Chefs/cookbook authors. Hoping to start a cooking program with ex-offenders. Wish we had a yard and a grill.
we do it sometimes and as far as I can tell it's just meant as a different method to cook proteins (i'm not convinced on the veg side). And then make whatever you want.
they both suck.
wow. I can only assume this is for health reasons.
Bring wine. Big time appreciated at these things.
u gotta ask. $15 while steep isn't unheard of for a mice place. At least it isn't the $25 Per Se scammed me out of at the bar a few years ago.
i like her defense that she's always always been about moderation. Of lard.
I can't believe your office squeezed juice didn't get a 10 out of 10. If you like grapefruit juice...
giant bowl of hot soup.
Agree. sometimes long-cooking doesn't mean better. Check out Scott Conant's video (it's somewhere) on his tomato sauce. Pretty quick and simple. Also, Italian food is (mostly) about quick merging of great ingredients and simplicity, which is why I love that whole Roman antipasti thing.
agree with Jerzee. don't return. I haven't come across too many irritating policies, but it's more a bunch of trends such as the small plate thing, which is a transparent way to jack up the bill.
Also, restaurants that don't take reservations drive me nuts, especially when it's like freezing and I don't want to wait around.
yeah sounds terrible
ahh-u TOO! drinkin a beer now. Tom maybe wine. Or something stronger depending on the level of family chaos. Like warm gin
wow. not making anything. except xmas dinner.
dunno i have a mandatory family visit there and suffer through every moment.
eat the bbq
I assume the meth lab was a Breaking Bad reference in which case Walt claims it's the best cup he's ever had, and I trust Walt with my life. Or meth.
I'm always surprised about mayo hatred. Which means no chicken salad, a favorite.
yeesh-right in front of the house-that's tough
jeez did you have to write this? I love fish tacos and I'm stuck in NYC. They look sooo good.
Supper!
Cotan is awesome sushi-it's on 9th
Hasaki is also great-around there
yeah second it-could you keep posting cuz its entertaining
totally agree-carb on carb on carb. While you're at it why not have a baked potato stuffed with pasta
@dbcurrie right on! Since we're writing in list form these days, here's
#5: save up for a year and go to Sushi Yasuda.
Ever wake up and realize you missed a food season? I missed apple season this year except for the one time I bought a few excellent ones at the greenmarket in oh about Oct.
Yesterday the smell of hot cider wafted up to 17th st, luring me down to Union Sq. where I munched a donut and cider. Grabbed a few apples which of course suck by now-they're selling the dregs.
Anyway, missed apple season.
totally inspired by @tkturney's slim jim comment: it seems SE and misc. gourmet stuff has diminished or affected slim jim love.
Got me thinking. My theory is (and this applies to a lot of things), the more you know the more you shed your past.
What foods from your past has your increased knowledge of cooking/eating ruined or diminished? For me, slim jim's is a great example.
I ordered a vodka on the rocks and got a weird look. With the whole culture of mixology and fancy $20 cocktails it seems no one ever drinks, say, a "scotch on the rocks". Instead, it's "scotch with bitters and paprika with a splash of fruit from an exotic tree".
Anyone here drink straight anymore. What the hell happened to that? Is it just that everything's getting fancy? Too much advertising?
Inspired by the Burger a Day post on Miru 8691 burger in LA. The guy showed class in responding to the mostly negative review, welcoming the criticism. Whether or not it's an accurate assessment is beside the point-it's more how you react.
When you open a restaurant or write a book etc. you invite the possibility of verbal reaming. The other side of the coin is public appreciation, which makes it all worthwhile. You could either return fire or regroup and improve.
Even at home, it's no fun to hear people ream your food. Does this happen, and how do you react?
Part 2 of parents cooking day.
Partly inspired by @lilmynx13. My mom (dad burns toast) can't cook, but the tragedy is she thinks she can, ergo hundreds of recipe cards annotated with her "tweaking" and "creative input". Which is how the cumin and sesame oil spiked lasagna comes into the picture.
