My brother, sister and I got together this weekend for a belated exchanging of Chanukah gifts. My sister and I had pulled together a gourmet gift bag of sorts for my brother — funky sauces, Valrhona chocolate, a sake set. He then turned around and gave me . . . a gourmet gift bag. My brother and I got my sister an espresso machine, and my sister got me two books, one of which being Ruth Reichl’s new one. Can you tell that the food-focus runs in the family?
Category: Food and Drink
-
The Way to My Heart
As Valentine’s Day grows rapidly nearer, I’m constantly aware of it. At every grocery store and drugstore, there are aisles swathed in red and pink and heart-shaped treats strategically placed near the registers. As a single person, I’ve come to view V-day as a day to celebrate both my singledom itself as well as the people in my life who make it so fabulous.
But this year is different. This year, I think I am falling in love.
It’s still early yet, as we’ve only spent three precious night together, but each one has been magical, awakening my senses beyond my wildest dreams. My new lover was so kind — comfortable and inviting — even from the first time we were together, and upon first glance, I knew this was something special. In just a few short hours, I was exposed to so many new and exciting things, and each rendez-vous has expanded my horizons greatly. But love can be painful, and at the end of our nights together, it often hurt to leave a significant part of myself behind.
To be honest, I know we won’t be spending Valentine’s Day together as there will be too many others vying for attention that day, but I know in my heart that we will share other nights together. So until our next encounter, Babbo, I send you my love, and I’ll be dreaming of your rich and decadent goose liver ravioli and delicate pasta pyramids with passato di pomodoro until we meet again.
-
Sometimes You Can Get What You Want
After a bout with food poisoning on Thursday night/Friday, I recovered enough to start off Saturday at a spin class with Hallie and Eliza. The instructor had picked some fantastic music, which can make all the difference in a spin class, including a final 7-minute hill to "You Can’t Always Get What You Want." Absolutely perfect.
Yesterday, after paying all my bills, I met up with Deb for a snack at the lovely Tarrallucci e Vino and then I accompanied her to Starbucks so she could get a drink. She ordered with such precision and accuracy — clearly this was a woman who, through trial and error, had learned how to get exactly what she wanted through Starbucks-speak: a tall, skim, no water, 180 chai latte. In translation, this is a medium chai latte made with skim milk, with no water (normally they use 1/2 water), heated to 180 degrees, rather than the typical 160. It was the best Starbucks ordering I have ever heard.
-
Vodka, Caviar, and Cheesy Costumes, Take 2
Ah, the Old Russian New Year. The decadence, the debauchery, and don’t forget — the vodka. Plenty of it. Many thanks to Bryn for organizing, Seth for inviting me (and timing his visit so perfectly), and Max and Marianne for being such wonderful company (and a special shout-out to Marianne for being the first to ask me to dance!). You can find the pictures here. And if you want to relive the fun from two years ago, you can do that too.
-
The Recap
While you’re all still voting (I’ll keep the poll open until midnight, Eastern Standard time, this Friday), I figured I should (finally) give a recap of New Year’s Eve festivities and the aftermath. I had a few party invitations which were all, unfortunately, way too far apart for comfortable party hopping, so I did the logical thing — brought the party to me. I ended up having a fairly last-minute small dinner party for six: me, John B., the Lovely Miss Katie, Mark, and his two friends who were in from out of town, Holly and Jenny. I wanted to be slightly decadent for the occasion, but without making myself too nuts in the kitchen — the menu ended up being seafood-based: shrimp cocktail with zingy, spicy cocktail sauce from Whole Foods, seared scallops with chives and basil oil, steamed lobsters, green beans with caramelized onions, truffled mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, an arugula and radicchio salad with toasted pine nuts and pomegranate that we skipped entirely, so as to leave room for our poached pears with pear-chocolate sauce. All in all, an elegant, yet completely sloppy meal (lobster shells were a-flyin’. Most of us stayed around until midnight, then people went their separate ways. I ended up at Cru, meeting Augie, Lauren, Alvin, and their crew, who generously shared a glass of ’86 Penfolds Grange Hermitage and a few sips each of ’86 and ’75 d’Yquem. Not a bad way to round out the evening.
The next day was Lauren and Augie’s second annual New Year’s Day gathering to eat mac and cheese, watch the Big Leibowski and drink white Russians. All was fine and good until the white Russians caught up with me (they were small, but potent as hell), and forced me to take a nap. I had an hour in mind — my body decided it would be three. I woke up around 10:45 pm and couldn’t fall asleep until about 3 am. I spent a great deal of that time watching "Talk Sex with Sue," a call-in sex show on Oxygen featuring a Canadian grandmotherly woman in her sixties. If you haven’t watched it, you should, if only to admire her no-nonsense, yet healthy and sex-positive approach to her callers questions, which are all over the map.
