Alex Van Buren

radio free brooklyn

2010-01-27T17:30:00Z

Christian Slater in Pump up the Volume

There are a few ferociously smart women in food writing, and I was lucky enough to have a kaffeeklatsch with two of them on the airwaves recently. Along with Rebecca Flint Marx (a blogger for the Village Voice site Fork in the Road) and Edible Manhattan deputy editor Rachel Wharton (an indie rock foodie who knew the right Weezer song to play during the first episode's battle about The City Vegetarian), and emboldened by a pitcher of Captain Lawrence beer, we went a little nuts talking about dieting. You can listen, and judge us, today at 5pm--or play it later.

It's a topic I feel strongly about. One of the reasons I found co-writing this book so interesting was because I am not, necessarily, a "healthy" person. Like many food nerds, I don't count calories and I love sugar, butter, beer and pork. My co-author's position on dieting was liberal enough--he sees room for meat and fat in moderation--to make me comfortable working with him, and the book taught me a number of things: Now I add agave to my coffee instead of sugar, and try (emphasis on "try") to incorporate more dark greens into my diet. Most importantly, I learned of the mood-saving properties of vitamin D-3 during the crazy-long northeast winter. But I have my own theories on when moderation is appropriate, and when it is not, and we three women had a lot to say about weight, food and gender, so give us a listen.

Also, though I try to keep up this site with weekly accounts of my to-ings and fro-ings (or recent articles), I have been off my game a bit. I've been busy writing about Cookie Takedowns here, writing tiny restaurant briefs there, and writing commercial copy for a swell specialty food company. Oh, and I've been editing a cookbook for these great folks! It's been a blast. More to come about that, a small nonprofit I'm starting, and all sorts of tasty tidbits in the coming months.

iris: a gorgeous café arrives in brooklyn

2010-01-13T16:25:00Z

I'm a bit ashamed that I absorbed myself so thoroughly in food news and the discovery of a great new café yesterday that I nearly missed an entire, awful crisis unfolding to our south. (If you want to donate, go here and be sure to earmark your money for Haiti).

And it's sobering. I could go on and on about how even though we New Yorkers are supposedly the unhappiest people in the country we live in the lap of luxury and should be grateful every day, but y'all know that stuff, and this is not that sort of blog. This is a food blog, and it's my job to alert you -- against my better judgment -- to the birth of the best café in Brooklyn. I'm not even posting the prettiest photos, which is how torn I am about reporting on it. This is the view from the window of Iris Café, and it is where I will be spending all my money this spring if the rest of the neighborhood doesn't take it over.

What's it got? Oh, you know. Stumptown coffee. Sunshine. Stamped silvery tin ceilings. Mottled brick walls. Caputo salami sandwiches. An indie rock soundtrack punctuated with Caetano Veloso and Simon & Garfunkel -- so much the songs of my life that I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up at one point.

Sure, the gauzy mosquito netting curtains by the windows are quaint to the point of fey, tied with off-white yarn. Sure, that red holly in a rustic wooden bucket in the window nook is so cute it's absurd. This is Brooklyn exercising its now-notorious sleight of hand: Brooklyn Charm. The food is "as local as possible," a staffer tells me. A hard-boiled Featheridge farm egg set me back $.75. The milk swirled into your coffee hails from Battenkill Creamery (and you can buy eggs and milk to-go). House-made pastries -- like a sultry sticky bun and the best biscuit I've had in New York, spiked with fat sticks of Surryano ham and feathery melted cheddar -- are so plush you will swoon.

And the customers of both genders are gorgeous, excepting myself. (My hair is doing something weird these days: It is in Crazy Art Teacher Mode. I'm working on it). Anyways, I do believe in these tiny luxuries, and am posting about this place so it doesn't go out of business. Because that would make me crazy.

Speaking of crazy, my food writer buddies Pervaiz Shallwani and Rebecca Marx will be joining yours truly and the brilliant Rachel Wharton for Brooklyn Eats, the Edible Brooklyn radio show hosted by Heritage. We'll be on the air at 5pm debating the putative death of vegetarianism. Give us a shout!

bonus t.j. photo

2009-12-23T17:00:00Z

Everybody has a tender side.

