alacarte

My Baking With Julia book arrived from Amazon, hooray! It's Passover next week. Need to focus on cleaning, not baking. Dang. Yes Dorie, more stories please. I read every word of Julia's preface, about how all the baking was done in her own kitchen in Cambridge, and she turned her basement into the prep shop. Can you tell us more about how that worked?

I miss the Julie/Julia blog. Could you imagine if Julia Child blogged?

That's OK, just so long as you are not using excessive leavening! (hey, it's a Passover joke!)

My m-i-l serves her gefilte fish with boiled baby carrots, celery, onions, and sliced white potatoes. All together, it makes for a more substantial snack...I eat it with plenty of red horseradish....one of the few good things about Passover.

That's a great idea, and something I'd be interested in. I hope the plans work out. And hopefully I'll have a digital camera of my own by them!

Hey all you Aussies on the board (and non-Aussies who have visited Oz): can you tell us about food products and preparations in Australia that the rest of us might find a bit unusual? (oh, don't make me go over to the Australia board to find these things out. too lazy.)

Great blog, Owen. I've enjoyed all your coffee shots!

I got all inspired by this thread to do some baking too, so I ordered the cookbook (yes Rachel, though the link that supports eG). If I ever get my act together I'll try some of the recipes. Though knowing my typical M.O., I'll page through the book, get insanely hungry, and run to the nearest Pain Quotidien to buy some bread rather than baking up a batch on my own.

If it's too loud, you're too old. I find Muzak distracting too -- the worst ever was a restaurant playing a Muzak version of Spandau Ballet. Nearly put me off my feed.

It's a cute article, but about halfway through I started screaming, STOP GUESSING AND JUST TRY THE DAMN FOOD PRODUCT. A little investigation would have gone a lot further than a little cleverness.

Wow. I wish I could just reach over & help you with that rib sampler. It looks delicious.

alacarte: RUN do not walk to Alfanoose on Fulton Street, just east of Broadway. THE BEST FELAFEL, but he has to move out at the end of the month. I may have to eat felafel and vegetable kibbee everyday until then. (yeah, I know, this isn't a cart, but. It is soooooooooooo good.) Oh no! I know & love Alfanoose's falafel platters. This is sad news indeed, Suzanne. I'd better stock up. I read recently about a Texas-style chili cart that's parked regularly on Wall Street (I think I read this in the NY Magazine Best-of issue). I'll have to give it a try & will report back. Though sounds like I'd better get over to Alfanoose first.

I had dinner at Blue Water Grill last night, and I noticed the lobster on the menu is offered grilled, broiled, or steamed. All the shellfish brought to the surrounding tables looked just lovely. Docks on 3rd Ave and 40th (I think) might be another good choice.

I'll eat the coleslaw if I can identify the individual vegetables in the slaw -- but not if it's just a whitewashed mess. I always add pepper to my coleslaw too.

Owen, your lattes look just divine. And I love your espresso corner in your lovely new kitchen. (P.S., my kitchen is about the size of your espresso corner!) "Freedom of Espresso" is a clever name for a coffee shop! The greenmarket is lovely. When visiting a friend in Albany recently, he took me over to the indoor greenmarket in Troy -- they have nothing on your market. But they did have a farmer selling emu meat.

I'm falling down on the blog... I had a really boring dinner, so I"ll tell you what I had and what I WISH I'd had: What I had was a veggie burger with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise, and french fries. I was eating on the run -- working late to wrap up some loose ends, picking up my new business cards (my OWN business cards! They say my name, and then "food writer." They are BEAUTIFUL!), and then rushing home to pack for today's flight to the conference. What I wish I had was roast chicken, that's really what I was craving. I have a great recipe that I've adjusted over the years: I take a whole cut-up Empire chicken and squeeze the juice of a lemon over the bird. Then I sprinkle it with paprika, garlic, and a little cinnamon (the cinnamon is the secret ingredient!). I cover the pan with tin foil and roast it in the oven at about 375 degrees for 30 minutes, then remove the tin foil, turn the pan, and cook for another hour. It comes out lovely and browned perfectly and smells divine. Sometimes I prop up the chicken over aromatic vegetables like onions or celery and that's a nice variation too. I think roast chicken with potatoes and steamed broccoli is my idea of a perfect, homey meal. And thus, I conclude my blog. I know this is abbreviated, sorry folks. It's been a lot of fun. But wait! I'm not leaving you blogless! Our own phaelon56 has agreed to be the next blogger. He's going to be reporting on what's up at the opening of his local greenmarket on Saturday....so phaelon, over to you! (I'm going out to get an iced mocha now.)

