OmniVeggie

"Sovereign Farms"

2008-08-25T10:37:00.003-04:00

Even though last night we made homemade pasta with roasted tomato sauce, I think it is more important to continue the food politics theme. Recipes must wait for perfection.

So, I point you in the direction of the always excellent The Atlantic and their short piece on biofuel, "The Great Disruption."

"Don't Keep Plowing the Same Path"

2008-08-19T23:14:00.003-04:00

Just because we are on summer break doesn't mean that we don't still care.

Soil

We promise to return Labor Day weekend with lovely footage from The Bourbon Tasting.

Scariest Recipe of the Month: June/July

2008-07-04T22:04:00.006-04:00

We skipped June because life got in the way, and are doing July a whole lot earlier. So, let's just call this the Scariest Recipe of the past two months.

We don't like to rag on one source for the scariest recipes. We go everywhere for them, we scour the food world for them, and even dream about them in our sleep. But never, and I mean never, have we actually gone ahead and MADE one.

Inadvertently, but still, made one.

Since we still don't have the gas to cook on our stove (a fact that constantly irks our landlord, and is about to irk our plumber when I don't stop calling him for the next nine-hundred days in a row until he LABELS THE GAS LINE SO THE GAS COMPANY CAN TURN IT ON!), we have been reduced to what I like to call the dregs of the foodie world:

Raw foodies.

Mostly.

We bought a hot-pot so we could have coffee in the mornings and have used it hence to melt butter and to make simple syrup. We also have a waffle iron and a rotisserie that my mom bought me for Christmas this past year. We have a lot of waffles.

No chicken yet.

But I digress.

Today, we wandered the city, just to do it. The Green Market in Union Square was unencumbered by the masses. We got a record player and a couple of new LPs. We got lunch at Wogies (a misanthropic tale that is bookended by sadness) and came home.

Hannah was hungry and we thought to ourselves...We will make our famous chili tacos, but with black beans and we will cook them in...

THE CROCK POT.

They were inedible.

Crock Pot Tacos
Recipe courtesy Matthias and Hannah's Dumb Asses

2 Cans Organic Black Beans
1 Cup Tequila
1 tsp Chili Powder
1 tsp Cayenne Powder
1 Onion, julianned
4 cloves Garlic, peeled
1 tsp whole cumin
1 Tbsp brown sugar. Yeah, that's right. Brown sugar.
Lime

Roast the onion, garlic and cumin in your rotisserie oven. Doesn't matter what temperature; this is going to suck anyway.

Throw both cans of beans into the crock pot. Add the tequila/spice mixture and stir. Add onions and garlic and crank that baby. Wait two hours, knowing that the only thing you've eaten today is a bowl of strawberries and two waffles and some gorgonzola that you're allergic to. Have some chips and salsa while you wait. It's better this way.

When the flavor isn't quite what you wanted, add the brown sugar. It will make it worse. Cringe in horror and do your best to fix it with half a lime. This only will result in the realization that there is no God, because if there was, He/She/It would NEVER allow such an evil concoction to manifest itself.

Abandon and eat leftovers.

writing by matthias, comic by hannah

Gas Crisis!

2008-06-25T13:47:00.005-04:00

Hey, readers.

Well, we've moved to Brooklyn. Bushwick to be precise. Downside?

We don't have a stove.

Let me elaborate: We have a stove, we have a brand spankin' new kitchen. We just don't have gas for the stove. This means that we've been eating pizza and salads for about two weeks now.

It's killing us.

So soon, we should have our gas turned on, and will be cooking up a storm and we'll show you our new kitchen and hopefully the pictures will be AWESOME now.

Sorry for the lack of posts.

Musings On The Places Where I Eat and Drink

2008-06-17T10:19:00.000-04:00

From May 29th, 2008:

The sun is shining today, the world is new. It's springtime in New York.

I believed for the longest time that this was the greatest city in the world. I still do, to some extent. My friends are here. My bars. My food places. Ziggiz, on Twenty-Fifth and Third. Bread Tribeca on Church. Paquitos in the Kip's Bay. The Beer Garden down the street from my apartment. Carmine's Pizzeria on Graham Ave. in Brooklyn. Ditmars Gyro Place, the Neptune Diner, Sparrow. All places that have colored my culinary world.

These are a few of the stories of my eatings and drinkings.

~***~

I took Hannah to Bread Tribeca last year for her birthday. It was a nice day, all day. By the time we'd dressed and gotten from Astoria, Queens all the way to Tribeca in Manhattan, it had gotten a little gray. Once there, we sat outside, because it was just warm enough to eat outside and wasn't too humid or too cool. It was just right. I told her not to worry about cost, because this was her birthday and it was my treat.

Oh, and she had to pick the wine, because I don't know shit about wine. I still don't.

Those were the only caveats. The caveats of freedom.

She ordered a pear salad, a pasta with spicy tomato sauce. I had an onion, cucumber, tomato and toast salad with a vinaigrette and for dinner, I had pappardelle bolognese. The wine? I couldn't tell you, but I'll be damned if it wasn't fabulous and totally worth the $30 we paid for it (we usually spend at most, $10 on wine. I splurged one day and got "Frontier Red" by Fess Parker of DAvy Crockett fame. It wasn't very good and I was out $14.07. At 15% alcohol, it got me good and snookered. Put a crimp in attempt #2 to read Paradise Lost, though.)

After our dinner, we sat and talked and did out best to finish the bottle of wine that we had bought and thought, "Why not have dessert?"

She had a gelato with flaming strawberries and I had tiramisu (I'm a tiramisu fiend and will take it any way I can get it.). After we ordered out sweets, it began to sprinkle. A bit of rain here and there. Being a bit concerned for our safety and for the safety of our bottle of wine, we requested to be put inside. Our waitress, a delightfully foreign girl from where she originated, what her accent sounded like or what her name was, only that she was delightful and possibly the best waitress that we've had in the city, told us not to worry at all, that she would bring our desserts to us and that we ought to get inside immediately!

Not five minutes later, the skies opened up and dropped piles of water all over Manhattan. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, cutting through the sound of traffic. There we were, slightly fuzzy, warm, dry and filled with the best food either of us has ever had. The desserts came and we ate them happily and with much pleasure.

~***~

Prior to Hannah moving to New York City, I would go to The Neptune Diner, on 31st Avenue and Astoria Boulevard in Astoria, Queens, every Sunday for Breakfast. It is the nicest structure in the area and certainly the nicest diner I've ever eaten at. There is no graffiti anywhere on the building, while right next door at Staples, the day it opened, it was covered in gangland tags. Neptune, to my knowledge, has never had a lick of spray paint on it.

Every Sunday, I would don my green army-style jacket, grab a comic book (for the longest while, it was the Sin City series that I was re-reading) and walk down to the Neptune, six blocks away. Being on my own, the hosts knew me, not my name, but by look and pointed me in the direction of the counter, in spite of arriving after a pile of church-going Greeks. I would sit down, begin to read my comic book and wait for my waiter. I didn't need to look at the menu. I knew exactly what I wanted: Waffles with a side of Sausage and a cup of Diner Coffee.

I would get through most of an episode in the comic book before my waffle would come. At its worst, it was a rock hard, overdone pastry, pocked with craters. At its best, it is bready, soft, sweet, with a hint of vanilla. Either way, it was the romance of a young man alone in the world. Those Hemingway moments that every young man has when he walks into a bar, or a restaurant, or a greasy spoon and knows that everything is going to be alright. This is the start of an adventure.

I would read and eat, my waffle swimming in too much butter and high fructose corn syrup, the heroes swimming through a hail of gunfire and dames, receiving far more punishment than any human being could or should. Beside me, I'd see old men, alone, eating their omelettes, silently conversing with their dead wives and regretting not having the courage to die when their mates did. I would see Long Island men filling their t-shirts with an equal portion of fat and muscle; the image of what a man is, and possibly ought to be. They smell vaguely of cigarettes and vanished dreams but laugh because, if nothing else, life is good. Behind me a slightly overweight girl ordered a shortstack of pancakes to go. My waiter asked her if she wanted bacon and inevitably the answer was yes.

They were good Sundays; mingling with the people and the city in which I live.

Today Sundays are better.

~***~

The first year I lived in Astoria, the first month in fact, I was one of many victims of The Great Queens Blackout of 2006. Today, it's mostly forgotten and the residents of Astoria barely mention it, but for a whole week, the residents of Astoria were without power. Not even the stove would light.

It had been so hot at Laguardia that the copper under the streets through which, flowed the life-giving power of the Borough melted, cutting off power to Astoria and Sunnyside. Knowing that it was that hot, you should understand what I was going through. Hot. Humid. Sticky and dark. I had no food that could be cooked. I could not get a shower. I could not do anything past 8pm.

For. A. Week.

Our 24-hour grocery store provided me with little reprieve. I would go just to experience the air conditioning and to get candles (because I was late to the store, I didn't get any plain candles and to this day, we have a St. Michael The Archangel candle in our collection. I also have 8 white candles that will serve in a pinch.). One night, I tried to write in the dark and drink Guiness Extra Stout.

The beer was as dark as the night, which ceased both writing and drinking.

I was working for a company called IAG Research, a company that studies product placement in television, which meant that I worked from 5:30pm to question mark. This meant I spent all day sweltering and sweating in my apartment (thankfully I lived in the basement, which made it cooler, but not by much) and then at night, went to work, unable to take a decent shower. the wednesday of the blackout, I decided that if I got out of work early enough, I wouldn't go home. I would go to a bar, somewhere far away and drink all night.

After my last show, I traveled south, to a place called Antarctica. It was appropriate. I was in the midst of a heat wave/blackout. A place called Antarctica would be the best place for a fella like me to cool off. And besides, I'd been there a week or two before and the bartender was an Aussie with tight clothes, blue eyes and dark hair. Being single and having all the hubris that this entails, I went back to drink, write a little and look at a pretty bartender.

The bartender I remembered wasn't there but another one was. I bellied on up and ordered a Guiness, sat and drank and wrote an adventure story for another girl whom I have never met. The ceiling was pressed tin and the mirror older than my father. Classic jukebox music played and the faux-pauvre played pool to AC/DC.

The bartender asked me where I was from and I told her Astoria and that I didn't want to go home. "See, I haven't had power in four days and I really don't want to go home," I said. She said she had heard about it and, out of pity, my fourth beer was on her (generous, yes. She let me pay for all my sorry drowning beers. she just fitted them with concrete boots).

I rebuffed an invitation to join five other people at the end of the bar, potential friends and I regret that I didn't hang out. I should have; it would be nice to have bar friends. Afterwards, I left the bar, a nice buzz going and completely forgetting that I had not left a tip for my last beer.

I remembered the next morning. To say that I remembered is a little misleading. I bolted up in bed with a generous headache, the vaguest sense that I had been poisoned and screamed, "I didn't tip the bartender!"

That afternoon, before I went to work, I went back to the bar, all the way down on the Spring Street stop of the C train, in the pouring rain, to take a tip that I owed her. When I got there, it was jumping with the Thirsty Thursday crowd. The man behind the bar looked at me and said, with a British accent, "What'll you have, mate?"

"The bartender that was here last night? Is she here?"

"Nah. She's off. What can I gitcha?"

"Nothing. I have to go to work," I said sopping and dripping on the floor. "I forgot to tip her so I wanted to bring it to her today." I put six dollars on the bar, my wet fingers staining the money. HE looked at it, then me, in disbelief. I turned and walked out the door. Whatever he said to me was lost beneath the din of commercial hip-hop.

