Other Things: Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and Brooklyn Museum of Art

Posted on by

I know I write predominantly about food and wine, but I do have other interests… I swear! When Mom was here this past weekend, we spent a really hot day in Park Slope exploring the Botanical Gardens and the Brooklyn Museum. It was a bit too hot for the former – a lot of the plants were drooping as a result of our continuous heat wave – except that the “Herb” Garden was in full swing. Check out some of the yummy goodies they’ve got growing (ok, this is food-related, but still cool!):

a beautiful beetroot section

sweet and thai basil

celery stalks

lettuces of all kinds
a single pineapple!

Afterwards, we went to cool off at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which is a decidedly wonderful museum. Even though my major in college was art history-focused, I find that I do not spend nearly enough time exploring art in this city. Who knew that so many fantastic pieces and shows were tucked away in the heart of Brooklyn?

Currently on display are an Andy Warhol exhibition (the late years), an African art exhibition (which I studied my senior year – I’ve retained much less than I thought), and a display of the the museum’s costume collection. We’d seen the sister fashion-oriented show at the Met the week before, and I’d been underwhelmed. So I was pleasantly surprised to find myself engrossed in this exhibit: the collection is extensive, and because it is predominantly donor-based, the clothing is in exquisite condition. Also by virtue of the donor’s tastes, a few designers are more heavily represented than others, including Elsa Schiaparelli, whose work I love. The layout of the show was not incredibly visitor-friendly (chronology was only a loose organizational mechanism), but the pieces – from dresses to shoes to drawings – more than compensated.

Some favorites:

Halston caftan

Charles James evening gown

Elsa Schiaparelli suit with piano-button details

1940s happy-face swim ensemble

summer dress with beautiful pleating

Celebrations: Mom’s in town!

Posted on by

So, I’ve been a bit remiss in my posting because my lovely mom has been in town! Here are some highlights of our time together, which of course revolves around lots of food:

A Riesling tasting at Terroir, with Paul Grieco and winemaker Ernie Loosen.
 
Mr. Loosen, who brought over a vertical of his own wines for the tasting from the Erdener Treppchen vineyard, including a 1976 Auslese and a 2006 Auslese Goldkap.
 Our insalata caprese, with basil from my new herb garden!
Yummy succotash with corn, red onion, zucchini, and squash,
baked with lots o’ butta.
Additionally, we discovered a new French bistro, Bistro de la Gare, in the West Village, which provided a deliciously simply meal. Mom’s summer cannelloni were outstanding, with their paper-thin pasta shell overflowing with fresh spinach and the tiniest hint of ricotta. We also visited Fort Greene, hitting up the Flea and the farmer’s market at the Fort Greene park – here, we bought the most delicious cow’s milk cheese from a farm in Connecticut, as well as herbs for my new windowsill garden. 
Then, we had the best meal (Mom’s emphasis) at Bar Boulud after a show, thanks to Josiah’s able skills as a sommelier and the lovely fresh fish we tried. Between Toni, Mom, and me, we tasted almost all of the fish on the menu, which Josiah paired with a beautiful white Burgundy:
coquilles saint-jacques meunière (me)
dayboat scallops, stone ground polenta
purslane, brown butter, hazelnuts

truite arc-en ciel (toni)
local rainbow trout, roasted corn
olive, zucchini, smoked tomato coulis

limande au four (mom)
baked summer flounder, herb salad
glazed market vegetables
lemon buerre blanc

Each of us thought our own dish was the best, polishing our plates. Then we finished the meal with a beautiful apricot tart (the work “tart” vastly under-represents the presentation of the dish – a puff-pastry-like shell surrounded four distinct apricot-halves, served with a tart and refreshing red currant and lemon verbena ice cream), as well as a plate of the macarons and chocolates. Josiah gave us a taste of a Sauternes – not usually a favorite of mine because it can be quite thick and cloyingly sweet; however, this one was tasty with the apricots and rather refreshingly easy on the palette. Bar Boulud is hands down my favorite one of the chef’s restaurants and, in my opinion, one of the best restaurants in town.
And finally, we had an easy, rustic pizza night at Keste, a Neopolitan-style pizzeria on Bleeker Street. The staff is almost entirely Italian; the wine list features wines from the Campagna region; and the pizza is one of the most authentic I’ve had in Manhattan. We ordered the Regina Margherita and the special, a four-cheese white pizza with prosciutto, whose crunchy parmigiano flavor made it my favorite. We washed down not one but two carafes of Falanghina, a medium-bodied white wine I discovered in Rome last year. Following the pizza and wine, we walked around the corner to L’Arte del Gelato for the finishing touches on a great weekend.
And she comes back today!!

