We had a teeny Oscar party that included beverages in honor of the movie that I thought was the best to come out this year. I love some muscular, chewy, idealo-socialist literature, and I thought that this was one of the best novel-to-film adaptations I’ve seen. It captures the essence of Sinclair’s novel and then improves upon it with the creepy soundtrack and thrilling camera work.

What was most remarkable about TWBB was the way it elicited the swooning revulsion I feel when I see real violence. When two men square off and fight with their fists, really with the intention of truly hurting each other, it causes intense nausea at the same time that it is magnetic, as though there is a preservational measure to not looking away. The violence in TWBB - between men or objects or colliding natural forces - was every bit as intense as it is in real life.

We also had some Juno Alaskan Smoked Salmon Dip, which was tasty on carrots and very easy to make. It consisted of 1 pint Greek yogurt thinned out to dip consistancy with equal parts lemon juice and half-and-half, a 1/4 pound smoked salmon minced into a fine pulp, and a tablespoon of fresh dill fronds.

The cook crush recently predicted that the word “fond” (the caramelized bits of food stuck to the bottom of a pan after browning used to make pan sauces and to enrich braises and stews) will be lost in time.

My instructor Chef E. didn’t call it “fond”, she called it schmutz. I thought it was amusing, and as English was her second language, that schmutz was possibly the actual word used in Yiddish to describe those browned bits.

But the observation about the disappearance of the word “fond” seems true. Nobody on the food network calls fond by name, and most people use a vaguely pejorative term to describe it. 

In the Times magazine this week, there is a nice article on the midwinter pleasures of a slow cooked sauce with recipes for ragù, including one for a lamb ragù from Centro Vinoteca chef/Batali’s Iron Chef sous Anne Burrell. In the paragraph used to describe her technique, she repeatedly calls the fond created by browning ground lamb meat and vegetables “crud”.

I’m all for making cooking approachable, but let’s agree to keep the lexicon of cooking complex and specific, as it makes us more complex and specific (and therefore better) cooks, and let’s agree to use the proper word for this culinary fundamental, and to use words like “crud” to describe those things for which no other word exists, like the mix of gum and asphalt stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

A french gentleman writing in the 18th century noted that “oysters are the usual opening to a winter breakfast; in fact, they are almost indispensible.” What sorrow to think that this custom of oysters eaten early in the day has been lost in time.

At the restaurant we serve oysters with grilled sausage, toast and a small cup of stewed tomatoes as one of our brunch dishes. This dish come off of my station, so one of my jobs is to crack open the Malpeque beauties that we serve. I’ve gotten pretty fast at it and each week I’m driven into a frenzy of desire for my own freshly shucked half dozen.

Much as I enjoy an oyster dressed only in its own brine, I’m open to a mignonette sauce, and when I was in Mexico I had a couple of rich seafood cocktails that included small oysters with tomato sauce, avocado and lime. 

After a recent brunch shift I decided to practice my shucking at home and reinterpretsome of the Mexican flair. I got large, salty Duxbury oysters and topped them with finely diced shallot and serrano pepper, and a generous squeeze of lime. The lime is such a glorious compliment to the oyster - its fragrance and softer acidity make it far superior to lemon in the same context. 

By the time the cook crush got home and we ate Las Ostras Mexicanas it was a midnight snack rather than breakfast, but with a salad of radishes and avocados, it would be a texturally complete, light, satisfying meal at any hour of the day.

My girl at Dirt’s World makes the best hot buttered rum I’ve ever tasted and I’m hoping that this endorsement will lead her to post the recipe in the comments below, as I’ve lost it. Or email it to me and I’ll post it. Until that point, and with this weather, I thought I’d muse on the art of the hot toddy and make some suggestions a for cold-nose appropriate beverage.

There are three bartenders at the restaurant, only one working on any given evening. When I was feeling low (the head cold, before-Mexico kind of low, not the antibiotics and depletion kind of low in the week after), I asked each of them to make as my shift drink the kind of hot Toddy they would make for self-medication were they suffering from the same stuffy exhaustion.

Each had a different approach in terms of booze (Jack Daniels, house Brandy, Bookers), fruit (none, orange, lemon), sweetener (sugar, none, honey) and spices (none, a cinnamon stick and none). All were equally dilute with hot water, which is to say, only dilute enough to make it hot.

