Food Blog

[JennyUptown]

Back on topic: so Chipotle is worth trying?

I am not sure how to use the quote function, so I am trying. I actually found Chipotle in Washington DC (I travel quite a bit for work and have over the years). At first, I attempted to dismiss it as a "Subway for burritos," but have since seen the error of my ways.

I actually enjoy Chipotle quite a bit. I am partial to the Chicken Fajita Burrito, but can do barbacoa or their Niman Ranch Pork as well. I actually LOVE the rice in the burrito (and it's got a kick of cilantro and lime). I opt for the "hot" sauce. Their ingredients are pretty fresh and the quality is yummy. They are BIG. I can eat a whole one though.

On the subject of burritos and Washington DC, Washington also has another chain Tex-Met/burrito place I like - Baja Fresh. Have any of you been to one. They have NO freezers and everything is very, very fresh.

I generally perferred Chipotle to Baja Fresh.

I use the past tense due to watching sodium attached to moderate hypertension.

A typical Chipotle burrito has about 2500 mg of Sodium (pretty much 100% RDA)

I had to e-mail them for the nutrition info as it was not on web site. However, they were quite nice electronically. The reply (with attached nutritional info) said straight out "We use a lot of sodium. Sorry, Our burritos are not for you"

My poor pal JPW. We have a bit in common but not this - I actually have low blood pressure that seems to be dipping ever lower... QUICK, GET THIS GIRL A BURRITO!!

[hwilson41]

K;

What a super blog. In an earlier career, I was a statistician of sorts, among other things, and one of the things that's so delightful about eGullet is that you can't predict shit from past knowledge .

"Oh, that's OK. I read the last food blog, and I'm sure this one will be pretty much the same."

NOT!

Thanks for an absolutely delightful and totally unexpected blog.

THW

[winesonoma]

Do the Ferret's have a Bucky Katt?

[bloviatrix]

I'm still boggling about any house that would sacrifice quality singing for visual concept -- which, to be sure, is to say that there are a lot of houses that boggle me, and particularly in Europe. It's not every day, though, that an international-level presenter pulls something quite so publicly, blatantly actionable, even in the name of trying to attract the younger set.

If I had a season subscription to Covent Garden, I would really be pissed. From my own experience, we have several theater subscriptions. When deciding to sign-up we take into account the work, the director, and the casting. So, if I layed out who knows how many quid to hear Voight and instead got some little-known waif-y German soprano , I would be furious. I'm curious to know the audience backlash on this.

[bergerka]

Whew, what a day of blogging! Hwilson41...I am (honestly) extremely relieved to know that I'm not absolutely boring people to tears and making them think "get to the food already, motormouth!" (motorfingers??? don't go there).

Unfortunately, upon my return home, I discovered that whatever it is I did that made my left thigh hurt like hell every time I walked today is also going to prevent me from stairmastering until it resolves itself. I did get my 1/2 hour of Pilates in, though, which is better than nothing.

Dinner!

Sam, once again demonstrating why he is the unquestioned champion in the "Best Boyfriend in the World" Competition, made dinner.

We had:

Salad. Belgian endive, Shropshire blue cheese, granny smith apple cut into matchsticks, olive oil, integrated lemon olive oil, a little champagne wine vinegar, a little salt, a little dijon mustard.

Chicken browned and braised with small black olives (picholines?), a few whole cloves of garlic, a bundle of fresh thyme. Sam braised it on high heat with about an inch of liquid in the bottom, boiling furiously. He covered it, let the liquid boiled down, and repeated the process till the chicken was tender.

Kale. I plucked off the kale leaves and washed them, then Sam steamed them, rinsed them in cold water, then squeezed the moisture out and chopped them up finely. Then he cubed some Yukon gold potatoes (which I had previously peeled), browned them in EVOO with a little salt, added some finely diced spanish chorizo, stirred in the kale and put it in a warming oven until everything else was ready.

Artichokes, braised in evoo with a little lemon zest on top.

Charlie ate with us tonight, and contributed some Yellowtail chardonnay to the cause. I'm not generally a fan of chardonnay, too oaky, but it worked perfectly well with everything but the artichokes (NOTHING quite like forgetting what artichokes do to white wine and taking a big ol' gulp after a bite. METALLIC MOUTH).

It was absolutely delicious and I think there might be enough of the kale left for a frittata tomorrow, which would be sublime.

Any minute now I'm going to tear myself away from this totally bizarre production of The Barber of Seville on the Ovation channel, and do the dishes so I can go play with the ferrets for awhile.

...I wonder if there's any ice cream in the freezer, and if I could convince Charlie to also donate a bit of that to the cause...it's all for the blog, after all...

K

[JennyUptown]

If you EVER get sick of your divine chef-in-residence, I think I can make room for him here in DC.

Awesome looking meal and a very nice collaboration, you two!

[bloviatrix]

Where do you guys do all your food shopping?

[Pan]

I should hasten to mention that there are plenty of opera singers out there with relatively pedestrian voices who are nevertheless having huge careers based on their other strengths (acting, networking, looks, whatever).

