alacarte

I think this is the primary reason that there is a lack of casual places. Taking long lunches were seriously discouraged where I worked. Actually, if you weren't eating at your desk, you were thought to be "slacking off." It's all about the billable hours (in consulting, anyway). Unfortunately, I eat at my desk most days. Today was just too lovely out, though. I love this time of the year, when the air still is crisp and cold and the skies are clear. At lunchtime today, I walked over to Kinko's and dropped off my order for business cards, which I'll get back tomorrow. Then I strolled over to Zeytuna's for a gozleme. Zey-whattas for a goz-who-zleme? Zeytuna's is a gourmet market, take-out counter, and "Mediterranean restaurant" located on John Street, two blocks from my office. Primarily, it is Turkish. The store interior is covered in colorful tiles like a big Turkish bath-house. The market sells products from all over, but also includes some unusual Turkish products, such as a the canned grape leaves imported from Turkey which I purchased for Mr. alacarte last week. At the counter, they serve the usual upscale sandwiches and salads, but they also have enormous trays of sticky baklava studded with pistachios. The coffee counter has cappuccino and grinds heavenly-scented beans, but also offers tiny cups of strong Turkish coffee. And at the basement level, where one can order pizza, sushi, and taco salads, shish kebabs and gozlemes also are sold. Gozlemes are a Turkish specialty that resemble Lahvash bread, thin expanses of baked dough folded over a filling of feta, spinach, or meat. Zeytuna's folds the dough over several times into a square the size of a napkin. They heat them in a pizza oven as they are ordered and serve them with a thin marinara sauce that reminds me of gazpacho. I ordered a potato gozleme, which was spiced with garlic and pepper. It would have gone well with sour cream, like a pierogi. I've been meaning to pitch an article on gozlemes...I never seem to get around to it though. But this is one of my big challenges with food writing. I have new ideas percolating every single day, but it's an uphill battle to pitch, pitch, and re-pitch every single one. I envy the columnists who can pursue ideas without dedicating more time to sales pitch than to investigating and writing. I've been trying to stick to a schedule of pitching at least two new ideas each week, but I'm not as disciplined as I could be.

Oh, Soba, you win. I feel for you....

Let me tell you a bit about dining in downtown Manhattan (as I contemplate where to go for lunch). Most eateries in this area fall into three categories IMHO: 1. Quick take-out stops. 2. Casual sit-down dining. (i.e. someplace you'd lunch with a friend or colleague) 3. Fancy dining. (i.e. someplace you'd lunch with a client) In midtown Manhattan and most other urban areas too, there's more or less an even split among these places. However, in the financial district of NY there's a curious absence of the middle category. Most places to eat are either of the grab-a-quick-sandwich-and-get-back-to-the-trading-floor variety, or the upscale three-hour-lunch-to-close-the-deal variety. The new restaurants that open mostly are the former, not the latter, so that weights the scale even further. This thread on the Financial District offers some info about specific places located near my office for those who are local (and those who are curious!) What accounts for this uneven scale? A few things: 1. More firms moving to midtown from downtown. The better restaurants follow, and fewer good new restaurants have opened up downtown. Many that remain are merely "fancy" and are not good at all (i.e. 14 Wall Street). 2. Fewer hot deals in the past couple of years mean fewer hot restaurants. Arguably, the deal flow is coming back of late. Maybe this means we'll get better restaurants sometime soon. 3. The bulk of Wall Streeters are not known for their elongated lunch hours. In fact, many people I know take only half-hour lunches or order in every day because they just can't get away. 4. Real estate still is relatively high. 5. The vast majority of people work here, not live here. That means that they want to dine elsewhere for dinner or on the weekends. I'm still puzzled as to why there are so few decent mid-priced restaurants to sit down for a bite with a friend. I know I'd welcome more of these in the neighborhood. There are quite a few in Tribeca and on the east side of the financial district, both of which are just out of comfortable walking distance on a lunch period for me, though I still do it from time to time when I just need to get some air & take a break from the office. I'm also puzzled as to why so many restaurants are really quite filthy and ill-maintained downtown. Every area of Manhattan has its share of dives and joints, but there's an overabundance of places that are simply dirty and dilapidated down here.

