i probably shouldn't pluralize the subject of today's update - in reality it's just my old flame rebecca, up in new england from awful, hot, prefab arizona. we had curry for dinner - the lao market had a new brand of dried long chili in and they're very nice - deep red (almost black) and giant. the problem is that one bag only makes about one curry. and they're cripplingly expensive - $1.39! can you believe the nerve of these people? i want at least ten pounds at that price. but the curry turned out very nice - eggplant, green sort-of-hot-peppers, enoki mushrooms, and some baby dandelion greens left over from last night (yes, i know, they're not culturally appropriate, but they're substituting for a whole giant group of bitter greens that we can't get here. so there.). oh, and tofu. which rebecca fried - the classic division of curry-labor in this household. oh, and we had caipirinhas. they go with everything.
she took pictures, too. so if they don't look terrible (and if i can figure out how) perhaps i'll put one up.
only time will tell.
22 December 2007
20 December 2007
little observation: man is the sum of his appetites
it's very late at night, so i'm keeping this brief. I meant to write this observation a few weeks ago after reading a very depressing NYT magazine article about the 'sleep industry' but i let the opportunity pass. So rather than attacking specifics, i'm going to take a pretty broad swipe.
everyone in the entire western, industrialized, abstracted world would be a whole hell of a lot happier if we all agreed that the 'simple pleasures in life' - the ones that have basically been around since the dawn of our species, the ones that anyone in the world could point out - are not means to a more significant end. eat because it's nice and satisfying and feels good; sleep and have sex and drink and listen to music and read and walk and all the other things for their own sake.
if you're only doing these things out of a sense of duty or expectation or routine or because your doctor told you to (or told you not to, or told you you had to do such-and-such but mustn't do so-and-so) you're missing the point.
i'm sure this all has been said far more elegantly by someone far smarter than i am, but it seems like, culturally, we're really losing our way. i worry especially about my own generation - values seem to be shifting so fast.
god, doesn't this all make me sound like a complete reactionary?
i'm going to sleep - i promise a recipe or something soon.
everyone in the entire western, industrialized, abstracted world would be a whole hell of a lot happier if we all agreed that the 'simple pleasures in life' - the ones that have basically been around since the dawn of our species, the ones that anyone in the world could point out - are not means to a more significant end. eat because it's nice and satisfying and feels good; sleep and have sex and drink and listen to music and read and walk and all the other things for their own sake.
if you're only doing these things out of a sense of duty or expectation or routine or because your doctor told you to (or told you not to, or told you you had to do such-and-such but mustn't do so-and-so) you're missing the point.
i'm sure this all has been said far more elegantly by someone far smarter than i am, but it seems like, culturally, we're really losing our way. i worry especially about my own generation - values seem to be shifting so fast.
god, doesn't this all make me sound like a complete reactionary?
i'm going to sleep - i promise a recipe or something soon.
19 December 2007
restaurant: the 'original' riccotti's
so i have a pretty simple way of evaluating the places i eat, which also serves as a rubric for helping me pick where to eat when i'm in a strange place. i figured i'd share it - i'll see if i can phrase it coherently: the satisfaction of a meal eaten out is a function of expectation, execution, and expense. how good did i realistically hope the meal would be? how well was it actually made? how much did it cost? the worst meal is one where the expectation and expense far outweigh the execution - this is why i so rarely eat 'contemporary american' fancy food. even when they're well-hyped, the kitchen seldom gets everything right and even if they do i'm paying heavy for it. ethnic holes-in-the-wall fill the opposite - my expectation isn't for a world-changing dinner and my out-of-pocket risk is limited. even if the meal sucks, i can shrug off $20. shrugging off $80 for food and $40 for an indifferent bottle of wine is a far, far different matter (though i suppose most 'adults' shrug off that kind of investment all the time).
with this in mind, behold the cheesesteak (working class italian is still ethnic food, huzzah). bafflingly, it's a 'steak and cheese' here in providence. they're difficult to ruin entirely (though the large chains found in malls and airports certainly try their hardest) and when done right are far far superior to a hamburger or equivalent. the 'original' riccotti's (133 atwells ave) is probably the best example of the form (that i've found) in southern new england. they manage to fry the vegetables and beef hot enough, their beef is not overly gristly, and - most important - they fully incorporate the cheese while the sandwich is still on the grill. it's a seemingly small point but it makes a world of difference. also, their rolls don't suck. despite being an artisan baker, i fully realize that almost as many sandwiches are ruined by too-good bread as by too-bad (pulled pork on 'brioche' is the other glaring example of missing the point). riccotti's have enough heft that they don't dissolve, but at the same time are soft enough to not hurt your jaw. for some reason, it's desperately hard to find this kind of grinder roll outside of the northeast corridor. any ideas why?