Because it's the holidays, and because as of 2010 I'll have lived in this crazy town for a full decade and this realization has put me in a good mood, here's an el sensitivo shot of my friend Eric (aka "faux Joe"). He is not remotely affiliated with Trader Joe's. He just happens to own a glorious assortment of tropical shirts and award-winning facial hair.

His visage and those carnations are my little gift to the internet. Happy holidays.

smut, new england style

2009-12-22T17:00:00Z

A very unhappy woman somewhere in New England. At least she has those donuts.

Let's discuss for a moment this presumption people have about New Englanders.

Yes, we grew up where it was cold, but we do not all "love" winter, as we are often told we should. My family knew nothing about outdoorsy clothing. We did not ski. REI was not part of our reality. To "winterize" your children was to double-bag their sock-clad feet in plastic before pulling on their rubber boots. This mad science produced the effect that the snow caked at the top of the boots where they met the rubber bags, producing a delightful ring-of-ice-around-shin effect. While my brother happily constructed snow forts, I would press my nose to the window and watch mom working at her desk by the fire after tossing us out. In her defense, we were maniacs as kids, but all I wanted was to join her. Drinking cocoa. Reading Jane Eyre. Maybe nursing a pipe, like Thoreau.

I had an argument with a Massachusetts-born gentleman recently. He is under the mistaken impression that long, cold New England winters hardened our characters "in a way that well prepares us for the real world." I dispute this. I am not well-prepared for the real world in general and winter in particular. Every year it swings around, and even in my 30s I greet it with a “Seriously? Again?”

Which is why I nearly clonked my head on the glass of my bodega's beer section last night upon spying this sprightly young thing clutching her gloveless hands close to her body in the midst of a blizzard. When I read the copy on the Smuttynose Winter Ale six-pack, I shook with rage.

Here’s to winter in New England: short days & long, cold nights; scratchy wool mufflers & soggy, wet boots; getting up early to dig your car out from under two feet of heavy, damp snow. Why do we do it? Hell, what else can we do? After all, the summer fun is over & the autumn leaves have fallen, winter draws out the best in our character & makes us long for something really strong & tasty to drink.

Your honor. First: "What else can we do?" A: Move South. Second: "Winter draws out the best in our character. A: O RLY? What New Englander have you met of whom this is true? The one shoveling out her car and cursing at 6am before her commute to Boston? The small child quaking in a 3-foot snowdrift? Find me a New Englander whose character is "best" this time of year and I will eat my fuzzy winter hat.

And let’s talk about this lass. Her car is buried in snow. The trees are covered. She has no mittens. Her sibling or husband has forced her to stand in the cold holding what look like to be delicious donuts or maybe pies but let's not get distracted here. “Hold still for the photo! Smile!"

The beer? Of course I had to buy one. I'm not a huge Smuttynose fan, and this brew did not change that fact. It's aiming to be a spicier version of Newcastle Brown, somewhere in the neighborhood of a Belgian dubbel. It’s a fairly innocuous brown ale, with a slight maltiness and a touch of cloves right at the end. There's zero hoppiness (and I'll admit to a bias towards hoppy ales), but at least the Smuttynose is way less “jazz hands” than its Harpoon counterpart, which has so much going on it is like sipping a potpourri shop.

But seriously. This poor woman. No gloves. And now I want donuts. The other day I was walking through the New Jersey PATH terminal, spied a Dunkin' Donuts, completely forgot where I was and zombied over in its direction. Do not wear neon-pink or orange gloves around me. I’d either bite your hand or try to dunk it in some coffee. Some things, they stay with you.

top 6 reasons trader joe would make a horrible boyfriend

2009-12-17T18:30:00Z

Don't come at me with that Mega Bunch and bag of avocados, "T.J."

6. He's inconsistent. His saag paneer? Terrible. Chicken sausages? Gross. Organic dip chips? Terrific. But you never know what to expect from the Trader, which is like showing up to your local one night to find your boyfriend beaming at you from the bar with a dozen roses ... and the next to find him sobbing on the shoulder of a hooker.  