That sounds divine. I think I need someone to bring that to my desk each day. And then I should be fanned with palm fronds as I sip. My stomach started rumbling before the staff meeting, so I dashed downstairs to pick up an English muffin with butter and one perfectly ripe banana. Already I'm contemplating lunch. Thanks for the encouraging words, Suzanne. Actually, David Leite's eGCI lesson was one of the lead-ins to this conference for me. I plan to make the most of this opportunity! I believe you when you say Toni Allegra is terrific. I applied for a couple of the scholarships available for this conference (did I mention that this is one costly event?) and she called me personally to let me know that although I didn't win any of the scholarships ( ) I was the first runner-up for one of them. At first, I was skeptical and assumed this was just a marketing come-on, but then she called me back a few minutes later and sounded a little sheepish when she informed me that I was also the first runner-up for a second scholarship too! (The story of my life.) I've never heard of anyone calling to give that kind of information before.

Can't believe this blog's already had over 450 views. Unbelievable. I was thinking some more how to explain my approach to kosher cooking, and here's the defining statement, in my opinion: For me, keeping kosher defines which foods I bring into my kitchen more than it defines how I use those foods. For example, I will not be making pasta with clam sauce or pork chops, since neither shellfish nor pork is kosher. However, I will be making pasta puttanesca or lamb chops (with lamb purchased from the Kosher Marketplace on the Upper West Side). The style of cooking is more or less the same. So what am I eating today? So far nothing much, except for....(drum roll please) a large Iced skim Mocha. I wouldn't want to disappoint you. I really need the extra caffeine this morning. I was up in the wee hours of the night for no good reason at all. Fell asleep at a reasonable hour and then --boom!-- at about 3AM my eyelids snapped open and that was it, couldn't get back to sleep at all. I was still watching sitcom reruns on Nick at Nite when my alarm went off. I think I'm both nervous and excited about the conference later this week. It's a little like going away to sleep-away camp for the first time. I won't know a soul there, and I really want this to go well. The symposium speakers and agenda are available here if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about. I still have a million things to do before I leave -- I'm putting the finishing touches on my website (just an online portfolio of my food writing work) and today I need to order business cards with my contact info and the URL. Not to mention laundry, packing, and all that other good stuff. But first, I have to get through an 11 AM staff meeting.

WOW -- I have never heard of such a thing. It seems like a simple and brilliant idea. Why haven't I thought of this before? THANK YOU!!!

Wouldn't it be a neat idea to have a list of the top chocolatiers throughout history? For example, I just read that the old Ritz in NY had its own in-house chocolatiers in the 1950s. The chocolates were not for sale -- they were boxed and given to hotel guests exclusively. I know, it's problematic and highly subjective to put together such a list. And worst of all, you wouldn't be able to sample the products of chocolatiers no longer in business. But wouldn't it be fun to read?

I am SO PROUD of you! Two more converts!

Time for the next meal, and thus, the next blog entry: I spent the afternoon toy-shopping! It's a fun exercise when you don't have kids along. I don't have kids of my own, but I do have two nieces -- one is 3 1/2 and the other is nearly four months old. I adore them both. Although I really had set out to buy a baby shower gift for a friend, I couldn't help a couple of impulse buys for the nieces. Has anyone else noticed the yards and yards of candy set up along the ever-so-slow cashier lines, conveniently set at child height? I resisted the sugar impulse until I got home, where I consumed a handful of squishy yellow Peeps (a gift from Mr. alacarte, who finds Peeps hilarious ). Dinner was stir-fried chicken and vegetables with extra garlic, since I'm trying to stave off a cold I feel coming on. I'm planning to attend the Professional Food Writers Symposium later this week, and I absolutely, positively cannot be sick for this. (By the way, if anyone else is going, please PM me, it would be nice to see a friendly face there!) The stir-fry was made with kosher Empire chicken breast. For a while, we ordered chicken from FreshDirect -- I was so excited when they started offering kosher meats and poultry! But the chickens were ridiculously scrawny, so I've gone back to Empire. I don't miss any of the other chickens I see in the supermarkets, they often look so yellow and flabby. However, I would love to try cooking with d'Artagnan poultry, which I've heard such good things about -- but it looks like that won't be happening anytime soon. edited because I can't type tonight!