In addition, she's a technical nightmare. Heat is king. Vegetables are roasted to a burnt sad death. Is this typical or cliche? Stories? And is it better to realize you suck or suck and think you're good?
It's nearing the holidays and my parents still have a crappy kitchen. Let me rephrase: it's actually pretty nice - big gas stove etc. It's the nature of aging I guess.
But it's just totally outdated. Their knives are duller than my 3-year-old's; the spices are decades old; the pots are that really thin metal. In general, crummy.
A) do your parents have good kitchens? if not what would get to improve?
B) what should I get them
Here's one for the modern age.
I was in a gourmet-ish store a few weeks back and a guy was nailed for attempting to shoplift saffron.
I mean they ran him down on the street.
I wonder if this is common-caviar thieves.
Usually I'm pretty cynical about hyped places, but I went yesterday to Dominque Anselm's bakery on Spring and Sullivan and got, yes, the koiuan annan (sp?) which was promoted in the NYT. It's damn good, as is the rest of the stuff. The hot chocolate, however, was not as great as payard's on Houston:
1. Kouian Annan at Dominique Anselm's
2. Payard hot chocolate
3. The lasagna recipe from Rubirosa in the latest Saveur kicks ass.
(sorry, did this repeat?)
anyway, my sister-in-law drinks 2 six packs of diet coke per day (I've witnessed it-starts as a 6:30 AM brkfst drink)
doing the math, that's
84/wk
336/month
4032/yr
On a scale of 1-10, (10 being crazy) taking into acct the US/world population, is that more than, say, an 8? How much aspartame u think she's got running around in there?
Because we live nearby and there aren't a ton of good restaurants I welcome Kutsher's. On the other hand, Chodorow has a crummy rep and is a businessman-not a food guy-who landed in the restaurant biz (see obsession with niche joints).
The menu looks pretty good, but tough nabe for places. And how many times are you gonna crave upscale deli food.
Outlook? I give it between 12 and 18 months.
Thoughts?
This thought inspired by @JoeBatch and my watching the AT Kitchen turkey show the other day. Maybe just a form of self-torture.
They talked about their gazillion turkey cooking tests including spreading ice on the breast, which (not surprisingly) didn't work.
Their shtick is getting (got a long time ago) old: a million absurd tests to assert conquering perfection. What an irritating gimmick Plus it's a form of culinary "constipation" as Albert Roux says: obsessive recipe adherence.
Thoughts?
In announcing the new Dining In editor, the Times noted thxgiving being the "Super Bowl" of issues.
Is thxgiving really the food Super Bowl of the year? I agree in the sense that it's entirely food-centric i.e. no one really "celebrates" anything and is distracted by another purpose. (though we should be)
On the other hand, it's a pretty uninteresting food day. Year after year we make the same stuff, and since to cook is partially to create, it fails on that score.
Thxgiving: definitely food. Less so culinary.
Thoughts?
why in hell aren't my basil plants growing?
I know I know. I'm sure this has been taken up a million times on SE. But I've been cooking from this one book for a month now and it only just dawned on me, it's that varied and interesting and generally great.
You know how when you see a great movie or read a great book you have to shout from on high?
Get it: Thompson's Thai Food.
That's my good duty for the night.
Been into coking Thai recently and got most of the stuff-live near a Thai grocery (like fresh turmeric).
Keller's French L. book, though, has a recipe with fresh hearts of palm. No way in hell am I gonna order that.
Think of other ridiculously rare called-for ingredients? Is it just obnoxious for these guys to stick them in? I make an exception for ethnic recipes for some reason. I figure it's obvious they cook with unusual foods. But otherwise, give me a break.
I know I know. Anyone who's seen Blazing Saddles knows the true explosive consequences.
I love lentils and beans and all that, but I've cut them out. My stomach wreaks vengeance on me for days, and it's not worth it.
what the hell?