anyhow -
expectations: realistic
execution: first-rate
expense: $13 feeds two people almost excessively
they pretty much hit the trifecta.
with this in mind, behold the cheesesteak (working class italian is still ethnic food, huzzah). bafflingly, it's a 'steak and cheese' here in providence. they're difficult to ruin entirely (though the large chains found in malls and airports certainly try their hardest) and when done right are far far superior to a hamburger or equivalent. the 'original' riccotti's (133 atwells ave) is probably the best example of the form (that i've found) in southern new england. they manage to fry the vegetables and beef hot enough, their beef is not overly gristly, and - most important - they fully incorporate the cheese while the sandwich is still on the grill. it's a seemingly small point but it makes a world of difference. also, their rolls don't suck. despite being an artisan baker, i fully realize that almost as many sandwiches are ruined by too-good bread as by too-bad (pulled pork on 'brioche' is the other glaring example of missing the point). riccotti's have enough heft that they don't dissolve, but at the same time are soft enough to not hurt your jaw. for some reason, it's desperately hard to find this kind of grinder roll outside of the northeast corridor. any ideas why?
anyhow -
expectations: realistic
execution: first-rate
expense: $13 feeds two people almost excessively
they pretty much hit the trifecta.
18 December 2007
recipe: broadly minestrone
this is an ideal recipe for days when you look in the fridge and realize that you have several different vegetables all at or past their peak. and who cares if they're a little punked out? just don't use anything rotten. this isn't really worth going out to buy everything, though - you'll end up with a ton of stuff in the fridge that you have to use up. oh, and it's utterly simple to make vegetarian (vegan, really) - just use vegetable stock and no meat at the beginning.
assembly:
1/2lb nice fatty meat - i really think you should use pork - pancetta or good sausage or whatever, chopped or mushed up or what have you
olive oil
two small onions or one of those gigantic ones they sell at white-people grocery stores
a lot of vegetables (tonight's was carrots, eggplant, little green peppers, cabbage, mustard greens and stems, and frozen peas)
five or six cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1tsp or so of fennel seeds
1tsp oregano
a few little anchovies from a jar, packed in olive oil please
1 28oz can san marzano tomatoes, cleaned up and gooshed with their juice
1 32oz box of broth (the industrialized world switched over to boxed broth recently for some reason; trader joe's sells it pretty cheap - i prefer using chicken to beef in this)
1 16oz can cannellini beans, drained and well washed
heat a little olive oil in your dutch oven and brown your meat for a minute or two over medium heat. marcella hazan says you're supposed to stagger your addition of vegetables but you know what? i think that's silly. crank the heat all the way up and honk everything in (except for the mustard greens and peas - use common sense). stir around for a few seconds, throw in another slug of olive oil, and start them browning. the secret to all this, i think, is not to disturb them too much. you want to create a pretty dense fond on the bottom of the pot - so just molest them every few minutes, not every few seconds. once things are getting soft and stuck to the bottom, pour in a little stock and stir up all the stuff from the bottom. then let it stick back on again and add another go of stock. do this three or four times until everything is looking dark and hearty and smelling deep and brown. add your anchovies and garlic and mush them up a little. throw in the fennel and oregano too. after a few minutes more dump in the rest of the box of stock and the tomatoes. turn the heat way down, to around medium-low. after around a half-hour, add the peas and beans and greens.
finish:
salt
pepper
basil
when the soup has thickened up nicely and looks pretty done, season it well and serve. you can cook it for hours and hours and hours like most minestrone recipes call for but all that does is break the vegetables down into a pasty mass. so don't go that far. but make sure the carrots are soft, please.
makes a remarkable amount of very filling soup. but it freezes well. and it's better left over, as every fool knows.
nota bene for vegetarian and vegan readers (oh god, do i have vegan readers?): there is virtually no fat in vegetable soup unless you add it. and let me tell you how awful it is if you don't add enough. not using that half pound of fatty pork? throw in a giant slug of extra olive oil. trust me.
