My first (brief) cookbook review was posted on Serious Eats today, about an exciting and complicated dessert book called Demolition Desserts.

The chef makes multi-element dessert plates and is one of the best established practitioners of the no-holds-barred, any ingredient is fair game, odd pairings are good, let’s-use-science-in-dessert-construction branch of pastry.

I made a batch of s’mores brownies which despite calling for homemade graham crackers and homemade marshmallows is one of the simpler recipes therein. Got them out of the house as quickly as possible as their overwhelming, cloying sweetness in no way diminished my capacity to eat them one after the other. I don’t even like marshmallows. 

Less sweet and delightfully spicy is the chipotle gingerbread, an excellent dessert when paired with autumn fruit and whipped cream.

Right now my favorite project at Prune is preparing the lobsters for the deliciousness that is the soupy rice with lobster and squid, sort of an extra liquidy interpretation of paella.  This project consists of the following steps:

• Dispatch the 10 or so lobsters with a cut between the eyes
• Break off claws and tail
• Sear claws and tail

and finally, my favorite part,

• Pre-crack the claws so the customer need not struggle

To do this, I hold a claw on the cutting board as though it were going to shake a hand, create a chink with my knife across the top, flip the claw and do the same on the underside, then put the claw on its side and whack it with my knife to create a clean break between the two chinks.  The claw splits neatly in two like magic but stays on and continues to enclose the meat so that once the dish is finished a la minute and served up, the customer is able to slip out lobster meat like an old hand.

I don’t feel tense very often lately but when I do I find myself pre-cracking claws in my head. The way the last whack of the knife joins the two chinks in one clean fissure is the source of great satisfaction and reliable order.

When I left the Bank in February I didn’t explicitly think “I’ll never eat lunch in a cubicle again”, but I have to say I’m surprised to find myself here this afternoon. But. Gots to pay the bills, and hungry while fulfilling my project manager responsibilities.

I was planning on hitting Pax for a add-what-you-want-salad, but had a situation where the guy behind the counter added canned olives to my salad despite my request for kalamata, and then told me it was my mistake. I really enjoyed telling him that I would take my mistaken ass somewhere else for lunch.  But then I panicked: the only other salad option was Tossed, which is obscenely overpriced and a little yucky.

Until I remembered Cafe Organique.

I’d been shying from this place because its name reeks of faux naturale hypocrisy and an attempt to cash in on a well-intended food trend.  They certainly aren’t using soy-based recyclable utensils, and I’m a little skeptical that everything they claim to be organic is actually organic.  But their salad mix-ins are $.05 cheaper than Pax, and their tuna has capers in it, an edgy choice for a midtown south deli, even a high-falootin’ one. It was a good salad. With a piece of real bread.

So if you find yourself needing a cubicle-friendly lunch in the greater Gramercy area, don’t be put off by Cafe Organique’s terrible name.

Thursday afternoon Il Buco closed off a side street near my apartment and roasted up a whole hog in a Sagra del Maiale, or pig festival. 

There were tasty side dishes, a sweet-and-spicy house-made pork and apple sausage and porchetta from Flying Pigs farm nestled into a panini with mostarda, but the main event was the pig roast itself. 

The featured pig was an Ossabaw Island Hog from North Carolina.  This animal is on Slow Food’s Ark of Taste list of foods that are endanger of extinction. And it was delicious.

The Ossabaw is the closest genetic representative to the historic hog stocks brought to the New World by the Spanish in the 1500s. Because the population of hogs remained on the island where it did not come into contact with mainland breeds, the pigs adapted to the island and became smaller, a process called insular dwarfism.

According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, the breed is biologically unique, having been shaped by natural selection in a challenging environment known for heat, humidity and seasonal scarcity of food. Though the pigs may be as small as 100 pounds, they adapted to the food cycle on the island, enabling them to store astounding amounts of body fat in order to survive during seasons when there is a dearth of food.

Pork has become the “it” meat over the past couple of years and traditional methods of preparation - real bacons, use of trotters, etc. - have been complemented by the more complex meat available in heritage breeds.  Today in New York ruddy fat-streaked pork is pretty widely available.  But this Ossabaw hog brought the delicious to a whole new level. If you see it on a menu, whatever the preparation, order it immediately. 

I’m in the last stretch of a couple of 17 hour work days what with the cooking and the project management.  My fingers hurt from burning them on the grill and then banging them on the keyboard.  But I’m pretty happy, and not just because for this one moment in time I’m both cooking and making decent money.  I’m also happy because it is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Arrr!

So while I intend on posting about my meal at Gramercy Tavern, the smell of roux and the wonderfulness of working on the line in an open kitchen with a bunch of wicked cool women, today I ask you to consider the pirate.

Did you know that Buccanners were so called because of their practice of smoking meat over wooden frames, called boucan?  These pirates were French rascals causing trouble for Spanish shippers in the Caribbean, and they learned this art of meat preservation from the indiginous Arwak Indians. Pirates love smoked meats, too!

If you wish to celebrate the day (or the commitment that pirates had to charcuterie), here is a recipe for grog:

To 1 (oz) of Rum, add the juice of half a lime and one or two teaspoons of cane sugar. Fill the rest of your tin or mug with water.

Enjoy, my mateys!

I visited the Doughnut Plant in anticipation of this very important day, and am now heading to work feeling jangled by sugar and bloatado from eating sweets first thing in the morning. 

