
Pan
eGullet Society staff emeritus-
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That's pretty. Ignorant question: How did you make the pastry leaves? A mold, I guess? Klary, that jelly pudding looks really intriguing.
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Bux, I didn't think you were old enough to know how good or bad New York food was in 1929. But seriously, how do you know?
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Those in the wild aren't timid, either, if my experiences living in a Malay village for two years are any guide. It sounds like some people need to start keeping their windows closed, just as we did when we stayed in the late, lamented Hotel Majestic in Kuala Lumpur in the mid 70s. It opened onto a national park that was virgin jungle, and the monkeys would come in any time the windows were left open.
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eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
Thanks, Russell. And I thank everyone who read this blog and everyone who participated. Special thanks of course to those who helped make the blog better by sharing meals with me this week. -
Almass, just a quick point: As of about a year or two ago, I used to buy raw, unsalted Iranian pistachios in bulk at Kalustyan's and roast them without salt in the oven. They also sold and may still sell roasted, unsalted Iranian pistachios in bags, but their quality was way inferior to the ones they used to sell in bulk. Anyway, these things would seem to show that Iranian pistachios, or at least many of them, do not arrive in the US already salted.
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How so, Ed? Also, what's the derivation of the name "Ti Punch"? I was at Bistro 60 on Sunday and discussed my reactions to the Ti Punch in this post in my foodblog. I'm no big drinker, but I've had a lot of cocktails with rum over the years, and that rhum agricole sure is different and better, as far as I'm concerned. Though it has its uses, to my palate (for whatever it's worth), garden-variety rum is a rough spirit and the rhum agricole is a fine liqueur comparable to calvados, etc. I could imagine sipping pure rhum agricole on the rocks, though it's quite strong. And as far as Ti Punch is concerned, now that I've tried it, I'm an enthusiast.
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That's wonderful. It sounds like Lebanese people are kindred spirits with their fellow Mediterraneans in Italy. Tripoli looks gorgeous. Now, Lebanon is yet another country I want to visit someday, God willing.
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But there are also American diners staffed by Americans that put out horrible food, right? Authentic bad food in those cases, no?
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eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
Thanks, pal. And thank you all for your patience. I had dinner tonight with a dear friend at one of the newer good-value Italian restaurants in the neighborhood, Poetessa, which is in the former location of East Post at 92 2 Av. betwen 5th and 6th Sts. This friend is not an eGullet Society member but really enjoys her food and is a pleasure to dine out with. It was dark enough at our table that I couldn't really see what I was photographing through the preview window, so I gave in and used flash, especially as we weren't so close to other customers that it would have bothered them. We started with two appetizers. This is creamy polenta with wild mushrooms, a dish I had the previous time I visited this restaurant. It's slightly salty but has a wonderful mushroomy taste and met with the approval of my friend, who has gathered a lot of wild mushrooms over the years (as her mother did before her). These mussels were steamed and are in an excellent white wine sauce which was clearly made from a generous quantity of good white wine (for this price point). I am often wary of mussels, but this is a place to get them. We then had primi piatti. I considered the idea of getting a half portion for half price and ordering a secondo as well -- an option which is available at various Italian restaurants in this neighborhood -- but I decided that I was more interested in the primi than the secondi and might want to leave room for dessert later. Penne con ragu. This was a very good ragu, and it had an interesting and somewhat unusual earthy taste neither of us could identify. We thought it was mushroomy but when we asked the waiter, he said there were no mushrooms in it but the chef would never give away the secret we were asking about. This is a very good rendition of linguine con frutti di mare. I'm not sure there's much more to say about it, except that the seafood was all good. My dining partner is a longtime resident of the East Village, and I reminisced with her about the days when Frutti di Mare (a restaurant on the corner of E. 4th and 1st) was what passed for a classy, romantic Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. I liked their linguine fra diavolo, but their mussels were seldom anywhere near fresh enough to eat, so I had them hold those, and the clams were also dodgy. This neighborhood has come a long way since then. I wanted the tartuffo for dessert, but they were out of that. Our waiter convinced us to get this: Yes, that's a molten chocolate cake, along with the cherry preserves (or whatever precise term should be used for this), vanilla ice cream, and mint which was in fact an integral part of the dessert, we thought (mint goes well with chocolate). Yes, I know some of you are sick of molten chocolate anything and would prefer never to see any more such desserts in your life. Then don't have them. I have a dessert of that type every few months, at most, so it's not a tired cliche to me, especially when it's good -- and this dessert was very good. Total cost for two: Just over $60 plus tip. It's been a lot of fun sharing a week of eating with you. By all means, keep cooking! But if you ever wondered how it is possible to live in New York and be happy without cooking and without being a millionaire, now you know. As I close this chapter, I do not bid you adieu, but instead wish you a hearty buon appetito and drink a cup of hibiscus tea to your health. See you on the boards. Michael -
eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
Thanks for the further explanation, Hiroyuki, and thanks for the kind words, everyone! I will be posting pictures of dinner soon. -
eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
My standby for lunch when I'm teaching at Brooklyn College is the local branch of Golden Krust, on Nostrand Av. just off the corner with Flatbush. Golden Krust is a good Jamaican-style chain. I believe the ingredients are trucked in from a central location. After that, every bakery has its own ovens and bakes patties on site. Is it deluxe? No. But it's cheap, filling, and I certainly think it's damn good for a chain. Here's their awning: And here's a view into the shop: I got a chicken patty (on the left) and a vegetable patty (on the right): The chicken patty is fairly spicy and is something like a curry puff. The vegetable patty is somewhat less spicy on average and contains a mix of various vegetables. See, I am getting vegetables in my diet! These are baked goods, though, and have a fair amount of fat in them, which somewhat counteracts the roughage in the vegetable patty. Still, for a quick, decent lunch for about $3, I will and do take it frequently. Alright, folks, I think I'll take a rest for a while before getting ready to go to my tai chi class. -
eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
Breakfast: A cheese danish from Moishe's. See it and weep. -
eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
True, I don't eat salad all the time, though I do try to get some vegetables, either in vegetable dishes are as part of the contents of dishes with meat in them. The blog isn't quite over yet. I'll be posting about my breakfast and my lunch, and dinner remains to be eaten a good deal later. Ed, thanks for the corrections. -
eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
I walked by there on Sunday with my wife, we were coming back from brunch at the Miracle Grill ( ) on our way to Sunrise mart so she could re stock on some stuff. I really want to try this place and I wonder Michael how you would compare it to a place like Mamoun's? (for those who do not know, it is another notorious falafel place in the village) ← I'm surprised that you evidently had a bad brunch at Miracle Grill. Perhaps they're slipping. I haven't been to Mamoun's in some time but have liked their shawarma; I'm not sure how to compare theirs with Chickpea's, though. They don't have the variety of extras (salad, pickles, etc.) available at Chickpea, and the place is of course way older and grungier. I'd hesitate to give a strong recommendation of a shawarma place to you, though, as you really know the real stuff. I've spent a grand total of one week in the Middle East so far in my life, and that was in 1977. Also, during that week (in Israel), I was spending more time eating brains and bull's testicles at Yemenite restaurants than getting shawarma. As you can see, I've been adventurous for a long time. -
I don't have a recipe, but I do have a recollection of a dish that might give you a useful direction to consider. There used to be a Thai restaurant a few blocks from where I live that wasn't all that good but served one dish that was great: Whole broiled red snapper with lime juice, cashew nuts, fish sauce, hot pepper, and ripe mango slaw. I loved it every time and miss it. If only that restaurant could have cooked more dishes up to that level, maybe it wouldn't have gone out of business... But in general, consider mango as an accompaniment to fish, especially if you add some sourness to it by adding lime juice or perhaps tamarind. The thing that made that dish at the Thai restaurant so great was the balance between sweet, sour, salty, chili, nutty, and of course the slightly carbonized protein of the broiled whole fish.
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Seems like a really good time was had by all. Does anyone know why Musician's Tarts are so-called? This musician has never heard of them.
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I've never had Syrian pistachios. They shouldn't be hard to find in New York, but I've never seen them. I'd love to know where I could get them. Does any store on Atlantic Av. carry them, for example? Almass, I will confirm that I had no trouble getting Iranian pistachios during a relative warming of U.S.-Iranian relations during the Clinton Administration and have found it much harder to find them in the last few years. As a lover of Iranian pistachios, I think that's very unfortunate. One of the folks at my local Bangladeshi spices and sundries store explained that it's hard to get Iranian pistachios because Iranian planes are not authorized to land in the U.S., so he has to get them reshipped from Canada.
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Erin, don't feel nervous looking at everything. I usually order cold dishes off the menu now, but even after having eaten there probably a few dozen times, I still sometimes have questions about items on display in front. They don't mind if you come up and look at the cold dishes, and if my experience is any guide, your waiter or waitress will explain what the cold dishes are to the best of his/her ability to explain things in English.
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I did mention a place in the thread on that type of dumpling, but we should continue this discussion in "THE BEST: Chinese Dumplings" in the New York forum.