5. He's pushy. You know how sometimes on a date you throw out your best impressive bit of trivia, like, "I loved Barbara Stanwyck in 'Ball of Fire'!" and he comes back with, "Are you familiar with the rest of her early 1940s oeuvre?" The answer is no. I just threw out my one bit of awesomeness, you jackass. Checkout Joes do the same thing: They peer at your box of Flax Plus Multigrain cereal under the fluorescent lights and say, "Wow, good choice, I love this! Have you tried our enchiladas?" A staffer reveals that this sort of small talk is "encouraged," not "enforced." Still. Bite me, Joe.

4. He's schizoid. Joe? José? Giotto? Ming? Seriously? Choose who you want to be in this world, man. It is a hard world, and you can't be everyone at once. You are like that ex pairing his pearlescent button cowboy shirt (yes!) with brown leather pants (huh?) and a silver-studded black punk belt (what?!).

  3. He's cheap.   

2. He overdoes it. Sometimes, man, I don't want the whole bag of unripe avocados, not like that. Don't tell me about your ex-fiancée or your mom issues on the first date. Sell me a single goddamn avocado.  

1. He is horrible perky in the morning. When I wake up, I want coffee until the lights come on in my brain, and that is it. This is the bounce-out-of-bed guy, the "what borough are we traveling to in the next ten minutes?" guy. We hate him.   

One morning I was standing in TJ's at 8am with a $3.99 12-pack of toilet paper clutched to my chest. My bangs were on sideways and the rings under my eyes would have made a panda's look tame. And lo was I not snapped to attention by a front-of-the-line-Joe who shouted, "HOW'S YOUR MORNING GOING, MA'AM?" and when I moused, "Fine," followed with, "ARE YOU OK?"

"Yup, just haven't had my coffee yet."   He beamed. A solution! "WE HAVE FREE COFFEE RIGHT OVER THERE IF YOU WANT TO GO GET SOME." Yes, because I am going to leave the line I have been standing in for 10 minutes to go back and get an ounce of your bad coffee in a tiny paper cup when I have Stumptown at home.

 Please, Joe, please. Your tropical shirt looks great today. Someone is raising a flag in the air.

going for the gold

2009-12-15T19:00:00Z

(c) Bailey Doesn't Bark

I have been working like a madwoman, thus the silence on this site, but promise you something entertaining for Thursday afternoon.

Meantime, that materialistic side I always claim I don't have? Yeah, it's still there. It came roaring back with a vengeance when I spied this Griffin & Sabine-esque mug & plate duo from Bailey Doesn't Bark (via the Times). I feel that if I was able to have my morning coffee in this baby, every day would have that sort of shimmer.

panna cotta for the people

2009-12-04T19:49:00Z

Photo by the talented Ms. Jennifer Causey

So the lovely folks at Design*Sponge contacted me recently about sharing a recipe for a dish I love. I chose this mint panna cotta with strawberries balsamico, adapted from Mario Batali and Epicurious. It's easy, it's dead sexy, and it will impress the bejesus out of your friends. The full photo shoot is here, and my Shun santoku blade looks awesome in it. Thanks to Jenene Chesbrough for also taking a patently ridiculous photo of yours truly.

katie lee joel: deviled egg diva

2009-12-02T21:30:00Z

"Mad Men" may have wrapped for the season, but 60s fashion and retro cuisine are going nowhere fast. My friends have been throwing big-eyeliner-wearing, casserole-eating parties to watch the show, and I hope that the era's adorable dresses and rad suits stick around for a while.

If you're not current on your granma's cuisine, Katie Lee Joel can give you a hand. I interviewed her for the December issue of InStyle (page 390) about how to throw an awesome 60s holiday party, and can attest that her deviled eggs are among the best I've ever eaten. So pick up a copy (the story includes recipes!) when you have a chance; turns out Katie Lee believes in yard sales, Don Draper crushes and champagne cocktails -- a gal after my own heart.

the red shoes: a (sugar) cubist perspective

2009-11-14T15:52:00Z

Anton Walbrook as Boris Lermontov in The Red Shoes.