assembly:
1/2lb nice fatty meat - i really think you should use pork - pancetta or good sausage or whatever, chopped or mushed up or what have you
olive oil
two small onions or one of those gigantic ones they sell at white-people grocery stores
a lot of vegetables (tonight's was carrots, eggplant, little green peppers, cabbage, mustard greens and stems, and frozen peas)
five or six cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1tsp or so of fennel seeds
1tsp oregano
a few little anchovies from a jar, packed in olive oil please
1 28oz can san marzano tomatoes, cleaned up and gooshed with their juice
1 32oz box of broth (the industrialized world switched over to boxed broth recently for some reason; trader joe's sells it pretty cheap - i prefer using chicken to beef in this)
1 16oz can cannellini beans, drained and well washed
heat a little olive oil in your dutch oven and brown your meat for a minute or two over medium heat. marcella hazan says you're supposed to stagger your addition of vegetables but you know what? i think that's silly. crank the heat all the way up and honk everything in (except for the mustard greens and peas - use common sense). stir around for a few seconds, throw in another slug of olive oil, and start them browning. the secret to all this, i think, is not to disturb them too much. you want to create a pretty dense fond on the bottom of the pot - so just molest them every few minutes, not every few seconds. once things are getting soft and stuck to the bottom, pour in a little stock and stir up all the stuff from the bottom. then let it stick back on again and add another go of stock. do this three or four times until everything is looking dark and hearty and smelling deep and brown. add your anchovies and garlic and mush them up a little. throw in the fennel and oregano too. after a few minutes more dump in the rest of the box of stock and the tomatoes. turn the heat way down, to around medium-low. after around a half-hour, add the peas and beans and greens.
finish:
salt
pepper
basil
when the soup has thickened up nicely and looks pretty done, season it well and serve. you can cook it for hours and hours and hours like most minestrone recipes call for but all that does is break the vegetables down into a pasty mass. so don't go that far. but make sure the carrots are soft, please.
makes a remarkable amount of very filling soup. but it freezes well. and it's better left over, as every fool knows.
nota bene for vegetarian and vegan readers (oh god, do i have vegan readers?): there is virtually no fat in vegetable soup unless you add it. and let me tell you how awful it is if you don't add enough. not using that half pound of fatty pork? throw in a giant slug of extra olive oil. trust me.
16 December 2007
politics: i'm a single issue voter
i don't want to end up as the latest "east coast elite" blogger piling on poor mike hucklebuckle but i just have to highlight this latest bombshell from zev chafets' NYT magazine take-down:
"Six weeks ago, I met Huckabee for lunch at an Olive Garden restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. (I had offered to take him anywhere he wanted and then vetoed his first choice, T.G.I. Friday’s.)"
did your jaw drop? yes, i know, the real bombshell is supposed to be his don't-mormons-think-jesus-and-satan-are-brothers pander to the evangelical base, but that kind of lightweight theological wrangling is very boring - it's "turtles all the way down" as far as i'm concerned, folks.
(olive) garden-gate, though - there's an issue i can really get behind. as this post's title suggests, i fear a candidate's dining habits really are a litmus test. for someone to be offered a meal anywhere in the food capital of the country and then to settle on olive garden, especially after the host had to veto your first choice, shows me a tremendous neophobia. is this surprising, that a southern theocrat conservative is also a neophobe? of course not - it's to be expected. and i'm not demanding that my candidate end up out in queens eating dosas or curried innards or in chinatown eating those scary orange cuttlefish - i'm not naive enough to ask for my candidate to be an atheist, either. but c'mon - olive garden? he's lost my vote!
oh, and if i had more readers i'm sure some wag would point out that the war criminal kissinger had a very good palate. and yes, i'd rather not have someone like him with his finger on the button. but i'd let him pick where to eat if we were going out for dinner.
"Six weeks ago, I met Huckabee for lunch at an Olive Garden restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. (I had offered to take him anywhere he wanted and then vetoed his first choice, T.G.I. Friday’s.)"
did your jaw drop? yes, i know, the real bombshell is supposed to be his don't-mormons-think-jesus-and-satan-are-brothers pander to the evangelical base, but that kind of lightweight theological wrangling is very boring - it's "turtles all the way down" as far as i'm concerned, folks.
(olive) garden-gate, though - there's an issue i can really get behind. as this post's title suggests, i fear a candidate's dining habits really are a litmus test. for someone to be offered a meal anywhere in the food capital of the country and then to settle on olive garden, especially after the host had to veto your first choice, shows me a tremendous neophobia. is this surprising, that a southern theocrat conservative is also a neophobe? of course not - it's to be expected. and i'm not demanding that my candidate end up out in queens eating dosas or curried innards or in chinatown eating those scary orange cuttlefish - i'm not naive enough to ask for my candidate to be an atheist, either. but c'mon - olive garden? he's lost my vote!
oh, and if i had more readers i'm sure some wag would point out that the war criminal kissinger had a very good palate. and yes, i'd rather not have someone like him with his finger on the button. but i'd let him pick where to eat if we were going out for dinner.
