writer. editor. content strategist.
Chilaquiles at El Paso Taqueria
This week’s New York CHOW Report on NY1 features chilaquiles, those great Mexican hangover slayers: Sloppy fried tortillas, tomatillo salsa, cotija, crema fresca, avocados if you ask nicely– and bam! Good times.
Please click on over to see what you think of our little video– and “like” it on Facebook or YouTube or comment with feedback! Thanks, and thanks to the talented Jenny Woodward for shooting and editing.
It’s pretty nostalgia-inducing to do a piece about Long Island City.
When I lived around the bend from PS1 in 2002 there was only one local grocery store, where a cute cat roamed the premises. Less cute was the fact that the owners stowed open boxes of eggplants and tomatoes on the floor, with a box of cat litter in between them. Also, I’m pretty sure the people who lived above my apartment wore rollerblades in their home all day long, such was the hue and cry they raised.
At any rate, it’s great to see a local– Richard Boccato, who hails from Queens– gently helping transform that neck of the woods with a small, hidden bar called Dutch Kills. It got a ton of hype when he, Karin Stanley and Sasha Petraske opened the venue two years ago, and it continues to deserve it now. I didn’t have a bad drink on my visits, and I really did love this simple Irish coffee. Jameson can have a slightly bitter aftertaste, so to soften it with sugar, cream and coffee makes everything copacetic, whether you’re at the bar or making one at home.
Check it out, if you please, and long live LIC. (Many thanks to Alex Lisowski for his expert shooting and editing, and to my pal Christy Harrison for keeping me company!)
Free-range, Cervena-certified elk chops at Henry’s End in Brooklyn Heights
This week’s New York CHOW Report, a short video segment that runs on NY1, is all about the elk chops at Henry’s End in Brooklyn Heights. Their wild game menu has been popular since the 1980s. I’ve also sampled their rabbit ravioli and turtle soup, and although I was not a huge fan of the soup, I loved the ravioli and those chops. So rustic, and so satisfying.
Check out the video if you’re curious about what elk tastes like, and thanks for watching. (The talented Jenny Woodward shot, directed and edited this piece.)
Khachapuri at Georgian Bread
This week’s New York Chow Report came together thanks to a few sharp colleagues: My friend Sarah Karnasiewicz, an award-winning cook and excellent writer, fell in love with khachapuri– a cheese-filled bread– when traveling in Russia. (Sarah runs a pretty little cooking blog over at 365 Kitchen, and one of my favorite entries is this one.)
Then my pal Adina Steiman, a trained chef and the food editor of Men’s Health, directed me to Georgian Bread. Chowhounds confirmed it as a solid khachapuri source, so I trekked down there. It was the third shop I’d visited for the bread, and was by far the best. Click here if you want the full story, or tune in on NY1 today in the half hour following 6:30pm, 8:30pm,1:30am, 2:30am, or 3:30am.
Thanks to Alex Lisowski for some gorgeous shots, Jenny Woodward for a smart edit, and Sarah for the crazy hats. I know I look frostbitten on that there beach, but it was a fun day’s worth of work, and I strongly recommend checking out the bread. Badri and Bernardo are turning out amazing creations in a tiny space.
There’s a new CHOW segment running on NY1 that’s a little homage to my New York Times crossword-battling, candy-eating, Entenmann’s crumb cake-loving Pop Pop. He and my granny were wonderful to us when we were kids, but I had no love for his liverwurst habit. This week’s bit is all about my adult hypocrisy: I’m a huge, freakout fan of chicken liver mousse, and you can find out where my current favorite version of it is here.
The NY1 segments are live Tuesdays in the half hour following 8am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, 12:30am & 1:30am, and Saturday in the half hour following 6:30pm, 8:30pm, 1:30am, 2:30am, and 3:30am.
Thanks for watching and hey, if you know a dish I absolutely must cover and bring to all New Yorkers, please feel free to comment here or even better on CHOW. And go, Jets! –AVB
This week’s segment for CHOW on NY1 focuses on the tasty chicken adobo at Purple Yam, a sweet little pan-Asian Filipino restaurant in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. Details about my favorite dish–although it was a close race between the gorgeous lechon and the chicken adobo shown above–can be snagged by clicking here or keeping an eye on NY1 Tuesdays and Saturdays. Thanks for watching!
It’s been a while, but I have some cool news: I’m now a Contributing Editor for CHOW, my favorite food site. You can RSS them here and follow the New York Digest that Mark Hokoda and I run over here.
Oh, and also, I’m on T.V. Isn’t that wild? I feel like Journalism Barbie minus that spectacular bustier-jacket combo.
CHOW will be showcasing New York restaurants, bars, food trends, and wacky characters on NY1 twice weekly. The folks there have kindly introduced me to the wild world of television, and it’s fun, challenging, and full of people who talk faster than auctioneers. I’m excited and feel very lucky to work with both companies. (Do you know about CHOW’s honors? The James Beard Awards? The Emmy nomination?) Jane Goldman, Lessley Anderson, Roxanne Webber and the rest of the crew have incredible editorial sensibilities, and the video folks are totally awesome: This fun piece with critic Robert Sietsema was my first collaboration with them. The kitchen team creates things like Turkey Cakes and rock steady Chow Tips (mostly by cook-in-chief Jill Santopietro, formerly of the New York Times’ Tiny Kitchen).
My two-minute bit will appear twice-weekly, on Tuesdays in the half hour following 8am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, 12:30am & 1:30am, and Saturday in the half hour following 6:30pm, 8:30pm, 1:30am, 2:30am, and 3:30am. (So now people I know can be hammered in a bar, see me yapping on the little screen, and go, “YO I know her!”)
I hope you dig it–our first piece featuring Mad Scientist beer* premiered yesterday and can be seen here –and I’m open to all your feedback and tips. After all, a good journalist is only so good as her sources.
Lastly, I’m still freelancing part-time, so editors can please continue to get in touch. My bio is tucked away over here. Thanks!
* The excellent photographer Michael Harlan Turkell kindly allowed us to use his Sixpoint pix.
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.
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 bar one night to find your boyfriend beaming at you 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 who paired a 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 horribly 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.
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.
