile and bring your pies down to the cobblestone streets in front of the park (Main and Plymouth Sts). Then you stand there for a couple of hours and hand out slices of your pie to the hungry hordes. In return, you get a handful of tickets enabling you to wander round and taste the pies of your friends and neighbors. No restaurant or bakery pies--this is strictly a home-kitchen operation, which makes it really sweet and bizarrely down-home for the big city. There will be live music, balloons and face-painting for the kiddies, coffee and lemonade, gorgeous views, and LOTS OF PIE!!!
Just want to EAT PIE? Then come on down that afternoon (earlier is better, before the good pies all get eaten) and buy your pie-eating tickets--one ticket, one slice.
Here's all the info, courtesy of Bubby's:
****
Date: September 17, 2005
Time:12-4pm
Your entry fee and homemade pie entitle you to 5 free tasting tickets (you can share them) and a big blue ribbon.
Entry fees: One pie, $10; two pies, $5 (if you register by 9/10--after that, the fees go up)
Bakers report at 10:30 for check-in and free coffee. We recommend bringing pies that do not need refrigeration (no cream, ice cream, or custard pies, since they're likely to melt and/or spoil sitting out in the sun for several hours).
We are encouraging savory pies as a good counterpoint to all of the dessert pies. We are also encouraging a strong turnout from our youngest bakers.
To get an application for the 2005 pie social stop by Bubby's in dumbo or tribeca, or go to bubby's website or the brooklyn bridge park conservancy's website.
*****
Of course, as the Pie Queen, I will be there, tiara, big blue ribbon and gingham apron at the ready (and, of course, last year's nifty "Pie Socialists" red T-shirt...) Learning from last year, I'm going to make something bright and shiny with visible (and summery) fruit, like an open-faced tart. (Faced with much competition, people do not want a beige dessert. I had to hustle hard to sell off my apple pie last year. Here in NYC, people want glamour, baby. If you could eat glitter, it would sell.) And then perhaps something NOT sweet, since people get a little sugar crazy and start licking their own arms for salt about an hour into the deal. Suggestions? Bring the kids and hope to see you there! Bake pies!
****
And while we're talking about baking, a big shout-out to Chestnut on Smith St again, this time for their so-fab chocolate-chunk scones and plump popovers. We were the first ones in the door at 11am for Sunday brunch, so we won the pastry prize--a free plate of Matt's hot-from-the-oven goodies, including those scones, those popovers, and two bite-sized little biscuits. And the heirloom-tomato frittata was big as a plate and enough for brunch and lunch the next day. They'll be closed for a couple of weeks of vacation starting soon, so be sure to call before you go, or just wait til Sept.
Best things, Sunday night:
Getting caught--twice!--in the warm rain without an umbrella, listening to the thunder and taking cover under the awnings of all the Italian restaurants on Bleeker Street after a 6pm showing of Junebug at the Angelika, swiping a chocolate-chip cookie from the thank-you plate by the door of Home restaurant on Cornelia St, waiting for a bubbling-hot slice from Joe's Pizza, and getting caught in a torrential downpour yet again, just outside my house.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Figs are sexy
...and here's the photo to prove it. Click on the pic to get the really juicy up-close-and-personal view...Thanks to James Ormsby, chef at Plumpjack Cafe in SF, for this lickworthy picture.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Can't see the meteor shower but the tomatoes look good
Last night....
Tiny spatters of rain on my shoulders...not enough to cool off, but better than air-conditioner drips from above...
Sitting at the bar at Chestnut, drinking French rose and eating their fab "BLT" tomato salad--a steak-sized slab of lime-colored evergreen tomato, surrounded by cubes of heirloom tomatoes and smoky-chewy slab bacon, all drizzled with buttermilk dressing and a tumble of lettuces.
The Philomel Project, a stunning opener to downtown's Fringe Festival. Miss it at your peril.
Holding up the broken strap of my dress all the way home, to avoid having a Tara Reid moment on the midnight F train.
And back home, lying naked in front of both fans with a glass of ice water on my stomach...
Tiny spatters of rain on my shoulders...not enough to cool off, but better than air-conditioner drips from above...
Sitting at the bar at Chestnut, drinking French rose and eating their fab "BLT" tomato salad--a steak-sized slab of lime-colored evergreen tomato, surrounded by cubes of heirloom tomatoes and smoky-chewy slab bacon, all drizzled with buttermilk dressing and a tumble of lettuces.
The Philomel Project, a stunning opener to downtown's Fringe Festival. Miss it at your peril.
Holding up the broken strap of my dress all the way home, to avoid having a Tara Reid moment on the midnight F train.
And back home, lying naked in front of both fans with a glass of ice water on my stomach...
Thursday, August 11, 2005
brownies and movies
Hot, hot, hot, and now it's hotter because I just made Bakerina's brownies to take over to Brooklyn Bridge Park for the outdoor movie (tonight they're showing Chinatown). As I've stated here before, normally I can't make brownies for love or money*, but Bakerina's charm convinced me to try her recipe, starting with two trips to the store--first for butter and chocolate, then for vanilla and more sugar. As I was reluctantly leaving the very cold aisles, an old guy, seeing me clutching a box of sugar and a bottle of vanilla, said, "Oh, making cookies this afternoon?" He was just happy, it seemed, happy to think of someone baking, even on such a steamy afternoon. I could have said, "No, I make good cookies, but this time I'm going to make, yet again, something that never comes out the way I want it to, ever," but I didn't. I just said "No, brownies!" and walked out smiling.
Picnic Brownies
1 stick (4 oz/8TB) butter
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 TB strong coffee (i.e. that little bit of cold coffee sludge left in your cup from breakfast)
1 cup flour
Preheat oven to 375. In a double boiler, melt butter and chocolate together. Remove from heat and let cool to room temp (very important!). Beat eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla and coffee together. Stir in cooled chocolate mixture. Add flour and stir gently until just mixed. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan and bake for 20 minutes. Makes a lot, and they taste like mix brownies, only without that too-sweet metallic edge.
I remember one brownie recipe where the brownies were sent straight from the oven into the freezer, which condensed them down and made them super-fudgy. I think I'd let the pan cool for at least 5 or 10 minutes on the counter first though, just to keep the ice cream from turning to soup next to the hot pan.
OK, see you in the park! I'll be the one hovering over the brownie plate, sure that everyone who takes one is just being polite.
*Actually, the one brownie recipe that never failed me was the one on the back of the Droste cocoa box, circa 1982 or so. The only thing was that the brownies turned into concrete if you left them in the pan, so you had to spatula them out as soon as they were cool enough to hold together. Alas, this recipe is now lost in the mists of time. I know cocoa, eggs, and melted butter were involved--anyone else remember that recipe?
Picnic Brownies
1 stick (4 oz/8TB) butter
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 TB strong coffee (i.e. that little bit of cold coffee sludge left in your cup from breakfast)
1 cup flour
Preheat oven to 375. In a double boiler, melt butter and chocolate together. Remove from heat and let cool to room temp (very important!). Beat eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla and coffee together. Stir in cooled chocolate mixture. Add flour and stir gently until just mixed. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan and bake for 20 minutes. Makes a lot, and they taste like mix brownies, only without that too-sweet metallic edge.
I remember one brownie recipe where the brownies were sent straight from the oven into the freezer, which condensed them down and made them super-fudgy. I think I'd let the pan cool for at least 5 or 10 minutes on the counter first though, just to keep the ice cream from turning to soup next to the hot pan.