I don't remember her name or even what she looked like, but I hope she got my six dollars.

~***~

Food stories could be told forever about this city. Like the times that I took my friends to Carmine's Pizza and of the five people I've taken there, two said it was eh, two said it was trancendent and one was indifferent, but finally admitted that it was in fact of a high quality, just not his favorite. Or the time that I went out bar-hopping with a girl I barely knew, which resulted in us crashing a wedding reception, the bride trying to climb on the bar to dance and me doing a shot of something that I had just been handed and found out later was "99 Bananas." I haven't drank that much since and never will, I don't imagine. Or the time I got lost trying to find Magnolia Bakery and really wanted to beat the man who invented Bleecker Street, which, evidently, is cyclical. Or the Polish restaurant where I had incredible beef stroganoff with Vance.

There are food stories everywhere. These are only a few of mine. There are no pictures to post, but I assure you, they are more vivid in my mind than any camera could capture.

Scariest Recipe of the Month: May

2008-06-02T14:08:00.010-04:00

Lest you should begin to think the Food Network and the internet are the only places to unearth horrifying recipes, I bring you a creation of my own imagining. Last night I had a dream that I was the challenger contestant on a new show called Iron Chef Amateur. As my opponent, I chose a large, boisterous, carnivorous fictional blogger (think Mario Batali with a Macbook, except mean and more pompous).

Just like the actual Iron Chef shows, we were given access to every ingredient, gadget, and method imaginable. But, because this was the amateur version, there was no secret ingredient, the show was thirty minutes long, and you needed only to complete one dish.

On the other side of Kitchen Stadium, there stood a rotund and bombastic man, armed with a meat mallet, three pounds of veal, and a vat of oil. I cowered in my corner, tempted by some wild asparagus, beautiful morels, a huge basket of lemons, and among a plethora of other options, a veritable garden of herbs.

Soon I heard the slamming of the baby cow flesh on the butcher block, I smelled the oil starting to cook, I heard Alton Brown’s voice out of my left ear, and Kevin Brauch came over to bother me. I was paralyzed with fear. I could feel my confidence shrinking with each crash of the mallet and each glimpse of the dredged meat. And the next thing I knew, ten minutes had elapsed and I hadn’t even so much as lifted my knife.

Somehow I pulled myself together, and pulled out what seemed at the time, to be a simple and fresh answer to Big-Bad-Blogger’s Weiner Schnitzel. I put on a pot of water, chopped up a handful of parsley, threw in a handful of salt and boiled the hell out of it for ten minutes. Then I came to my senses, and realized this was going to be the foulest thing to have ever graced the lips of any of the esteemed judges, so I threw in a minced carrot. I don’t even remember if I washed it. But wait! I should also add that I also toasted some sliced bread in another salvage attempt; at this point, it is pretty clear that I was unredeemable.

Now it was time for judgment. The arbiters were a Ted Allen impressionist, the actual Jeffrey Steingarten, and some other forgettable airhead. After attempting to sample the platter of schnitzel laid before them, Steingarten overturned the judge’s table, sending schnitzel pucks and wine goblets all about, stood up and bellowed, ‘This is not cuisine, this is a breaded hockey puck! Never before have I been so disgusted by the maltreatment of an animal!’ This outburst ate up a good portion of time, so I was miraculously saved from public ridicule, and the outcome of the battle was ruled a first in Iron Chef history: a draw by inedibility.

Salted Parsley and Boiled Carrot Soup
Recipe courtesy of my imagination, insecurities, and some unconscious trauma

Ingredients
6 cups water
1 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 generous handful sea salt (approximately .5 cups)
1 carrot, possibly unwashed, minced

Boil water, parsley, and salt for 10-15 minutes.
For the last 5 minutes, add the carrot.
Serve with sliced bread toast.
Recoil with embarrassment.

comic by hannah

If Wishes Were Horses...

2008-05-26T16:25:00.000-04:00

For the past 134 years, The Kentucky Derby has been an American Institution. The pomp and circumstance. The Hats. The glamor and high-handedness of a Southern Tradition. It was founded by Col. Meriweather Lewis Clark, Jr., the grandson of William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame. He traipsed about the world and when he returned to his home nation, he decided to start a Derby, further classing up the Southern United States.

I mention this only because a culinary delight that is distinctly American is tied to this tradition. It is nearly as old as the horse race and has it's origins in medicine. And certainly, it will cure all that ails you.

It was the kind of a day that resulted in us not knowing what to do and Hannah exclaimed: "What time is the Derby today?" When I say "today," I mean May 3rd. Weeks ago. I've been meaning to blog this for some time now and I really have gotten behind on my blogs.

We decided that it was time that we did something classy, as classy as the pageantry of the Kentucky Derby. The Silks. The Beautiful Stallions and Fillies. The Hats.

The Mint Juleps.

We've seen some differing methods of how to make them. One says to muddle the mint in the glass with sugar and soda water. The method we used? Well, it's pretty much straight up liquor and sugar. And there's nothing that is not classy about it.

Be careful though. This recipe requires bourbon. This recipe requires that you use expensive bourbon. Well, we didn't do that. We did the next best thing and used Maker's Mark. If you've never had Maker's Mark, please, God, try it. It's great.

One last note: Unless you are interested in being a puddle on the floor, please be responsible while drinking these. Since we live in New York, we have access to a 24 hour train, but we know not everyone does. So please be responsible drinking these. We don't want our readers to be injured in any way.

So without further ado:

Mint Julep
(Makes 1 drink)

Ingredients

1 scant ounce minted simple syrup
2 cups crushed ice
2 ounces bourbon (such as Woodford Reserve)
Fresh mint sprig, for garnish

To highball glass or silver Julep cup, add minted simple syrup, then 1 cup crushed ice, bourbon, and splash of water. Add enough of remaining ice to almost fill glass. Stir well and garnish with mint sprig.

WHAT? Dammit, Sundberg! You put a thing in them there ingredients that we didn't have a recipe for! What are you trying to pull? Not everyone has Minted Simple Syrup hanging around you damned Phish-listening hippie!

Relax. Here's the recipe:

Minted Simple Syrup
(makes about ½ cup)

Ingredients

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 bunch mint

In heavy medium saucepan over medium heat, stir together water and sugar until sugar dissolves. Increase heat slightly, then simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Take pan off heat, add mint leaves, and steep 15 minutes. Strain, then refrigerate syrup until cold, about 3 hours. (Can be prepared 1 week ahead. Cover and keep refrigerated.)

Enjoy!

[Just so everyone knows, Hannah and I will be moving, in June, to Brooklyn. Since we're a bit pre-occupied with the moving itinerary, we might not be posting as often as we'd like. Sorry. But in the next month, you will see a brand new, bright sparkly kitchen. And hopefully, the pictures will look better, too. Also, if you would like to come over for dinner, please do drop us a note, we'd be happy to have you. If you bring bourbon.]

eating our way to spring

2008-05-21T16:59:00.011-04:00

The doldrums, people. I have them. Everyone I know gets them, usually in those long, cold or dreary winter months. I can count on Matthias to have them in December, my parents get theirs in January, my sister Abbie's arrive a little earlier during March, but mine commence shortly after. March, April, and May you are going to be the death of me.

East coasters, am I wrong? Does it not feel like forever since you felt the sun on your face for more than two hours at a time on two consecutive days? Last year when I came to New York at the beginning of May from perpetually foggy, damp, and drizzly Vancouver, I cannot remember wearing anything but sundresses and cardigans, and learning quickly about the evils of iced coffee. Now, I am sitting at my desk typing with one hand to keep my other warm with my third cup of tea.

We have tried several cures for this unbreakable spell of gray doom that has settled on my mind and my heart. (One involved wayyyy too much bourbon in the form of mint juleps; fun, but not exactly responsible). But, only two have really worked. On Saturday we braved the Union Square Greenmarket and were rewarded with ramps, wild asparagus, French radishes, the freshest of eggs, and bacon. We wanted to have the vegetable feast on Sunday, but we accidentally got too full on french toast for breakfast. Monday came, windy and fickle, and by dinner we ditched ramps and asparagus with crusty bread for a much warmer chana masala. Yesterday, not to be deterred any longer by my doldrums, we forced our plates into spring. We made mushrooms, and ramps, and shallots, and it was glorious.

And tonight, rain showers be damned, I shook my fist at the slate-colored skies and said, 'I have been dreaming of that Georgian cheese bread from May's Gourmet and it is high time we indulged in it.' Also, about that asparagus, we decided to roast instead of steam and dress with a vinaigrette, because everyone knows that roasting is what you do to food in the winter, and what you do as a person in the summer. Since it was clearly closer to the former outside, we extracted the fullest, richest flavor from that beautiful wild asparagus and subsequently stuck our tongues out at the raindrops. Because, at this point, maturity is futile. I am one raindrop away from a fed-up-with-'spring'-tantrum.

Seriously, I love green vegetables, but the bread helped more. It is squishy and its chewiness makes your teeth feel so very useful, and its perfectly salty cheese, rich with egg and yeast makes your tongue feel jubilant and at the end your tummy will feel all warm.

Cross my heart and kiss my elbow.

Khachapuri (Georgian Cheese Bread)
Gourmet, May 2008
(Adapted from Natia Gigani, Caucasus Travel Ltd., Republic Of Georgia)

This is the silkiest, loveliest dough to 'punch down' every hour of the rise. It seems a shame to use such violent words on such a smooth, innocent ball, but words will fail you too after you have eaten it. Just be sure to squeeze as hard as you can to get the water out of that ball of cheeses, as both are quite moist.

Ingredients

2.25 teaspoons active dry yeast (a 1/4-oz package)
7 tablespoons warm water (105–115°F)
1.6 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, divided

.75 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
.25 lb Havarti cheese, coarsely grated.
25 lb salted mozzarella, coarsely grated
1 teaspoon unsalted butter, melted

Sprinkle yeast over warm water and stir in 1 tablespoon flour. Let stand until creamy, about 5 minutes. (If yeast does not activate, start over with new yeast.)

Stir together salt and remaining flour in a large bowl, then stir in egg and yeast mixture to form a dough.

Turn out dough onto a well-floured surface and turn to coat with flour, then knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Form into a ball and dust with flour. Let dough rest in a bowl, covered with plastic wrap, punching down with a wet fist every hour, at least 2 hours and up to 3.

Preheat oven to 500°F with rack in middle.

Turn out dough onto floured pizza pan, turning to coat, then flatten with your fingers into a 7-inch disk.

Toss together cheeses and press into a compact 3-inch ball with your hands. Place ball in middle of dough, then gather dough up around ball of cheese, squeezing excess dough into a topknot. Press down on topknot with a damp fist to press cheese out from center. Continue to flatten dough and distribute cheese evenly, pressing outward from center, until dough is an 11-inch disk.

Cut a 6-inch X through top of dough to expose cheese. Bake until pale golden, 10 to 12 minutes.

Brush surface of dough with butter and bake until golden and cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes more.

Serve cut into wedges.

or you could just drink these:

Scariest Recipe of the Month: April

2008-04-30T13:14:00.011-04:00

Matthias and I are home cooks. Neither of us has received any formal training, whatsoever. Aside from being voracious readers of blogs, cookbooks, newspapers and food magazines, there is absolutely no reason why we should be considered any kind of experts on food and spew out our recipes and thoughts into the interwebs. But, we do consider ourselves to be conscious, ethical consumers, a couple who linger over breakfasts and dinners (and snacks), a girl and a boy who appreciate the thoughts and ingredients that go into satisfying our eyes, noses, mouths, and sometimes fingers.
But there is a line drawn in the sands of home cooking on the internet that we will not cross. That, my friends is the 'resource' and frustratingly googlebombed cooks.com.