I like the Kosher Palette cookbook for two reasons: 1. I find it to be reliable -- I have too many cookbooks (now growing dusty on the shelf) that offer recipes that sound great and then don't work out properly because the directions aren't explicit enough. 2. I like the recipes. I think some of you will be disappointed to find that just because I keep kosher, that doesn't mean that I'm cookin' up Nana's Jewish soul food every night. I do make things like brisket and matzah ball soup from time to time -- but otherwise, I have relatively mainstream tastes when it comes to my own cooking. Kosher Palette does a good job of offering non-"soul food" recipes, only kosher. For example, Chicken a l'Orange or Braised Short Ribs, but with no butter or bacon or whatever involved. It just makes things really easy. That said, it can be kind of uninspired. I find that the NY restaurants can offer plenty of inspired food. When I cook at home I like my food to be uncomplicated, healthy, and straightforward -- maybe it's an antidote to all the hidden MSG and sodium and cream and fat on most restaurant (and worse, take-out) menus. Blo, what's your favorite cookbook?

Me, too! Iced coffee drinks all year round. Not so much on the crack of dawn thing, though. alacarte I'm really enjoying your blog and looking forward to the rest of it. I'm a goyisher guy who's fascinated with kashrut and kosher cuisine. Cheers, Squeat Very cool. Squeat, I enjoyed your blog too, way back when!

Nessa, I'm glad that you are enjoying the blog, and I'm glad that I'm not the only one who knows what a sunrise looks like! About the rules of kashrut (kosher) -- I'll direct you to this FAQ instead of trying to outline all the rules myself. In general, I just do the best I can. But my very fastidious mother-in-law is willing to eat in our home, so I guess that means we're doing OK. I bring only kosher meat into our home; do not mix milk and meat (yes, we have two sets of dishes, plus another set for Passover); do not cook shellfish or other non-kosher items. That said, I am not as strict as others -- for example, my MIL has designated one countertop for milk and another for meat. I make do with cleaning the countertop. Also, I'm willing to bring cookies or other (non-meat) items into my kitchen even if it's not explicitly labeled kosher, but I do read the ingredients carefully. For example, I would not bring products made with lard into our home. As for your aunt -- I'd say that you're on the right track by bringing in kosher delicatessen. You might want to use paper plates and plastic (disposable) cutlery instead of your usual plates if you want to make her feel extra comfortable. Plus, no dishes to do after dinner!

Thanks for the recipe, jackal. And I don't mind one bit about posting one of your recipes in "my" blog, it's all good! I don't think that any of my cookbooks or food history books contain recipes for ox brains. There are more than a few gross ones in there, though, such as the recipe for pigeon pie. That might be just euphemism for quail or capon, but I didn't see any footnotes to suggest that the recipe called for anything other than NYC rats-with-wings. Speaking of books, I'll post a few of my favorite titles. (I'm starting to see what bergerka meant when she referred to the "It's all about ME ME ME" syndrome! Even when I go off topic, it's still sanctioned!) alacarte's favorite cooking books (not necessarily cook books) 1. Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century, by Laura Shapiro (food history) 2. The Kosher Palette (a compilation cookbook that almost never fails) 3. Almost Vegetarian, by Diana Shaw (cookbook) 4. My Kitchen Wars, by Betty Fussell (memoir) 5. Choice Cuts, edited by Mark Kurlansky. (I've only just started to read this, but already I am hooked. It's a compilation of food writing "from around the world and throughout history" and it's rapidly filling in many of the gaps in my admittedly limited food-reading canon. Everything is in here. Elizabeth David, MFK Fisher, Mrs. Beeton, Anton Chekhov, Waverley Root....if it's possible to be gluttonous about food reading, that's how this book is making me feel. I consume page after page and I just want to swallow the volume whole. It's a hardcover book that includes recipes and illustrations and photos. I'm not even trying to read it in order, I just keep flipping open the pages and reading wherever the book takes me. Next up: A letter from Ernest Hemingway to Charles Scribner dated May 1951 on how he likes to eat, to be followed by James Beard on Hot Chocolate. ) Signing off now, you can guess what I'll be doing for the next hour or so.

