Just want to mention that Tracks, a raw bar & grill on the 7th Ave. side of the LIRR level in Penn Station, is remarkably good. Plump, fresh oysters, good draft beer to accomany, super clam chowder. The onion rings are hand cut and fresh. Not quite a destination restaurant, but a good excuse to miss your train.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a weekday lunch within walking distance of the Brooklyn Museum?
The important thing is to grate it on the spot. I have a Mouli grater that was my grandmother's, but that doesn't matter--you can get a new one that's exactly the same, and any such device will make the difference between pre- and freshly grated.
Keep in mind that it's actually very hard to poison yourself. Short of that, everything else is a learning experience to some extent, and a minor or major success to some other extent. Keep track of your experiments. And don't overspend--if you have to choose between ingredients and implements, cook good food in a crummy pot. My favorite knife, bought 35 years ago at Cretin Barrel, is a no-name, ugly piece of steel but it takes a good edge and I know everything I can do with it.
Cabot cheddar--real cheese that need apologize to no one, yet a bargain at Costco
Try to catch a concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music--interesting work, well performed, far less expensive than Manhattan. Before or after, walk across Lafayette Ave. and eat soulful Austrian food at Thomas Beisl.
Look into any of the Asian cuisines that don't rely on ovens in private homes--Chinese, Japanese, Indian. Try a rice cooker (you can do a biryani, a totally impressive company dish), or a crock pot for stews, chili, soups. We have a really dodgy range (at some point, I'll post a question about replacing it), and each of those devices has saved us many times.
I bought a 10" knife in 1972--I think it's made by "Ontario," which I don't think is much of a brand at all. It wasn't expensive, but it takes a hell of an edge. I can cut a thin sliver of lemon rind for a martini, and then use it to crack the breast bone of a turkey.
The important point in our household is to decorate it. It's not meatloaf if it's not Monster Meatloaf. Button mushroom eyes, celery stalk horns, six carrot stick legs, cherry tomato snout, in endless variations. Initially, it was meant to be child-attractive, of course, but the kids are in their twenties now and we're still doing it. Which leads me to another question: does anyone (else) take pictures of food?
My father's wife, working from a magazine recipe, became overwrought and inconsolable when the particular canned white beans specified were unavailable and she was forced--forced mind you--to substitute a different canned white bean. Aw, for pete's sake. The episode has now entered family lore, recalled any time we substitute ingredients without resultant poisoning or explosion.
Like "hundredthings," it was Korean--my encounter was a soup that included a lot of loose blood sausage, or maybe just clots of cooked blood. Some people like it, obviously, but to me it tastes like, well, a bad nosebleed. I ate some of it, just to ingrain it into my memory in case I might ever think to order it again (I did the same thing when I tried durian). But mostly I ate around the stuff, and the rest of the soup was pretty good. I certainly didn't put me off Korean food in general.
popcorn--my wife loves it, will eat it for an entire meal when I'm not around, but I can't stand it. This seems odd to me, because I enjoy almost everything, including most of what people have listed so far.
I too missed this, and it's fun!
When I was in fourth grade I was seated at lunch where there was a sort of protrusion in the cafeteria wall just behind me. Other kids had to squeeze by to get to their seats. I made some wild gesture, hit a tray passing behind my head and ended up wearing a bowl of tomato soup just like a hat.
"Tomato head" in the yearbook eight years later -- guess who?
I doubt I can come even close to the cleavage [silver]wear... but here's my worst food moment:
For several weeks last year I attended class with my daughter.
One morning just before school the girl was putting the milk back in but pushed out the Palek Paneer (spinach & Indian cheese) leftovers. I had tried this one shelf stable brand but it was icky. I'd put it in the fridge because that's where things go to rot; at which time I can feel okay about tossing them but, until then I try to convince myself I'll be eating it soon. So, with the child's help there was green stuff everywhere including all up and down her legs just before we needed to leave and we were already running late. But really, we had to clean it up, and we did, but what a comedy of errors. I pulled the garbage out so it would be right next to her and after I did that she went over and dropped things under the sink not realizing the garbage was no longer there. In the car I told her she'd done me a favor because I hated that spinach. Will I ever stop blowing her mind away?
For lunch while she was in math class, I ran down to our store that has a great organic deli section with fresh hot food that changes seasonally, each day's selections even depending on what the farmers bring in that morning. It was a special delight to find out what veggies they were having everyday. Apparently that day though there was a bounty of mushrooms as everything had them in it so there was nothing I wanted.