Do you remember your first encounter with sugar cubes, as a kid? They were magic, right? Perfectly square and glowing white, they could be stacked like Legos or popped on the tongue, one at a time, until the corners fuzzed and they broke.

In our house, sugar was nearly verboten. We'd go to friends' homes, pull open their cabinets and gaze adoringly at bags of Oreos, like sweet-toothed, big-eyed basset hounds. So I remember quite clearly when my elder sister had to make an Egyptian pyramid. Out of sugar cubes. For class. This struck me as a project very much in need of a supervisor. I gallantly took upon the role of producer, assistant director and grip. Anyplace that pyramid was, I was, delivering structural advice and stealing as many cubes as would fit into my little pockets.

You forget about sugar cubes as an adult until you see them in some Euro-style café, and it's so lovely when you do. (These days I use agave for my coffee since it doesn't make my blood sugar go racing, which I learned while working on this book). But I miss the luxury of them, which is why I so appreciated an early scene in "The Red Shoes," currently playing at Film Forum in New York. It's a gorgeous movie -- ostensibly about ballet, but really about obsession -- with enough color, punch and chutzpah to make Fellini blush. Film critics are calling the new Technicolor print "sumptuous," "delirious" and "life-changing." For critics, they're not mincing words. Though I'm a purely amateur filmgoer, I was for the first time in my life that obnoxious theatergoer who said, "Wow," aloud, at a poppingly blue dress.

One of my favorite scenes was, naturally, centered around food. We've just met the French ballet director, Lermontov. We know he's a snob and that he's a man of few words, but we don't know much more. Then we witness him calmly interviewing -- in his dressing gown, natch -- a tremulous undergraduate music student over his Continental breakfast.

Lermontov has his cup of black coffee in one hand, a solitary sugar cube in the other. While speaking to the student, maintaining eye contact all the while, he dips the corner of the cube into the coffee. We see it change color, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. It doesn't burst. He delivers his final line, the student walks out, and he pops the soaked cube in his mouth, finally taking a sip of coffee. It is the height of audacity that he thought the cube would not crumble without his permission -- and the best bit of foreshadowing I've seen in a long time.

The flick ends on November 19th. If you're local, go see it before it does.

the eminently edible city bakery

2009-11-06T21:17:00Z

City Bakery. Photo by Michael Harlan Turkell.

Keep an eye out for the new Edible Manhattan, which always makes for good subway reading, en route to happy hours and rock shows this weekend. Look for the one with marshmallows on its cover and try not to run over to City Bakery for its famous hot chocolate immediately after reading the profile penned by yours truly and editor Gabrielle Langholtz.

It's a neat piece in part because Rubin is an interesting character, and partly because it's a rare style collaboration between two pretty different journalists. Gabrielle layered her snap-crackle pop-punk voice on to the chill, lyrical motif I've been trying on for size lately, and I think it works. It's like getting a makeover at Macy's -- different, but somehow awesome: "Gold eyeshadow! Who knew?"

If cocoa-n-marshmallows does not provide enough of a comfort food fix as the mercury drops, Jimmy's No. 43, the dimly-lit gastropub in the East Village, has a steal of a sandwich right now. It's a super-tender beef brisket sandwich braised in stout and served on hearty French bread, for $9. It's like a glammed up version of pulled pork (from a totally different animal). Good times. The menu changes constantly, so call first to make sure it's there (it is tonight)! Jimmy very kindly let my party of three hang out, drink beer and pore over our, um, Catullus translations last night before busting out some Latin of his own, earning him this nerd's stamp of approval.

holy mole salami

2009-10-28T15:30:00Z

Turns out that that Anthony Bourdain fella was pretty crafty in putting Salumi - a Seattle charcuterie shop - in his "Top 13 Places to Eat Before You Die" list. At top left is their punchy, aromatic finocchiona, spiked with fennel and black pepper. At bottom left is the mole salami. The latter is fierce: chocolate, cinnamon and two different kinds of smoky pepper - in a salami.

Ahem. My favorite Mexican dish, mole poblano, thrown into a salami. I hate myself for loving you, mole salami.

