Some pictures from the brand new Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar, sure to be mobbed very soon. The "crack" pie, halfway down the page, is a version of a traditional British tart which I can't remember the name of, but which I distinctly remember looking at for a long time on the last page of Tesco's monthly recipe magazine about ten years ago in a section where people looking for recipes their grandmothers made were encouraged to send in obscure questions.
UPDATE: I remembered! Crack pie is gypsy tart, but with corn flour.
11/14/2008
Taverna Kyklades
Taverna Kyklades has been a very low grade stress on my relationship with my fiancee for about a year. Every time we walk by (and we walk by often), I point at the giant lines outside and say something like "you know, we should try it". Plus, Kyklades sounds to me in my head like Cyclops, even though that's not how it's pronounced, and the idea of dining at Taverna Cyclops appeals for a variety of juvenile reasons. My fiancee always answers with something like "but I've heard it isn't very clean, and by the way, it smells".
So, we visited last night. And Kyklades really does smell - a sort of constant musk of fish and coals. The open kitchen reassures me about cleanliness, and the fish was quite good. I especially liked my dark, full of flavor sardines, which stand up well to the traditional Greek fish cooking technique (Char until dead on coals). My fiancee's red mullets were less good, though still fine, and full of the inevitable pin bones (for which Kyklades cannot really be blamed, but which speaks well of traditional fussy french technique, in which bones would have been removed and the fish rendered easy to eat). I was delighted by the galaktabouriko dessert, which is a free add on, and was fresh and just sweet enough.
Though this all did made me think of an interesting question - Would you rather have a free dessert, or be able to choose your own dessert for an extra price? The answer says much about your personality, I've decided.
So, we visited last night. And Kyklades really does smell - a sort of constant musk of fish and coals. The open kitchen reassures me about cleanliness, and the fish was quite good. I especially liked my dark, full of flavor sardines, which stand up well to the traditional Greek fish cooking technique (Char until dead on coals). My fiancee's red mullets were less good, though still fine, and full of the inevitable pin bones (for which Kyklades cannot really be blamed, but which speaks well of traditional fussy french technique, in which bones would have been removed and the fish rendered easy to eat). I was delighted by the galaktabouriko dessert, which is a free add on, and was fresh and just sweet enough.
Though this all did made me think of an interesting question - Would you rather have a free dessert, or be able to choose your own dessert for an extra price? The answer says much about your personality, I've decided.
11/13/2008
Career changes
I'm in the middle of a fairly major career change I've been working on for three months. Tingly anticipation abounds. Wine will be needed tonight.
11/12/2008
Big mouths
By the way, I've noticed that people in food ads geared to young men conduct the physical act of eating in a way that suggests they'd engulf the whole spoon or fry or burger if only you weren't watching, a sort of big mouthed super enthusiasm that, I suppose, is supposed to convey that the food is really delicious, and the person eating it is the kind of extreme, viril, hungry, potentially violent guy that you are too.
Here's Ladainian Tomlinson half swallowing his spoon while eating Campbell's Soup, just as an example, but the Guitar Hero ads are equally glaring.
Here's Ladainian Tomlinson half swallowing his spoon while eating Campbell's Soup, just as an example, but the Guitar Hero ads are equally glaring.
1630
1630. Is it the year some important city fell to the Ottomans? No. Actually, the number of calories in the "Guitar Hero Fully Loaded Box Meal" from KFC, according to KFC's nutrition calculator. Why do I know about this? Because I love football, and the GHFLBM is promoted heavily during football games to people in the demographic I'm just leaving, which means that I see the ad about 40 times as I flip through my 10 channels of football each Sunday.
* for the record, that's with a full calorie Pepsi, potato wedges, mac and cheese, an extra crispy drumstick, and a normal snacker. This webpage comes to a different number.
* for the record, that's with a full calorie Pepsi, potato wedges, mac and cheese, an extra crispy drumstick, and a normal snacker. This webpage comes to a different number.
A talk with Ripert and Carmellini
I went last night to a talk with Eric Ripert (of Le Bernardin), Andrew Carmellini and Josh Ozersky (of the new blog, the Feedbag), obstensibly about Carmellini's recently released book, Urban Italian. There was some interesting discussion of cookbooks and the cooking life in general, and it was a rare delight to see Ripert in person after having eaten his food a couple of times, but the fun I had was a little obscured by moderator Lee Ann Wong, who talked too much. Not to be unkind, but it was as if I was moderating a panel of two of the partners of my firm, and a law professor, but decided to interject an equal amount of my own musings.
Hierarchies exist for a reason, you know.
Hierarchies exist for a reason, you know.
11/10/2008
You killed [Ghandi]?
Justice Stevens emphasizes today "no member of the [California Supreme] court suggested" that the showing of a video of a murdered victim's light set to music" shed any light on the character of the offense, the character of the offender, or the defendant's moral culpability". His point was that such emotive evidence problematically interfered with the murderer's sentencing, possibly inclining the jury towards death.
I am basically unread in this field, and am sure this has all been discussed ad naseaum, but it seems at least arguable to me that the defendant's moral culpability is somewhat wrapped up in who he killed. Of course, I appreciate the prejudice laden implications of considering the nature of the victim when deciding how society is to punish criminals, but when meting out a punishment that is meant in large part to be retributive, I'm not sure it makes sense that the way the victim was killed is relevant, but the character of the victim him or herself isn't. Why isn't the video relevant because it shows an innocent's life was nipped in the bud?