Anyway, no hot veggies for me so I put together a salad, putting some bleu cheese dressing in a little plastic container. Then I went to the check out lines because the one by the food was backed up. I managed to get behind some lady apparently confusing the store for the bank because she wanted something like $25 in ones and a roll of quarters but handed them $40 which the checkout girl couldn't conceive that meant $5 left over so she was short-circuiting. I was about to move to the next line but someone scooped it before I could so I was freaking a bit on the time left to get back before 4th period ended.
Finally, my turn and I stepped forward. That's when the dressing container flung itself out of my hand over to the next checkout I had wanted to jump to, up against this lady's shoes where it exploded and went all up and down her legs and shoes. In slow motion no less. It doesn't look like much when it's in one of those little containers but when it's on a person it seems like so much more. I'm just grateful she was wearing a skirt rather than pants because I would have destroyed those. It was awful. I'm still horrified.
She was really nice about it but it's not like I could help her get clean; that would have been completely creepy. She said, "It's not like things such as this happen everyday." at which point I told her about the spinach not 4 hours hours earlier.
Thanks for reviving the thread. I'd missed it earlier and this gave me a bunch of giggles. Great stories. :)
We were in Beaune, France, when my moment occurred. It was in 1988 and my first trip to France. The restaurant in our hotel (Hotel de la cloche) was very famous so we had dinner there one night. It was the off season and only one other couple was in the place, so it was very quiet. Nate and I were conscious of the fact that we needed to add to the quiet, so we spoke in whispers. That's the back story. I decided to order les escargots because they were traditional to the region and I'd never had them. The waiter handed me a device that looked like an eyelash curler. I had no idea what it was for but took a guess that maybe it was meant for holding the snail. I picked it up, closed it around the shell, and then the device snapped out of my hands, clattered across two tables and finally fell on the floor. I would gladly have climbed into one of those shells if I could have. The other couple looked up at me and the man said..."It is a different way of life, is it not?" We all laughed....and then gabbed away for the rest of our dinners. PS, no harm was done to those snails...the waiter brought some pate for me, something I could handle!
8 yrs old. I was in charge of the mashed potatoes for the Sunday dinner. Company coming -- had to make it good. My first ever anything in the kitchen. I used 1 CUP of salt rather than 1 tsp. HORRID. 30 years ago and my family STILL won't let me bring potatoes to dinner.
I used to work at a coffee shop.
Our milk came in normal 1 gallon plastic jugs and we had a trick for conserving space in the trash can when we threw away the empty jugs... we'd steam it and then stomp it (the heat would make it easier to compact them).
So one night I was steaming and stomping a bunch of jugs and for some reason, my co-worker put the cap back on a steamed-but-not-yet-stomped jug. I didn't realize it so I put the jug on the floor and jumped REALLY hard on the jug.
It was like a gun went off in the cafe! The cap flew about 30 feet and hit one of our customers. Luckily it didn't hurt him but boy did I feel like an ass.
thought it was time to revive this thead; another one got me thinking how young I started cooking unsupervised...
I started wearing glasses in 6th grade, but was never happy how I looked in them. It wasn't until high school that I wore them at home, I figured I already knew where everything in the house was. So this was sometime between then.
I had made a chicken stir fry for my parents, and they commented on the fresh lemon seasoning I had used. I didn't think about the fact that I hadn't put any kind of citrus in until my dad's tongue started to go numb, followed by mine and my mother's. I had grabbed the Lemon Pine-Sol instead of the Mazola oil - in a certain size they come in the same bottle! We called poison control and he assured us that a few tablespoons between the 3 of us didn't warrant medical attention and made a point to tell me to always cook with my glasses on from now on.
I always did after that! Just after I met my husband, though, I brushed my teeth with antibiotic cream, so he got me LASIK for my 30th birthday this year. It's safe to eat at my house again!!!
You are right.I love it too.
I will suggest to visit www.fuboon.com for all canned foods show.I sometimes go and get some idea from it.
They are totally different cheeses, both awesome. I keep blocks of both in my fridge, which brings me to your second point: If you are somehow feeling guilty about no longer buying pre-grated pecorino, buy it in a block and grate it yourself. That's what I do.
Generally, I prefer shaved (not grated) parm. But, it also depends on the dish. Also, I like to save the rind for soups and stews.
I actually have a wall at work where we put our favorite fortune cookies...
"Come back later, I'm sleeping (yes, fortune cookies need their sleep too)"
"A crab wonton a day keeps the doctor away" - we have two of those
"42.7 percent of all statics are made up on the spot"
and my personal favorite: "Never smell the inside of a hat"
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