We made a mean chef's salad with the two of these, some hard-boiled eggs, butter lettuce, and a mustard-based balsamic vinaigrette. (I take my vegetables the way my dog Queenie used to take her pills -- wrapped in cold cuts.) The shot above was taken at 4pm in Portland, Oregon, with two friends and a bottle of red in tow. Because that's how they roll there.

So yeah, hie thee to Salumi, because it's the sort of place where, no joke, you can cruise in 5 minutes past close and instead of giving you the boot when you moan "but I'm flying back to New York Cityyy" they hand you a free charcuterie sampler. Seriously. I was not going to end with "this would not happen in New York" but oh look I just did.

coppa, comics and compliments in seattle

2009-10-22T00:57:00Z

Pigeons plump equally spaced across a roof, as though queueing for a bus. The train edges slowly through industrial outer Seattle. Car after dead car is lumped on the side of the tracks.

Jose Gonzalez sings "Heartbeats" as tree after tree flashes by. I feel like I'm in the opening sequence of a film intended for my demographic -- probably directed by Spike Jonze or Sofia Coppola. A football field spills suddenly to my right, a wet splash of color and pride amidst the grays and greens. A teen in a black t-shirt with a black cap stretched low and smurflike across his brow slumps into his seat. He stares listlessly out the window. Life is hard. Not a lick of acne, unlike myself at the same age. He'll do well in high school.

This afternoon I ate at a café called Macrina. The lemon pie was openfaced, so plush with lemon curd it was more of an overweight tart -- trembling and golden, with a curlicue of frosting lacing its top and a drift of white chocolate curls. The crust had heft, a buttery heft. (As will I, by the end of this trip.) The Postal Service song "Such Great Heights" came on, and only Seattle and a fat cup of joe and a tumble of raw sugar cubes could make that work for me today. Then there was the bacon quiche -- was that bechamel inside? My god. My hands shook a little as I paged through Saveur and pictured my arteries clogging. I'd eaten a slice of coppa at Salumi the day before, thin and slick and so delicate, like guanciale. I stuffed two pounds of cured meat -- mole salami and finocchiona -- into my bag as housewarming presents. Who knows if they'll be good. But it feels pretty badass to lug them from state to state.

Seattle and Portland are good places to wipe the mental slate clean. The mist, it works. The people, their gentleness and passivity, they work. The woman at the train station saw my New York State license and welcomed me to town. Last night I walked through the city in the rain, with a new haircut sitting awkwardly, feeling like a stranger to myself. A disheveled man stepped in front of me. "Do you have 42 cents?" Me: "No, I'm sorry." Him, emphatically: "I don't care, I love you." I laughed aloud. It reminded me of home.

This kid across from me is listening to his Metallica but I can tell by the baleful look in his eyes that he knows I have this song on repeat, and that this is unnacceptable and besides it is extremely three years ago. I can live with that.

Last night a friend told me about growing up in Alaska and two buddies whose parents let them choose their own middle names when they were six years old. The result? Robert Batman Bernstein. His friend chose Spiderman. They still use them on their Facebook profiles. This is the best thing I've heard in ages.

on stopping to pick the apples

2009-10-10T16:57:00Z

Lauren Balthrop Playing the Building, by Michael Arthur.

Stay out super late tonight. Picking apples, making pie. - The National

Last night I went to an art opening at a tiny café. Sitting outside on a bench afterwards, I watched a little girl and her manic halo of hair stumble down the sidewalk. She looked tipsy, as kids do when they have just learned to walk, and was singing to herself. The glow from the windows caught her eye.

A bunch of musicians, mostly from the band Balthrop, Alabama, burbled within. The evening had a magical air: The art, as one person noted, was "Shel Silverstein, but darker." Michael Arthur, the artist, had a wide smile and a tuxedo jacket splayed open in front -- a happy, handsome penguin. A teenager had powdered giant loops of blue eyeshadow round her eyes, and looked like Debbie Gibson fused with one of Disney's wide-eyed forest creatures. She wore a top hat with a feather trailing out of it.

The toddler must have seen these two, for her face lit straight up. She marched to the café doorway with her hands in front of her like she was taking Communion and sang out, "HalloWEEN!"

