Porcetta's Pork Lasgana

The night before Thanksgiving I was running around getting last minute groceries and I was starving.  Neil was sick in bed and I needed to get back home to start cooking.  I was on 7th street and was going to stop into Luke's Lobster for a bowl of soup but there were totally sold out of everything.  Just a little ways down the block and across the street is Porcetta where they serve amazing humanely raised heritage pork.  I hemmed and hawed at the menu and eventually the very helpful woman behind the counter said:  Have you had our lasagna? I had not, though I had heard about their lasagna I wondered why it wasn't on the menu?

It was $8 for a generous portion served on a lovely old plate like your grandmother would  have had.  Homemade noodles, Parmesan bechamel and a pork ragout.  It was heaven, truly one of the best things I have ever eaten.  It's amazing I was able to stop long enough to take the picture.  Rich, creamy with a sharp edge of the Parmesan juxtaposed to the fall apart in your mouth pork which every now and then you'll bite into a chewy end piece and get an mouth explosion of slightly salty fatty ambrosia.  $8 bucks.  Deal of the century.  Even though it's not on the menu it's a regular item so phone before you go and tell 'em you're coming for the lasagna!

Oddly enough both Porcetta and another placed I passed on my way home had Thanksgiving marketing that both basically said:  Save a Turkey eat pork!

Marching with the Bloggers, A Broken Oven and Dinner for 15

Yesterday was gay pride here in NYC, the annual parade and celebration of the Stonewall Riots which happened 41 years ago, kick starting the LGBT movement.

Over the years I've gone from being very involved (the ACT UP days) to being totally disinterested. This year when I saw that there was going to be a gay bloggers group marching that it would be a good opportunity to meet some fellow bloggers so I had an Urbanfoodguy
t-shirt made up and off I went. Not, I have to admit, without a little bit of trepidation. I'm horribly self-conscious and oddly awkward in situations where I don't know anyone and am walking down Fifth Avenue with thousands of people all around cheering. As it turned out my anxiety was for naught, it was a friendly group of people and by the half way point I was even helping hold the banner. It was a lot of fun and I was particularly thrilled to be able to chat with Joe Jervis whose blog JoeMyGod is an inspiration to me and a daily read in our house.

The gay rugby team walked in front of us.

The scene below the Empire State building.

Joe Jervis.
Christopher street.


There is a great missed food opportunity here, at the end of the parade everyone is thirsty and peckish, but there isn't really any good food. Sure there are the usual street vendors selling water, ice cream and mystery meat, but it seems to me to be a perfect opportunity to have some more interesting, local foods, like maybe: People's Pops or a MIL Kimchee and Cheese Curd Sandwiches on Ciabatta from Saxelby Cheese or maybe a little Porcetta on a bun or a Lukes Lobster Roll? At the very least couldn't we have interesting, humanely raised, local, farmed meat sausages and hot dogs from the Meat Hook? Just a thought.

So after my exhilarating walk down Fifth Avenue I got home and was busily doing all the last minute preparations when I turn the oven on to toast some sesame seeds, about 5 minutes later I check the temperature on the stove and see it's not getting hotter. I wait and I wait only to come to the panicked realized that our fancy ass Bosch stove is broken.

Excuse me while I sound my age and go on a brief rant about built in obsolescence.

Never in my life have I ever lived anywhere or heard of anyone who stove broke. Our neighbors who saved the day by letting me use their stove have the original basic non electric, small, cheap stove that the unit came with and was installed in 1959, it works just fine, it doesn't have n interior light or even something that tells you the temperature, but you know what? It works and works and continues to work because it's not dependent on anything other than the gas connection and the pilot light to work. So my recommendation to any of you out there who think you want to get the fancy ass stove with all the bells, whistles, computerized electric doo hingy's? Don't waste your money, buy an non computerized basic stove.

OK thanks for putting up with that.

All in all it was a great day and I have two new recipes to post, a spinach pizza that is all creamy bechamel and local cheesey melted goodness and a sour cherry crumble that's served with chocolate sauce! Yummy.

Shout Outs

photo's are from The Huffington Post

Michelle Obama's Fall Harvest was a huge success, hundreds of pounds of crops, 134 pounds of honey and it only cost them $175* to start up and they managed to get all this beautiful food and didn't use any chemicals, this is the truth that big AG, Monsanto et. al. don't want you to hear, they are selling products that no one needs and do nothing but destroy our planet and our health.

Thank you Michelle for taking on the powers that be and bringing awareness to families across the country to the fact that healthy, organic, local produce doesn't have to be expensive or elusive to the average family.

(For the full story check out Obama Foodorama)

My second shout out is to Keith's Organic Farm who nnot only sells the best rocambole garlic in the world he is the first farmer at the Union Square market to introduce bio bags, a kind of plastic made from corn which is totally biodegradable. There is a small charge depending on the size othe bag it ranges from 1- to 20 cents. CENYC should encourage all the farmers in the market to do this and set a date when plastic bags will be banned altogether.

Way to be a trendsetter Keith, thanks!

And my last shout out today goes to the lobster boy on everyone's lips these days Luke of Luke's Lobster for putting a large No on 1 sign in his window (proposition 1 is an attempt to repeal same sex marriage in Maine).

Just another reason to head down to 7th street and enjoy a lobster roll - thanks for the support Luke!