15 December 2007
idea trademark: hipknacks
hot on the heels of my colin meloy - prairie home companion brainstorm comes another moneyspinner.
you know those stores that sell tchotchkes for hipsters - clever shot glasses? novelty shower curtains? fictional books made to read like non-fiction? things that look vaguely old or vaguely french? beirut's probably playing over the speakers?
they sell hipknacks. you read it hear first. hipknacks. it rolls off the tongue.
you know those stores that sell tchotchkes for hipsters - clever shot glasses? novelty shower curtains? fictional books made to read like non-fiction? things that look vaguely old or vaguely french? beirut's probably playing over the speakers?
they sell hipknacks. you read it hear first. hipknacks. it rolls off the tongue.
13 December 2007
restaurant: new wing kee
so i was looking for an excuse to go out on a long walk in the snow today (about a foot on the ground, it's great) and figured it was about time to try out the local siu mei joint, new wing kee (39 central st). is it surprising that i'm a sucker for any place that only has three or four things on the menu? it indicates a great restraint on the part of the owner, and implies that they must be doing those things pretty well.
the interior's a mess, even by my lax adventure-dining standards. comfy old couch in the corner? giant incongruous fishtank? two booths appropriated from an old mcdonalds? whatever - it's the food that counts. americans need to get over this reliance on "atmosphere" in a restaurant. when was the last time you had a lousy meal at a beautiful restaurant and left happy? anyhow. they had the standard hanging pieces of char siu, some of the ultra-crispy-crunchy-skin roast pork that i never seem to care for, a large and scary looking hotel pan full of tripe, and some gorgeous head-on ducks hanging in the usual heat-lamp box. L & i split a whole duck ($15) chopped up and served with a sweet/salty/garlic dipping sauce. a whole duck looks pretty tiny when it's hanging there, but once it's overflowing in a styrofoam clamshell one's confidence in eating the whole thing begins to wane. did i say "split"? i meant to say "L ate a few choice morsels and then sat back to watch me at work". so yes, i ate most of a whole roast duck. and yes, it was amazing. i think my dark-meat conversion is almost complete - i'd rather have this duck than chicken almost any day of the week. well, maybe that's going a bit far. but it'd take a piping hot chicken from edy's in falls church to really challenge this duck.
so yes, readers. steam a bunch of rice, get some cucumbers and whatnot, pick up one of these ducks, and dine in the opulence of your east side mansion. you won't be disappointed. or, hell, eat it there. there's a roll of paper towels you can use to clean your hands up at the end.
oh, and confidential to many, many, many drivers in the providence area: when the road is really snowy and your car starts to spin out, don't give it more gas. please. it makes you look like a total idiot. and when you keep giving it more gas until i feel so bad for you that i walk into a road full of busy traffic to push your dumb ass i would really appreciate it if you didn't floor it when i start pushing. i know you're young and not a great driver, and i'm not going to yell at you in front of your boyfriend, but i mean really. let's use our heads people.
the interior's a mess, even by my lax adventure-dining standards. comfy old couch in the corner? giant incongruous fishtank? two booths appropriated from an old mcdonalds? whatever - it's the food that counts. americans need to get over this reliance on "atmosphere" in a restaurant. when was the last time you had a lousy meal at a beautiful restaurant and left happy? anyhow. they had the standard hanging pieces of char siu, some of the ultra-crispy-crunchy-skin roast pork that i never seem to care for, a large and scary looking hotel pan full of tripe, and some gorgeous head-on ducks hanging in the usual heat-lamp box. L & i split a whole duck ($15) chopped up and served with a sweet/salty/garlic dipping sauce. a whole duck looks pretty tiny when it's hanging there, but once it's overflowing in a styrofoam clamshell one's confidence in eating the whole thing begins to wane. did i say "split"? i meant to say "L ate a few choice morsels and then sat back to watch me at work". so yes, i ate most of a whole roast duck. and yes, it was amazing. i think my dark-meat conversion is almost complete - i'd rather have this duck than chicken almost any day of the week. well, maybe that's going a bit far. but it'd take a piping hot chicken from edy's in falls church to really challenge this duck.
so yes, readers. steam a bunch of rice, get some cucumbers and whatnot, pick up one of these ducks, and dine in the opulence of your east side mansion. you won't be disappointed. or, hell, eat it there. there's a roll of paper towels you can use to clean your hands up at the end.
oh, and confidential to many, many, many drivers in the providence area: when the road is really snowy and your car starts to spin out, don't give it more gas. please. it makes you look like a total idiot. and when you keep giving it more gas until i feel so bad for you that i walk into a road full of busy traffic to push your dumb ass i would really appreciate it if you didn't floor it when i start pushing. i know you're young and not a great driver, and i'm not going to yell at you in front of your boyfriend, but i mean really. let's use our heads people.
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