The Toddy is a wonder drug that makes you forget you are sick long enough to go to sleep. It resonates with old worldiness, calms your ribs and envelops your face in healing vapors. It also has the potential to be delicious on the level of a magical treat.

I’d like to say all that were offered to me lived up to their Toddy potential, but actually Jack and sugar made me feel like I was trying to make an unpleasant thing taste better, and hot orange-scented brandy isn’t nearly as good as a Sidecar. The winner was the bartender/lead singer of Making Friendz, who combined:

• 2 oz Bookers bourbon
• 1 generous tablespoon honey
• Juice of half a lemon
• Hot water

It is a tasty and nourishing beverage even in the flourish of rude, good, Cipro-ensured health.

A week ago I went to the doctor because I was harboring some kind of illness. A basic understanding of cause and effect would lead one to think that I was playing host to something nasty from Mexico, but as the cook crush seems fine and we ate all the same foods, drank all the same beverages and played in the same environment, I am clinging to the idea that the trip and the violent illness are unrelated.

Regardless, Dr. D put me on Cipro. I remember Cipro from the Anthrax scare of fall 2001. Years before that time that I disavowed antibiotics as a pervasive threat to my overall health, but Cipro hoarding/Cipro resistance as reported in the media really set me against them somewhat actively. To an extent this was a healthy choice, but there was certainly some post-9/11 dismissal of weakness and dependency, expressed through contempt for antibiotic use and abuse.

In September of last year I began feeling as though I was awake for the first time in years, feeling more like myself, remembering notions I’d buried under a sense of nihilism (well predating but definitely exaggerated by 9/11). I vowed to put momentum behind this feeling, to be be fearless even - especially - if that meant confronting scary things. My best friend was having similar declouding experiences; maybe it was a coincidence or maybe 6 years is exactly how long it takes to start breathing again after you hold your breath for a few months.

Regardless, I have been on Cipro for a week and although I don’t embrace my temporary identity as a person requiring pharmaceutical help, the shit has worked. Within 24 hours I felt like a new woman, and each day I feel better. It is killing off illnesses I didn’t even know I had. 

Being willing to receive assistance, albeit in pill form, is like pressing a restart button, and is like taking off shoes that are a half a size too small and putting on sneakers, and is a total relief.

I’ve been working brunch for the last couple of weekends, and will do so until I master all of the stations. It is not my favorite meal to cook or to eat but it is important in restaurant life because it is a big cash cow in terms of profit against food costs. Think about it - how much does an egg actually cost? 

Currently I’m stationed on the grill. This means I cook many brown foods. Sausage, rib eye, Monte Cristo sandwiches. And our breakfast potatoes.

Breakfast potatoes: I’m of the opinion that they should either be very, very simple (potatoes, salt and fat) or very extensively seasoned (garlic, onion, red pepper flakes, scallions, whatever vegetables are lurking in the fridge). Too many cooks go half way, adding a teeny tablespoon of stale paprika and one insipid diced green pepper to their hash browns. Why bother? Salt and fat alone are enough to celebrate the simple earthiness of this humble vehicle for ketchup and yolk.

To prepare for brunch at the restaurant I go in a few hours before service - first one in -and sweat over six burners churning out 80 potatoes worth of röstis so that I can reheat them on the griddle for each order. These are our breakfast potato, shredded pancakes, Swiss in origin, no binder, crispy and golden brown like a McDonald’s hash puck on the outside, fluffy and snowy white on the inside. Strictly the potato and fat variety of breakfast starch, and simple, but delicious and impressive when done well. 

Röstis are a challenge at first - we made them in school with mixed results - but as potatoes are inexpensive it is worth practicing at home. You really need a nonstick pan and a heat-resistant spatula to make these, or you’ll have all sorts of problems with flipping them over.

Heat your pan over a high flame, add enough oil or clarified butter to coat the pan with a 1/4″ slick, let it get hot while you shred enough peeled Idaho potato to make a cake that covers the bottom of the pan to 1/2″ thick. When the oil is hot, add the potato, jiggle and shake and form a round tightly packed cake. Walk away for a couple of minutes, use the spatula to dig under the cake and rotate it so it works evenly, and flip when the bottom is brown and creates a firm crust. Just turn it over. Don’t think about it too much. Then let it get brown and crisp on the second side.