Like so many of you, we do not believe that cooking at home is a matter of assembly. In our experience, we have found cooks.com to be saturated with horrifying 1950s style casseroles, 'easy' preservative-laden shortcuts and substitutions, and typographical errors with sparse and passionless directions, all designed to get something that resembles food onto the table to fill up your belly and let you go on your distracted way, with the vague hint of satiety.

I knew that I wanted to feature this site as April's scariest source, and I knew I wouldn't have to do much digging to find something truly horrifying to share with you as a disgusting recipe. But, in the 'seafood' section, I came upon something called 'Tuna Rice Pie'. I didn't know it would be that easy. An abbreviated search on the interwebs, turned up nothing as to the origins of this monstrous concoction. I could find no cultural heritage, point of origin, or mythology surrounding this excrescence. So, I am going to assume that once upon a time, in 1947 someone had an almost empty pantry, a hungry family, and an oven. There is nothing wrong with this state of living. Life and poverty get in the way and we can't all be foodies all the time. But we should probably never ever ever make this.

And so, it is with a reinvigorated fear of tuna, canned cheese soup, and casserole, that I bring you The Scariest Recipe of the Month: April edition: Tuna Rice Pie.

There are apparently some variations on this culinary offender, some resembling the beloved pot pie, and some closer to quiche, but I have picked what I believe to be the most disgusting incarnation.

Also, one more question: what is converted rice?

Please, if you can offer any cultural or culinary insight that might make this a little less nauseating, do correct or inform me. I love learning.

image sources respectively: EJF, EPH, Andy Warhol
comic by hannah

In Which Our Heroes Make Things Up...

2008-04-26T20:17:00.016-04:00

There comes a time in every man's life when he needs to return to the shackles of tradition, lest he feel separated from his roots. I, speak of course, of Latin American food.

About two years ago, I was dating a girl who was a vegetarian (among other things that have no business being discussed on a food blog), but not for any real reason other than "animals are cute." After such a long time of take out Chinese food, my favorite of which is a toss-up between General Tso's Chicken and Roast Pork Lo Mein, she started to crave chicken. This resulted in her stealing bits of my chicken in the General Tso box, but she maintained that she was a vegetarian, with lapses from time to time.

Finally, the time came when I said, simply, "You have to start eating chicken. Stop pretending to be a vegetarian when you constantly want chicken and haven't the willpower to not eat it." She agreed and so, I made up a recipe.

Tequila Chili Chicken Tacos.

Serves 2

I love these. They were the first meal I ever made for Hannah when she moved here from Vancouver (for you see, the marinade is easily adapted to black beans.) and it has become a regular staple in our menu. It features the cactusy flavors of decent tequila (we prefer Jose Cuervo. We tried it with other brands and Jose is frankly the best flavored tequila for cooking), a hint of lime, chili powder, Cayenne pepper powder, garlic, onion (red or yellow. it all depends on the whim of my brain for that day), and cilantro. And I made these the other night.

This recipe came to me in my head all on my own and I never had any measurements. I still don't to this day; at best, this is an estimation. Experiment with it, fix it, change it, add to it, subtract for less heat, add for more, try cumin or oregano. This recipe is what I did the other night.

For the Marinade:

1-1 1/2 cup of tequila (we use Jose Cuervo)

1/2 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 Tbsp chili powder

1 tsp cayenne powder

juice of 1 lime (more or less depending on quality...we get crappy limes in our neighborhood)

Salt and pepper

For the tacos:

1 skinless chicken breast*

1 can black beans, rinsed

Package of organic flour tortillas

Fixin's (sour cream, cheddar or smoked gouda cheese, salsa, tomatoes, etc.)

Combine everything for the marinade in a bowl; whisk it together. Let it sit while you deal with your chicken.

Cut your chicken in to strips, about the length of your index finger.

Open your can of beans, drain and rinse them. Place in a small saucepan and add about a 1/4 cup of the marinade to the beans. Place your chicken strips into the marinade and toss, covering all the chicken. Let it sit for about 20 minutes.

After the 20 minutes are up, get a pan on the stove, and crank the heat to full whack. When water skitters across the surface, you're set. Grab your tongs and put all the chicken into the pan. You hear that sizzle? That is the sound of deliciousness. Pour the marinade over the chicken and turn the heat down to a dull simmer. Cook the chicken until the liquid has reduced almost completely to a thick reddish tequila sauce.

At the same time as cooking the chicken turn on the beans. This should take about the same amount of time as the chicken. You should stir the beans regularly, though, to make sure the sauce covers them constantly.

Serve on warm flour tortillas with your favorite fixins. We use salsa and sour cream and cheese. You may add whatever accouterments you desire.

But it's important to note that our creativity isn't limited to marinades involving tequila and chili powder. Hannah and I decided that we wanted a salad and her clever little brain came up with:

Green Bean and Corn Salad with Herb and Citrus Vinaigrette
serves 2

Ingredients
3 handfuls fresh green beans (snapped at the ends)
5 oz yellow corn (frozen or fresh)
3-5 tbsp. feta cheese, crumbled
.25 red onion, finely minced
1 lime, juiced
4 fresh mint leaves, chopped
2 tbsp. fresh cilantro, chopped
.25 tsp. ground cumin
.5 tsp. dried oregano
.25 tsp. dried red pepper flakes
1 tbsp. olive oil
salt to taste

Begin by preparing the dressing. Combine onion, lime juice, herbs, and olive oil in a medium serving bowl.

Steam the green beans until just tender, about 4 minutes, add corn at minute 3. Drain and blanch in bowl of ice water. Drain again and chill approximately 10-15 minutes.

Combine vegetables and vinaigrette in the serving bowl. Garnish with feta, salt, and additional herbs and seasonings (if you like).**

*I bought a chicken breast package from Murray's Chicken. They have this new eco-packaging that eliminates the need for styrofoam. it's vacuum packed, so it's just as fresh and there is less packaging to throw out. You can also check out what farms your chicken came from on their website. The food is certified humane and "locally" raised in Lancaster, PA. If you can't get Murray's, try to get something similar.

**We think radishes or cherry tomatoes would also be a great vegetable addition if you happen to have them around. Add with the feta so as to keep the flavors very fresh.

Happy far-away birthday, little sister!

2008-04-26T15:30:00.006-04:00

Sorry for the silence (Marshall). Please, let us move through the excuses and on to what is really the most important issue at hand....

Birthdays! In particular, my little sister Abbie's birthday! With sincere regret in my heart, I could not be with her to celebrate, so I did the next best thing.

Yesterday as I was walking out of the apartment, I encountered my upstairs neighbor and his wife, with their hands full of silver mylar balloons complete with curled ribbons, pink and purple wrapping paper, and excited faces. They revealed to me that it was their granddaughter was turning five years old and would be honored that evening with a party fit for a princess.

These neighbors are a source of endless smiles for Matthias and me, as they are always quick to point out the delicious smells that come wafting upstairs from our apartment below. And remember those chocolate hazelnut spice cookies? They were so rich, that twenty of them were entirely too many to eat in a week, and so we gladly gifted some upstairs. (They have requested lasagna, or veal, but we have yet to grant those wishes. Please don't get me started on veal...).

I asked if they would like me to make cookies or cupcakes for their party and their faces lit up and they enthusiastically consented.

And so, I set out to make cupcakes fit for a five year old little girl, with pressure for perfection, and a strange pang of longing to be five again once more with my gregarious little sister by my side. It was this nostalgia that led me to choose the recipe for Jamie Oliver's 'Tea-Party Cupcakes'. For you see, when we were small, one spring afternoon I very much wanted to have a tea-party, and several weeks before that, I had very much wanted my mom and dad to bring me a sister home from the hospital so that she could perform the role of guest at my very grand afternoon teas. My mom explained to me that Abbie was too small, but one day she would make a fabulous guest, and oh my goodness, what do you know? She wound up being my very best friend. So, it is on this April 26th that I give a five year old stranger, and my dearest wee sister the gift of tea parties and cupcakes and all other manner of little girl-ness so that they can both feel so delicate, because these tiny, lemony little cakes exemplify the word.

Tea Party Cupcakes
adapted from Cook with Jamie, by Jamie Oliver
yield: approximately 20 cupcakes

Ingredients
for cake:
1 cup unsalted organic butter, softened
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
.5 tsp. kosher salt
.75 cup + 2 tbsp. organic sugar
4 large free range organic eggs
zest of 1 lemon

for icing:
2.2 oz. fresh blueberries (or raspberries or strawberries)
1.5 cups powdered sugar
juice of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 375 F.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar together until they are light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, fully combine them before adding the next.
Fold in flour and lemon zest, gently. Be careful not to overmix, you are essentially making a spongecake, but still, it should be delicate in the end, not gummy.

Spoon by heaping teaspoonful (the kind for eating, not measuring) into lined muffin tin.
Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown and springy to the touch.
Cool on a rack while you make the icing. (Which is just zizzing the berries in the food processor and adding them to the lemon juice and powdered sugar).
Use a teaspoon to drizzle the cupcakes with the icing. It will not be typical icing texture, don't fret. This makes it delicate and you don't feel like you have fur growing on your teeth when you are finished eating it, because there is nothing princess-like about that at all.
Garnish with fruit.

Happy 22nd Birthday, Sistercat!
Love, Sissy, Matthias, and Yossarian

A recipe for a picnic

2008-04-14T11:40:00.001-04:00

Last summer Matthias and I packed our bags with some standard picnic fare and headed to Central Park to sit on a patch of grass, get tipsy on overly sweet crappy Riesling and feed birds chunks of baguette. Truth be told, it was one of the nicest evenings we have ever shared.

Last week, spring finally arrived, bearing the gift of a beautiful 70 degree sunny day and the perfect evening for this year's first picnic. Rather than give you a single recipe of our own, we wanted to give you a formula of sorts for taking your food outside, eating tiny little bites, watching puppies play, smelling the new foliage, and slowing down to enjoy your time with the ones that you love. It sounds sappy, but it will be enough to pull you out of your spring restlessness and make you grateful for surviving another winter.

Recipe For A Picnic
serves 2-4

Farro with Coarse Pesto (the leftovers are great, and you will still have some even if you cut the recipe in half. a pound of farro is a lot, even when you like grains. a lot.)

Salumi

Cheese, Veggies, Crackers, or Bread
White Bean Hummus
Fig Jam (I made homemade fig newtons earlier in the week, and we thought the dough could use a little work, but the filling is spot on and was delicious on the cheese.)
Lemonade (Matthias puts lemon zest in the simple syrup and it makes all the difference.)

These are some humble suggestions, and made for a splendid dinner in Astoria Park. Find a little patch of green, pack your totebag (or your picnic basket if you're lucky enough to have one), pack some booze, or leave it out, gather some friends, or keep it intimate, picnics are the perfect excuse to leave your worries at home and a free pass to enjoy the little things that you cherish, and wonder about the ones that have yet to come.

Throwing off the shackles of tradition....

2008-04-11T15:58:00.001-04:00

There comes a time in every man's life when he must throw off the shackles of tradition and move to something more revolutionary. I speak, of course, of Latin American food.