I am basically unread in this field, and am sure this has all been discussed ad naseaum, but it seems at least arguable to me that the defendant's moral culpability is somewhat wrapped up in who he killed. Of course, I appreciate the prejudice laden implications of considering the nature of the victim when deciding how society is to punish criminals, but when meting out a punishment that is meant in large part to be retributive, I'm not sure it makes sense that the way the victim was killed is relevant, but the character of the victim him or herself isn't. Why isn't the video relevant because it shows an innocent's life was nipped in the bud?
Zahav
I don't mean to be petty, but my hackles were kind of raised by a blurb on the Philadelphia restaurant Zahav in Food & Wine this month. The relevant passages follow:
Other than stellar hummus, I didn't know what to expect from a restaurant calling its food modern Israeli. . . . My favorite was the cauliflower florets, fried until sweet and caramelized. Crisp enough to pick up with your fingers, they're a terrific bar snack, served over a pool of tangy, dill-flecked, lebneh for dipping. . . . I was a bit squeamish about trying the kibbe naye, made with raw ground lamb, but after tasting the allspice seasoned meat scooped into crunchy romaine lettuce hearts, I changed my mind. I left Zahav more informed about Israeli food - and delighted with what I'd learned.
In case what is wrong with this passage isn't obvious, let's give a hypothetical French restaurant the same treatment.
Other than stellar pasta, I didn't know what to expect from a restaurant calling its food modern French . . . My favorite was the veal meatballs, fried until caramelized, crisp enough to pick up with your fingers, they're a terrific bar snack, served over a pool of tangy, thyme flecked, gorgonzola. . . I was a bit squeamish about trying the proscuitto crudo, but after tasting delicate flavor of the pork arranged with melon, I changed my mind. I left the restaurant more informed about French food - and delighted with that I'd learned.
Other than stellar hummus, I didn't know what to expect from a restaurant calling its food modern Israeli. . . . My favorite was the cauliflower florets, fried until sweet and caramelized. Crisp enough to pick up with your fingers, they're a terrific bar snack, served over a pool of tangy, dill-flecked, lebneh for dipping. . . . I was a bit squeamish about trying the kibbe naye, made with raw ground lamb, but after tasting the allspice seasoned meat scooped into crunchy romaine lettuce hearts, I changed my mind. I left Zahav more informed about Israeli food - and delighted with what I'd learned.
In case what is wrong with this passage isn't obvious, let's give a hypothetical French restaurant the same treatment.
Other than stellar pasta, I didn't know what to expect from a restaurant calling its food modern French . . . My favorite was the veal meatballs, fried until caramelized, crisp enough to pick up with your fingers, they're a terrific bar snack, served over a pool of tangy, thyme flecked, gorgonzola. . . I was a bit squeamish about trying the proscuitto crudo, but after tasting delicate flavor of the pork arranged with melon, I changed my mind. I left the restaurant more informed about French food - and delighted with that I'd learned.
Apple Galette
I can't get enough of rustic apple pies, a condition which hasn't stopped me from ignoring rustic apple pies so far this season. I finally fixed that problem this weekend with this simple galette. All this involves is a rich dough (3 oz. flour, 3 tb butter, and ice water) rolled out to a thin circle between plastic wrap, and some halved and cored apples filled with apricot jam* in the center. The remaining dough is just sloppily pulled up and some granulated sugar applied everywhere. It cooks in about 45 minutes in a 400 degree oven.
* I'm not normally much of a homer for Armenian products, but Harvest Song Apricot jam is terrific. The apricot flavor is so much more pronounced here than in the kind one gets in the supermarket that I almost wonder whether they're doing something nefarious.
** A clever observer will notice the burned sugar to the back and deduce that I kind of screwed this up. Obviously, my galette leaked, and it shouldn't.
Ecrevisses, girolle, jeunes pousses de salade, jus de tete perle. Ok, so not quite
One of the truly great dishes we had at Hostellerie Berard this summer was the dish described in the title - effectively, a crayfish salad with mushrooms and a sauce based in part on crayfish stock. While I couldn't quite get all the ingredients for that, the idea is easily adaptable to the kind of shrimp salad I normally make. Here, I simply made a shrimp stock with white wine, and used it as a sort of court bouillon to cook the cleaned, deveined, shrimp. I then cooked the potatoes in the same stock, by which time the liquid was reduced almost to a syrup. I added some further white wine to pick up some tasty looking residue in the pan, and then reserved. I tossed the baby greens with lemon, olive oil, and salt, tried to arrange into a decorous pile with some avocada and parmesan cheese, and then dressed further with the shrimp stock sauce. Delicious.
11/09/2008
I recently saw this recipe on Lidia Bastianich's television program, which on occasion is very instructive. Apparently, this pizza like pie is a speciality of Gaeta, a town in between Rome and Italy and can contain either escarole (or kale, as here) or octopus (or other things, but these are the main variations). The dough is just normal bread dough with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (in other words, water, flour, olive oil, and yeast, kneaded until smooth). For the filling, I boiled kale for ten minutes, then slowly cooked it in olive oil with chopped olives and garlic until tender. The pan is brushed with olive oil before the bottom layer is stretched out, and then a top layer is added before decorating. Cook at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, and don't forget to add slits to let the steam escape. I found the individual slices best eaten by hand. 
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