OK, see you in the park! I'll be the one hovering over the brownie plate, sure that everyone who takes one is just being polite.
*Actually, the one brownie recipe that never failed me was the one on the back of the Droste cocoa box, circa 1982 or so. The only thing was that the brownies turned into concrete if you left them in the pan, so you had to spatula them out as soon as they were cool enough to hold together. Alas, this recipe is now lost in the mists of time. I know cocoa, eggs, and melted butter were involved--anyone else remember that recipe?
Cold comfort
Another revival, to inspire you to actually cook. Me, I'm eating melon and Grape Nuts. But you should be grilling.
IS THERE ANYTHING more domestically satisfying than cold steak in the fridge? Sizzling, just-grilled meat is a wonderful thing, the pinnacle of the summer cookout, needing only a plate of sliced ripe tomatoes and a stack of butter-dripping corn on the cob. But the true pleasure comes from peeling back the foil over the plates as you lean down into the refrigerator the next day. It's better than money in the bank: it's like free money in the bank. If you've ever wanted to feel like a rock star with a personal chef, cold steak will do it for you.
And few things are as succulent and appetite-gripping as cold steak. There's a certain grandeur to cooking meat at home. I like tofu skewersand puttanesca sauce just fine, but after a while, even the most scintillating conversation pales over the same old plate of pasta and salad. The first batch of fresh summer pesto is thrilling. By now, we're taking those huge floppy bunches of basil for granted. Familiarity, in this case, breeds not contempt – who can be contemptuous of such a charmer? – but a certain amount of ennui. By mid August, there's no drama to pesto.
Meat, which used to be the default entrée for every celebration, now evokes something close to a double take. Determined to add a grown-up note to a dinner party back in school, I brought out a platter of two massive roasted chickens, to the visible surprise of the guests. It was like uncorking a bottle of champagne for no reason, or serving a massive layer cake instead the usual Häagen-Dazs.
"It's so nice to have a roast," Alistair from Sydney said, giving the term its full Anglo-Australian, Sunday-lunch emphasis. And even with a table full of hungry grad students, we had enough leftovers for at least three meals. Cold chicken sandwiches, curried chicken salad, hot chicken cacciatore: every time I opened the fridge, there was something to pick at.
But for sheer glamour and chewing satisfaction, nothing beats meat. Flank steak, skirt steak, hanger steak, London broil: Straightforward meat like this doesn't need a lot of marinating or fussing around; the most important addition is a liberal scatter of crunchy, grainy sea salt and a good grinding of fresh black pepper at the table. About 10 to 12 minutes, turning once, will cook your steak, whether you're using a grill, broiler, or grill pan. After cooking, let the steak rest, uncut, on a platter for five minutes or so. This will relax it and let the juices sink from the hot surface of the meat back into its fibers.
If you're grilling, throw a few red onions cut in half crosswise onto the grill. They'll char and sweeten as the meat cooks. While the meat's resting, peel and slice the onions into chunks and serve alongside. Or grill some olive-oiled red peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes too, and make escalivada, the slippery, luscious Spanish salad of grilled vegetables. Separated from their blackened skins, tossed with a handful of chopped parsley, and drizzled with a vinaigrette of mashed garlic, sherry vinegar, and olive oil, the vegetables are delicious warm and almost better cold the next day.
One of my favorite ways to eat cold beef doesn't even need leftovers. You can make it with deli roast beef cut a little thicker than usual. During our last week in Bologna in mid June, the heat wave that has been baking Europe all summer was just settling in. The city was nearly deserted during the day, the shaded porticoes over the sidewalks the only respite from the relentless heat.
We couldn't even think of eating anything more than gelato until the sun faded into a warm indigo twilight around 9 p.m. The trattorias kept to their weighty, traditional tortellini and ragus, with one grateful exception: a cold salad of beef sliced like proscuitto, banked in gorgeous pink sheets over pungent arugula, glossed with olive oil, spritzed with lemon juice, and showered with long salt-grained shards of parmesan cheese, flaked off a huge wheel on the counter. This, followed by runny cups of puckery, almost-melted lemon granita, sustained us and made those summer evenings seem, for the moment, just about perfect.
IS THERE ANYTHING more domestically satisfying than cold steak in the fridge? Sizzling, just-grilled meat is a wonderful thing, the pinnacle of the summer cookout, needing only a plate of sliced ripe tomatoes and a stack of butter-dripping corn on the cob. But the true pleasure comes from peeling back the foil over the plates as you lean down into the refrigerator the next day. It's better than money in the bank: it's like free money in the bank. If you've ever wanted to feel like a rock star with a personal chef, cold steak will do it for you.
And few things are as succulent and appetite-gripping as cold steak. There's a certain grandeur to cooking meat at home. I like tofu skewersand puttanesca sauce just fine, but after a while, even the most scintillating conversation pales over the same old plate of pasta and salad. The first batch of fresh summer pesto is thrilling. By now, we're taking those huge floppy bunches of basil for granted. Familiarity, in this case, breeds not contempt – who can be contemptuous of such a charmer? – but a certain amount of ennui. By mid August, there's no drama to pesto.
Meat, which used to be the default entrée for every celebration, now evokes something close to a double take. Determined to add a grown-up note to a dinner party back in school, I brought out a platter of two massive roasted chickens, to the visible surprise of the guests. It was like uncorking a bottle of champagne for no reason, or serving a massive layer cake instead the usual Häagen-Dazs.
"It's so nice to have a roast," Alistair from Sydney said, giving the term its full Anglo-Australian, Sunday-lunch emphasis. And even with a table full of hungry grad students, we had enough leftovers for at least three meals. Cold chicken sandwiches, curried chicken salad, hot chicken cacciatore: every time I opened the fridge, there was something to pick at.
But for sheer glamour and chewing satisfaction, nothing beats meat. Flank steak, skirt steak, hanger steak, London broil: Straightforward meat like this doesn't need a lot of marinating or fussing around; the most important addition is a liberal scatter of crunchy, grainy sea salt and a good grinding of fresh black pepper at the table. About 10 to 12 minutes, turning once, will cook your steak, whether you're using a grill, broiler, or grill pan. After cooking, let the steak rest, uncut, on a platter for five minutes or so. This will relax it and let the juices sink from the hot surface of the meat back into its fibers.
If you're grilling, throw a few red onions cut in half crosswise onto the grill. They'll char and sweeten as the meat cooks. While the meat's resting, peel and slice the onions into chunks and serve alongside. Or grill some olive-oiled red peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes too, and make escalivada, the slippery, luscious Spanish salad of grilled vegetables. Separated from their blackened skins, tossed with a handful of chopped parsley, and drizzled with a vinaigrette of mashed garlic, sherry vinegar, and olive oil, the vegetables are delicious warm and almost better cold the next day.
One of my favorite ways to eat cold beef doesn't even need leftovers. You can make it with deli roast beef cut a little thicker than usual. During our last week in Bologna in mid June, the heat wave that has been baking Europe all summer was just settling in. The city was nearly deserted during the day, the shaded porticoes over the sidewalks the only respite from the relentless heat.