To top off the three-day weekend, Tamara and I went to dinner at Babbo to say hello to Ken, one of the bartenders there, who we had met out at Bar Carrera last week (and then joined for karaoke at Sing Sing). We dined at the bar, befriended a lovely couple from Malibu who invited us to come out to drink wine and go biking with them sometime (woo hoo!), and had the pleasure of sitting next to Elvis Mitchell and Quentin Tarantino for a while (they were talking about the Simpsons episodes that included Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs references). We also ate and drank fabulously — the highlight for me was definitely the goose liver ravioli with brown butter and balsamic. Sheer heaven. After that, I was ready to face the work week.
-
Dem Bones
At one point, I was convinced that ribs were the perfect food for a first date. Why? Well, if I can’t get messy eating with someone, they’re probably not the right person for me. Every time I eat ribs I think about this, whether I’m on a date or not. This weekend’s ribs were at Blue Smoke, with Mark, Nicole, Ward, and Rob (who was oddly excited about the prospect of being mentioned on a blog). Before the actual rib-gnawing began, I introduced the group to Blue Smoke’s fantastic sidecars (thanks as always to John B. for introducing them to me), and then the carnage began.
Saturday included a trip to the gym with Katie (which included Ali’s torture devices), some holiday shopping, and dinner with the girls from the beach house at Lima’s Peruvian Taste (which was somewhat hit or miss — skip the sangria, it’s way too sweet). Katie and I had thought that we were in for a relatively mellow evening, but no. We ended up at Lisa’s holiday soiree, followed by a requisite stop at Otto, and finished out with general ridiculousness at Automatic Slim’s.
Yesterday, I spent the day enjoying the hospitality of others. Between GirlyNYC‘s afternoon get-together and Augie‘s experiments in breadbaking, I enjoyed stellar company, interesting conversation, and excellent food all day before falling into bed early.
This is shaping up to be another crazy busy week — between the holiday events and social plans I’ll be sneaking in the rest of my holiday shopping, making toffee, and taking care of the holiday tipping. I’m thinking of it as the storm before the calm — I’ll be on vacation next week. Can’t wait!
-
Cookin’
In the comments of my last post, Kris asked if I cook supremely. I’m not sure I cook supremely (you’ll have to ask people who have tasted my cooking — any comments from the peanut gallery?), but I do cook. In fact, every time I cook I realize that I don’t cook as often as I’d like to. Why? Well, first of all, my kitchen is on the small side. Not bad for a New York apartment, but certainly not spacious. I like cooking and eating with friends, and although I can just about squeeze in one other person to chop something while I’m at the stove, I can’t really cook with someone. In my dream kitchen I’ll have a big island where friends can sip wine, nibble, and chop things while I’m doing the same. Now, I just have people sit in chairs near the kitchen so I don’t feel left out. Second, it’s really not that easy to cook for one. Yes, you can cook a large amount and end up with leftovers for lunch and whatnot, which is a good thing (although I have recently met someone who doesn’t eat leftovers. At all. I find this very odd.), but sometimes I just end up with a little too much for one meal, but not quite enough for two. Tonight I made simple steamed mussels with white wine, garlic, and chili flakes — it would have been a perfect meal for two with a salad. It was too much for just me, and I didn’t really think the leftovers would keep in this case, so I threw them out. Such a shame.
Regardless, I really do want to cook more and eat out less — just one resolution that I’m trying to start a little early. I’ve also gotten a fantastic coffee mug
so that I can bring coffee to work in the morning — resolution number two. Stay tuned for the next one — it’s a doozy.
-
Go Team!
Earlier this week, I went out to dinner with my Gothamist Food team to D’Or Ahn, which recently opened in a sleek, narrow, and yet comfortable space in Chelsea. As I was sitting down to write about it, I read Youngna’s post, and, to be honest, she described it perfectly, even down to Frank Bruni’s criticism of Lannie Ahn, who couldn’t have been sweeter to us. Thanks again to my wonderful, amazing, and inspiring team, without whom Gothamist Food wouldn’t survive: Martha, Youngna, Joe, Tamara, and Vittles Vamp (who, sadly, couldn’t join us for dinner).
-
Reason Number 574
that I’ll never really grow up: I had planned for a quiet night tonight. And in my book, it was, indeed, a quiet night. I ended up going up to Strawberry Fields after work to reflect on the 25th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. I can’t believe it has been that long — I remember hearing about it on the news as a kid back in D.C. I had returned home when Nathan called — he is a huge Beatles fan — he has built a huge model of John Lennon’s self-portrait (out of Lego, naturally), and today he received an email from Yoko Ono, extending her praise and thanks for his work. Pretty amazing. Anyway, I digress. I spent some time at home, cleaning up my apartment, sorting through my never ending piles of mail. I changed into my pajamas and was still puttering around when Augie called from upstairs (he and Lauren live in my building). He and Rob had just returned from a wine tasting and I he insisted I come up and try the leftovers — no matter that I was in my pajamas. I went up for about an hour, sipping wine and chatting with Augie, Lauren and Rob, and then headed down to bed.
But the thing that went through my mind as I walked down the stairs in my pajamas, was: it’s just like being back in a dorm. Of course, I meant just the good parts — the padding around in pajamas, impromptu gatherings with friends, and being within a few floors of some of your closest friends. If only it could stay that way forever . . . Well, I’ll enjoy it for as long as I can!