When I think Latin American food, my journey takes me no further south than Tijuana, home of tequila, tacos, burritos, enchiladas and other such combinations of tortilla, beans, rice and meat. After a while, one begins to get the feeling that perhaps the Central and South Americans over-produced tortillas and didn't know what to do with them. Call me ethnocentric, but you know you're thinking it, too.

Thank heavens for chef and Food Network personality, Tyler Florence. I didn't see this recipe on TV, but Hannah did and told me that I had to make it because I have had an organic free-range pork tenderloin in the freezer for the past three or four months. I remembered how good it was the last time I made it and said, "YES, by gum! I shall make this!"

And I didn't regret it.

You see, what he made was a pork tenderloin marinated in a lime, jalapeño, spice, vinegar, olive oil mixture called chimichurri. This is an Argentinian sauce that has several origins, all of them involving an English colonist with a name not dissimilar to "Jimmy Curry" preparing the sauce and everyone just calling it thus. This leads us to the original Argentine recipe, which involves chopped parsley, dried oregano garlic, salt, pepper, onion and paprika with olive oil. Citrus juice and vinegar are added for pep. Clearly, Tyler made a variation of this with loads of pep and a Mexican influence.

This has simple ingredients. Everything you need is in your produce aisle (assuming you, like me, store your pork tenderloin for months at a time). And it's easy peasy, too. It's an hour, tops.

Pork Tenderloin with Chimichurri
From Tyler Florence

Chimichurri:
6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 jalapenos, seeded and minced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
About 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
About 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh oregano leaves
3 limes, juiced
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

2 pork tenderloins (about 1 pound each), trimmed of excess fat, patted dry
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
Lime juice, for drizzling
Parsley sprigs, for garnish

Combine the garlic, jalapeno and vinegar in a bowl. Stir in the parsley, oregano, and lime juice. Whisk in the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Mix well and set aside at room temperature to allow the flavors to marry.

Reserve 1/2 cup of the chimichurri to serve and marinate the pork in the rest. Put the pork and marinade in a sealable plastic bag and set aside in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat an outdoor charcoal grill or oven broiler to high.

Remove the pork from the marinade, wiping off any excess. Season both sides with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and place on the grill. Grill the pork on the hottest part of the barbecue for 4 minutes per side, until well charred. Allow the tenderloin to rest for about 5 minutes prior to slicing. Spoon some chimichurri over the meat, drizzle with lime juice, garnish with parsley, and serve with the remaining sauce at the table.

We served this with beans and basmati with cumin seeds and boiled and roasted carrots. I was stuffed all night. I made two tenderloins and only ate one. So the next day, I made Tenderloin salad for a sandwich:

Tenderloin Salad Sandwich
My own recipe

1 Pork tenderloin, grilled and cubed
1 Tbsp mayonnaise
1 Tbsp sour cream
2 or 3 Tbsp chimichurri sauce (from the previous night)
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine the mayo, sour cream and chimichurri. Add the meat. Season to taste. Place it on a sandwich. Eat.

I got two days of sandwiches out of this. It is fabulous. And if you make this meal, you will never EVER have anything better.

Unless perhaps...a picnic.

For richer, for poorer

2008-04-08T21:28:00.001-04:00

It is easy to feel poor in New York. Impoverished, inferior, inadequate, and unhealthy are all words that come to mind to describe what I frequently feel in this city.

Circumstances that are completely unrelated to this blog took me to Bloomingdale's in a last minute attempt at finding a dress that I should have purchased months ago for a wedding I had known about for quite some time. As Matthias and I stood paralyzed on the escalators, unable to ascend past the fifth floor, for fear of being accosted and interrogated based entirely upon our ragamuffin appearances, he turned to me and said, 'Do you know what else has 9 levels? Hell.'

Ordinarily, I would be hard pressed to find an inkling of truth in Dante, but I found myself wishing that people that purchased merchandise from the 9th (and presumably, the most expensive) floor should be frozen in ice for all of perpetuity like the other great giants and evil doers of the Divine Comedy, although I am inclined to assume that surely their hearts must be already.

As we stepped off of the escalator to make one final and desperate sweep through the fourth floor, I said to Matthias, 'The only thing that could make me feel better right now is a chocolate hazelnut cookie.' And truly, they are so rich that you will forget all about how senseless it seems to spend so much money on a dress that may be worn only twice (I do love it, so it will probably get more wear than that, but to be completely frivolous, it had two intended uses, both for weddings).

The good people at Gourmet gave me the most precious gift in their April issue: pages upon pages filled with recipes, photographs, and anecdotes on Italy. I will wax on and on about my deep and abiding love for the time I spent there and how I yearn to return in a different post, because this is about feeling rich when you're not, about escaping into flavors, and about knowing that no matter how poor and destitute and alone you may feel, it is the best feeling in the world to know that even if you don't have someone wonderful to stand at your side and make literary references, you will always have these perfectly simple, but simultaneously overwhelming cookies.

Chocolate Hazelnut Spiced Cookies
adapted from Gourmet, April 2008

Ingredients
1.5 cups hazelnuts, toasted whole
.75 cups sugar (organic and fairly traded, please)
.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
.5 cups unsweetened cocoa (not Dutch process, and same request as sugar)
1 tsp. baking soda
.75 tsp. salt
.5 tsp. cinnamon
.125 tsp. ground cloves
3 tbsp. cold, organic unsalted butter
1 tbsp. orange zest
3 tbsp. orange juice
.5 tbsp. pure vanilla extract*
.5 tbsp. Kahlua*

For Icing (yes, there is icing! But I am not convinced that it is entirely necessary. These cookies are jaw-droppingly rich without it. But if you're feeling particularly indulgent or impecunious, please ice them. You won't regret it)
.5 cups confectioner's sugar
.5 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tbsp. water
.5 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
.5 tbsp. Kahlua

Procedure
Toast hazelnuts at 325 for about 10-15 minutes and maintain 325 degrees for the cookies
Lightly butter a baking sheet
When they have cooled, rub the skins off of the hazelnuts with a kitchen towel
Pulse nuts in the food processor until they have reached a medium-fine consistency
Combine sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cloves
Add hazelnuts to mixture and combine with wooden spoon
Add the cold, cubed butter and the orange zest and mash with a fork or pastry cutter until the butter is broken into pea-sized lumps
Add the orange juice and liqueur(s) and mix with the wooden spoon until just combined
Form into teaspoon sized balls (you really will be satisfied with a cookie this size. I would strongly caution against making them larger).
Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until tops are cracked and slightly crisp to the touch. They will firm up on the cooling rack.

While cookies cool, wisk together ingredients for the icing and dip the tops of the cookies into it (or spoon it on with a teaspoon, if you want to make less of a mess)
Allow iced cookies to rest 1 hour**
Keep, layered between parchment or wax paper in an airtight container for about 4 days and are best enjoyed with milk.

*The original recipe calls for 1 tbsp. of Frangelico liqueur, but we are not really cocktail enthusiasts and I really could not justify buying a special bottle for cookies, so I used what we had and it worked quite well.
**These cookies really do get better with time. We liked them better the second and third days better than that first night. We wish the same for the marriages that spawned my dress buying panic.

Scariest Recipe of the Month: March

2008-03-30T18:50:00.005-04:00

The Scariest Recipe of the Month is a monthly feature in which we showcase a recipe from the internet or television that we have found and utterly flabbergasts us. They usually include scary ingredients, scary preparing methods, or just horrible ideas. This is one such thing.

This month, I thought we'd go with something scary in the sense that someone out there actually thinks that this is a recipe. it's not a recipe. it's directions for pouring something into a glass of ice.

Back in July when we were having some...problems...with our apartment, we went back to Lancaster, PA, where I went to college and where many of my friends still reside. We were playing poker (Hannah had just learned how to play the night before back here and she totally whupped me.) and drinking. My friend Harry, who was nice enough to let us crash at his place, suggested we try a drink from this bottle of something he got for his Anniversary. it was this unholy, unnatural sky blue hazy liquid, that looked like something out of an 80s punchbowl.

It was called Hpnotiq and it is shnarsty. It tastes like isopropyl alcohol combined with the slight twinge of burning paraffin and red phosphorus. It is shit-ass. I'm not kidding. We think it's pronounced 'hip-no-TEEK,' but there's a good chance it's 'hypnotic.'

However you say it, it's awful.

So, I was watching, idly, Semi-Homemade With Sandra Lee the one day on Food Network. And if you don't know what this is, my god, please watch. Please. the woman's idea of a good recipe is opening a packet of McCormack's seasonings and dumping it into a pile of undisclosed meat and whacking it into the oven.

Now, let's be fair. Hannah and I are not the world's greatest cooks. We're pretty good. But we're not the world's greatest cooks. It's early in our foodie career and we've still got lots of ground to cover. But I assure you, we do not think that easy baking solutions include slapping marzipan on a store-bought sheetcake and pressing cupcakes into them. That's just simply not baking. Sandra Lee, however, believes that this is the paragon of the culinary world. She is the world's laziest cook. World's Laziest. And her food just looks horrible.

It her "Ocean Breeze" cocktail is this month's scary recipe. Food Network calls it the Hypnosis cocktail, but she calls it Ocean Breeze on the show.

Recipe? Oh, you'd better freakin' believe it!

Ocean Breeze (Hypnosis)

Ice
Blue-colored fruit-flavored cognac and vodka liqueur (recommended: Hpnotiq)
Blueberries, for garnish

Place some ice cubes in a tall glass. Pour in some liqueur and garnish with blueberries. Serve immediately.

Please read that again.

The ingredients are ice, some sort of blue-colored fruit-flavored cognac and vodka liqueur (the only one of it's kind being Hpnotiq) and blueberries. She's telling you, you idiot monkeys, to pour a liquid into a glass and then add blueberries. And because it's very possible she's evil, those blueberries are from Chile. And you know how we feel about blueberries from Chile.

Scariest recipe of the month, ladies and gentlemen. A woman's instructions on pouring a terrifyingly bad liquid into a glass.

Gyeh.

I'm feeling kind of basic...and preachy. Apparently

2008-03-27T12:00:00.007-04:00

Peanut butter sandwiches hardly seem blogworthy. I am pretty sure I made my first one all by myself right after I swore off bologna at age 4. I used to get teased in elementary, middle, and high school because I always had a vegetable, a fruit, and some variation on peanut butter (usually in a pita, on wheat bread, or with strawberry jam) instead of a conglomerated meat sandwich and an industrial snack cake. In those days, it was crunchy Jif and Smucker's strawberry jam. For a brief interlude I convinced myself that reduced fat Jif just tasted so much better. But, that is just crazy talk.

So, when Matthias decided on Monday that taking 4 hours to roast a baby sheep would be a good idea, I thought something simple, or better yet, elemental would be in order for lunch. I am a plain girl. My mom calls me her 'Plain Jane' (I get it honestly. This is her old nickname). I own 4 gray T-shirts, leaving 3 days a week to wear something else. I like food that tastes wholesome and simple. I don't need my tastebuds to be dazzled, or confused, or overwhelmed. I want my life to be honest, genuine, fair, and just. Begin political tirade:

That said....I highly recommend that you use all natural, unsalted peanut butter to make your sandwich. Get this, it actually tastes like peanuts (aherm, Matthias...not corn syrup, hydrogenated oil, salt, and peanuts). If you choose to augment your sandwich with fruit or some other sweetness, please make sure your jam does not have high fructorse corn syrup, or any other unidentifiable ingredients. We like St. Dalfour jam (we know, it's not local, and we're sorry, Earth. We have plans to jam our own when we have more than one refrigerator/freezer/counter shelf between the two of us) or raw honey. Matthias loves his sandwich with bananas. Now, we should talk about bananas.