We couldn't even think of eating anything more than gelato until the sun faded into a warm indigo twilight around 9 p.m. The trattorias kept to their weighty, traditional tortellini and ragus, with one grateful exception: a cold salad of beef sliced like proscuitto, banked in gorgeous pink sheets over pungent arugula, glossed with olive oil, spritzed with lemon juice, and showered with long salt-grained shards of parmesan cheese, flaked off a huge wheel on the counter. This, followed by runny cups of puckery, almost-melted lemon granita, sustained us and made those summer evenings seem, for the moment, just about perfect.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Gimme a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby
Sometimes we're baking pies here over in PQ Castle, sometimes we're fleeing into the city for strong drink and pulp fiction.
Bucky and I were on our way out for AC, bocce, and beer at Floyd a few nights ago when, a black dress and an ironed shirt later, we were leaning back in the November-chilled swank of Tribeca's Brandy Library. True to its name, the decor is head-to-toe in whiskey-and-cognac tones, from the square rum-colored leather chairs to the slinky Calvados satin dresses on the cocktail waitresses. Having bicycled all over Scotland in search of a wee dram, my old pal was in peat-smoke heaven. A 20 year Port Ellen? A 15-year Talisker? Nope, a 12 year Caol Ila, from Islay: a nose like seaweed-damp wool drying by a peat fire, and a richness on the tongue like being inside a hissing coal of that very fire. For me, the concentrated silky sunshine of Germain-Robin'sXO brandy, made in Ukiah, of all places. To snack on: the fabulously named Figs & Pigs, aka quarters of fresh fig wrapped in strips of serrano ham and scattered with slivers of fresh mint and dribbled with a port reduction. All it needed was for the figs to be lightly broiled first, so they'd be sweet and sticky and yielding under your tongue.
This morning: the first tomato harvest!
And while we're thinking of drinking, let's go hear the hard-luck stories spread around by the boys (and girl) of Contemporary Press, the tough-talking, two-fisted nice guys of the indies. Here's what they have to say for themselves:
McNally Robinson Bookstore
50 Prince St. (between Lafayette and Mulberry)
Wednesday, August 10
7:00 sharp
FREE
Jeffrey Dinsmore will be reading from his October release I, An Actress, a Sunset-Boulevard-meets-Spinal-Tap-except-it's-a-book autobiography of Karen Jamey, Hollywood's Original Forgotten Golden Age diva. Mike Segretto will be reading from HIS upcoming release The Bride of Trash a twisted book of terror that makes Tales from the Crypt look like Tuesdays with Morrie. And finally, Jess Dukes, famed recluse Roman Bojanski and gentleman-about-town Todd Robinson will be reading from CP's latest release, Danger City (buy it here), a old-school compilation of new wave pulp fiction.
And if you're bicoastal, or West Coastal, see them in LA...
Saturday, August 27 7 - 9
Boardners of Hollywood
1652 N. Cherokee Ave
323.462.9621
FREE (until 8. If you want to stay after the reading then it's $10 in leather/fetish gear, $15 without)
It's not only the World Premiere of Dinsmore's I, An Actress (well, if you didn't hear him read from it previously), it's also the Bar Sinister party immediately following. So, come for the satirical look at the classic Hollywood of the 30's and 40's at this great bar and stay for the Mistresses of the Night.
Aug 28th:
The gracious people at LA's 826LA Writing Lab are laying down their high-minded decency for the evening to host a discussion between publishers, writers and their groupies to talk about the glamourous, lucrative world of independent publishing � and how you too could benefit from starting your own press!
826LA Writing Lab
685 Venice Blvd
Venice, CA
6-9 PM
FREE
PQ question of the day: Who first said today's title, and why's it famous?
Bucky and I were on our way out for AC, bocce, and beer at Floyd a few nights ago when, a black dress and an ironed shirt later, we were leaning back in the November-chilled swank of Tribeca's Brandy Library. True to its name, the decor is head-to-toe in whiskey-and-cognac tones, from the square rum-colored leather chairs to the slinky Calvados satin dresses on the cocktail waitresses. Having bicycled all over Scotland in search of a wee dram, my old pal was in peat-smoke heaven. A 20 year Port Ellen? A 15-year Talisker? Nope, a 12 year Caol Ila, from Islay: a nose like seaweed-damp wool drying by a peat fire, and a richness on the tongue like being inside a hissing coal of that very fire. For me, the concentrated silky sunshine of Germain-Robin'sXO brandy, made in Ukiah, of all places. To snack on: the fabulously named Figs & Pigs, aka quarters of fresh fig wrapped in strips of serrano ham and scattered with slivers of fresh mint and dribbled with a port reduction. All it needed was for the figs to be lightly broiled first, so they'd be sweet and sticky and yielding under your tongue.
This morning: the first tomato harvest!
And while we're thinking of drinking, let's go hear the hard-luck stories spread around by the boys (and girl) of Contemporary Press, the tough-talking, two-fisted nice guys of the indies. Here's what they have to say for themselves:
McNally Robinson Bookstore
50 Prince St. (between Lafayette and Mulberry)
Wednesday, August 10
7:00 sharp
FREE
Jeffrey Dinsmore will be reading from his October release I, An Actress, a Sunset-Boulevard-meets-Spinal-Tap-except-it's-a-book autobiography of Karen Jamey, Hollywood's Original Forgotten Golden Age diva. Mike Segretto will be reading from HIS upcoming release The Bride of Trash a twisted book of terror that makes Tales from the Crypt look like Tuesdays with Morrie. And finally, Jess Dukes, famed recluse Roman Bojanski and gentleman-about-town Todd Robinson will be reading from CP's latest release, Danger City (buy it here), a old-school compilation of new wave pulp fiction.
And if you're bicoastal, or West Coastal, see them in LA...
Saturday, August 27 7 - 9
Boardners of Hollywood
1652 N. Cherokee Ave
323.462.9621
FREE (until 8. If you want to stay after the reading then it's $10 in leather/fetish gear, $15 without)
It's not only the World Premiere of Dinsmore's I, An Actress (well, if you didn't hear him read from it previously), it's also the Bar Sinister party immediately following. So, come for the satirical look at the classic Hollywood of the 30's and 40's at this great bar and stay for the Mistresses of the Night.
Aug 28th:
The gracious people at LA's 826LA Writing Lab are laying down their high-minded decency for the evening to host a discussion between publishers, writers and their groupies to talk about the glamourous, lucrative world of independent publishing � and how you too could benefit from starting your own press!
826LA Writing Lab
685 Venice Blvd
Venice, CA
6-9 PM
FREE
PQ question of the day: Who first said today's title, and why's it famous?
al di ooh la la
My old friend Bucky (to use his old SFBG restaurant-review-pal name, just for you fans) arrived from SF, ready to eat real bagels, crash on the Aerobed in the living room ( the poor girl's guest room!) and wallow in the summer humidity. Best of all, he came in hungry, so we whisked over to Park Slope's al di la, which matches Delfina in my East Coast/West Coast Italian-restaurant pantheon. Oh, al di la! Kisses all over them. Since it was late when we got there, we breezed in and got a table right away. Heaven-puffed sheep's milk ricotta and lemon ravioli with chopped fresh tomato and a (slightly oversalted) green salad, fantastic, charred-and-pink hanger steak with arugula, moist grilled whole orata with olives and oregano, and of course, the irresistable pear-chocolate cake. Mmmmmm.
If I can bear to turn on my oven (still no AC!), a fresh peach cake might happen tomorrow morning. Otherwise, it's just a countdown til the rain comes down, hopefully sooner than later. Rain rain rain...and thunder!
Al di la, 5th Ave and Carroll St, Park Slope. No reservations, so just show up.
