Posted on

cat-sized watermelons and other indignities

My last post overstated things. Prosciutto and butter and bread are excellent, yes. But that was then (May), and this is now (July), and the city has an ineffable stickiness that makes you root, root, root for the kids wasting water with the open hydrants (you know it’s wrong, but man is it fun to bike through the spray).

So I’ve been eating my share of squash and blueberries, favas and corn like the rest of the local food crazies. This being my first year in a CSA, I’m gonna crack open the cat-sized watermelon* I just got and turn it into the glorious watermelon-feta salad featured in the August InStyle (the one with Jessica Biel on the cover). It’s a Hugh Acheson recipe, and part of an article on summery Southern cooking by yours truly. All of his recipes are lovely and light, and I’ve been dreaming up riffs on his Pimm’s Cup all summer. Pictured above (right) is Acheson’s fava bean, prosciutto and mint appetizer. It is wonderful.

In less melony news, a bunch of my copy for Bon Appétit is live; I worked on this “Dress for Dinner” project (scroll down) and wrote all the little restaurant reviews. I’ve also been working on guides to various cities in collaboration with Restaurant and Drinks Editor Andrew Knowlton. I’m particularly pleased with the Boston and San Francisco writeups, so please clickety click.

A couple of parting notes: If you are biking, please wear your helmet: I got doored by a car that was illegally parked in a bike lane a couple of months ago, went flying, and was bruised for weeks. I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this if I hadn’t been properly kitted out.

Fellow stone fruit aficionados, don’t miss this article by Mark Bittman. Each approach is so easy: Cherries are simmered in a touch of water and sugar, then maybe topped with mint and crème fraîche (above, left): I am an ice cream fanatic, and I temporarily forgot about ice cream’s existence when I ate these cherries.

Hope you’re having a rad summer.

* We have a large cat. This was a very large melon. It dwarfed her. She seemed indignant. Post title explained.

Posted on

winter warmers: my favorite cold-weather recipes

Homemade baked béchamel mac ‘n cheese with sriracha

I am not a winter person. I hate the cold, and have vivid memories of my parents using the “double plastic bag” method to keep our feet warm in the winters of the late 1970s.

It went like this: One pair socks, two plastic bags per foot, then snow boots. I would tuck my pants into the boots, hoping against hope. But every time I jumped into a fat Massachusetts snowbank, thinking I was secure against the elements, I’d wind up knocking—panicked—at the door of our home an hour later. The snow would freeze in the tops of the plastic bags, creating glossy ice rings around the shins that would not look out of place in one of today’s adorable vintage punch bowls.

No wonder I became a cocoa person and not a skiing person. But I do admire the effect of the seasons—the way people slow down in the winter, speed up in the spring and fall, and slow down again for the hot summer. There’s something to be said for winter’s indoors-y laziness.

Yesterday I was listening to Nina Nastasia’s “The Long Walk,” and today it’s Nina Simone. And all I want to cook are soups and chili, moles and stews, braises and casseroles. Here are the best recipes I’ve cooked over the last few months.

Nigel Slater’s killer onion tart is far and away my best party trick—layers and layers of slippery caramelized onions with fat cubes of taleggio and wisps of thyme. People freak out about it. Then there’s the cavatelli with sausage and sage from the Frankies cookbook; brown butter is wonderful this time of year. Bon Appetit’s Swiss chard soup is bright and floral with mint and cilantro, creamy from feta and yogurt, and makes a wonderfully warm starter or entrée. I like to strain the leftover soup for the base of some fantastic chilaquiles.

I’m also a big fan of Jonathan Waxman’s chicken-under-a-brick with bacon—that’s chicken butterflied and sizzled in bacon fat, folks—and it will probably be my Valentine’s Day meal. I reckon Molly Wizenberg’s French toast, with nutmeg and vanilla, would be an excellent way to wake up the next morning.

Lastly, I’m totally making Andrew Carmellini’s favorite chili—a recipe from Texas chef Julie Farias—once more before the winter is out. It uses coffee, beer and chocolate, packs a wallop of flavor, and it completely cheered up a sick friend.

We’re not through the season yet, so comment if you’ve got an ace winter recipe—and thanks!