To accompany our sandwiches, we decided to make smoothies. Matthias is of the opinion that smoothies cannot be made without bananas. I am of the opinion that bananas are one of those things that people can and absolutely should do without unless they are organic and fairly traded. Without further soapboxing, I give you:

Bananas-Are-Not-Negotiable smoothie
Serves 2

1 small apple, diced
1 orange, peeled and sectioned
¾ medium banana
½ cup unsweetened soymilk
½ cup Greek yogurt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp agave nectar
3 ice cubes

Blend until combined.

Author's note: Use fruit that looks good to you. Please do not buy blueberries from Chile in March just because they are full of antioxidants. Please do not buy Driscoll’s strawberries, I don’t care how big and juicy they look. Their workers have not been fairly compensated, and their farming practices are partially culpable for the thick central California air (try breathing it from May-October with asthma). And for pity’s sake, try unrelentingly to petition for and purchase fairly traded bananas, because banana farmers are truly some of the worst worker’s rights offenders and some of the most vibrant vestiges of Cold War politics. And trust me, you don’t want to eat your smoothie with a guilty conscience on the side. You want to eat it with a peanut butter sandwich.

End tirade.

Further reading: Co-op America, New York, I'm looking at you, Fair Trade Federation, Banana Wars

"Someone Has To Temper Your Madness"* - A Play In Three Acts.

2008-03-24T16:26:00.010-04:00

~Act I~
Within the Homestead
Dramatis Personae

Hannah ..........................................................................................................A delightful girl
Matthias.........................................................................................................A slothful heathen
Yossarian........................................................................................................An alleged cat

Matthias and Hannah are sitting in their bedroom. Hannah is on a chair with her computer on her lap. Matthias is lazing in bed, like the subscriber to the Great Sin Sloth that he is.

HANNAH - "What do you want for lunch?"

MATTHIAS - "Meatballs."

HANNAH - "Well, what do you want for dinner, so that way if we go out, we don't have to go back out for dinner food?"

Matthias sits and thinks for a moment and pokes through the internet, to find a recipe. He finds it on the Food Network Website.

MATTHIAS - "Roasted Lamb Shoulder?"

HANNAH - "OK. That sounds good. So what do you want for lunch?"

MATTHIAS - "Meatballs."

HANNAH - "YOU'RENOTGETTINGMEATBALLSANDLAMBTODAY!!!"

MATTHIAS - Peanut butter and banana sandwich?

HANNAH - Can we have smoothies as well?

MATTHIAS - Of course, my dear.

Exeunt.

~Act II~
Without, In the World of Butchery

Dramatis Personae

Matthias..................................................................................................................A meat purchaser
George........................................................................................Evidently, a German and butcher
Hannah.....................................................................................Bread-buyer and unmatched beauty

Matthias enters the butcher shop, whereupon the store front it reads, "Greek and American Specialties." He looks in the huge refrigerated case of meats. Everything from chicken and beef to homemade sausages and what appears to be bacon.

GEORGE - "What can I do for you, my friend?"

MATTHIAS - "Do you happen to have lamb shoulder?"

George looks at Matthias with that, "We're a Greek butcher shop. Do we have lamb shoulder. For crying out...it was just EASTER!!!" look. He ambles over to the window and pulls out the shoulder.

GEORGE - "How many you want?"

Matthias looks at the portion of lamb in the man's hands. Given that Matthias is the only meat eater in the household, he notes that this is probably too big for him to eat, but God damn it, he's going to try anyway.

MATTHIAS - "Oh, jeez, just the one!"

George slaps the meat on the scale.

GEORGE - "What are you doing with it?"

MATTHIAS (gleefully) - "I'm gonna roast it tonight!"

GEORGE - "You want me clean it up?"

MATTHIAS (hiding his perplexity) - "Yes, please. That would be great."

George turns around and deftly handles his blades, hammering away at the bone and cutting at the sinews, cleaning up the bits and bobbles that remained on the shoulder.

Enter Hannah.

She is carrying a baguette from the French bakery next door.

MATTHIAS - "Did you get any eclairs?"

HANNAH (wrinkling her nose) - "No, just bread."

George turns back around and hands to them the meat, wrapped in butcher's paper and bagged in two plastic bags, much to Hannah's visible chagrin (remember, this is a play.)

GEORGE - "You are Irish?"

Matthias and Hannah look at each other.

MATTHIAS - "Uh, no. I'm German."

GEORGE - "Where from? In Germany, where from?"

MATTHIAS - "Berlin, I think."

GEORGE - "You have never been there?"

MATTHIAS - "Nope."

GEORGE - "If you go, you see my brother. He owns a restaurant in Heidelberg."

HANNAH - "Ok!"

Exeunt Matthias and Hannah.

~Act III~
And The People, Er, Person Did Feast Upon the Lambs

Dramatis Personae

Matthias......................................................................................................................A glutton
Hannah...........................................................................................................A ravishing vixen

Matthias is eating, lo these four hours hence, his lamb.

MATTHIAS - "Oh my holy sweet Lord. This...this is just about the best thing I ever ate.

HANNAH - "I'm so gl..."

MATTHIAS - "Oh! Mmm! OH my...Hannah. This is...Jeeeeeeeeziz! This is...I can't...

HANNAH - "How's the sauce?"

MATTHIAS (shoveling more food in his mouth) - "Mild. Fatty."

HANNAH (a bit disgusted)- "Fatty?"

MATTHIAS - "That's not a bad thing! Oh."

Various sucking and slurping noises that can only come from a boy in the guise of a man.

END.

*Author's Note: The title for this came from Hannah, as she looked at the ginormous hunk of meat that resided in the glass baking dish I had reserved for the cooking. She asked me if it wouldn't be a good idea to cut it in half. After a moment's consideration (and yes, i did consider NOT cutting it in half), I did so. She said, idly, "Someone has to temper your madness, Sundberg." And thus the title.

Abbreviated Roasted Lamb Shoulder
Recipe abbreviated from Food Network and Jamie Oliver

I think it should be noted that I did not use 2.2 lbs of lamb and it was finished in 3 hours instead of the prescribed 4. I would guess that I had about a pound of it, and nearly all of that is left in the fridge for mutton sammiches. Shut up. I know what mutton is. I just like saying it. To the recipe:

For the lamb:
1 (2.2-pound) shoulder of lamb
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large bunch fresh rosemary
1 bulb garlic, unpeeled, broken into cloves

For the sauce:
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 cups good-quality hot chicken or vegetable stock
2 heaped tablespoons capers, soaked, drained and chopped
1 large bunch fresh mint, leaves picked
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

For the lamb:

Preheat your oven to full whack, (450 to 500 degrees F).

Slash the fat side of the lamb all over with a sharp knife. Lay half the sprigs of rosemary and half the garlic cloves on the bottom of a high-sided roasting pan, rub the lamb all over with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place it in the pan on top of the rosemary and garlic, and put the rest of the rosemary and garlic on top of the lamb. Tightly cover the tray with aluminum foil and place in the oven. Turn the oven down immediately to 325 degrees F and cook for 4 hours - it's done if you can pull the meat apart easily with 2 forks.

For the sauce:

Remove the lamb from the oven and place it on a chopping board. Cover it with foil, then a kitchen towel, and leave it to rest. Pour away most of the fat from the roasting pan, discarding any bits of rosemary. Put the pan on the stovetop over medium heat and mix in the flour. Add the stock, stirring and scraping all the sticky goodness off the bottom of the pan. You won't need gallons of gravy, just a couple of flavorsome spoonfuls for each serving. Add the capers, turn the heat down and simmer for a few minutes.

Finely chop the mint and add it to the sauce with the red wine vinegar at the last minute then pour into a pitcher.

Hippies, Use Side Door

2008-03-19T15:11:00.013-04:00

We do apologize for the radio silence over here, but my dear mother and sweet little sister were in town and I was busy walking them from tip to tip of the island, and a little beyond. Matthias's luscious citrus spiced kebabs made a second appearance for their visit, as did Molly's lemon yogurt cake and our adapted version of Jen's bee's knees. After a wonderful and refreshing visit with my family we were thoroughly, but happily, exhausted all weekend and I have been hovering under the weather ever since. But I cannot stray from our tiny (and suspiciously uncalibrated to the hotter side of Hades) oven for long...

So I am giving you and Matthias a lifeline out of the winter doldrums of oatmeal, toast, and bacon sammiches with a mildly crunchy little bit of seasonal change, perfect with a piece of fruit and some french press coffee. Not too sweet or oily, not so clustered that your teeth break off (I will take the blame and spare you the recipe for the granola adaptation that nearly destroyed my three years of orthodontia and Matthias's naturally perfect smile), more toasty than fruity, I humbly give you

Hippies-Use-Side-Door Granola

It is at this point that you should note Matthias's deep and abiding hatred for hippies. Admittedly, he has gotten much more accepting since I have joined him from my west coast tenure, but still, he will have you know that this granola is not for people with 'patchouli stink' (quoted from John Cusack in High Fidelity, a film that marks a momentous occasion in our relationship, thus making this breakfast even more cause for celebration than it would normally deserve).

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup raw almonds, vaguely chopped
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
or 1/4 cup pumpkin and 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup walnuts, vaguely chopped
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
1/3 cup orange blossom honey
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup dried apricots, diced
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup dried dates, pitted and diced

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine oats, nuts, seeds, and spices; mix with a wooden spoon.

Melt butter, honey and vanilla over medium heat until just foamy.

Pour the butter mixture into the dry ingredients and mix with wooden spoon until coated
spoon granola onto a foil or parchment lined baking sheet (your sponge will thank you).

Bake for 20 minutes*

When cool, slide the foil/parchment lining into your container and shake it off. Add dried fruit and store in an airtight container. You may find this takes some crunch from your granola, so store it in the fridge if texture is of paramount importance to you, but if it is the flavor that matters in the morning, we recommend you abstain from the flavor zapping mechanism of the magic box.

*we have a teeny tiny oven, which requires a half-sheet rimmed baking sheet. if you are using a full sheet, 20 minutes should do it. if you use a half-sheet, you should go for about 20 minutes, stir up, and give it another 10 minutes, give or take.

Of Necessity and Invention; Of Skewers and Veggie-Type Things...

2008-03-09T17:54:00.013-04:00

It was a bright and sunny day.

The birds were chirping and The Band was playing on the Patented Bathroom Sound System (before you get all "Ooo and Ahh!" on us, the Patented Bathroom Sound System is a couple of old desktop computer speakers from 1999 and an iPod) and Hannah asked me, if I was hungry and wanted lunch. Well, with the day being so nice, what else would I want to do?

"Well, what do we have in there?"

"Two carrots, celery, some fennel and some hummus. I think we have some tzatziki in there and maybe some pizza sauce. Oh and cream you whipped the other day."

"No soup?"

"Just that yellow pea soup from the other night."

"Eh."

"Yeah."

"Well, what do you want for supper? Then we can go out, get lunch and supper stuff."