If I can bear to turn on my oven (still no AC!), a fresh peach cake might happen tomorrow morning. Otherwise, it's just a countdown til the rain comes down, hopefully sooner than later. Rain rain rain...and thunder!
Al di la, 5th Ave and Carroll St, Park Slope. No reservations, so just show up.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Stars Come Out and Fall Down
Too hot to breathe, almost. Got a lemon ice from the Court Pastry shop and it was melting into sticky water almost faster than I could slurp it down. The tomatoes are finally starting to redden, the morning glory vine has greeted each morning with a new purple flower, and there's basil, basil everywhere. Good things to look forward to:
The Perseid meteor shower, next Friday. I want to go back to Lillie's and stay out late and then sit out by the piers and watch the little splashes of light plummeting down from the dark sky. I mean, it would be nice to be out on the beach, too, but I'd settle for Red Hook. Chipper explanation from your friends at NASA, here.
Chinatown showing at the outdoor movie series in Brooklyn Bridge Park, next Thursday. Rounding up a posse to lie out on blankets and eat popcorn and watch bad, bad things happen to Faye Dunaway and the Owens River Valley. come and join us! Where and when, here.
More late-night Mostly Mozart concerts, this week and next. Couldn't stand being in my soggy bowl-of-soup house one more minute, so I fled to the icy subway (OK, the platform was hellish, but the train was meat-locker-cold) to wheedle a ticket to the sold-out show. Emmanuel Ax, the listed pianist, was out with a broken rib (which begs the question--what was he doing? Bungee jumping? Pole dancing?) so the young Jeremy Denk took his place. But the star was saucy Brit soprano Emma Bell, who made the whole audience melt to Debussy's En Sourtine. The singing thrilled me much more than the solo Bach piano, which was fine, except that I have to agree with Cassandra, the narrator of Dodie Smith's novel I Capture the Castle when she admits "The only Bach I've heard made me feel like I was being hit repeatedly on the head with a teaspoon." A genius and all that, I know, especially if you're mathmatically inclined, but give me a little Romantic swoon or spiky Russian modernism any day. But the concert was fun, up in the sparkly 10th floor penthouse, with free little plastic glasses of wine and cocktail-table seating.
Now, packing up the caponata and the peaches to go see Rufus Wainwright in Prospect Park. We may be sweaty, but we're cultured.
The Perseid meteor shower, next Friday. I want to go back to Lillie's and stay out late and then sit out by the piers and watch the little splashes of light plummeting down from the dark sky. I mean, it would be nice to be out on the beach, too, but I'd settle for Red Hook. Chipper explanation from your friends at NASA, here.
Chinatown showing at the outdoor movie series in Brooklyn Bridge Park, next Thursday. Rounding up a posse to lie out on blankets and eat popcorn and watch bad, bad things happen to Faye Dunaway and the Owens River Valley. come and join us! Where and when, here.
More late-night Mostly Mozart concerts, this week and next. Couldn't stand being in my soggy bowl-of-soup house one more minute, so I fled to the icy subway (OK, the platform was hellish, but the train was meat-locker-cold) to wheedle a ticket to the sold-out show. Emmanuel Ax, the listed pianist, was out with a broken rib (which begs the question--what was he doing? Bungee jumping? Pole dancing?) so the young Jeremy Denk took his place. But the star was saucy Brit soprano Emma Bell, who made the whole audience melt to Debussy's En Sourtine. The singing thrilled me much more than the solo Bach piano, which was fine, except that I have to agree with Cassandra, the narrator of Dodie Smith's novel I Capture the Castle when she admits "The only Bach I've heard made me feel like I was being hit repeatedly on the head with a teaspoon." A genius and all that, I know, especially if you're mathmatically inclined, but give me a little Romantic swoon or spiky Russian modernism any day. But the concert was fun, up in the sparkly 10th floor penthouse, with free little plastic glasses of wine and cocktail-table seating.
Now, packing up the caponata and the peaches to go see Rufus Wainwright in Prospect Park. We may be sweaty, but we're cultured.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Salty
Sex and food--what else is there to think about in the summer? Eggplant slices are sweating on my kitchen table, in preparation for being turning into caponata, with onions, garlic, peppers, celery, and three kinds of salty: capers, olives, and anchovies, plus sherry vinegar and plumped-up currants. The sweet-salty-tart-savory combo is very Sicilian, and perfect in so many ways--mixed with parsley and feta in a pita sandwich, tossed with hot fusilli and ricotta salata, eaten cold standing naked in front of the fridge. Dill is drying for making pickled green beans (those bloody-mary-ready 'dilly beans'), mint is drying for tea, and three jars of apricot jam just went into the jam cupboard.
But what I'm really doing is watching Phyllis Christopher's amazing DVD Sextrospective, a 300+ photo retrospective though Christopher's nearly 2 decades behind the camera in SF. Since 1988, she's transformed so many different scenes into spectacles of glamour and passion, raw heat and humour. Posing for Phyllis is a ridiculous amount of fun, and I've been lucky enough to model for her a bunch of times over the years--in plaid flannel, in red lace and gingham on her stove, in a bikini and a rabbit-fur coat on chilly autumn beach, in a piled-high beehive wig and pearls and a bathtub full of bubbles... Fire-eating strippers, activists in bustiers, butch, boi,drag king, top, bottom, high femme and everything in between. You can get your own copy, and see some of her images, at The Sexy Stuff. And if you're in publishing, you should jump at the chance to make this into a book.
OK, now back to the eggplant....
But what I'm really doing is watching Phyllis Christopher's amazing DVD Sextrospective, a 300+ photo retrospective though Christopher's nearly 2 decades behind the camera in SF. Since 1988, she's transformed so many different scenes into spectacles of glamour and passion, raw heat and humour. Posing for Phyllis is a ridiculous amount of fun, and I've been lucky enough to model for her a bunch of times over the years--in plaid flannel, in red lace and gingham on her stove, in a bikini and a rabbit-fur coat on chilly autumn beach, in a piled-high beehive wig and pearls and a bathtub full of bubbles... Fire-eating strippers, activists in bustiers, butch, boi,drag king, top, bottom, high femme and everything in between. You can get your own copy, and see some of her images, at The Sexy Stuff. And if you're in publishing, you should jump at the chance to make this into a book.
OK, now back to the eggplant....
Sunday, July 31, 2005
On the hook
Another warm dreamy day, even as the thermometer crawls upwards again this week. Swung by the farmers market for fuzz-rasped, sweet juice-dripping peaches and more tomatoes, and then another long walk to the garden to gaze contemplatively at the salvia and the purple basil. The people walking by on the other side of the fence must think I’m a little, well, strange, since mostly what I do in the garden is roll back on my heels and simply stare at my little plants. With a box that’s maybe 2 feet square, once you turn the hose on for a few minutes, there’s not much to do, really. Pinch up the odd teeny weed, fret over the browning nasturtiums (which actually produced one blazing orange flower, even as the rest of the plants, all pale and feeble, looked like rapidly sinking sanatorium inmates from The Magic Mountain), will encouragement to the stumpy pepper's fistfuls of tightly clenched flower buds. After that, I just ogle and bask.