Creative Time: Pimento Grilled Cheese

Posted on by

A few years ago, when my mother and I went to Bonnaroo with a bunch of her friends, we prepared massive amounts of pimento cheese, using the large format Cuisinart that lives in her kitchen in Atlanta. To differentiate the two, we added some chopped jalapeno peppers and jus to one of the containers – and this spicy cheese spread was a total hit!

A Southern requisite.

Rather than waste half a jalapeno, a jar of pimentos, and half a block of Vermont cheddar cheese which didn’t make it into my marinated vegetable salad, these leftovers were perfect fodder for remaking this spicy pimento cheese. Since I lack a large food processor, I adapted and used a Microplane, which finely shredded the cheese.

Got to stick with the Vermont white cheddar!

This consistency ended up being a welcome bonus, as it greatly reduced the amount of mayonnaise needed to keep the spread together and created a dense, rich flavor. I added some ground pepper, but no salt, since the cheese was already quite salty. Then, I cut the rest of the previous day’s baguette into halves and created pimento grilled cheese sandwiches. Served with a yummy summer salad, it was a delicious, easy, and economical dinner!

Salty, cheesy goodness.

Quick and Easy: Marinated Vegetable Salad

Posted on by

After the eat-fest that was Fourth of July weekend (er, well, my life in general), Toni and I decided we would try to tone down our diets. It’s the best time of year to do so anyway: produce is at it’s finest, and it’s so hot in this city that one hardly wants to turn on the stove. Mom gave me a few ideas, via our friend Chef Jacques Pepin, for some quick and easy summer salads. Yesterday, we tried the first one.

Thanks Chef!

The ingredients in this salad can all be found in most grocery stores: canned artichoke hearts (I prefer those preserved in water, not oil), caponata, pimentos, green olives, parsley, a bit of jalapeno, and cheddar cheese. Everything was chopped into bite-size pieces and tossed with a bit of olive oil. We let it sit to let the flavors meld while we cut up fruit for another no-cook salad: cantaloupe, apples, kiwi, and banana.

It’s prettier than it tasted…

The marinated vegetable salad was a success, with the predominant flavors of each vegetable shining through. We ate it with a bit of toasted baguette. The fruit salad, on the other hand, was a huge disappointment. We had bought the produce at the Food Emporium near Toni’s place, since the market was not open on Tuesday, and almost everything we bought was absolutely tasteless (the watermelon, the beacon of summer, didn’t even make it into the salad!) Thank goodness for the kiwi, which redeemed it, at least a little…

Celebrations: Fourth of July Weekend

Posted on by
I spent Fourth of July weekend out in East Hampton, where my aunt Barbara lives during the summer. As usual, it was food-and-wine-filled affair. Toni latched on to the fact that we had a patio and a grill, so we cooked all meals outdoors, thanks to the grill master. The first night, we had blue fish, grilled corn, roasted radishes and potatoes, and blackberry cobbler, all from the local market. 
Little market, long line. 
Saturday night, Toni and I grabbed our rental bikes and headed to Tutto Italiano, an Italian outpost of Citarella down the Montauk Highway, to pick up some pizza dough and the house-made mozzarella. We then selected some grill-worthy veggies at the grocery store, including red peppers, onions, tomatoes, zucchini, and Portobello mushrooms. We roasted them on the grill. Once they were charred, we put the dough over the open flame, using a piece aluminum foil as a makeshift pan. After letting it toast a bit, we added the tomatoes and mozzarella, covered for a moment, and finally arranged the grilled vegetables on top. Although the pizza dough was slightly burned on the bottom (we should have flipped the dough before adding the various ingredients), it was deliciously simple. Good cheese and produce really make all the difference. 
You can’t even see the roasted tomatoes under all that cheese,
but they were delicious. 
Our final night was the Fourth of July, so we decided a traditional barbecue was in order. Barbara picked up some freshly ground beef from the local butcher, as well as some watermelon. Together we headed to the store to pick up some more charcoal (we’d gone through all of it), salt & pepper kettle chips (which hardly made it out of the store), and some ketchup (Barb picked up the reduced sugar variety – she said by accident, though I hardly believe her – which ended up tasting just fine). 
Sharing in the festivities 
With some homemade guacamole to munch on as the charcoal burned, the three of us sipped the lovely bottle of Dashe ‘Les Enfants Terribles’ that Stevie had recommended we bring as a gift. The wine was selected since Barb loves chilled red wines, and Malbecs tend to fill her icebox. Stevie thought the Dashe zinfandel would be a nice alternative, and since it was a 2009, our glasses danced with the bright red fruits that might have dissipated in a later vintage. My grandmother Nena is a Dashe drinker, and I have always associated their juice with its rich, jammy quality. The old vines provided a nice, summery change. 
Stevie’s pick. Verdict = A hot red for a summer night.
 