Surely, where there is madness, there must also be Skittles and peanut butter cups.

Driving home from Jersey the other day, I cruised straight past the crooked wooden sign that read "APPLES." Bruce was on the stereo. I was trying to beat rush hour. Next time I'll stop.

gourmet: it wasn't just for rich folks

2009-10-07T14:11:00Z

Salon just published a little essay I wrote about how Gourmet magazine, which closed this week after nearly seventy years, was for the young and the scrappy too, dammit.

pork. fashion.

2009-10-05T14:00:00Z

So can we talk about how the pork shoulder is the little black dress of the food world?

Thank you.

It's versatile, it's foxy, and as Mom told me once, the best way to be frugal with your grocery bill is to make "a nice roast." Moms are generous with their advice. Mine also told me when I was 14 that I looked "tough" in the above-the-knee purple suede skirt I was trying on at Marshalls, and would not let me buy it. (Mom, I still do not understand what "tough" means in this context. And I write for a living.)

ANYways, I've probably worn all sorts of tough clothes since moving to New York City, and remain freaked out by the notion of making one of those giant, cooked-to-death Irish-Catholic Roasts, which seemed to last in the fridge about a year.

Pork, apparently, is a different story. We didn't eat much of the Other White Meat growing up, but the first cubano I sampled in Gotham hooked me. Hard. Now I crave pig of every stripe: prosciutto; tonkotsu ramen; banh mis; cubanos; al pastor tacos; you name it. But pure economics have to factor into my obsession, and I can't continue to blow $6 to $9 a pop on pork-and-fennel-sammies and croque madames at cafés.

So -- look, Ma! -- I bought a pork shoulder from Paisanos, one of the best butchers around, for $11. Six pounds of it. I lugged it home, unloaded it on the counter with a thud, and realized I do not, in fact, have a flock of yawping babies to feed, but am a single woman in the city. What the *&^%(* was I thinking.

It was hog heaven for a full week. I cooked the sucker up Puerto Rican-style using this pernil recipe. The apartment reeked of garlic. A fellow food writer deigned to swing by, pronounce it done, and snack on half a pound of it. I fed two pounds' worth of tacos to friends the next night. Monte Cubanos were consumed on day three. By the end of the week I was fat, happy and making my own banh mis because I am a freaking genius -- and had a lot of help from my buddy Adam of the fine blog Fifty Bucks a Week.

The lesson? You, my child, can totes make banh mis at home. And then bring them to work. Think of the admiring looks you will garner in the office kitchen when you unwrap 'em.

* Illustration by Edith Head. Photoshopping by Eric Brown.

Banh mi (makes 6)
(Adapted from Adam Pollock)

2 pounds pork shoulder, seasoned and cooked (I like this pernil recipe)
1 large cucumber, cut into matchsticks
3 carrots, cut into tiny (1/8" or smaller) matchsticks or grated coarsely
Sugar
Salt
White wine vinegar or Champagne vinegar
Sriracha
Dijon mustard
Mayo
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
Bread: 6 banh mi rolls (check your local Chinatown), 2 fluffy Italian loaves or 1-2 not-too-hard baguettes
3 jalapenos, sliced into rounds (optional)

Chop one pound of pork shoulder into small dice. Briefly sauté crumbled pork in two teaspoons sriracha (or to taste) and one teaspoon of mustard. Remove from heat. Add tablespoon or two of mayo (or more, to taste). Add carrots to bowl of 2:1 water-to-vinegar mixture (start with 1/4 cup of water), with a generous pinch each of sugar and salt. Pickle for five minutes, to taste. Slice second pound of pork shoulder thinly. Mash garlic into three tablespoons of mayo. Set aside. Toast rolls briefly if desired. Assemble sandwich: Spread garlic mayo on lower half of roll, top with crumbled spicy pork, sliced pork, cucumbers, carrots, and finally cilantro. Add jalapenos, if desired, and more garlic mayo to top half of roll if you like. High-five everyone in sight.

(Note: This recipe from Chow uses pork paté, and this one a sort of Vietnamese bologna, which has an awesome texture. Play around; see what you like and what you've got in the kitchen.)

eno it all: culinary breakthroughs

2009-09-23T16:02:00Z

Salted skillet; caramelized onions.