Thanks, Toliver. I know what you mean about the Violet chips -- it's a little like nibbling on soap, isn't it? But it grows on you. Since it's still chilly and gray outside, I needed a little pick-me-up: chocolate. The specialty store on the corner sells imported chocolates, mostly from Germany for some reason. I picked out an import from Ireland -- "Irish Coffee Truffles." The company lists its URL on the package: Butlers Chocolates link. Any day is a good day for chocolate.

Oh boy, it has become a full-blown blustery, snowy March day. Umbrellas are no help because the wind only blows them inside out or blows the snow sideways underneath the umbrella. It's a good day for soup. My dad has soup every day for lunch, and he has every day for as long as I can remember. Tomato soup. Chicken soup. Vegetable soup. With a sandwich, or with tuna salad, or with nothing at all. He even orders soup when we go out for lunch. Sometimes as a prelude to dinner too, but always as for lunch. In fact, I recall a recent family lunch at a diner out by my parents' house. True to form, my dad ordered soup, and the waitress said there wasn't any. My dad blinked. "No soup for lunch?" he said. It was just inconceivable. He sounded so forlorn. No soup for lunch. And then the waitress proceeded to inform the rest of the table that at least part of our lunch orders would not be available...no mashed potatoes for Mr. alacarte...no baked potatoes for my mom...and no soup for my dad. It was a sad day indeed. So today, I am eating miso soup for lunch, and I hereby dedicate it to my dad. I'm also having a "hot spicy roll" from the takeout sushi counter: tuna, salmon, tobiko, and cucumber. Not bad, though not as good as a proper sushi restaurant, of course. By the way, there's a kosher sushi restaurant here in NY, called Haikara. They serve no shellfish, no eel or octopus. It's closed on Shabbat and only opens late on Saturday night -- apparently it's considered a classy spot for observant Jews trying to impress their dates. The restaurant is meat, not dairy, so they also have hot dishes like beef teriyaki and a passable duck.

As a midmorning snack, I had a cup of raisin bran with milk. When I'm eating something boring like this, I feel like I'm doing one of those diet diary entries. I'll have to find something more exciting to eat so y'all have something more interesting to read. But this is the reality of what I eat, I guess this is part of the hazard of blogging. Afternoon snacks tend to be more fun anyway. Have I mentioned that I am a sucker for buying novelty junk food? If it's new on the shelves, I have to try it. I bought a container of Peppermint Patty Swoops before the ads started running (I thought they were awful, by the way. They must add something to the chocolate to make it keep its shape that just renders it remarkably unlike chocolate. It somehow becomes less rich and more slippery). Another recent impulse buy was guacamole-flavored potato chips and corn chips. I liked them, especially the potato chips, but neither tasted like guacamole -- the flavor is more like a cool ranch with a bit of spice. I'm also a sucker for anything "old." I like the Coward's violet chips that have been around since (at least) the 20s. I don't think they have changed the packaging or the flavoring much, and I love that. I wish more items like that were available.

Dueling falafel carts on either side of Liberty Square in the financial district. Both are good. I never did make it the Danny Meyer hot dog cart in Madison Square Park -- will it be back this summer?

Thanks for the advisory! I've never heard of this before. I've been doing my Passover shopping cheek-to-jowl in the tight confines of Supersol or grabbing whatever's left at the local Food Emporium.

It's a gray morning here in NYC, and we may even have snow by tonight. How depressing after a couple of nearly springlike days! I was running late this AM so I had to bypass my favorite coffee shop on Irving Place in favor of the Starbucks in the lobby of my office building. I don't dislike Starbucks, but I now associate it with work so it's my caffeine supplier of last resort. I find the Starbucks iced mocha too harsh for my taste, so instead I am sipping an iced vanilla latte, with an extra shot of espresso. I also like their caramel macchiatos over ice. I've found through trial and error that most of their other flavored syrups taste very strange and ersatz over ice, though they are passable in a hot drink. I despise Frappuccinos. Blechhh.

Dinnertime! Eggplant parmigiana with spaghetti and caesar salad. To hell with the Ides of March. I'm not cooking tonight, it's takeout from the trusty diner across the street. The Gramercy Diner is one of the cleanest and friendliest diners left in NY, and even though they raised their prices recently, I'm still a fan. Now I'm craving chocolate....

I had lunch at about 1:30...it's 4:45 now & I'm not feeling hungry, so yes, it did sustain me throughout the afternoon. I've also been chugging on a can of Pepsi throughout the afternoon. I prefer Pepsi to Coke, when it comes in a can. I prefer Coke to Pepsi when it comes in a bottle. I cannot think of a single rational reason why I would prefer one over the other based on the container. Iced tea with one of those flavored simple syrups likely would trump cola any day of the week though!

grumble grumble grumble I HATE PASSOVER grumble grumble grumble