This took us upstairs into the kitchen and into the hands of that British gent, Jamie Oliver. We flipped through the two books of his that we own and nothing looked good. Oh, don't get me wrong, shit looks great (I'm looking in your direction, Roasted Chicken Breast Wrapped in Pancetta with Leeks and Thyme) but it wasn't nailing us right in the tummies. Finally after threatening to not eat lunch at all and perhaps take a nap or launch a mad scientist-like assault on the world governments (not plausible, evidently), we settled on a gouda-and-pickled-jalepeno quesadilla for me and a veggie wrap for Hannah.

"All I'm saying is, I'll settle for this veggie wrap if you do something extraordinary for dinner."

Given that a quesadilla is little more than a Mexican grilled cheese sandwich and I LOVE grilled cheese, I agreed.

This, of course, put the pressure on me. Come up with something amazing, or, you scrawny little punk, there will be hell to pay, as I just suffered through a wrap consisting solely of root veg and feta. You botch this and call for pea burgers and I not only will leave you that moment, but I will also take the cat. AND my cake skills.

GASP

Citrus Spiced Kebabs

for the marinade:
6 Navel oranges
1 tbsp good honey
1/2 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp coriander seeds, bashed up
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (more or less to taste)
about 7 mint leaves, chopped
Salt & Pepper

for the kebabs themselves:
1 red pepper
1 green cubanella pepper
5 mushrooms, halved
1 zucchini, sliced into thick 1/4 in. coins
4 cloves garlic, halved
1 medium red onion, cut into eighths
1 chicken breast, cut into fingers

extra materials:
skewers, wooden or metal

If you are using the wooden skewers, let them soak in water, for about a half an hour or so, as you are prepping everything. This way, they won't burn when you put them in the oven.

Squeeze 4 of the oranges into a bowl. Add everything you need for the marinade, mix up and set in the refrigerator for 10 minutes, to let the flavors mellow.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees, F.

Meanwhile, cut up the veggies and the chicken. Poke the skewers through the meat and veggies in whatever order you want. Doesn't matter. Have fun with it. Place into a glass baking dish, drizzle the marinade/sauce over the kebabs. Once you have placed your kebabs into the baking dish, squeeze the juice of the remaining two oranges over your skewers. It will add just a hint more acid and a bit more liquid for cooking.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes; 20 minutes covered in aluminum foil, and ten minutes uncovered.

Serve over rice (we used basmati).

Enjoy. Our kitty Yossarian sure did.

Repurposed baking

2008-03-08T14:28:00.009-05:00

On Thursday after breakfast I cleaned out the various bits and bobs that had been accumulating in recycled plastic containers on our shelf of the refrigerator. A tablespoon of minced ginger? Given that we make Asian-type foods once in a blue moon, what in the world was I thinking when I thought it would be a good idea to save that? Radishes, carrots, fennel, lettuce, chickpeas? You are my lunch. 1 cup of leftover mashed redskin (skins on, thankyouverymuch) rosemary potatoes? You need to be something more, because you were good that night Matthias made roasted chicken, but you are going to need some spiffing up if you are going to get eaten again. And because my mother is the daughter of a farmer, I learned a long and lasting lesson about the evils of wasted food, despite the repugnance of some leftovers.

My father would have seen this mash as a latke waiting to happen. I saw bread - rich, squishy, moist, toothsome, herby, and a little salty. And so, like the good little baker I am, I turned to the inturwebs, which lead me to the very trustworthy Serious Eats.

I turned up a recipe from Anissa Helou's Savory Baking From the Mediterranean for potato focaccia. I am a seasoned bread baker. It happens at least once a week in our apartment, kneading is a task that gives me satisfaction like none other, and while some people are addicted to chocolate, or wine, or jellybeans, I fully admit, with not an ounce of shame, that I find a day without bread to be woefully empty. Also, you should know that while I am not a terribly confident person, I know for certain that I can look at two things in this world and take pride in making sense of them: baking recipes and art.

But, everyone should be shaken from her pedestal occasionally, or so the universe believes, and lo, this recipe shook me to my core. I made soup as a backup to the veggies we were to be having along with the bread, just in case things ended disastrously, as I was sure that they would after the frightful, adhesive mess this dough became in its middle stage.

Rest assured, this story has a happy ending, and you should rescue your leftover mashed potatoes, give them a kiss with some fresh herbs, rub them in olive oil, and look at them proudly when they come out of the oven golden, crusty, and with more character than you could ever hope to have bestowed upon them.

We had this lovely bread with some zucchini, fennel, mushrooms, and red peppers that we dusted with fresh thyme, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil and cooked on the grill pan. A nice spring supper, indeed. Disaster averted, confidence regained (for now).

Rosemary Focaccia Bread
adapted from Anissa Helou's Savory Baking From the Mediterranean
Ingredients

2 1/4 teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading and shaping
1 1/2 teaspoons fine kosher salt or sea salt
5 ounces mashed potatoes*
Extra-virgin olive oil
coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Procedure

Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup warm water, and stir until creamy.

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl, and make a well in the center. Add the mashed potatoes and the yeast, and, using fingertips, bring in a little of the flour. Gradually add 2/3 cup warm water and bring in the remaining flour as you go along. Knead briefly to make a rough ball of dough.

(This is the step where things started to look horribly awry to me. The dough was wretchedly sticky, and could not be coaxed together with extra flour. I feared my potatoes were too moist. But just make the best mangled little ball that you can and be patient. It will come together.)

Dust a work surface with flour. Sprinkle the ball of dough with a little extra flour and knead for 2 to 3 minutes. Invert the bowl over the dough and let rest for 15 minutes. Knead for 2 to 3 minutes more, sprinkling with extra flour if the dough is sticky, until the dough is smooth and somewhat soft.

Grease a 12-inch round pie plate with olive oil. Transfer the dough to the pie plate, and flatten and stretch the dough by hand to cover the bottom of the plate; the dough should be about 1/2 inch thick. Cover with a wet but not dripping kitchen towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place for 1 1/2 hours. The dough should have doubled in volume.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Press with fingertips on the focaccia to make dimples all over. Brush generously with olive oil. Crack some sea salt and black pepper over the top. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until the focaccia is well risen and golden brown all over. Serve warm, or transfer to a wire rack to let cool and serve at room temperature.

*we make our mashed potatoes with 5 small red skinned potatoes, skins still on please, with 1 head of roasted garlic, 1 sprig of finely chopped rosemary, and about 1/4 cup of organic heavy cream, and a knob of butter, all mashed together coarsely

Scariest Recipe of the Month: February

2008-03-03T20:13:00.008-05:00

This will be a monthly feature, occurring after we have gotten through the previous month, in order to properly represent the scariest recipe that we have found of that particular month.

Hannah and I are Food Network junkies. We make sure that, every day, if we can, we watch Giada, Ina Garten (crazy bitch) and then follow it all up with that dame of domesticity, that paragon of the palette, you know her, you love her, the one, the only...

PAULA DEEN!!!!

This Episode aired February 14th, Valentine's Day, and let me tell you, whoever got this recipe for a Valentine totally hates their life. Without further ado, and without dragging this out much further, so that I can appropriately ridicule this recipe:

Paula Deen's Cheesy Ham and Banana Casserole.

Image courtesy of Food Network

This is the most horrifying foodstuff we can think of. Absolutely. Hands down. There is nothing on this planet that is more disgusting to think of than ham and bananas. Except maybe cheese and bananas. From Food Network's Website:

"Today’s show is all about bananas and wait till you see some of the sweet and savory dishes Paula’s got up her sleeves. First off are her crunchy and buttery Curry Crusted Bananas. Then she’s turning bananas into a savory Cheesy Ham and Banana Casserole--wait till you see the surprise ingredient she’s adding. She’ll top off the menu with a Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich that is so sweet and delicious, you may want to save some for dessert."

The surprise ingredient? Are you sure it's not...HAM? Because I was pretty damned surprised to find out that you were adding lunchmeat to bananas. Lunch. Meat. Also, please be sure to pay attention to the rest of those things: Curry crusted bananas. Curry. Crusted. Bananas. And the Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich. I can't fault her on that last one. I have in fact had one of those and yes, they are delicious. Strange in texture, but delicious nonetheless.

This post, however, is not about The King's culinary proclivities. This is about a Banana ham fuck brain aneurysm.

Oh, Paula.

So this month, Paula wins the dubious award of "Scariest Recipe of The Month." If any of you are brave enough to try this, I've enclosed the recipe.

And any one of you chef's in training: send us your scariest recipe and see if you can't beat Paula in March.

Paula Deen's Cheesy Ham and Banana Casserole
(Recipe courtesy of PaulaDeen.com)

Butter
12 slices white bread
8 large slices deli ham
4 bananas, sliced on the bias
2 cups shredded Cheddar
2 cups crushed potato chips
6 slices cooked and crumbled bacon
4 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup cream
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter a 9 by 13 glass baking dish. Butter both sides of the bread and layer 6 of them into the bottom of the baking dish, overlapping them as necessary but keep them even. Layer the slices of ham on top of the bread and then the bananas, 6 more slices of bread, then the cheese, potato chips, and bacon. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, cream, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Pour this over the casserole almost to the top. Bake for 45 minutes until brown and bubbly. Cut into squares and remove with a spatula, like lasagna.

Yeugh.

Bachelor Detox

2008-02-28T14:38:00.006-05:00

I returned to the city to find Matthias happy, but in a conglomerated meat and hyper-processed potato stupor. He said to me, 'Hannah, maybe we could have a giant salad for supper.' Having had a lovely weekend at home, filled with delicious food, and even better wine, I wasn't feeling quite as poisoned (plus, before I went to the airport I had a salad for lunch with my mom. Don't get me wrong, I love salad, but they aren't exactly the sort of thing you crave twice a day in the dead of February). So, I suggested sushi and Matthias was thusly rerouted on the road to civilized eating.

Now, please do understand that I am not a bossy girl. I am not a vigilante vegetarian. I have spoken my peace about the animal industry and I generally refrain from climbing repeatedly onto my soapbox (usually people get the speech once and once only). So, you should note that the meals below were ingested by free will and with gustatory delight.

Almost-But-Not-Quite Spring Frittata
yield: 2 servings

Ingredients
4 organic free-range eggs
2 tbsp. milk
2 medium leeks
5-7 asparagus stalks
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. butter
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 tsp fresh tarragon, finely chopped
1/4 cup parmesean cheese, finely grated
salt and pepper to taste

Using the whites of the leeks, split them down the center and rinse thoroughly under cold water, running your fingers through the layers gently to remove all of the sand. Slice thinly. Also, now would be a good time to chop your asparagus into about 1” pieces.

Sauté leeks and garlic in 2 tsp. olive oil (or butter, for a sweeter flavor) for about 5-7 minutes, or until slightly wilted and fragrant.

While your vegetables are cooking down, wisk eggs and milk until slightly frothy. Grease a 10” cake pan with your pat of butter (if we had a tart pan, or a springform, or hell, even a pie pan we would have used it. So, if you are in a kitchen better outfitted than ours, please, by all means, feel free to take advantage of it). You won’t use the whole tablespoon for non-stick purposes, so just tear the leftover piece into little pea-sized bits and distribute them sporadically on the bottom of the pan so that they can soak into the egg/vegetable mixture and make it rich and lovely.

Pour your egg and milk mixture into the pan. Add the asparagus, leeks, garlic, herbs, and cheese. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until the asparagus is bright green and started to brown at the tips and the eggs are sufficiently set.

We had this with some rye toast and jam. Matthias had some pancetta on the side, which he said was a nice complement to the frittata. The vegetable and cheese combinations are numerous and this is a dish we come back to often with various substitutions, but this just felt so green and hopeful to us that night.