On the left, coconut yeast doughnut; on the right, tres leches cake donut.  Subtle cream filling present in both. 

I did not finish both but I will not lie, I ate more than a bite of each.

As I have no shofar stowed away at Old Stove HQ, I’m getting into the spirit of Rosh Hashanah by making a new year’s resolution. 

I had an exceptional meal last night at Gramercy Tavern - more on that later.  It was such a lovely night that it has inspired me to approach eating in fine restaurants with more restraint.  

So for the rest of September and the month of October I will not eat in any restaurant where entrees cost more than $10. 

One can certainly have an exceptional restaurant experience for $10 or under, but I think that this guideline will encourage me to treat fine dining experiences as special, rather than just-becauses.

Not that there is anything wrong with just because…but I’ve been just becausing a lot lately. 

See you at the shwarma truck!

A few weeks ago I had dinner at A Voce and I’ve been mulling it ever since. 

The food was very good and the room pleasantly unified the otherwise contradictory looks of a mid-century modern boardroom and an airy A-Frame plunked down in the Piedmont countryside.  Among the memorable dishes we had were: a salad of roasted and raw heirloom tomatoes with buratta that ranked as “Best Tomatoes I Ate This Summer”, the much-lauded duck meatballs that I found to be overwhelmed by their sticky-sweet mostarda sauce, and rich lamb agnolotti that was as happy in texture as it was in taste. 

My entree was tender, deeply flavored tripe in tomato sauce with borlotti beans and a fried duck egg. It was presented in a steep-sided copper gratin dish that seemed at the same time traditional (though it isn’t) and design-conscious (which it is), and the presentation (and the egg and the care with which it was all made) took a dish that is pure tradition and made it unique.  In this the tripe was the single dish that best captured the feeling of A Voce: rustic food with polished accents, great care for layering of flavor, an attitude of humility towards the ingredients used balancing the elegance of experience.

But the real story here was my realization that intellectual insecurity about food can quickly turn into defensiveness and a lack of curiosity. 

Every time you eat in a restaurant you have, if nothing else, the opportunity to learn what one chef thinks about food. You may disagree with the chef, or the level of thought from that chef may amount to a critical lack of care, or the food may not be very good.  But there is something to be learned, and it is something you don’t already know, and that is a great part of the joy of eating out. 

My dining companions at A Voce seemed to feel out of place and rather than turn themselves over to the experience, stiffened against it.  Unfamiliar ingredients and humble presentations and people with knowledge - on staff and at the table - were dismissed with a parochialism that verged on boorishness.  I’d say that the disservice done here was strictly reflexive, but in fact they diminished my enjoyment, my ability to immerse myself into the experience, as well.

You don’t have to be sophisticated to enjoy a sophisticated experience. You just have to be open.

I was in my local mom-and-pop health food store buying groceries for the week (you know, non-fat yogurt, pepper jack tofu “cheese”, sunshine burgers; I have to balance out the indulgences of the restaurant with some restrained behaviour at home) when the kombucha drink called out to me.  Spoke to me.  Compelled me to buy and drink it.

And I did, and I felt foolish, especially when busted by a friend who saw it on my counter, half-finished, guilty, who smelled it and tasted it and proclaimed with glee that it was disgusting.

But I have realized that this hippified pickle juice has come to serve as some kind of talisman against the allure of cigarettes.

Although I have and have not smoked on days when I have not consumed a kombucha drink (hereafter, this proposition will be referred to as the “non-kombucha problematic“), I have never smoked on a day when I have had a kombucha drink (hereafter, the “kombucha assertoric“). TO WIT it would appear that the presence of kombucha on a diurnal basis is equal to the desired state of not smoking. Unfortunately at about $25 a week this crap is more expensive than my casual cigarette habit. 

Kids, don’t start smoking and for godssake stay away from kombucha drinks.

Finding the place where you are smart and engaged but clearly eager to learn new things can be challenging in a new work environment.

In my case it means stifling the desire to explain my thought processes - why I think what I think - a desire which is rooted in curiousity about how other people think and act, and is intended to serve as a spark for dialogue but can come off as a little defensive and smarty pants. I’m allowed to ask questions, but not to provide unsolicited answers.  

As outlined in my post on breakfast day in cooking school, I know how to hard boil an egg. I’ve always HB’d as I outlined in that post; cooking school reinforced my idea that the short simmer/long sit method is the best for obtaining firm but yielding whites and cheery yolks with no grey ring.

Yesterday while at work I was asked to HB 30 eggs (for deviled, natch). I got my flat of eggs and was placing them gently in a pot, intending to fill that pot with cold water and bring it to a simmer.

“What are you doing?” the chef asked.

“Hard boiling eggs”, I replied.

“No, you’re not.  Boil a pot of water first, and then drop them in.  Boil exactly nine minutes, turn off and let sit for one minute, then plunge into cold water.”

Seriously alarmed that the chef would think I don’t know how to hard cook an egg, I started to explain the the way I had been taught…but caught myself within the first few words. Don’t be the explaining person. It comes off as defensive.  Smile and say ‘yep!’ This chef doesn’t care. 

Seeing that I was holding my tongue, the chef patiently said, “Good.  This is the way we hardcook eggs. So this is now the way you hardcook eggs. Just boil the eggs our way.”

And you know? They were pretty easy to peel.