But not for too long, because it was time to slide into one of those hot-weather H&M dresses (this one the sweet but slinky black chiffon number with skinny ribbon edging) and head down to Red Hook for Amy’s birthday dinner at 360. The place was sunny and empty when we arrived for our 15-person, 6pm reservation—narrow banquettes, wood-paneled walls, French dishtowels for napkins, a small sign reading "life is just a bowl of pork chops" next to some anti-Bush stickers. Orange chairs? Maybe, or I could be making that up. The menu is short and yep, seasonal, with three choices in each category on the $25 prix fixe menu, plus a bunch of a la carte options, including a green salad from the very local Added Value city farm, a Red Hook greens-growing operation that uses youth from the neighborhood to grow and sell mixed lettuces at Brooklyn farmers markets.
The food reminded me very much of San Francisco—lovely ingredients unfussed-with, with the results pristine if a smidge underseasoned. As with a dinner at Fort Greene’s Ici last year, 360’s offerings were lovely, but a little more recklessness—and quirky genius-- in the kitchen could lift it from good to partytime in your mouth. Carrot and radish soup was a gorgeously bright orange but tasted more of radish than sweet carrot, with an overwhelmingly rooty radish bouquet that gave a certain, less than appealing eau-de-vegetable-drawer to the cool liquid. A chunk of wild sea bass had a fantastic crunchy browned skin and a pleasant-enough light broth around it, dotted with green and Romano beans and slivers of artichoke and fresh basil. Nice, but white food compared to the beefy, salty, excellent onglet steak. Slightly dry-looking slices of pork loin came with tangy plum chutney and a tangle of shiny but completely unseasoned collard greens. But the wines are excellent—a short but really cool list of mostly French, organic and biodynamic small producers for prices that rarely exceed $20-$35 a bottle. Service --unsmiling and perfunctory from one slightly scruffy guy in an orange T-shirt, and pleasant and almost friendly from the big bearded guy.
Then we strolled through the very quiet cobblestoned streets to Lillie’s to sit outside in the funky back garden (a lot like an East Coast version of SF’s El Rio, only with a tiny pond and tiki bar and without a lemon tree). Across the street was a tall brick warehouse wall decorated with what looked like graffiti but were actually delicate, lacy paper cutouts of the flora and fauna of spring put up by local artists on the first warm day earlier this year, when an impromptu vernal parade wound through the streets. “That’s where the Ikea’s going to be,” a guy outside the bar told us as we gazed at the flock of hawks and bees and dragonflies flitting across the brick. “Right there.” Wandering through the streets on an impromptu tour of the waterfront later that night with warm arms of silence wrapped around us...into the warm summer darkness, with a dusky gold curve of moon hanging low over the silhouette of an abandoned sugar factory, we could hear nothing but crickets. On the other side of a flaking, vine-twined fence drifted the faint clank and chime of the buoys rolling in the shimmering flat river.
Now, the girls up at cripple creek 'bout half-grown, jump on a boy like a dog on a bone...
Roll my britches up to my knees, wade old cripple creek whenever I please...
360, 360 Van Brunt at Sullivan St, Bklyn. 718.246.0360
Lillie's, 46 Beard St at Dwight, 718. 858.9822
But not for too long, because it was time to slide into one of those hot-weather H&M dresses (this one the sweet but slinky black chiffon number with skinny ribbon edging) and head down to Red Hook for Amy’s birthday dinner at 360. The place was sunny and empty when we arrived for our 15-person, 6pm reservation—narrow banquettes, wood-paneled walls, French dishtowels for napkins, a small sign reading "life is just a bowl of pork chops" next to some anti-Bush stickers. Orange chairs? Maybe, or I could be making that up. The menu is short and yep, seasonal, with three choices in each category on the $25 prix fixe menu, plus a bunch of a la carte options, including a green salad from the very local Added Value city farm, a Red Hook greens-growing operation that uses youth from the neighborhood to grow and sell mixed lettuces at Brooklyn farmers markets.
The food reminded me very much of San Francisco—lovely ingredients unfussed-with, with the results pristine if a smidge underseasoned. As with a dinner at Fort Greene’s Ici last year, 360’s offerings were lovely, but a little more recklessness—and quirky genius-- in the kitchen could lift it from good to partytime in your mouth. Carrot and radish soup was a gorgeously bright orange but tasted more of radish than sweet carrot, with an overwhelmingly rooty radish bouquet that gave a certain, less than appealing eau-de-vegetable-drawer to the cool liquid. A chunk of wild sea bass had a fantastic crunchy browned skin and a pleasant-enough light broth around it, dotted with green and Romano beans and slivers of artichoke and fresh basil. Nice, but white food compared to the beefy, salty, excellent onglet steak. Slightly dry-looking slices of pork loin came with tangy plum chutney and a tangle of shiny but completely unseasoned collard greens. But the wines are excellent—a short but really cool list of mostly French, organic and biodynamic small producers for prices that rarely exceed $20-$35 a bottle. Service --unsmiling and perfunctory from one slightly scruffy guy in an orange T-shirt, and pleasant and almost friendly from the big bearded guy.
Then we strolled through the very quiet cobblestoned streets to Lillie’s to sit outside in the funky back garden (a lot like an East Coast version of SF’s El Rio, only with a tiny pond and tiki bar and without a lemon tree). Across the street was a tall brick warehouse wall decorated with what looked like graffiti but were actually delicate, lacy paper cutouts of the flora and fauna of spring put up by local artists on the first warm day earlier this year, when an impromptu vernal parade wound through the streets. “That’s where the Ikea’s going to be,” a guy outside the bar told us as we gazed at the flock of hawks and bees and dragonflies flitting across the brick. “Right there.” Wandering through the streets on an impromptu tour of the waterfront later that night with warm arms of silence wrapped around us...into the warm summer darkness, with a dusky gold curve of moon hanging low over the silhouette of an abandoned sugar factory, we could hear nothing but crickets. On the other side of a flaking, vine-twined fence drifted the faint clank and chime of the buoys rolling in the shimmering flat river.
Now, the girls up at cripple creek 'bout half-grown, jump on a boy like a dog on a bone...
Roll my britches up to my knees, wade old cripple creek whenever I please...
360, 360 Van Brunt at Sullivan St, Bklyn. 718.246.0360
Lillie's, 46 Beard St at Dwight, 718. 858.9822
Friday, July 29, 2005
Coolth
Ahhhhhh...the heat has finally broken, and sleep has returned. Went down to the garden to find half of the new nasturtiums I'd just planted looking crappy and half-dead. What's up with that? I know the soil in the box isn't so great--this heavy, clay-ish cheap top soil that the garden got for free, but I did mix in lots of perlite and a few bags of humus/manure, so it shouldn't be all bad. Oh well, if they die, they die...more room for something else.
Went to see "Dr. No" last night at Brooklyn Bridge Park and it was a lovely, lovely night--perfect weather, a stunning orange-and-pink sunset behind the bridge, popcorn, a mellow crowd and actual room to put down a blanket, and once it got dark, sparkly bridges and a ravishing skyline view.Everyone cheered the first time the deeply foxy Sean Connery looked up from the chemin-de-fer table and burred "Bond...James Bond." The Dumbo restaurant Rice had a stand set up selling snacks, although it seemed like most people brought along a pie from Grimaldi's around the corner. With a fridge full of farmers market/CSA veg, though, I made a salad instead--blanched green beans,roasted beets, potatoes,fresh radishes, tomatoes, and corn, all tossed with olive oil and the pink chive-blossom vinegar I made a few weeks ago, plus lots of basil on top, thanks to another mint-and-basil haul from B.'s thriving fire-escape garden. Packed in a tupperware box, this made too much even for me to eat, so now there's a nice veggie salad in the fridge for dinner, along with a giant, incredibly attractive eggplant just daring me to turn her into a batch of caponata. Don't tempt me, baby.