At the risk of offending-though I think it's pretty tame-by accident I bought a gluten free loaf the other day, and it was really odd tasting.
It had a kind of gluey texture studded with bits of what resembled tiny, just undercooked rice.
As vegetables are probably my favorite things on earth, I'd imagine creative gluten free can be great. However, as I would had I needed to skirt cheese or other foods, I'd probably steer clear of faux products.
Inappropriate? Can you make decent stuff w/ mock ingredients.
It's one of the great at-home dishes-cheap and foolproof. However, some recipes are better than others. Tyler Florence's, while okay, is typically oversimplified and unfaithful to the real deal.
DedeMed, whose site is great, has a much better version. http://www.dedemed.com/
You ever make it? By the way, inspired by SE's (great but non-veg) sandwich list, it's an obvious bedrock recipe for the veg, or meat-oversaturated crowd.
Went to Hasaki sushi in East Village last week and had literally the bet dish I've had probably all year.
It was a cold app called, on the menu, "boiled spinach with dash".
Not thrilling sounding, right?
Go there and get it. They lay out the leaves and roll them in nori along with a neat stack of crunchy perfectly blanched spinach (cress?) stems in a pool of dash laced with bonito flakes. WOW.
Who woulda thunk? What's the best (unexpected) dish you can remember?
Here's a peeve: If you post a recipe, acknowledge the source. Recipe copying w/out citation isn't considered plagiarism, but it is, in my book, lame.
To wit (and not at all to self-promote) we posted Thomas Keller's salmon tartare cones. http://bit.ly/nQIXqD
If you post on those and pretend you didn't get em from the French Laundry book...well, you know who you are. And it's not even my recipe!
is this justified irritation?
Maybe it's the weather. Everything's driving me nuts.
This time it's poached eggs. I love a poached egg as much as the next guy, but for some reason every chef and recipe writer in town feels the need to plop it on top of food from salads to pasta etc.
It can add a lot of delicious richness but often it just makes the thing taste like, well, an egg. It's also cheating. Think up a vinaigrette or something less heavy and more interesting that might do the trick.
Thoughts?
Totally not a green thumb, especially living in NYC with a minimal sill, but just ordered seeds for holy basil and Thai Chilies. Will see how it goes.
You guys (esp those indoors) ever grow your own spices and so forth?
Last time we did it we were put off by the aphids swarming our basil plants
If you saw the NYT today, they had a giant piece on tiny cupcakes (pun intended). What a cool new trend went the tone of the piece: funky shapes and colors in cute little bites.
Unfortunately (and they barely touched on it), it's damn hard to make a teeny tiny (as my kid would say) dessert taste good.
True to form, the super tiny cupcakes featured are sold around the corner from us, and our 3-year-old terms it "the bad cupcake place". The flavors are really weird and the cake is really dry.
Sorry, when I see something that REALLY irks me, I can't help myself. Don't get me started on this NYPD thing...
Okay. Never been. But I would be interested in the kitchen and what goes on back there. I knew someone who worked in Red Lobster and said it was basically a matter of back up the truck into the microwave.
anyone out there who's worked in OG?
I've actually never been on a cruise but would be interested to hear about the food from those who have. I drive or bike past the ships on the Hudson all the time and can't even fathom how much food they must stock and the sheer size of the kitchens.
Must wipe out a few farms.
A perfect winter side dish: warm cream fragrant with thyme and nutmeg. Offset by tangy pickled cucumbers.... More
Try not to eat these blini hot as they come out of the pan. A twist on the classic blini and caviar, they make a great canape.... More
Great ingredients make this sub: Serrano, manchego, and grated tomato. Enjoy.... More
This is a good, universal dilemma. It's tough right at the cusp of a new season. Maybe you should shift from the reheating focus; nothing wrong with cold/room temp food.
1. Do you ever do sandwiches? They may or may not get soggy, but you can always assemble last minute. I'd give you ideas if you'd like.