Chicken

I'm reading Edmund White's new book, City Boy, about his life in New York in the 60's and 70's.

At the end of Chapter 10 he talks about his mixed feelings about co-writing The Joy of Gay Sex:

"Amazingly, no one tried to ban it except in a province in Canada where a lady had thought she was buying The Joy of Cooking and was so horrified by what she found under "chicken" that she convinced the local bookshop to withdraw it from their shelves, a form of de facto censorship that the Canadian version of the ACLU instantly and effectively opposed".

Cooking Local with Local Cookbooks

The Strand is in the same building as Om Yoga where I go to yoga 5 or 6 times a week. It takes everything I have to not go in and buy a cookbook every time I am there.

They have a huge selection with a lot of used copies so you can always get a deal. Even the new books are discounted so you always feel like you are getting a bargain, which is probably one of the reasons this New York institution is so popular. It also seems like it provides vital cash to a lot of folks as they buy used books. I've never seen the lines of people waiting outside with books they want to get cash for be so consistently long.

Anyway, I noticed on my last trip into the Strand three books that are all from local downtown establishments that I thought worth mentioning; for what it's worth I've only bought one of the three (leave it to the diabetic to decide that it is the book about desserts that should be his first purchase).

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement takes it's name from street address of the Tenement Museum here on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the 5 families that lived there to explore how immigrant Americans ate (the families were Irish, Jewish and Italian). It is, as you would expect, an old tenement restored to it's humble origins. The book is a historical archaeological dig that explores breakfast, lunch and dinner of the families who lived here. I'm really glad the author, Jane Ziegelman, includes recipes. Although they are few and far between, they give someone like me who is interested in this history an extra hook to buy the book in a way that if it didn't include them I might not run out and buy it.

The NYT has an excerpt from 97 Orchard which is very helpful as is their review.

Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion and Cooking Manual

A thick book filled with recipes and tips on how to make your favorite traditional Italian fare. I believe Frankies Spuntino got its start in Brooklyn, but it was their Clinton Street restaurant that first caught my eye. Done in old fashioned New York style with tin ceilings and Edison light bulbs everywhere, I like the simple mix and match menu with lots of great plates for grazing; a selection of local cheeses, charcuterie, a bowl of olives and a glass of wine can be your meal if you don't feel like a salad, sandwich or pasta. I'm a fan of their sister adjoining coffee shop Cafe Pedlar where they serve excellent Stumptown coffee and a wonderful all-day breakfast.
The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelle by Kate Zuckerman. Chanterelle was a New York City dining institution: a bastion of quiet elegance, sophistication and excellent food. It had been in business for 30 years and then suddenly closed. I remember when I first walked by Chanterelle while they were still in Soho and before they moved to their big space in Tribeca. I would gaze into the small, high ceilinged and rather austere room with the formal French chairs and linen covered tables and swoon over the exquisitely hand written menu. Chanterelle epitomized, to me, how the other half lived. It just oozed understated elegance and money.

In the end it took me many years before I got to eat there and even then it was only for lunch... but it was a very memorable lunch.

So it was very exciting for me to see this cookbook written by their pastry chef. The funny thing is that even though the tone seems so fancy, the recipes in the book are very simple with a big section on cookies and really simple sorbets. I can't wait to make the famous dark chocolate sorbet; I just have to figure out what to use as a substitute for the corn syrup in the recipe. See, you spend hundreds of dollars on a fancy meal and they were feeding you GMO corn products in your dessert. I'm not sure why that bugs me so much, but it does. In a way I suppose to me good food is about purity of ingredients, and corn syrup as we have known it for the last 30-some years isn't an ingredient, it's a corporate food product and I have yet in all my years of cooking found a recipe that needed it. Pecan pie tastes way better with maple syrup in it and Lyle's Syrup works as a perfect substitute and is readily available in grocery stores.

Happy 1000!

I noticed with some surprise last night as I was sitting down to post a few things that the German Spätzle Lesson post was my one thousandth!

Pretty cool, eh?

Xi'an Famous Foods Chinatown Location

I wrote about this mini chain of noodle chops that started in Flushing a while back when they opened up their East Village place. The picture above is Xi'an's first Manhattan location, a small to-go place located at the base of the Manhattan Bridge. It took me a while to figure out where it was; I thought it was inside the Chinese shopping mall that is on the other side of East Broadway underneath the bridge. It's actually on Forsyth street, just north of East Broadway. This is just a few blocks from my house and in weeks when money is tight I find myself eating a lot of savory cumin lamb burgers. $2.50 for lunch has got to be one of the best deals in town. If you don't do meat the Tiger Salad is a mouth-awakening crunchy powerhouse of pepper and vinegar. The Chang-An Spicy tofu at $2.00 is also a deal of a meal.

Do I seem obsessed with this place? If you haven't been you have to go. It redefines, for me at least, what Chinese food can be.

Erivan Yogurt

I was looking through the yogurt section at Whole Foods the other day and was amazed at how hard it was to find whole milk yogurt that did not have a lot of stuff in it. Actually, to just find whole milk yogurt was a challenge as most of it seems to be low or no fat. Anyway, I was impressed by Erivan; they don't add anything and it's locally made in Pennsylvania. It seems like a very ma and pa shop, so much so that they don't even have a website at this point. I bought mine at Whole Foods, but if you are a yogurt eater check out the ingredients next time: crazy shit goes into that stuff, even the organic.

Oh and while we are on it, the whole "low fat/no fat" thing is a bunch of hooey. First of all, it's an additional process to remove fat from milk, which is naturally occurring. Secondly, it increases the carbohydrates in the yogurt, thereby making it more caloric and more of a simple sugar.