More thursday night movies all summer... info at Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy site.
See you there!
Went to see "Dr. No" last night at Brooklyn Bridge Park and it was a lovely, lovely night--perfect weather, a stunning orange-and-pink sunset behind the bridge, popcorn, a mellow crowd and actual room to put down a blanket, and once it got dark, sparkly bridges and a ravishing skyline view.Everyone cheered the first time the deeply foxy Sean Connery looked up from the chemin-de-fer table and burred "Bond...James Bond." The Dumbo restaurant Rice had a stand set up selling snacks, although it seemed like most people brought along a pie from Grimaldi's around the corner. With a fridge full of farmers market/CSA veg, though, I made a salad instead--blanched green beans,roasted beets, potatoes,fresh radishes, tomatoes, and corn, all tossed with olive oil and the pink chive-blossom vinegar I made a few weeks ago, plus lots of basil on top, thanks to another mint-and-basil haul from B.'s thriving fire-escape garden. Packed in a tupperware box, this made too much even for me to eat, so now there's a nice veggie salad in the fridge for dinner, along with a giant, incredibly attractive eggplant just daring me to turn her into a batch of caponata. Don't tempt me, baby.
More thursday night movies all summer... info at Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy site.
See you there!
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Too Darn Hot
...to cook anything, although I answered the call of the Jam Goddess this morning and made four jars of blackberry jam and two of Hedgerow Bramble Jam (so Beatrix Potter!), a mix of red currants, raspberries, black currants, and more blackberries, all picked during last weekend's outing to the pick-your-own fruit farms of Bucks County, PA. The heavenly winey smell was well worth the steamy heat...
But now all I want is a blenderful of Ladybugs, from the recipe kindly sent by Susie.
Ladybug Cocktail
1 lime
1/4 cup sugar
4 cups watermelon, cut into 1-inch chunks and frozen
1/4 cup vodka
Remove zest (just the green part) from lime with a vegetable peeler, grater or microplane (the best, super easy and no nasty bitter white pith to contend with). Throw zest and sugar into a food processor or blender and buzz until mix is pale green with bits of zest still visible. Squeeze the lime juice into the blender and add watermelon chunks and vodka. Blend until smooth and slushy. Taste, add more lime juice if necessary, and serve.
Makes 5 drinks, unless it’s as hot as it is today, in which case, pour the whole thing into a pint glass and call it dinner (or breakfast).
And over on Gawker (you'll have to scroll down a ways, past the usual celebrity trash), a brief heat-addled snark break for a wistful gaze at two happy guys chiling out in their driveway "pool"--who knew the back of a pickup was watertight?
But now all I want is a blenderful of Ladybugs, from the recipe kindly sent by Susie.
Ladybug Cocktail
1 lime
1/4 cup sugar
4 cups watermelon, cut into 1-inch chunks and frozen
1/4 cup vodka
Remove zest (just the green part) from lime with a vegetable peeler, grater or microplane (the best, super easy and no nasty bitter white pith to contend with). Throw zest and sugar into a food processor or blender and buzz until mix is pale green with bits of zest still visible. Squeeze the lime juice into the blender and add watermelon chunks and vodka. Blend until smooth and slushy. Taste, add more lime juice if necessary, and serve.
Makes 5 drinks, unless it’s as hot as it is today, in which case, pour the whole thing into a pint glass and call it dinner (or breakfast).
And over on Gawker (you'll have to scroll down a ways, past the usual celebrity trash), a brief heat-addled snark break for a wistful gaze at two happy guys chiling out in their driveway "pool"--who knew the back of a pickup was watertight?
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
95 in the shade
It's hot as, well, a hot place today...a really, really hot place. Steamy and blazing out there...but the gardens are happy, both my new community-garden plot and the little fire escape wonderland. Three kinds of basil are lush and fantastically scented just outside my window, and the much-maligned tomato plant has now hit its stride, with more than thirty little grape tomatoes hanging greenly off its branches. In the new plot, purple basil, rosemary, lavender, nasturtiums, blue salvia, dusty miller, sunflower seedlings (which popped up in less than a week from a scattering of seeds), lemon balm, and a little cluster of blue balloon flowers. Best of all, the pepper plant that got broken in transit has rebounded. Instead of being a sad little three-leaved stump, as it was when I planted it with little hope, it's now burgeoning, lusty and just short, with tons of new leaves and flower buds everywhere.
My local farmers market at Borough Hall has undergone a similar transformation in the last few weeks. Before I left, it was lettuce and strawberries and a few hothouse tomatoes; all of sudden, the tables are covered in field grown Jersey beefsteak tomatoes and ripe peaches and corn, corn, corn. Had a juicy ear just raw for lunch, with a plate of sea-salted chopped tomatoes...mmmm. Eat more raw corn, I say!
Spent the weekend being a Fresh Air Fund child, thanks to several friends living out of the city and my, it was fun. A giant golden moon rose through the trees on Friday night, challenged only by the sporadic twinkling of the fireflies. In the morning we went berry picking at Solebury Orchards in New Hope, PA--enormous blackberries, blueberries, and a few handfuls of red currants and raspberries. Right now, 10 cups of blackberries are sitting in my fridge, waiting to become jam, although the thought of boiling anything, especially a whole lot of sticky fruit and sugar, fills me with dread.
Then up to Boscobel, to picnic al fresco and see a lovely open-air production of The Tempest. If there's a better place to be on a summer evening than sitting in the grass overlooking the river with old friends and a glass of prosecco to hand, I haven't found it.
The next morning: Ladybug cocktails, scrambled eggs with piperade, and mascarpone-nectarine tart. (Did I mention that Susie did all the cooking? The rest of us just sat around admiring the dog and drinking quart after quart of cold seltzer). I could live on those Ladybugs alone, a kind of sunset-pink granita/slush made from pureed frozen watermelon chunks, vodka, lime rind, lime juice, and sugar. The key is the frozen watermelon, which gives the drink a marvelous sorbet-ish consistency. And of course, you could leave out the vodka and just slush around in it all day long.
Finally, last night--Sicilian cooking at Diane's, with heavenly caponata, smoked sea bass over potatoes and favas, eggplant parmigiana and almond-kissed apricots. Recipes to follow...
My local farmers market at Borough Hall has undergone a similar transformation in the last few weeks. Before I left, it was lettuce and strawberries and a few hothouse tomatoes; all of sudden, the tables are covered in field grown Jersey beefsteak tomatoes and ripe peaches and corn, corn, corn. Had a juicy ear just raw for lunch, with a plate of sea-salted chopped tomatoes...mmmm. Eat more raw corn, I say!
Spent the weekend being a Fresh Air Fund child, thanks to several friends living out of the city and my, it was fun. A giant golden moon rose through the trees on Friday night, challenged only by the sporadic twinkling of the fireflies. In the morning we went berry picking at Solebury Orchards in New Hope, PA--enormous blackberries, blueberries, and a few handfuls of red currants and raspberries. Right now, 10 cups of blackberries are sitting in my fridge, waiting to become jam, although the thought of boiling anything, especially a whole lot of sticky fruit and sugar, fills me with dread.
Then up to Boscobel, to picnic al fresco and see a lovely open-air production of The Tempest. If there's a better place to be on a summer evening than sitting in the grass overlooking the river with old friends and a glass of prosecco to hand, I haven't found it.