Food writers need to be very honest with themselves about what they don't know. Especially in the kitchen.

I saw a well-known editor at an event about mushrooms a few months ago and was happy to hear him admit that he just didn't know that much about them and was there to learn. For my part, I just picked up this salted skillet cleaning trick last week.

It's not enough to simply show up at a food event and brass your way through a snotty assessment of a wine or a dish (unless you are That Guy, who has been drinking expensive wines since he was a teen. If so, you go on with your bad self.) You've got to cook. I'm entirely mediocre compared to several of my culinarily trained peers, with flashes of largely-accidental awesomeness. The trick, of course, is to do a lot of it, which in this economy and the cooling weather comes more easily.

And yesterday I stumbled upon this incredible essay that made the whole cooking thing seem so ... rock and roll.

Gourmet's Adam Houghtaling (clearly a music freak) explains how the great avant-garde/ rock musician Brian Eno created a deck of cards back in the 70s -- choose-your-own-adventure credos for his fellow artists, including one-liners like, "Once the search is in progress, something will be found."

Houghtaling passed his deck of cards to a test kitchen editor at the magazine, and sat back to watch a sort of zen beauty unfurl. The cook pushed boundaries at Eno's behest, pairing fish with cheese in an Italian dish (a no-no) and another time deciding to "be extravagant" -- he whipped up a dish starting from cream.

Yesterday I worked all day to perfect a sweet recipe for a shoot, which came out so well I had folks hustling over to my apartment to consume the leftovers. There were these extra sliced strawberries sitting in my fridge in a giant bowl of balsamic, sugar and black pepper. Macerating nigh to death. Strawberries get angry after sitting in sugar for too long. If a bowl of strawberries could furrow its eyebrows at you, this one would.

I'd had no time to hit the wine shop for my guests, and there wasn't a drop of liquor in the house except for a lone ranger PBR, a bottle of Bulleit, some bad vodka, and a mouse's worth of gin. Bourbon plus strawberries -- egh, I've had berry-infused bourbon before and it was horrid. But bourbon plus rosemary, which I had kicking around ... I took a nip from the bottle and broke a leaf in my mouth. Awesome. Added a leaf of mint. Better.

Mint-rosemary simple syrup materialized in my saucepan. A slick of it with bourbon, on the rocks, was aromatic and bracing. But I could do better, and as my friends licked their plates clean I brought out the angry strawberries. Balsamic versus simple syrup. Tart and sweet. Bourbon for character. Strawberries, pepper, rosemary and mint for depth of flavor. A guest suggested club soda to top it off and man, was it good -- a kid's smoothie adult-o-fied, swirling with fruit and herbs.

"Once the search is in progress, something will be found." I came across Houghtaling's piece hours later. It neatly parses the notion that cooking, at its most pure, provides a depth of comfort that is hard to find elsewhere.

new café, new day, new york

2009-09-11T16:00:00Z

I was jogging across the bridge the other day and a tourist stepped right in front of me, breaking my stride, to ask me where the towers were.

"Oh," I said. "Oh." And came to a full stop. I turned around -- I'd been running back to Brooklyn -- and pointed feebly to the southern tip of the island. "They're where you think they were," was all I could muster. He nodded, solemn, and made a mark on his little map.

It's strange to post about food on a day like today. I was living in Boston when the towers fell. I'd been in New York till only months prior, and had moved back to Massachusetts for love. I returned to The City in 2002 and haven't budged since, and though I go back and forth on this town, the pleasure point for me, and what keeps me here, is the sheer variety in the states of satiety at which I can arrive. That I can walk to a brilliant banh mi, snag incredible coffee at an adorable café, smile at a baby in his stroller, grab blueberry bread at the farmer's market, and traipse down the length of the promenade. Who knew, as a kid, that we could live like this?

And New York pops back up, always, one street at a time, like the Monopoly games of our youth: "There already a hotel on Park Place? Damn." A petite café called Loretta's opened yesterday at 407 Atlantic, looking like nothing so much as the inside of a Stereolab album cover, all lime-green mini tables with brown polkadots and an airy little patio out back. The man in charge makes his own croissants and serves Ozzie's coffee. The croissants look good. I'll go back when his wi-fi goes up in a couple of days.