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eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
Midnight (more like 2 A.M.) snack: Haagen-Dazs Chocolate Fudge Brownie lowfat frozen yogurt. Sure, ice cream is tastier, but it's a lot fattier and has a lot more calories. And this is very good. The other frozen yogurt flavor I like is Dulce de Leche. The Dulce de Leche ice cream is way better than the same flavor of frozen yogurt, but Haagen-Dazs has recently started a line of "lite" ice creams, and I find that the light version of of the dulce de leche flavor is almost as good as the full-fat one. -
eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
Russell, someone else suggested that I consider becoming a food critic, and he knows who he is. You know very well that I'll be in LA in a little under a month. No, I haven't had a chance to buy more Ting Ting Jahe yet. But I think I'll go downstairs and get a dessert. Thanks for your kind remarks, Abra. It's a tribute to the quality or/and consistency of your cooking that you know what the results will be every time you cook. But you know what? I feel pretty confident in the quality of most of what I order. Why? Because I've been there before and gotten the same thing or at any rate had other things that were really good. And of course, I do try new things. Why not? Don't you try out new recipes sometimes, without knowing whether they'll turn out good or not? I know that my parents certainly have, because I was there assisting them with shopping, prep, stirring, tasting, and such. Don't you have some comments written in your cookbooks, pronouncing recipes "delicious" or "bad" or inserting steps that were missing or changing the proportions of this, that, and the other thing? I can definitely relate to the desire to feel in control of things, but the truth is that hardly anything is certain in life except that our bodies only last a certain amount of time, and then we die. What happens after that is way, way beyond the scope of this thread or this site. But the pertinent remark that I can make is that one can get a certain enjoyment from taking life as a journey, embracing the uncertainty, and taking each new day as a series of unique experiences. Actually, I wish I thought more like that, not less. It probably doesn't surprise you that my basic philosophy of performance (though variously executed to remain within the limits of each style) is that no performance should be the same twice. Similarly, one excellent dining experience that makes me smile as a remember it was getting Buddha's Delight three nights in a row at a hotel in Hangzhou, China in 1987. The three other Americans I was travelling with and I ordered that as one of our dishes each night we stayed there, because one of us (not me!) was on a macrobiotic diet. Like most of the other food I ate in Hangzhou, the Buddha's Delight was great, but it was different every time, because the chef was creative and used the vegetables that were best that day. Surprises can be very good. -
Couldn't this also have something to do with Angelinos' love of jalapenos, salsa verde, etc.?
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eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
Thanks for those explanations, Helen. There are two identical posters of that type up in the restaurant: One closer to the front and one in the back (where I was eating today). I have a feeling they intend to leave them up for the long term. I'm don't drink beer much and haven't tried Sapporo Draft, but I find that I like beers that are dark and nutty (though also some amber-colored beers). Can you describe the taste of Sapporo Draft? My Japanese friends tell me that you're really supposed to have beer with your gyoza, but I just ordered green tea. -
eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
No, I haven't. I'll be curious to find out what you think of Menkui-Tei. But ask the waitress how big the soup is before ordering. Oh yeah, I had forgotten you mentioned that. I do have to try Hoomoos Asli. I have to reiterate my suggestion that if you do go back to Chickpea, you should try the chicken shawarma. I'm finishing a cup of hibiscus tea now. That was really good; I think I'll make another. -
eG Foodblog: Pan - How to stop cooking and love life
Pan replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
I have to go to Brooklyn College tomorrow to teach a flute lesson from 12-1:30. I don't know what I'll do for lunch, but I want you to see some pictures of that institution. Brooklyn College is a truly beautiful campus, and it's no exaggeration to say that one of the reasons I enjoy teaching at Brooklyn ever Saturday, even though I have to get up early to get there at 9 A.M. during the regular school year (it takes me about 1 hour to get there by subway, and the trains aren't too reliable before 9 on Saturdays), is that I get so much joy from just walking on campus and looking at the beauty that surrounds me. I've taken many photos of Brooklyn College over the last two years. Here are some of my favorites. Do you want to see what the view out my classroom window is like in mid-April? I took this photo on April 16, 2005: I have a great boss at the Prep Center (Preparatory Center for the Performing Arts) at Brooklyn College, and I like the students and the subjects I teach there, so those would be sufficient reasons for me to want to work there, but looking at views like these is a really big bonus. Don't people understand that ugly architecture and surroundings are enervating and beautiful architecture and landscaping promote happiness, harmony, and an enthusiasm for living? I feel sure that the feeling of peace and wonder in the Creation that is elicited by all the beauty and harmony in the artistic composition of the campus helps BC to maintain its identity as a college where teachers enjoy teaching and students enjoy learning. New Yorkers don't have to rob Fort Knox and go to Yale to find a good college with a lovely campus, and I'm happy to be a small part of that.