We blended some salt, pepper, and chopped onion into our patties, and then threw them onto the grill after having cooked some more corn, onions, and tomatoes. Since the pantry was lacking in the bun department, we ended up tasting a butter croissant – a perfectly decadent burger. We were so full that we finished the meal with nothing more than a little watermelon. What a wonderful way to spend our midsummer nights!
Burger, roasted veggies, and grilled corn – nothing says summer like this!

Dinner Party: Lamb, Pinot, and a Summer Breeze

Posted on by

Cookouts are a novelty in New York City.  Growing up in Atlanta, I completely took it for granted that we had a grill and private outdoor space, where we could gather together to eat, drink, and laugh to our hearts’ content. Here, however, I can count the number of people who have the luxury of a patio or backyard on one hand. My friends Emily and Mike are some of the lucky few — in fact, they not only have a terrace but also a killer view of the Hudson River from their place on Riverside Drive. And fortunately for me (who is starting to go a little stir-crazy in this hot city), they invited a group of us over for dinner last night.

I was too busy enjoying the breeze and the view to snap a photo,
but Toni managed to get one of the table. 

After some wonderful strawberry-lemonade cocktails that Emily made, we sat down to a meal of lime-cumin-and-coriander marinated lamb chops that I brought from my stash, an herb-and-balsamic couscous filled with fresh parsley and basil from Emily and Mike’s flower pots, and some yummy sea salt kettle chips. We’d decided upon a pinot noir pairing: Bo brought a bottle of Au Bon Climat, while Alexxa and I both brought a Mark West from Sonoma County.

Ours was an ’08.

To shake things up, we decided to chill one of the West’s. The wine professed to have lots of bright cherry and raspberry notes, which were present in the chilled wine, but it wasn’t until we drank the other bottle that we noticed its spicy, dry, and dusty qualities (fairly common characteristics of Sonoma wines, I’ve found, especially their syrahs): in both cases, the wine’s high acidity went beautifully with the meat. Then, when we popped the Au Bon Climat, we experienced the real treat of wine themes – it was a totally different wine, light, fruit-forward, and with this beautiful black pepper finish.

I talk big, but this is what I actually look like when I drink wine…

As the sun was setting, we dug into Mike’s homemade ice cream sandwiches (apparently a theme this summer): M&M and chocolate chip cookies, with coffee ice cream in between. We sat around the table a bit longer, savoring the warm summer breeze and watching the red moon as it rose, before we all headed home to our stuffy apartments for the night. These moments make me love New York — this city reminds me how much joy the little pleasures bring, when you take the time to notice them.

Lime-Cumin-and-Coriander Lamp Chops

  • 3 garlic cloves, smashed and coarsely chopped
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp ground pepper
  • 2+ Tbsp olive oil
  • 21 (1/2- to 3/4-inch thick) lamb chops

Whisk together garlic, cumin, coriander, lime juice, salt, pepper, and oil and transfer to a sealable plastic bag large enough to hold the lamb (or to several individual bags). Add lamb and seal bag, then make sure the lamb is evenly coated. Marinate at room temperature, turning bag occasionally, for about 45 minutes.

Heat charcoal grill and cook lamb in batches about 3 minutes each side for medium-rare. Transfer cooked lamb to a plate and let sit, covered with aluminum foil. Let the meat rest about five minutes then serve.

Recipe adapted from Gourmet.

Party Favors: A Freezer Full of Lamb

Posted on by

This past Tuesday, SAVEUR hosted its first annual Summer BBQ at Pier 66 in New York for the magazine’s chef and foodie friends. I spent much of the day running around in search of things like passion fruit puree for specialty cocktails for one of our advertisers, greeting chefs and their teams,  making sure the bar stayed stocked, and trying to find someone to pull town tarps when it started to rain… All in all, I had a blast and officially love my new job.