The next morning: Ladybug cocktails, scrambled eggs with piperade, and mascarpone-nectarine tart. (Did I mention that Susie did all the cooking? The rest of us just sat around admiring the dog and drinking quart after quart of cold seltzer). I could live on those Ladybugs alone, a kind of sunset-pink granita/slush made from pureed frozen watermelon chunks, vodka, lime rind, lime juice, and sugar. The key is the frozen watermelon, which gives the drink a marvelous sorbet-ish consistency. And of course, you could leave out the vodka and just slush around in it all day long.
Finally, last night--Sicilian cooking at Diane's, with heavenly caponata, smoked sea bass over potatoes and favas, eggplant parmigiana and almond-kissed apricots. Recipes to follow...
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Beautiful Dreamer
It's cool and grey and heavenly out here on the West Coast, and the avocados grow on trees, as do the oranges and Meyer lemons and the jasmine and rosemary. OK, not the last two, but it's so beautiful here. When I was packing late last Thursday night (after a swell Bastille Day dinner in the pretty back garden at Gavaroche on 14th St)I couldn't imagine coolness, even after 12 years of cold SF summers. So I threw in sundresses and sleeveless linen and now I'm huddled in the same sweater and sweatshirt every day. But it's still bliss.
Going to my all-time fave restaurant Delfina tonight, yay. And with perfect timing, Delfina's also just opened its new pizzeria next door--yet another gourmet addition to the food-lover's row of 18th St between Guerrero and Dolores--Tartine, Delfina, Bi-Rite, Dolores Park Cafe, and that's not even counting the other side of the street. Although I do miss Anna's Danish Cookies--not that I ever went in there, but I loved knowing that someone was actually making those Danish butter cookies from scratch, proof that not all butter cookies were born in those big blue metal tins. And Kim from KQED's Bay Area Bites blog gets the She's On It scoop award for eating, musing, and posting the very first night they opened for dinner. Check it out (with pictures!) here.
On Sat. morning, C. and I hit the Lakeview farmers market in Oakland, which was a shady riot of heirloom tomatoes and fantastic white peaches and organic strawberries. Lunch was tomatoes from Eatwell Farms' Tomato Wonderland, a few stolen basil leaves, Afghani spinach bread, sun-dried tomato pesto, half a corn-fed Sonoma chicken cooked on the rotisserie, and the best chewy chocolate-brownie cookies ever. Went down to Santa Cruz on Sunday to walk on the beach, look longingly at the sailboats, let the chilly Pacific lap round my ankles and eat avocados at every opportunity. Monday morning Shar and I went to the Wharf to commune with the sea lions and their whiskery dog faces and eat fish and chips away from the thieving seagulls upstairs at Stanganaro's, which Shar loves for their Marina Mary, a Bloody Mary served in a pint glass adorned with 2 huge prawns. It's dinner in a drink! Then back up to SF and a glass of super-tasty McPrice central coast Syrah at the wine bar in the Ferry Building.
I might just get too happy to ever come back to Brooklyn....
Going to my all-time fave restaurant Delfina tonight, yay. And with perfect timing, Delfina's also just opened its new pizzeria next door--yet another gourmet addition to the food-lover's row of 18th St between Guerrero and Dolores--Tartine, Delfina, Bi-Rite, Dolores Park Cafe, and that's not even counting the other side of the street. Although I do miss Anna's Danish Cookies--not that I ever went in there, but I loved knowing that someone was actually making those Danish butter cookies from scratch, proof that not all butter cookies were born in those big blue metal tins. And Kim from KQED's Bay Area Bites blog gets the She's On It scoop award for eating, musing, and posting the very first night they opened for dinner. Check it out (with pictures!) here.
On Sat. morning, C. and I hit the Lakeview farmers market in Oakland, which was a shady riot of heirloom tomatoes and fantastic white peaches and organic strawberries. Lunch was tomatoes from Eatwell Farms' Tomato Wonderland, a few stolen basil leaves, Afghani spinach bread, sun-dried tomato pesto, half a corn-fed Sonoma chicken cooked on the rotisserie, and the best chewy chocolate-brownie cookies ever. Went down to Santa Cruz on Sunday to walk on the beach, look longingly at the sailboats, let the chilly Pacific lap round my ankles and eat avocados at every opportunity. Monday morning Shar and I went to the Wharf to commune with the sea lions and their whiskery dog faces and eat fish and chips away from the thieving seagulls upstairs at Stanganaro's, which Shar loves for their Marina Mary, a Bloody Mary served in a pint glass adorned with 2 huge prawns. It's dinner in a drink! Then back up to SF and a glass of super-tasty McPrice central coast Syrah at the wine bar in the Ferry Building.
I might just get too happy to ever come back to Brooklyn....
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Pickup Artist
Again, duty and deadlines call. It's not really quite tomato season yet (although my much-maligned fire-escape tomato plant now has at least twenty tiny green marbles hanging from its skinny branches, hurrah) but this column, originally from the Bay Guardian, seems ripe for an airing at this moment of picnics and potlucks. Enjoy!
When it comes to literature and recipes, I'm a slut. I'll pick up cooking advice, suggested combinations, and the names of favorite authors from just about anyone, anywhere. My favorites are scrawled on wrinkled-up scraps of paper stuffed into a grubby turquoise binder. That's where you'll find my grandmother's carrot cake recipe (itself copied off a recipe scribbled on the endpapers of one of her own cookbooks, and available, slighting adapted, in the posting "San Fran Smackdown"), my mother's barbecued shrimp recipe and my own reconstruction of same, created as my mother was en route to London and a sudden craving hit before I could track her (and her New Orleans cookbook) down. There's the penciled scribble that brings back memories of the gooiest, most wonderful cinnamon sticky buns I've ever had, courtesy of a long-distance call my best friend made back to her own mother in Minneapolis the day before we hosted a lavish birthday brunch.
That's the joy of recipe sluthood: instead of glossy pictures and perky marketing copy, recipes collected like this come tried and true. Never would I have tried a printed recipe calling for Karo syrup, instant vanilla pudding mix, and frozen bread dough. But when my friend brought out those cinnamon buns, every other tasteful-organic-seasonal brunch item was practically kicked under the table in the guests' mad rush to devour them hot from the oven. And if I could decipher her scrawled shorthand of that recipe, I'd make them again in a minute. Give the people what they want, I say.
This is particularly true at potlucks and picnics. There's no point in knocking yourself out when you're just one among many. And when Saturday afternoon follows Friday night, just ungluing your eyelashes from the pillow might take most of the morning. Your saving grace? What one party-girl pal calls Hangover Salad. "You were on a table singing 'Volare' at four a.m., and now it's time to pay," says my Anti-Bride Guide co-author Caroline. "Your best friend's bbq is in three hours, and you're still in bed groaning. But you can't show up with another bottle of corner-store merlot. You're family, and you're expected to cook. Have no fear: faster than you can say 'Cala Foods' you can whip up a Martha-impressing salad with just one quick trip to the nearest fruit and vegetable stand."
Get a big bag of Roma tomatoes, she advises, two balls of mozzarella (the shrink-wrapped kind is fine), a bunch of fresh basil, a big jar of marinated artichoke hearts, a head of garlic and two small red onions. Chop the tomatoes and mozzarella into chunks, mince the onions and garlic, rip up the basil ("use a lot!") and toss it all together with the artichoke hearts into a big Tupperware bowl. Coat it all with red wine vinegar and olive oil, add a few pinches of oregano, salt, and pepper. Then "stick the lid on and shake the whole mess up. Put it in the fridge for 20 minutes. Have a Bloody Mary while you're sitting in a hot bath. Strap on your platforms, apply your lipstick and go!" Of course, if you have ripe juicy fabulous tomatoes and milky-fresh mozzarella, it will be even better.