I interviewed a longtime restaurant owner the other day for an upcoming Edible Manhattan piece. He's been in business since 1990. "What would you say to someone considering opening a business in this economy?" I asked him.

In pure New Yorkish, he answered, "Try therapy first."

So I give props to the new businesses and the ones keeping on, and so should you: This week I ate brilliant bourbon ice cream studded with raisins at General Greene's little stand and a gorgeous tomato from my farmer's market -- headily salted, slithering in olive oil, dotted with thyme. Brilliant. Easy. Dripping all over my hands and a baguette at a picnic.

It is hard to make a case for pleasure while staring down the barrel of such a day, but make it I will, with all respect and full of memories for that day eight years ago I'll never forget, playing tipsy tennis and falling down on the court and feeling like I'd abandoned my city.

But I'm here now, and New York, for all you give me grief at times, my heart is with you today.

rock! lobster.

2009-07-21T15:06:00Z

In other news, lobster rolls still rule.

This baby set me back $13 (New Yorkers know this to be a bargain) down at the Red Hook Lobster Pound, which hits the Brooklyn Flea on Sunday afternoons. The leggy critters are dragged down here from Maine, and they are darn tasty.

I'd suggest you go for the meat with mayo, not butter (heresy to this butter-lover) simply because the workers keep the buttered meat close to the heat source, so it gets a little overcooked and gummy. The mayo-ed lobster meat comes already flecked with scallions, and -- though a little non-traditional -- it's quality stuff. That's paprika y'all see sprinkled on top.

Meat-to-bun ratio varies wildly, but you know, for $13 with a view of the gorgeous Brooklyn Bridge and the water -- and as many hipsters as you could ever possibly want to stand next to -- it's a pretty fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

one way - ice cream

2009-06-13T14:00:00Z

Jacques Torres opened an ice cream shop next to his cocoarie (the official term, according to moi) down in DUMBO. And yes, it's very good. For $3.30 I got a big scoop of his chocolate chip cookie (not cookie dough; it has actual chunks of his famous cookies) ice cream -- I couldn't wait to take a bite before snapping a pic -- in this lovely waffle cone. He's also got Wicked, the double-chili threat, on offer and a very tasty vanilla. Honestly, I prefer his creations to those of the slightly more pricey Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory down the way.

Old cars, the Brooklyn Bridge and ice cream. It's gonna be a good summer.

the princess and the pie

2009-06-05T21:45:00Z

Well, now, this is potentially awkward for all involved.

Last week I wrote about my favorite greasy dance mix, and now I am, yes, going to ginuwinely jump back to food as if it never happened. We don't need to talk about it.

Yes, that is a DiFara pie. Yes, I went for the first time a few weekends ago. And yes, I agree with Alan Richman, who didn't put it in his Top 25. Ooh. I'm following a famous critic several days later. Bold!

I should admit that unlike Richman, I'm not a huge pizza fan, but a tacos, huaraches, fried chicken and burgers sort of gal. Dom's crust was to my taste undersalted, the tomatoes were too choppy, the sausage was uninspiring and for heaven's sake if you're going to drizzle half a cup of olive oil (which I love) on top of a cooked pie, it had better be some damn good oil. This wasn't. It had over-oxidized a bit in its little genie bottle. It was still a fine pie, no doubt. I'm just not sure I understand the mania.

Then again, perhaps I only like to hang out at The Palace, the only place in New York that makes me bust out the inner princess I didn't know I had, gawk at the chandeliers and run up and down the carpeted steps like Annie in the freakin' mansion. They just opened their outdoor terrace, and if the Pimms Cups (spiked with lemonade, frothy ginger beer, sliced green apples and cucumber rounds) are as good as they were at a press party then you will be there all summer staring at the pretty people, putting your hand over your eyes and plunking down your credit card for whatever ungodly amount they decide to charge. (I checked: $20).

And then you will dance up and down the steps singing "It's a Hard Knock Life" until you are thrown the hell out.