Look for me and my gray hat.
Image courtesy of newyork.metromix.com

Once everyone had left and things were mostly cleaned up, we were instructed to take as much home as you can. Really? Yes. This meant bottles of wine and rum that were left over, goodie bags, freshly squeezed lime juice, you name it. People gathered what they could carry (which was nowhere near everything), but no one went toward a lonely little cooler full of lamb left to us by chef Victor Casanova. I feared the worst: that all of that beautiful lamb would be left to rot on the pier with no refrigeration. Sufficiently upset, I grabbed the whole thing on the way out, added a few bottles of wine and some cage-free eggs that another chef had left behind, and carried my heavy load out to the West Side Highway to grab a cab home.

The loot. It looked like I was hiding a 
dead person in my fridge.
I was too tired when I got home to do anything but stick the meat in the fridge. So last night, I rolled up my sleeves, pulled out the boning knife, and got ready to remove the fell and french these suckers when something glorious happened — I opened the bags and they were already beautifully cut into individual servings. All I had to do was separate them into single-person portions to freeze, readying them for easy thawing for the thousands of yummy lamb dishes I will be trying over the coming weeks.
Toni’s freezer, full of meat (mine’s already full).
I kept a few out for dinner last night at Toni’s. Ana came over and I put the two of them to work on dessert (two Croatians + mistranslation of tsp/Tbsp + makeshift measuring utensils = a brand-new recipe for chocolate chip cookies). In the meantime, I steamed some rice and threw green beans into a pan with butter and almonds, a quick and easy stir-fry-and-steam method that I love when I need to quickly cook some veggies. 
Looking tasty.
I heated up the grill pan, added some salt, pepper, and fresh thyme to the chops, and let them cook, about 3-5 minutes a side (I like medium rare, but everyone else likes their meat cooked more thoroughly). Since the oven was heating up for the cookies, I put the lamb in a pan to finish in the oven for a few minutes.
A square meal.
We sat down to eat our very well-balanced meal (Mom taught me well: meat, starch, green) and poured ourselves a glass of South African Sauvignon Blanc… not a traditional pairing, but it went nicely with the meal, as well as with the humidity. While we were eating, we put the cookies into the oven for about ten minutes. I went to check on them and at first thought they hadn’t cooked at all. Then, I realized the bottoms were brown – the extra teaspoons of baking powder had created spongy cakes rather than a crispy cookies. Which was fine, as the plan was to make homemade ice cream sandwiches: their sponginess absorbed the melting ice cream and prevented the cookie from cracking as we bit into them. 
Really wishing I had another one of these, right now…
And Toni made me promise not to make him fat…

Creative Time: Zucchini Latkes and Roasted Tomatoes

Posted on by
Recently, I’ve had no appetite for the standards: chicken, beef, pork, even shrimp, bore me. And they are everywhere, in every grocery store, on every takeout menu, in every recipe search. How is it that a nation as big as ours has such a small repertoire of meats? One of my earliest childhood memories is a market in Provence; I was about six or seven years old when I saw skinned rabbits on sale for the first time. 
 
Market in Aix-en-Provence.
Image courtesy of http://daleeurope.wordpress.com/
Meat hasn’t really bothered me since, especially since I grew up eating venison, pheasant, and duck that my dad would bring home every now and then. What bothers me is how limited I feel on a day to day basis when I want to branch out. I think of the supermarkets in Rome, how even the plastic-wrapped meat aisles included options like veal, rabbit, mutton, and more. We just don’t eat like that in America, at least not enough of us do for the big guys to cater to diversified diets.
I was feeling this sentiment rather urgently the other day while I was brainstorming a menu for a small dinner party. I just couldn’t bring myself to cook another boring piece of meat, so I didn’t. Instead, I found inspiration on Amanda Hesser’s food52 site: these delicious zucchini latkes. I felt that the cakes would serve as a sort of homemade veggie burger, rich and thick enough to serve as a main dish. I used three large zucchini, two potatoes, some parsley, and lots of lemon zest in the cakes. I added two eggs since I’d essentially doubled the recipe, so it ended up requiring about a half cup of bread crumbs to hold it together. S&P on top, and I tossed them in a pan with heated olive oil and butter.
 Fresh out of the frying pan.
Wanting to bring some color to the spread, I chose a side dish that I could broil in the oven: roasted grape tomatoes and garlic. The dish was simple enough, requiring me to check in on them only periodically as I stood over the stove, frying my zucchini.
A little pop of garlicky-red and thyme
made a pretty table accent.
We ended up with a very lovely spread: the zucchini cakes and tomatoes, as well as a loaf of bread, some peanuts (I was craving salt), and some charcuterie with cheese. With some light white wine, the meal was extremely refreshing and satisfying – both in terms of my palate and my mental well-being. We were so full, in fact, that no one had room for dessert!
Served with a dollop of Greek yogurt
and a big squeeze of lemon juice.