Barley, Mushroom, Asparagus Soup
Yield: 4 main, 6 side dish servings

I went for a long walk on Tuesday to clear my head and find some coffee and I was out for just long enough to let the damp cold seep into my bones and for my heart to demand soup for dinner. And so it was.

Ingredients
6 cups homemade vegetable stock (or 3 cups mushroom broth, 3 cups vegetable stock)*
6 button mushrooms, sliced
6 cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 carrots, sliced into thick coins
1 leek, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp. butter
2 tsp. fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
2/3 cup organic barley
5-7 asparagus stalks

Bring stock to a simmer. Add mushrooms, carrots and bay leaves, and cover. Cook over medium/low heat for about 20 minutes. Add barley and cover again. While the barley is cooking, sauté the leek and garlic in the butter, set aside while you chop the asparagus into ½” pieces. The barley should take about 25 minutes to cook. Add leek, garlic, thyme, and asparagus about 5 minutes before you are ready to serve, just to heat through. You want the asparagus to be bright green, with a slight crunch and its characteristic fibrousness.
Salt and pepper to taste.

*I made my own stock, but Pacific mushroom broth and Rapunzel vegetable stock cubes would probably be just fine in a pinch.

We had this soup while it was still piping hot, with some warm freshly baked whole wheat honey bread and some steamed broccoli with white wine vinaigrette, and it was the perfect dinner to take some of the chill and dread from my heart and from our hands. It’s the kind of soup that makes you think that something is going to change soon, be it the weather, or something more significant.

Regrettably, I can’t leave you with a soup or an egg song, but I can tell you that we have thyme and lavender sprouts in our window herb garden, a kitty that is happy to have both humans in the same room, a refreshed and more hopeful Hannah, and a detoxified Matthias who is ready to roast some chicken tonight.

Bachelor Chow: Now With Flavor!

2008-02-23T19:16:00.008-05:00

"There's no food in your food!" - Hannah

Men are idiots. When faced with insurmountable odds, they do one of two things. The first is to surmount them, regardless of the odds. They take elephants over the Alps. They rush into burning buildings. They create the Guggenheim in New York. The other thing is to sit around in their underwear all day, scratching themselves and questioning whether or not they should get busy doing something.

More often than not, it's the latter and rarely the former.

I myself was faced with insurmountable odds this weekend. Hannah was away. She scooted off to exotic locales, leaving the bed cool to the touch on her side. This also meant that, while lonesome, I was unsupervised when it came to kitchenery.

On Friday, I ate a quarter of a pound of Tater Tots and three hot dogs that I wanted to get out of the freezer. I should have gussied that up with some wine, but eh. Saturday was not much different. For breakfast, I had frozen waffles that we'd made a month and a half ago. But tonight for supper?

We live in the Greekest neighborhood on the planet. Honestly, I think it's Greekier than Athens. This is great if you like lamb, meat on sticks, baklava or olive oil. I haven't had lamb yet (I'm a little scairt to try it, but I'm sure eventually, I'll grow the cajones to do so.), but the rest of those things? Awesome. And my favorite thing to get in Astoria?

Gyro.

Oh my holy God.

We have a place, appropriately named the Ditmars Gyro Place. Coolest little spot. They sell gyro (yee-roe). For about $5, you can get a chicken or beef gyro with everything on it. And you can get it to go. Tzatziki, onion, lettuce, tomato (though they are woefully out of season right now), and beef (allegedly) on a warm pita. Wrap that delightful meaty confection in wax paper and aluminum (aluminium) foil, and you have meal to go.

I'm not saying that it's good for you. I'm not even saying that it's the greatest food in the world (buckwheat cacao nib cookies are in the running there). What I am saying is that it is delicious. It is wonderful. It's fatty, and has a bite to it and the tzatziki sauce is cool and creamy and the veggies, when fresh, snap. The pita, as one might expect in the Greekest neighborhood in the world, is fabulous.

I also don't want you to think that this is the be all end all to gyros. But it is pretty fabulous.

Beats Alba's.

Oh, and incidentally, I came up with a little song to go along with the consumption of the gyro. It is sung to the tune of "The Dreidel Song." Feel free to add your own lyrics. They have to rhyme. And send them to us!

The Gyro Song
Lyrics by Matthias; Music Traditional

Oh gyro gyro gyro!
Wrapped in pita bread!
Gyro Gyro Gyro,
I'll shove you in my head!

You are my tasty gyro
Stuffed with mystery meat
With lettuce and tzatziki
Oh, gyro I will eat!

Oh gyro gyro gyro!
Wrapped in pita bread!
Gyro Gyro Gyro,
I'll shove you in my head!

But now my Hannah is back and I'm on detox. Huzzah. Sometimes it's fun to eat poorly. Just tear your insides to shreds. Then you heal them up with something delicious and healthy like sushi. That's what we had last night.

Oh, yeah. And tonight?

Don't you wish you were here to find out?

And Now For Something Completely Different

2008-02-18T21:09:00.007-05:00

Due to the balmy 64 degree weather in New York City today, we experienced a slight change of palate this evening. I met Matthias at our train stop and we made our usual rounds to our various local markets to gather food for two recipes that struck my fancy at epicurious. Usually our evenings begin with a hug, an exchange about our respective days, and proceed inevitably to, 'What did you have in mind for dinner?' On a good night, one of us will have been pondering this question during the day, or have a particular flavor in mind. On a bad night, I have been known to sit down in the pasta aisle on an empty crate with my head in my hands and a panic attack on the horizon.

Fortunately, my answer to this question tonight was, 'I don't know I was thinking maybe something like couscous with apricots and pistachios and then a Moroccan-type chicken for you, and salad, of course?' Flabbergasted by my uncharacteristic specificity and certitude, Matthias agreed.

At our last stop we noticed a large, even chubby, pit bull complete with metal choker collar and intimidating bark, tied outside. We winced in pity at the poor dog tied to the metal post, and darted quickly out of the raindrops, and out of the range of his menacing bite.

Our experience in this particular grocery store often proceeds like a game of 'Doom' (Abbie, I'm looking at you. You know you loved it.) At every turn around every narrow aisle there is ahhhhh! an old lady painstakingly ticking items off of her list, eeeeeeekkkk! a screaming child, or *argh dead end...someone stocking what is most likely a mystery food labeled entirely in Greek onto a low shelf. Attempting to get what you need and get out is damn near impossible, so we usually relish in the quirkiness of our neighborhood. Tonight, as we nimbly snatched our couscous from the shelf, we experienced an encounter between a 4 year old and a jar of spaghetti sauce. You can imagine how that ended...
I'll give you two choices: 1) a broken jar of sauce and a serious scolding or 2) a barking dog.

The answer is both of the above.

As we were checking out, a mother with two small children in tow approached our checker and said in a thick Eastern European accent, 'There was this dog outside, you know, one of those dogs that attack people? Well it broke loose from his chain and now he is inside the store!'

We escaped glass shards, and a pit bull to make this dinner. Hyperbolic? Yes. But, when I tell you that Matthias said this might be one of the best ways to eat chicken in the world, I am not exaggerating. Cross my heart and kiss my elbow.

Couscous with Dried Apricots and Pistachios
adapted from Bon Appétit, June 1996
Yield: 4 generous servings

Ingredients
1.5 cups water
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup couscous
¾ cup dried apricots, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

½ cup unsalted pistachios, toasted, chopped
3 small chopped green onions
a good handful of thinly sliced fresh basil

Combine water, oil and salt in medium saucepan; bring to boil. Combine couscous, apricots and spices in large bowl. Add boiling liquid. Cover immediately; let stand until water is absorbed, about 5 minutes. Uncover and fluff with fork.

Mix nuts, green onions and basil into couscous. Season with salt and pepper. Serve warm with an extra drizzle of olive oil if your couscous isn’t sufficiently fluffy.

Moroccan-Spiced Chicken Paillards
Adapted from Gourmet, February 2006
Yield: 2 servings

Matthias has assured me that even though this dish required a multitudinous amount of dishes, it was completely worth it because it results in perfectly juicy, sweet, tangy, smoky (like the smell of roasting chickens at the Lion's Club during the summer, except it actually tastes as good as it smells) tender bits of meat that leave that perky, spicy tingle in the back of your throat.

Ingredients
For sauce:
1/4 cup orange juice (juice of 1 orange)
1 tablespoon mild honey
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
scant 1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

For paillards:
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika (not hot)
pinch of black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 boneless chicken breast sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 teaspoons salt

For sauce:
Simmer sauce ingredients (except butter) in a small saucepan, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 2 minutes. Set aside while cooking chicken.

For paillards:
Cook cumin, paprika, and pepper in oil in a small skillet over moderately low heat, stirring, until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl, reserving skillet for sauce (do not clean). Brush some spiced oil on 1 side of each paillard, then sprinkle with some salt. Arrange paillards in grill pan, oiled sides down, and brush tops with some of spiced oil, then sprinkle with some salt. Grill 2 minutes, then turn over and grill until just cooked through, about 3 minutes more. Transfer to a plate. Let rest for several minutes.

Finish sauce:
Add any juices from chicken accumulated on the plate to the sauce and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, then add butter and swirl skillet until butter is just incorporated. Season sauce with salt and spoon over chicken.

*My sincerest apologies for the horrid images, we are still struggling with our lighting situation. Please bear with us, and do not let them deter you from making these recipes.

God Only Knows

2008-02-17T20:23:00.009-05:00

My mom was a culinary whiz. She had to feed five people at once and make due on a teacher's salary. I don't know how many teachers are reading this, but I will tell you teachers do not get paid what they are worth. There were nights that she would make Roast Beef and Mashed Potatoes, or Eggplant Parmesan or any number of awesome dishes. Then, there were the nights when we would come home and ask, "What's for supper?" Necessity being the mother of invention (the necessity being a meal on whatever we had left in the house), she would reply,
"God only knows" which was the cue that meant we were in for a surprise.

And to be honest, so was she.

Tonight's dish was totally a God-Only-Knows Supper here in Astoria. We spent all day figuring out how to make our template look nice, and how to add pictures and add formatting and this and that and the other thing. We watched Spider-Man 2 and Goodfellas, two very different movies and we were both still in our pajamas by 6:30pm.

"What do you want to eat tonight?"

"Eh."

I was still assuming that I had to be up at 2am to go in to the set. Hannah sighed.

"Well, I don't know either."

It was shortly after that that I got a phone call telling me that I didn't have to go in until 8 and that all was well with the world. Huzzah! We could eat normal foods.

"Ok, what do you want to eat?"

"Eh. Nothing terribly complicated."

And so our God-Only-Knows Supper for February 17th, 2008 was created. We went to Urban Vegan to get the idea and then improved upon it. Ours has whole wheat penne, chickpeas, sun-dried tomatoes (which neither of us hated, and we both hate sun-dried tomatoes...like capers. yugh.), pinenuts and fennel. Fry that all up in a pan with olive oil and you are set. It's a little more complicated than that.

Paired with a bowl of steamed broccoli and a nice Mason jar of water, who would want anything else? God only knows.

Whole Wheat Winter Pasta
Adapted from The Urban Vegan
Yield: 3-4 servings

Ingredients
Whole wheat pasta (we used penne)
½ of a large bulb of fennel (with fronds, if you have them)
3 cloves of garlic
15 oz. chickpeas
1 heaping tablespoon of pignoli
3 or 4 oil packed sun-dried tomatoes, sliced thinly
1 lemon, the juice of
¼ cup pecorino romano cheese
extra virgin olive oil
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
salt and pepper

Bring salt and peppered water to a boil.

