Things To Do in the Cold Darkness Ahead

Can I just tell you how depressing it is to me that today felt like winter and by 6:30 pm as I type this, it is dark out.

We should be able to hibernate like bears, it's a perfectly reasonable response, think it about it, you get a nice long sleep, you avoid the dreary long dark cold months and when you wake up you've shed lots of weight and its warm and sunny!

To pass the dark hours I have given my self many projects, well some of them were given to me like writing a proposal for a cookbook. Ugh. Love the idea of writing a cookbook, but the self promotional aspect of writing text for marketing people is so not my thing. Nonetheless it needs to be done and it is giving me a good sense of what kind of cookbooks are out there and where I might be able to find a niche. Although in a world filled with cookbooks it's a challenge.

I'm leaning towards the: urban, organic, local, sustainable, tasty, simple, eco-minded, politically astute, food activist, fun, Burma loving, New York focused, gay, lower east side with aspirations of urban homesteading (as much as that's possible in an apartment on the 14th floor) angle. What do you think?

Maybe I should make this a contest. The first person to be able to take the last paragraph into one catchy sentence gets an urbanfoodguy home cooked meal!

OK Go!

Then there are the cooking projects: Grape Ice Cream with Ice Wine - don't tell anyone - I want it to be my recipe claim to fame, just like Anne Rosenzweig's Lobster Club.

Sourdough starter, that's right by Sunday I will never have to buy yeast in little packages again if this little chemistry experiment works out. I have my doubts it will, but I am trying to be optimistic, it just seems so weird to me that yeast floats around and if you add water to flour and let it sit around for a while you can make bread with it? More on that later.

Walking, walking is very important to me, I try to walk at least 5 miles every day. Mostly my goal is the Union Square market, but I often meander off course. I love to walk around the East Village and the Lower East Side and see what's new. These days the southern reaches (from Grand to Canal) of Ludlow and Orchard are really hopping, economic downturn be damned!

74 Orchard Street has had several restaurants in it over the 4 years we have lived here, none of them have fared very well. The latest incarnation is Saffa 212-260-5317 (the site isn't up yet, hopefully soon). It's a South African restaurant and looks like it has what it takes to make this odd shaped room a hit (see picture above). I've never had South African food, so I'm excited to try it out.

Cooking classes, as the Brooklyn Kitchen people labor to get their new three kitchen and new store space open by November they announced a rockin' list of cooking classes pickle making with Bob McClure of McClures Pickles (love them and their mustard too!) . Kombuchaman teaches yo how to make Kombucha, Louisa Shafia is doing a class on Persian Food and the one I signed up for: Nathan Leamy's class on Sourdough Bread making!

Speaking of busy, I have Brussels Sprouts to de-stalk and a concord grape pie to bake!

The great thing about baking is how warm and cozy it is by the oven. The wine helps as well.

Bon Appetite!