Posted on

catching up

Pie at Fort Defiance, Red Hook, Brooklyn. Still by Alex Lisowski. 

Oof, I’ve been remiss in keeping this page current! The last two months have been busy. In addition to some fun writing and editing, I’ve produced and hosted nine new videos for CHOW. Director/ shooter/ editor Alex Lisowski and I have had a blast: We’ve covered frozen treats like malted milk ball ice cream at Ample Hills, Bananas Foster ice cream sandwiches at the Coolhaus truck, and gorgeous gelato flowers at Amorino. There was a Restaurant Week feature on a sustainably-fished crudo—razor clam in its pretty shell—at Esca, and a behind-the-scenes of the delicious brick chicken with fennel pollen and foie gras at The Beagle.

We drove out to Floral Park, Queens, to highlight the chaats at Mumbai Xpress, a longtime Chowhound fave, then biked to the opposite end of the city (sort of). In Red Hook, the new chef at Fort Defiance is making a mean blueberry-peach pie. We found a gorgeous burrata with ratatouille at newish French wine bar Thirstbaravin on Classon and Pacific in Brooklyn, and deep-fried halusky tossed with rosemary oil at Korzo Haus in Alphabet City.

NY CHOW Report now has a show page on Youtube, if you’d like to catch up on some of my favorite dishes around town. Thanks for watching, and thanks to CHOW colleagues Lessley Anderson, Blake Smith and Meredith Arthur for their sharp script edits. These segments air Tuesdays and Saturdays on NY1.

Posted on

summery strawberry gazpacho


Strawberry Gazpacho at Northern Spy Food Co. Still by Alex Lisowski

So strawberry season in New York is set to wrap up pretty shortly, if the farmers at my local market are correct. Before the pretty berries disappear, eat as many as you can: I love this strawberry gazpacho, a seasonal special at Northern Spy Food Co. It’s bright and sweet and hot and crunchy and smooth and everything a well-balanced dish should be. Sous Chef Brittany Anderson, who has worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, created the recipe, and I reckon she has a bright future ahead of her.

Check out our CHOW segment (directed and shot by Alex Lisowski) over here. And thanks for watching!

Posted on

tres leches at empellón


Still by Alex Lisowski. Tres leches with mango at Empellón.

This week’s piece was just too beautiful not to get a post of its own. How lovely is that tres leches cake?

Lauren Resler, pastry chef at Empellón, deserves credit for its creation, and my co-producer-shooter-editor-director-Englishman Alex Lisowski deserves credit for this shot. I love this dessert. You should stop by, sip some Mezcal or bubbly, and try some. That goat’s milk ice cream is just out of control.

Posted on

cheeseburger cheeseburger


A double cheeseburger at The Burger Garage. Still by Alex Lisowski.

Happy Memorial Day, folks. If you’re anything like me, you’re obsessed with grilled meats this time of year. Last week we featured the burgers at The Burger Garage in Long Island City. The brothers running the place are making a very tasty, fast food-style burger with higher-quality meat than you usually find for $6.95– and they’re really nice guys.

The Burger Garage is similar to the Shack in style–although if I had to choose a favorite fast food-style patty the Shack might edge this one out–but this place is in Queens, unlike the Shack, and there’s no line, and if you get a double with onion strings and pickles and sauce on the side and don’t love it, well, then. Hmmph.

Hope you’re having a good weekend, regardless of whether you’re a burger freak. I biked to Coney Island yesterday and it is gonna take that sort of 25-mile roundtrip to keep me in the middleweight fighting category during this summer of bourbon-vanilla ice cream and burgers. Good grief.

Posted on

fancy and unfancy foods


Video still by Alex Lisowski

I’ve been happily busy of late and have even had the satisfaction of seeing a few pieces in print. (Remember print?) Here’s a summary:

The May issue of InStyle ran a few Mother’s Day interviews with actors and their moms. I got to meet Chace Crawford (from Gossip Girl!) and his sweet mom Dana. I totally did not call him Nate throughout my interview. OK, I maybe did do that. I also interviewed Blair and Marilyn Underwood, who are lovely.