While you’re waiting, sauté thinly sliced fennel in about 1 ½ tbsp. of olive oil in a large pan for about 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and continue cooking. When your water is ready, add the pasta to it, and the chickpeas to the fennel and garlic mixture, sprinkle on red pepper flakes and a dash of sea salt. Cook over medium heat until the pasta is al dente.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the pasta into the skillet (bringing a little of that starchy pasta water with you). Add the sun-dried tomatoes, drizzle with lemon juice and fennel fronds, and serve. We like to add the cheese when it is in our bowls so that our leftovers (should there be any) aren’t gummy and/or crunchy from pre-melted cheese, but of course you may cheese as you like.* Finish it off with a drizzle of very grassy green extra virgin olive oil (this part is definitely not optional. Trust us).

*if you are a vegan, please feel free to substitute coarsely ground sea salt for the dairy

On Templates and Learning Disabilities...

2008-02-15T18:05:00.005-05:00

Also, sorry, folks, we're still working out the bugs of our template. We can't seem to figure it out properly. Apparently we have some sort of html learning disability. As soon as we have gotten everything working right, we'll let you know. In the interim, here's a picture of something delicious*:

It's breakfast! And it's a-happy ta see ya!

* We picked breakfast because it's the best meal of the day and everyone loves it and will more than likely make it easier for you to forgive the poor templating.

Vegetarian Times, Meet the Bacon Sarnie, please.

2008-02-14T16:37:00.010-05:00

Today I would like to tell you about Matthias's favorite bread. It actually started out as a quest to find my favorite bread, but in a weird reversal, it ended up being his. In fact, it is so very delicious that the mere mention of buttermilk on the daily grocery list makes his eyes sparkle.

The reason this is strange is because the recipe comes from....
The Vegetarian Times.

Ideally, this bread would have lived up to its description as a good substitute for the sourdough I so dearly miss on this coast, without requiring the complicated nature of a starter (which, I would be happy to nurture in our refrigerator, if only we had room - the reason why we do not is a story for another day...). Oh but how this recipe failed me. I have tried using less honey, amping up the tang of the buttermilk with some additional vinegar, kneading for a longer duration to give me something chewier, and kneading for less time to give me something more porous. Alas, any faint resemblance to sourdough is completely absent in the final result.

Buttermilk Boule
Adapted from the Vegetarian Times
Serves 8 (makes 1 round loaf)

1 0.25-oz. pkg. active dry yeast
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 Tbs. honey
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. kosher salt

Stir yeast into 1/2 cup warm (110F) water, and let stand 5 minutes, or until liquid is cloudy and bubbles begin to form on surface. Combine buttermilk and honey in small heatproof bowl. Microwave on high 30 seconds, or until warm to the touch. Whisk yeast mixture into buttermilk mixture with fork.

Combine flour and salt in large bowl. Stir in buttermilk mixture until thick dough forms. Knead (in the bowl if you're pressed for space, as we are. Or on a well-floured surface if you have the luxury of counter space) 7 minutes, or until dough is elastic and no longer sticks to your hands. Form into ball, and set in lightly oiled bowl. Cover with clean dish towel, and let rise 1 hour in warm place.

Gently reshape into a tight, smooth ball. Cover again with dish towel, and let rise 40 minutes in warm place.

Preheat oven to 375F. Place onto baking sheet. Cut diagonal slashes across top of loaf with sharp knife. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool (if you can wait), slice and serve.

But! All is not lost! Because where this bread disappointed me as a substitute, it delights Matthias as a staple. He loves its faint sweetness, its incredibly dense crumb, and the way that it makes perfect bacon sarnies.

For you see, Matthias is the only person I know who can take a recipe from the Vegetarian Times and turn it into a meat-fest. I want to make fun of him for this, gently reminding him that every time I make this bread, there are potentially hundreds of vegetarians out there enjoying it as a vessel for veggies or plant based proteins. Sometimes I want to bemoan the loss of squishy tartness originally promised by this recipe. But mostly, I end up taking an immense amount of pleasure in watching Matthias concoct and devour this meal, for you see, it is just as good as toast for me, and I really do believe that breakfast is for benevolence.

Bacon Sarnie
Recipe adapted from Jamie Oliver
Serves 1

3 or 4 slices of thick cut, meaty bacon
2 slices of buttermilk boule (or other thick crumb bread)
Brown sauce/Steak sauce (we use Heinz because we hate Kraft and woefully, A1 is made by them; I am from near Pittsburgh and Matthias is from PA and all that entails. We buy locally...)

Fry up the bacon in a grill pan, cooking it until it's just tender and slightly crispy on the edges. There should be some bounce in the bite. Toast the bread just slightly. When the bacon is finished, drain it on a piece of paper towel, sop up the grease. When the bread is finished, place the bacon on the bread and add the brown sauce liberally. Enjoy.

Pockets.

2008-02-13T19:53:00.022-05:00

There is something comforting about pockets. On cold days, you can pop your hands into them (if you are woefully underprepared for the weather, as I often am). You can carry things in them, like phones, keys, quarters, lint, receipts, pennies (God, the pennies), Simpson's Individual Stringettes (The NOW String), iPods, love notes...basically, your whole life. I'm told, by parties unnamed, that women don't carry things in their pockets, as their pockets are tiny and ill-suited for carriage of useful things. This is the direct result of women's clothing being much more form-fitting than men's and aren't we all glad that men's clothes aren't so form fitting.

No, hipsters, you aren't included.

Hannah wears Smocks on warm sunny days. I call the pockets upon the smocks, Smockets. They too, are useful.

Pockets can be made from most anything. Felt, denim, canvas, a pita, and perhaps the most versatile pocket of them all:

The Aluminum Foil Pocket.

Yes, dear readers, the Aluminum Foil Pocket (or as my friend from Southend-on-Sea might pronounce it, "Aluminium."). Reynolds and his Wrap saves the day once again. I've used it previously with tilapia and assorted veggies, some herbs, and butter. Yes, the butter.

Today, I had a day off from the TV show that I work on and it was spent with Hannah. We didn't do terribly much and usually when it gets to that point, we gravitate towards the Food Network. We aren't terribly fond of Emeril and his BAM middle of the BAM sentence ex-BAM-ations of his notch kicking. But today he was on making some chicken.

In pockets.

He made them in Parchment Paper, but when one of his guests asked him, "What if you don't have any at home?" He said, "I use aluminum foil at home."

Hannah said we should make the recipe. And so we did.

We took our own deviation, mixing Jamie Oliver's recipe for beurre blanc with whatever the hell it was that Emeril was doing and created a Lemon Beurre Blanc Cream Sauce to put on top of our veggies. Emeril also told us to not include fennel, but we will be damned to one degree or another if fennel is not going into our pocket. Since Hannah can't eat the chicken, we also substituted some cannellini beans for one of the chicken breasts.

It was fabulous.

Chicken and Vegetables with Lemon Beurre Blanc Cream Sauce
(Adapted from Emeril and Jamie Oliver)

1⁄2 Fennel bulb, sliced
2 carrots, cut into strips
2 small zucchinis, cut into strips
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into slivers
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 3⁄4 teaspoons herbes de Provence, divided (we used fresh parsley, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, and bay)
1 1⁄4 teaspoons salt
3⁄4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 (6 to 8-ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts (optional if you are veggiesaurs)
1⁄2 can of white beans (7.5 oz) (butter or cannellini, optional if you are meatosaurs)
4 teaspoons dry white wine

Lemon Beurre Blanc Cream Sauce (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Using good knife, cut the zucchini, fennel and carrot into thin, strips. Place the strips in a bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon of the butter slivers, 3/4 teaspoon of the herbes de Provence, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of the pepper. Set aside.

Lightly season each chicken breast on both sides with 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and 1/8 teaspoon of the pepper. Set aside. Season the beans as well.

Tear off about a full wingspan of aluminum foil; fold in half. Place the chicken (or beans) in the middle, cover with half of your vegetable mixture. Drizzle with a couple glugs of white wine. Roll up the sides and the top, sealing it off.

Place the bags on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.

Spoon lemon butter sauce over the chicken or the beans, garnish each plate with 1 parsley sprig, and serve immediately.

Lemon Beurre Blanc Cream Sauce

1 1⁄2 C white wine (we used some crappy kind of Sauvingnon Blanc with a cigar smoking bird)
2 lemons, peels off and quartered
1 diced shallot
ground pepper
herbes de provence (we used fresh parsley, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, and bay)
6 or 7 tbsp unsalted butter
1⁄2 cp heavy cream

Combine the first five ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. When the wine has reduced to half or so, strain the flavored wine into another container. Then wisk in the butter, a tablespoon at a time, until it’s all melted in. Add the heavy cream, and blend. The sauce should retain a thin consistency.

Introductions, version II

2008-02-04T11:21:00.001-05:00

Hello, everyone.
My dear Matthias was correct. We are foodies. Though the term is most often used pejoratively, and since our pockets are riddled with holes and seldom filled with anything other than pennies, pens, or hands, I also hesitate to use the term for its implications of privilege. But the plain and simple truth is that we love food - taste, texture, appearance, and the solace and community of preparing and eating it.

Though these pleasures hardly qualify us for special status in the food blogosphere, you should remember that there will often be two versions of recipes, simple instructions for omissions, or ideas on how you can sit diagonally at a table that simultaneously bears flesh and well, not-flesh and still have a cohesive meal and a blissful relationship (with food, and each other). We try to consume conscientiously and responsibly (that means eating as organically, locally, and fairly traded as possible. Please assume that all recipes include at least one of these words before each ingredient, but we will try to be specific at least for a while).

There are many writers and cooks who inspire us, please see the previous post for initial recommendations (more to come soon! and to be updated regularly). We hope that you will bear with us as we get up and running with photography, layout, links, and other general administrative tasks. What we can promise are lovely recipes, witty exchanges, sometimes music, book, movie, personal and philosophical reflections, and above all...thoughtful, descriptive writing (for, you see, Matthias is a real writer, and I am one of a different sort, just doing my best and taking most of the photos).

Welcome to our little site. We look forward to meeting you!

Introductions...

2008-02-03T22:10:00.000-05:00

There comes a time when you have to just suck it up and admit that you are a foodie. This is usually the exact time you make French pork steaks with pickles and capers, and a roasted cauliflower.

You see, we are a pair of foodies. Yes. We are. Foo. Deez.

And I will eat anything.

She eats vegetables.

I love bacon.

She doesn't so much.

(She's eating Paul Newman's Own Cinnamon Grahams. I really think she ought to give those back to him. He's an old man, for Christ's sake.)

The story of how we came to be is vastly fascinating and not really the point of this blog. The Point of this blog is to show you that a perfectly right thinking person (me) can eat at the same time as a not-quite-so-right-thinking person (her) and you can do it pretty easily. And we're going to show off our recipes and we're going to probably show off some pictures.

Really awesome.

We're also going to pop up some links ot our favorite food blogs and sites. For now, here are the people who inspire us in the kitchen:

Orangette.

Jamie Oliver.

Smitten Kitchen.

Alton Brown.

The Urban Vegan.

Tastespotting.

Check them out. say hello. Read their recipes.

Soon, we will have some awesome recipes. And some awesome pictures. And some awesome banter between a meatosaur and a veggiesaur.

Oh yeah. And it's all as organic as we can make it.