Or, if you have a stale (but not yet rock-hard) loaf of Italian bread lying around, you can use almost the same ingredients to make panzanella. This is another recipe that reappears every summer from the stained pages of that turquoise binder, courtesy of a farmers' market demonstration done by former Vivande chef Carlo Middione ages ago. In most restaurants, this Italian bread salad is made like bite-sized bruschetta, cubes of toasted, crouton-like bread sitting next to cubes of cucumber and tomatoes, the bread distinct from the vegetables, all there in separate pieces on the cold plate like the husbands and wives in a John Cheever story.
Middione did it differently. Using his hands, he tore six thick slices of dry (but untoasted) white Italian bread (not sourdough!) into bite-sized chunks in a big bowl. Then, the bread was drizzled with cold water and tossed until lightly but thoroughly moistened. Two large, ripe diced tomatoes, a little minced red onion, a small handful of chopped fresh basil leaves, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and a third of a cup of olive oil were mixed in, plus plenty of sea salt and fresh ground pepper. A plate was put over the top of the bowl, and the whole was set aside for an hour so the tomato juices could soak into the bread.
It takes some faith to make this salad. Although the ingredients should convince you that it will taste good in the end (tomatoes, basil, olive oil: what's not to like?), the first sight of the soaked salad will not be encouraging. Soggy and pink, it will look more like a bowl of pasta left out in the rain. But the bread grabs and expands all the flavors of the tomato and basil, and transforms its texture into a pillowy, fluffy mass. I don't know that I'd be able to resist this salad long enough to share it with a whole picnic; as it is, I have to take myself out of the house just get through the hour-long soaking stage. But it's worth it. Once you serve this, you can pass the recipe around yourself, just like a truly generous recipe slut should.
****
From today's NYT review of Alto, in midtown:
"...Italian staples and notions inform fanciful constructions like squid ink cappuccino, a kind of warm, frothy, petroleum-black soup, which is paired with ribbons of lobster."
Blurgh. I can't think of any description that would make me LESS likely to want to eat something. Unless it was "pickled tongue with cubes of fried mayonnaise" --a snappy menu item from the Lower East Side's wd-50. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I'd rather drink the blue liquid inside a Magic8 ball, like these nice boys here.
When it comes to literature and recipes, I'm a slut. I'll pick up cooking advice, suggested combinations, and the names of favorite authors from just about anyone, anywhere. My favorites are scrawled on wrinkled-up scraps of paper stuffed into a grubby turquoise binder. That's where you'll find my grandmother's carrot cake recipe (itself copied off a recipe scribbled on the endpapers of one of her own cookbooks, and available, slighting adapted, in the posting "San Fran Smackdown"), my mother's barbecued shrimp recipe and my own reconstruction of same, created as my mother was en route to London and a sudden craving hit before I could track her (and her New Orleans cookbook) down. There's the penciled scribble that brings back memories of the gooiest, most wonderful cinnamon sticky buns I've ever had, courtesy of a long-distance call my best friend made back to her own mother in Minneapolis the day before we hosted a lavish birthday brunch.
That's the joy of recipe sluthood: instead of glossy pictures and perky marketing copy, recipes collected like this come tried and true. Never would I have tried a printed recipe calling for Karo syrup, instant vanilla pudding mix, and frozen bread dough. But when my friend brought out those cinnamon buns, every other tasteful-organic-seasonal brunch item was practically kicked under the table in the guests' mad rush to devour them hot from the oven. And if I could decipher her scrawled shorthand of that recipe, I'd make them again in a minute. Give the people what they want, I say.
This is particularly true at potlucks and picnics. There's no point in knocking yourself out when you're just one among many. And when Saturday afternoon follows Friday night, just ungluing your eyelashes from the pillow might take most of the morning. Your saving grace? What one party-girl pal calls Hangover Salad. "You were on a table singing 'Volare' at four a.m., and now it's time to pay," says my Anti-Bride Guide co-author Caroline. "Your best friend's bbq is in three hours, and you're still in bed groaning. But you can't show up with another bottle of corner-store merlot. You're family, and you're expected to cook. Have no fear: faster than you can say 'Cala Foods' you can whip up a Martha-impressing salad with just one quick trip to the nearest fruit and vegetable stand."
Get a big bag of Roma tomatoes, she advises, two balls of mozzarella (the shrink-wrapped kind is fine), a bunch of fresh basil, a big jar of marinated artichoke hearts, a head of garlic and two small red onions. Chop the tomatoes and mozzarella into chunks, mince the onions and garlic, rip up the basil ("use a lot!") and toss it all together with the artichoke hearts into a big Tupperware bowl. Coat it all with red wine vinegar and olive oil, add a few pinches of oregano, salt, and pepper. Then "stick the lid on and shake the whole mess up. Put it in the fridge for 20 minutes. Have a Bloody Mary while you're sitting in a hot bath. Strap on your platforms, apply your lipstick and go!" Of course, if you have ripe juicy fabulous tomatoes and milky-fresh mozzarella, it will be even better.
Or, if you have a stale (but not yet rock-hard) loaf of Italian bread lying around, you can use almost the same ingredients to make panzanella. This is another recipe that reappears every summer from the stained pages of that turquoise binder, courtesy of a farmers' market demonstration done by former Vivande chef Carlo Middione ages ago. In most restaurants, this Italian bread salad is made like bite-sized bruschetta, cubes of toasted, crouton-like bread sitting next to cubes of cucumber and tomatoes, the bread distinct from the vegetables, all there in separate pieces on the cold plate like the husbands and wives in a John Cheever story.
Middione did it differently. Using his hands, he tore six thick slices of dry (but untoasted) white Italian bread (not sourdough!) into bite-sized chunks in a big bowl. Then, the bread was drizzled with cold water and tossed until lightly but thoroughly moistened. Two large, ripe diced tomatoes, a little minced red onion, a small handful of chopped fresh basil leaves, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and a third of a cup of olive oil were mixed in, plus plenty of sea salt and fresh ground pepper. A plate was put over the top of the bowl, and the whole was set aside for an hour so the tomato juices could soak into the bread.
It takes some faith to make this salad. Although the ingredients should convince you that it will taste good in the end (tomatoes, basil, olive oil: what's not to like?), the first sight of the soaked salad will not be encouraging. Soggy and pink, it will look more like a bowl of pasta left out in the rain. But the bread grabs and expands all the flavors of the tomato and basil, and transforms its texture into a pillowy, fluffy mass. I don't know that I'd be able to resist this salad long enough to share it with a whole picnic; as it is, I have to take myself out of the house just get through the hour-long soaking stage. But it's worth it. Once you serve this, you can pass the recipe around yourself, just like a truly generous recipe slut should.
****
From today's NYT review of Alto, in midtown:
"...Italian staples and notions inform fanciful constructions like squid ink cappuccino, a kind of warm, frothy, petroleum-black soup, which is paired with ribbons of lobster."
Blurgh. I can't think of any description that would make me LESS likely to want to eat something. Unless it was "pickled tongue with cubes of fried mayonnaise" --a snappy menu item from the Lower East Side's wd-50. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I'd rather drink the blue liquid inside a Magic8 ball, like these nice boys here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