A Lovely Day, A Lovely Meal: The Cloisters, Lamb Chops, and Panzanella

Posted on by

On Thursday afternoon, I got the best piece of news – I had a summer Friday the next day! One week in and already a day off! I decided I didn’t want to waste a gift of a day, so I took myself out to the Cloisters, a museum of medieval architectural remnants and treasures that actually integrates the elements into its structure. (I can hardly fathom the effort and thought that went into its making!)

 An image of one of the four cloister areas that was reconstructed once rescued from its original location.


Having rented the audio guide, I learned that the site—in Fort Tryon Park in Northern Manhattan—was chosen because of its isolation, so that it could reflect the actual setting of a Benedictine monastery, slightly removed from society. John D. Rockefeller, who acquired the Cloisters and the Park and gave them to the Met and the city of New York respectively, even bought the strip of land in New Jersey across the Hudson to prevent development and preserve the serenity of the location.

That’s called having a lot of money.
And doing good with it.

So, after having enjoyed such a perfect day, I decided I wanted to make the perfect meal. I had finished this month’s SAVEUR on the subway, and two recipes had struck me – lemon-thyme lamb chops and panzanella, or bread salad. The recipes were both rich with fresh and easy-to-find ingredients, many of which I already had around the house. (Most importantly, it would use up the half of a baguette I had left from dinner the night before). I made a slight tweak to the panzanella, using balsamic as I’d finished off the red wine vinegar. Eh voila! As beautiful, fresh, and simple as the way I’d spent my day.

My pretty spread, with a glass of Bordeaux to accompany.

Quick and Easy: Striped Bass with Lemon, Butter, and Parsley

Posted on by
After a wonderful date night at Marea on Saturday night, where I ate my way through four courses and topped it off with a macchiato, I did not sleep. Call it heartburn from too much food or heart palpitations from the coffee or an unhappy coincidence – I was suffering on Sunday from lack of rest. So when it came time for dinner, I wanted something that would be simple and easy, no grocery shopping involved.

Marea, photo courtesy nydailynews.com
I had thawed the striped bass fillets Stevie had given me the night before, so I knew that they would be the central component of the meal. Looking in the fridge, I found: lemons, garlic, parsley, zucchini, lettuce, and half of an avocado. Most of these ingredients consisted of produce that was looking not quite as fresh as it did two days ago and thus needed to be used. 
Check out the beautiful globular zucchini I found at the market
Stevie had pan-seared her fillets in butter and topped them with an herb sauce, and since I happened to have a lot of parsley on hand, this seemed like a good (and quick) way to prepare my fish. I heated some butter in a frying pan and added some chopped garlic. Once I rinsed the fish, I dusted the fillets with a bit of sea salt. When the butter was hot,  I added them to the pan and let them sit in the fat, two minutes per side. To finish them off, I stuck the pan in a 500-degree oven for another two minutes, then promptly removed and plated, drizzling them with the pan juices and some freshly squeezed lemon, topping with loads of parsley.
Seared bass with garlic butter, fresh lemon juice, and parsley
Meanwhile, I was thinking about lunch. This June, I have placed a little budget bet with myself, and one of the ways I have been keeping on track is by bringing my lunch. Sounds simpler than it is, I’m afraid, especially given how busy and tired I usually am in the evenings. However, creativity prevailed, and I decided to slice and stir fry the zucchini… until I realized I was already frying fish. I quickly changed course when I discovered some frozen peas, and rather than try to thaw and risk overcooking them, I threw them (ice crystals included) into a saucepan with my salted zucchini. Although I had to periodically remove excess liquid, the result was a pot of crisply-steamed green vegetables. I threw some fusilli into boiling water, and my own version of pasta primavera was done in 15 minutes.
Dinner is served!
In a salad bowl, I added the lettuce and avocado, tossing it with the rest of the lemon juice, s&p, and a dash of Croatian olive oil. All of this took about 20 minutes between prep to table. That, combined with the lovely green palette, made this a very satisfying, light, and healthy meal that did not keep me up at night.