The May Men’s Health contains a couple of my pieces. I wrote a “match fancy bar food to the right drink” bit with help from the very smart St. John Frizell, and contributed to a larger feature.

Over at CHOW, where I’m a Contributing Editor, co-producer Alex Lisowksi and I pulled together a fun picnic segment thanks to flexible friends and the fine Jamaican food in Flatbush. This week we’re filming an African food segment, about which I am stoked.

Last but not least, I did some copywriting for new food site Gilt Taste. Did you know it’s possible to write 39 tiny pieces in three days? I did not. I wrote about Mitibleu and Mangalica, Persille de Beaujolais and Bee Chocolates. They’ve got a great crew over there, and I wish them the best of luck.

Posted on

pride, pernil and precocity

Pernil at Sofrito. Still (c) Alex Lisowski.

So I was keeping an eye on my niece “M” a few weeks ago. She is three, and in constant motion, which has to this point excluded her from a real role in the kitchen. And although my sister was wary, I wanted to make cookies, and I thought we could do it without burning the house down. We got an OK, so I wheeled M to the grocery store in her stroller. She held the bag of chocolate chips above her head, like a heavyweight champion hoisting his belt, all the way home.

To keep her engaged, I tried to keep every step Super Exciting, from measuring the flour– “don’t let me scoop out too much!”– to dropping balls of cookie dough on the sheets. She used her tiny paw to scoop out her own cookie, which we placed on the top-left corner of the sheet. Into the oven it went, and she ran off to watch Jungle Book, with which she is obsessed.

Ten minutes later M was standing at the oven door, begging me to take the tray out. When I did, she demanded her cookie: “Which one is mine?” We sat at the table together and she took a bite.

“This,” she declared with her little lisp, “is the vewy best cookie I have ever eaten!”

I had an identical moment in my own kitchen a few weeks later (about tomato sauce!) and realized my culinary vanity is hereditary. I love that this human instinct– to be so admiring of one’s own creative capacity– is present even in a three-year-old.

Recently my co-producer Alex Lisowski and I shot a segment for CHOW.com about the pernil at Sofrito in midtown. The chef there takes an obvious pride in his work, and I respect him for it. It is a fantastic roast pork shoulder. The recipe is on CHOW.com.

Our next piece is slated to air on Tuesday morning on NY1 in the half hour after 8am. Thanks for watching.

Posted on

lemon cake=virtual sunshine


Betty Bakery’s Lemon Cake

Does this weather make anyone else want to eat deviled eggs and drink Tom Collinses, or maybe dance around to the Beach Boys while wearing an obnoxious tropical shirt?

It does that to me.

This lemon cake from Betty Bakery follows the same lines of logic: It’s as sunny and sweet as the weather we’re not having, and it will brighten your mood. I am a fan of every dish I feature for CHOW.com on NY1, but this one? This one I could eat every day. Check out the video here, or catch it on NY1 this Saturday. Thanks for watching, and thanks to Alex Lisowski for directing, shooting and editing this segment.

Posted on

fish and chips, deviled eggs, and papaya salad

Hullo, there. I have three new videos up on CHOW.com, which have run on NY1 over the last several weeks. Many thanks to Alex Lisowski for his skilled shooting, directing and editing.

First, I ate some darn fine fish ‘n chips and hung out with my cousin over some Guinnesses at the Cuckoo’s Nest in Woodside, Queens. Many thanks to Paul and Michael for being so accommodating.

Next I tackled the deviled egg, with which I’m slightly obsessed at the moment– though not after making them for a recent party! Prepping and peeling a dozen hard-boiled eggs without bungling the whites is pretty tricky. In the segment I suggest some pairings, because deviled eggs actually go well with certain beers and wines– and if Tia Pol served cocktails, I would have ordered a Tom Collins, with which they’re fantastic. Thanks to Stephanie, Mani and TJ for all their help.

Finally, I headed out to Elmhurst to feature the papaya salad at Ayada Thai. It’s a heck of a dish– so different than you’d expect– and in my piece I make a stab at explaining why. Thanks to Kitty, Nina and Paul for being superlative hosts.

Looking forward to the next few weeks, and to featuring springier fare (c’mon, weather!)