Keeping it as a whole milk product means it has more fat and breaks down slower in your system; thus if you are on a diet or concerned about health the full fat product is better for you since the "low fat/no fat" product is more fattening because it contains more carbohydrates. It's a total scam by big food to appeal to people who think they are buying something that is good for them. And these little individually sized fruit and flavored yogurts? Dessert. Pure and simple. Nothing more than little sugar bombs.

Kenmare and Bowery Street Art

Not food related, but I thought it was cool...I think this artist has something against cells phones, what do you think?

How to Make Spätzle in German

This video is from my friend Keith in Berlin. It's funny how even though the entire thing is in German it's perfectly clear. I want one of those perforated spätzle makers!

She's such a German Grandma! I love how she gets out of breath.

A Ginger Rallying Cry

When I was growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada I never paid much attention to a person's hair color. I had friends with red hair and never thought much about it. As a tease someone might call a red head "carrot top" but it didn't seem to me to be a very devastating insult. I was so busy trying to hide my deviant sexuality that I would have been happy to have been ridiculed for my hair color.

So years pass and I move to New York and one of my friends, Keith (he's now in Berlin) told me that people with red hair are called Gingers, and his German boyfriend at the time was always referring to Keith as my ginger. I can't imagine that being called ginger is such a bad thing?

Keith posted this video the other day on Facebook and it got me thinking about ginger.
Oh this video may not be suitable for work, and it's not about food. Just some angry youth being angry about being a ginger. The video is called: Ginger Rallying Cry.

But before we get to that, I decided to write my very own Ginger Rallying Cry....only mine comes with a recipe!

Generalizations are always something I try to avoid, so I'm not going to say Ginger is my favorite spice or anything crazy like that, but I really, really like it. I particularly like it in desserts; it adds a richness and a complexity to peaches, nectarines, blueberries and shortbread that can't be beat. So this is a perfect storm of circumstances: it's late summer and peaches nectarines and blueberries are everywhere at the market. For this cobbler I've made the biscuit more like a thick rich shortbread. I go to town with the ginger, because I love it so much, but feel free to decrease it as you see fit or fool around with cardamon or cinnamon (why don't they call red head cinnamon's?).

Ginger Nectarine Blueberry Cobbler

In a large saucepan add 7-8 cups of fruit (processed, therefore cleaned, pitted chopped, rinsed, etc).

I used 4 cups blueberries and 4 cups Nectarine (and if you want to use peaches or a mixture of peaches and nectarines go for it. I love using Nectarines because they don't need to be peeled like peaches. 2 Tablespoons of organic Tapioca Starch (you can use corn starch if you can't find this, but please buy a non-GMO organic corn starch) 1/2 cup brown sugar, 4 Tablespoons of finely chopped crystallized ginger, 1/4 teaspoon dried ginger, 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice and a pinch of salt.

Cook over a medium heat, stirring often, until the mixture thickens, then pour into a buttered baking dish (a nice one that can go from oven to table. And if you are like me and always use your favorite dish for everything even though, as in this case, it might be too small, put some parchment paper on a sheet pan and place the dish on it and bake it this way so any bubbled over fruit doesn't burn on the bottom of your oven).Preheat the oven to 375F.

In a large bowl add: 1 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 2 Teaspoons of baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/3 cup sugar and mix.

Add to the flour mixture 8 Tablespoons of cold butter and with your hands (preferably) mix the butter into the flour until it is just incorporated.

Add 1/2 cup of heavy cream and mix with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together. It will be a little sticky.

I got a little crazy when I was doing this and made uneven "patties" that sort of remind me of lily pads. You get the idea: you want to make enough to cover, more or less, the cobbler. 6 rounds flattened would have made a more symmetrical looking cobbler, or with this dough you could actually roll it out in the last step - the ginger sugar - and place it on top in one piece.

Be creative.

Mix in a small bowl 1/4 teaspoon dried ginger and 2 Tablespoons of sugar.

Sprinkle over the top of the cobbler. Don't worry, this seems like a lot, but it isn't, trust me.

Serve in small bowls with a generous dollop of unsweetened whip cream and if you want an artfully placed small piece of crystallized ginger.

And now here is another Ginger Rallying Cry of a very different sort...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Peels

Peels (325 Bowery @ 2nd street) is the latest edition to the uber hot strip of the Bowery just north of Houston and south of Cooper Union. It's on one of my walking routes home so I've been walking past almost daily admiring the speed and skill at which they have renovated this space.

And boy have they renovated it!

In it's last incarnation it was a one story spin-off of the popular Kelly and Ping which never took off in this location. Now it's a spin-off Freeman's which is in a lane way just a few blocks south.
They certainly understand how to make a restaurant look and feel good. Both places, although different, share a studied worn look that have a quirky lived in feel that is so inviting. I just hope the food is better at Peels as the last time I ate at Freeman's it was inedible.
Peels is open for coffee and pastries during the day and expects to be serving dinner in the upstairs space some time this coming week. Best to call before you go, but good luck finding a phone number; as of today I can't seem to find one listed anywhere. I'm sure this will change in the next few days.

Jane Hangs Out

So even though it doesn't seem so "summer," I made a curry with a spicy tomato base which consisted of local fresh cranberry beans, red potatoes and spinach. I served it with homemade Naan, which in the end had more in common with a Bialy.Nonetheless it was tasty and a good foil for the curry. Curry is one of those things that is always best when prepared the day before; I felt this had an acidic high note I didn't like, but luckily with enough homemade nectarine chutney and good local yogurt all was fine.
Chutney makes everything better.

Here's a picture of the green beans and white miso that I posted the recipe for a couple of days ago.
The highlight (says the diabetic) was dessert!

Blueberry Nectarine Ginger Cobbler maybe from my awesome Maine Organic Blueberries!
Recipe tomorrow when I'm not so wine soaked.