oh my goodness, no! That burger was high escapism to me. And it was fine company to boot!

Yes, Virginia, your clock does have a 5:45 AM on it too. But the flip side is that I'm rarely awake past 11PM most nights.

Lunch is a little early today, since I didn't have breakfast with my AM iced mocha. I know, I can hear my mom disapproving right now. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." I skip breakfast more often than I care to admit. Lunch today is vegetarian chili left over from the batch I made last night, with shredded monterey jack cheese melted over the top. I have a great recipe for veg chili that I modified from the Moosewood Cookbook. The original recipe calls for bulgur and onions -- I omit both -- and more spices than I like. My version of "red, green, and gold chili" calls for sauteeing 1/2 each a green and yellow pepper in olive oil, and then adding a box of chopped Pomi tomatoes, a can each of red kidney and black beans, and about a cup and a half of frozen corn. I spice the chili with cumin, chili powder, and a touch of garlic, but about half of what Moosewood calls for. Last night, the chili was served over white rice and sprinkled with chopped green jalapenos, which added crunch but not as much heat as I would have liked. It's also good inside tortillas as a quesadilla or burrito filling. I like to cook on the weekends, when I have more time. During the week I'm more likely to order in or bring in food, since I often arrive home STARVING! One of my favorite weekend habits is to walk over to the Union Square Greenmarket on a Saturday morning, while Mr. alacarte sleeps in, and then bring home a tote bag full of vegetables to plan a meal around. It's still a little early in the season for Greenmarket produce, but in a couple of weeks the season will begin in full force!

Thanks Jackal! "Brain patties"? That sounds economical in the extreme to me. I'd still love to hear the recipe though!

It's Sunday, which means I don't have to eat around a workday schedule. Hooray! I am an early riser (waking at 5:45 AM each day to make sure the first financial reports are out before the market opens will do that to you). So even on a Sunday, by 8AM I had an iced mochaccino in hand. I am fanatical about my iced mochas. I have never been a fan of hot drinks. Used to drink iced hazelnut coffee with lots of milk and three sugars, and then I discovered mochas, which are like rocket fuel with the extra caffeine (espresso) and sugar (chocolate) already added in. It's like drinking a milkshake. The best mochas are made with espresso and chocolate syrup blended together while the espresso still is hot, and THEN poured over cold milk and ice. Frothed steamed milk on top is nice, but optional from my point of view. I dislike (OK, like less) mochas made with powdered chocolate, which can make for a grainy texture, or mochas made from already-iced coffee that's been sitting in the fridge overnight, which can create a metallic flavor. And it has to be espresso, not regular joe. I wasn't kidding when I said I was fanatical. Most coffee shops I frequent know me by sight -- I'm the crazy lady who orders iced drinks even in the dead of winter, and who comes in at the crack of dawn when most customers still are hitting the snooze button. Yes, I could make my own mochas. It would save me lots of money. I do own an espresso machine. But it has never been used. Iced mochas made by someone else are but a small pleasure in the grander scheme of things, in my opinion. If it puts a smile on my face before the sun is up, it's well worth the price tag to me.