Once you get the hang of constantly moving them so that the crust colors evenly, cooking them fast enough so that the starch on the interior doesn’t discolor, and using enough clarified butter so that they fry without scorching, cranking through 50 or so of them is only a challenge of self-hydration and time. And as noted here before, practice makes better if not perfect.

The limes commonly served with food and beer in Mexico City are small, round, smooth and thin-skinned. They look like key limes aside from their bright green color, and give off far more juice then the Persian limes you find in an American grocery store. They are delicious - more intense, more floral, more tart - and adorable.

There are a few explanations for the lime-in-the-beer phenomenon ubiquitous with Mexican lagers: originally used to wipe dust off of cans, to keep flies out of the opening, as marketing gimmick for tourists. My theory is that Mexicans understand that so many things taste better with lime that they extended the practice to their beers. I know that there is an idea that lime-in-beer is strictly for gringos, but to my eyes limes were being added to cervezas by everyone, everywhere, which makes sense as it adds a pleasant acidity to the sweetish lagers. 

Limes were also offered with most food. A squeeze of lime brightens the flavor and creates harmony between the individual components of a complex dish like a tacos al pastor: achiote-rubbed meat bringing pork, fat and smoke; corn tortilla giving an earthy sweetness; onion, chile and cilantro lending sharp, hot and soapy-green, respectively. Lime adds a further dimension (sour) at the same time that it pulls it all together into what I think of as a meat-flowery finish. It also enhances a simpler foods, bringing out the various layered flavors of an individual fruit or a meat. If you don’t understand, squeeze some on a sliced mango.

Lime is the salt of the vegetal world!

I wrote about the fantastic tacos de cabeza we ate while at La Merced, the sprawling, fragrant food, flower and restaurant supply market in a sketchy neighborhood in Mexico City.

The Market was full of chiles and moles and pinatas and luscious fruit and vegetables, as well as tons of people selling food. We ate as much as we could, but our hearts belong to the humble cabeza dude, in a corner of a yard on the far west side of the market, at whose feet the cook crush would gladly sit for a day, eating whatever is proffered.

How do you say “tasting menu” or “chef’s choice” in Spanish? Please note snouts in bowl of meat.

One really nice eating experience I had on Isla was at one of the seafood restaurants on the beach.

We had our menus and were debating getting up and moving on because it didn’t seem special enough - not in terms of fanciness, as were were both happily in barefeet, but in terms of intrigue, authenticity, savorability - and little did we know that specialness was in short supply on Isla, at least food wise.

Then I noticed the man sitting near us enjoying a really robust looking fish soup. He was a small man in stature, but was watching everything going on with an air of control. When the waitress came to take our order, I asked to have what he was having. Cook crush followed suit.

His soup wasn’t on the menu. The man - Martin - was the owner of and the fisherman for the restaurant. Hearing our desire to eat as he did, he made his way over to us, tickled by our request for the basic tomato-based fish stew made from odds and ends in the kitchen.

When a little woman came by selling crunchy crusted bean-and-beef gorditas topped with pickled red onions to the restaurant staff from a basket covered with a damp towel (their version of family snack), Martin waved her over to us. They were a delicious appetizer, rich and grainy and small. 

The soup was good, salty, a little spicy, with the crunch of raw onions. The red snapper was super-fresh. I had the tail piece. Scooped up with tortilla it was very satisfying. Martin joined us for a chat and talked about his business, our business, and the island.

Here as with other places that cater to pink people, communication broke down when we tried to get an idea of where the local would go to eat. On an average Tuesday night, where would you go if you just wanted dinner? Nothing special, just good, affordable food. And I guess this reflects a difference between a being a New Yorker who works in a restaurant, who eats in a restaurant most nights as I’m there already or because it is mostly cheaper and infinitely easier than cooking at home, and someone for whom restaurants are a rare exceptional treat.

I wish I could tell you how to find the gordita lady should you find yourself on Isla Mujeres. In lieu of that, look for the owner and have what he’s having.