It looks like I'm up -- as I told bergerka, it had to happen sooner or later. I'll warn you up front that I don't own a digital camera, so there won't be any luscious pix in this blog, sorry. But hopefully I'll be able to offer enough description to leave everyone drooling over their keyboards anyhow. OK, here's my story. For starters, here are some of the things that color my food world: 1. I am an aspiring food writer. I've actually sold a few pieces at this point, so that likely makes me actual rather than aspiring, but in my opinion I still have a ways to go. I'm not quitting my "day job" just yet. My "day job" is working in financial research and editing for a large information services conglomerate. Since I've been working there for a few years now and I even have a staff reporting to me it qualifies as a career rather than a day job, but my intent is to move into food writing in a full-time capacity sometime in the near future. Since many of my posts will be made from said day job, I won't name my employer, but I will tell you that I work in the culinary wasteland of downtown Manhattan (right next to Ground Zero, as a matter of fact. And I'm grateful to report that no, I was not there on 9/11, though unfortunately I know many people that were). If you want to read some of my work, here's a link to a piece I did for The Daily Gullet on "Cubicle Cuisine." 2. I keep a kosher kitchen. I am married to a wonderful guy who grew up in a kosher household. And although I did not grow up keeping kosher, like many others on this board when I married I opted to keep a kosher household. It's a labor of love, and sometimes a royal pain in the neck. Mr. alacarte (as slkinsey has dubbed him ) keeps kosher always, everywhere. It's a lifestyle choice. However...when I am away from home and away from Mr. alacarte, I cheat on the kosher diet with abandon. Shrimp scampi. Cheeseburgers. You name it. Mmm, mmm, trayfe. When I'm cooking at home, I'm usually cooking with kosher meat, or more often than not I'm cooking vegetarian (dairy or pareve, no meat). 3. One of my geekiest food-geek traits is my long-time interest in food history. I'm even on the board of The Culinary Historians of New York. This started as a general interest in women's history, which evolved into a deeper and geekier interest in how women were tied to the kitchen and how they cooked. Then I started collecting vintage cookbooks and learned how to cook, and all was lost. I'm especially interested in cooking at the turn of the century (um, the last one, so that means the wonderful opulent dishes of the early 1900s) as well as wartime cooking, which is as far away from wonderful and opulent as you can get. I wrote an article about WWI cooking for the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink (which is due for release in fall 2004). I also wrote about the history of Twinkies for the encyclopedia. Sometimes I try to cook historical recipes, with varying levels of success. My last experiment was ice box cake. edited to add links.

....or this year with paper plates!

Just a thought -- do y'all realize that these food blogs have been going steadily since July 2003? I'm impressed. It all started with an innocent question from SobaAddict to Fat Guy. I'm just so impressed. If this carries through to a one-year anniversary, we'll have to find a special way to celebrate.

I was inspired by this thread to try Chipotle on St. Mark's Place last night. It's just average, in my opinion -- better than most fast food but not as good as Burritoville. The ingredients were fresh (and I loved the corn & jalapeno "salsa") but the tortilla was so rubbery that it was a challenge to eat my burrito!

Stroopwaffels are especially good if you set them over the mouth of your teacup. The steam rises and softens the cookie and melts the caramel a bit.

I've been advised of another to potentially add to our list: Albert's in Suffolk County, Long Island. Apparently it makes Newsday's best-pizza list year after year. The slice sounds interesting (maybe a little too interesting?): it's been described to me as a square slice, medium (not thick) crust, served with provolone rather than mozzerella and then topped with sauce. Anyone feel lucky?

OK, bergerka, what's the story? Love your description of your mom advising you on cooking over the phone. If you've ever tried it the other way round (someone asking YOU for advice over the phone), it's even funnier..."it's doing WHAT?...you need an immersion blender...no, that's not an immersion blender, that sounds like a spoon...it smells like WHAT??...I think it's time you found the takeout menus."