I'd say it's worse than that: There are many professional opera singers who suck, some of whom used to be better and abused their voices and some of whom probably were never good. As an instrumentalist, I can't tell you how - well, some combination of annoyed, angry, sad, and insulted - I feel when I'm put in the position of accompanying singers who substitute a tremolo of a minor third in place of a vibrato. What am I supposed to do to accompany them effectively, insert a tremolo into my music? Well-trained singers don't have uncontrollable wide vibratos (listen to some great bel canto and verismo singers like Nellie Melba, who recorded in the first half of the 20th century, for good examples), but it is clearly very hard to find a really good vocal teacher - and to be a really good student of such a teacher (furthermore, really good vocal teachers usually charge amazing fees for lessons). So when you hear a great singer, know that that person really deserves your appreciation and respect. The voice is probably the hardest instrument to be a master at, certainly the hardest to care for, but to me, in the hands of a master, it's the greatest instrument of them all.

Edited March 11, 2004 by Pan (log)

[slkinsey]

Where do you guys do all your food shopping?

Fairway @ 74th Street, mostly. Zabar's sometimes. I like Oppenheimer Prime Meats for non-poultry (their poultry is good too, but I also like the Murray's chickens at Fairway and it's more convenient). Union Square Greenmarket during the growing season (soon!). Smattering in Chinatown/Little Italy. Smattering on 9th Avenue.

Edited March 11, 2004 by slkinsey (log)

[bergerka]

Good morning, everyone! The sunshine and last night's fabulous dinner have improved my mood considerably (I was TOTALLY bummed about not being able to stairmaster yesterday, how stupid is that?).

Breakfast was two cups of coffee, quickly gulped (ran a tad late this morn. Are you sensing a pattern here?), and one piece of leftover fig and pepper bread with honey. I'm thinking a snack might be in order before lunch, though.

And JennyUptown...so come to NYC for dinner, already! We'd love to have ya!

K

[JPW]

(I was TOTALLY bummed about not being able to stairmaster yesterday, how stupid is that?).

K,

I don't think it's stupid at all. Mrs. JPW and I both get a little testy if we miss our workouts. Of course, if you miss enough workouts the feeling goes away, but the pounds come flying onto you.

Which brings up 2 questions.

1) How does the "missing workout" feeling affect how you eat?

2) Perhaps more importantly for you, does it have an effect on your singing?

[herbacidal]

If I'm not mistaken, muscle weighs more than fat.

A pound is a pound is a pound . However, a pound of muscle is smaller in size, so more muscle can be packed into one place. When replacing fat with muscle, that's basically what you are doing, which is why you may not notice a weight loss.

And muscle doesn't jiggle like fat does.

Yea Marlene,

That's what I meant. Gotta pay more attention to what I type.

Also, as my friend says,

you can't pull fat.

[sequim]

Some awesome looking dishes. Are those fresh or canned artichokes? You tend to cook alot of Italian?

[slkinsey]

Some awesome looking dishes.

Are those fresh or canned artichokes?

They are fresh baby artichokes. The canned ones taste pickled to me.

You tend to cook alot of Italian?

Well, yes and no. My culinary outlook and kitchen learning experience is mostly regional Italian. However, I wouldn't say that most of the food I make is Italian per se. Which is to say that most of the dishes I make aren't traditional Italian dishes, but rather dishes made with an Italian-influenced approach to ingredients. Nothing in our meal of last night, for example, strikes me as particularly Italian.

[bergerka]

Hey, JPW.

1. Unfortunately, missing a workout doesn't affect how I eat at all. I exercise out of pure necessity...if I do it, I don't gain weight, if I don't do it, I DO gain weight - and I'm unwilling to give up the foods I like to keep the pounds off. Combine that with my inner control freak, and exercise is the lesser of two evils.

2. Missing one workout has no effect on my singing at all... but I got lazy this fall and winter and didn't do it for several months. THAT had a PRONOUNCED effect on my breath control and on the difficulty I felt in expending the physical effort it takes to sing operatically, particularly in the muscles of the stomach and abdomen. Because 1/2 of my workout is Pilates, that's where my main focus is, because the more toned those muscles are, the easier it is to activate them for singing.

Lunch!

Ben, Sam and I went for slices of pizza today. We have an ok place right across the street from the office...it's certainly nowhere near the quality of Patsy's, Grimaldi's or any of the REALLY GOOD pizza places, but for cheap, fast 'za it's not too terrible. Sam likes the bacon pizza (it's good, but the one time I ate it it made me sick!).

I had one bigass slice of white pizza (cheese & ricotta. I love ricotta) and one bigass slice of pepperoni that had WAY too much cheese on it. I peeled most of it off. And a Fresca.

Here's the 'za.

I should add that this picture is courtesy of Ben and his amazingly cool cell phone, which takes pictures, since I was a dumbass and forgot the camera today. I'll definitely bring it tomorrow, and I'll see if I can't get Ben to pose, too, so you'll have a face to put with the name if you care to.

On the way back, we stopped at a little deli, Sam bought a Vanilla diet Pepsi (YAK) and I bought a seltzer and a little package of Chips Ahoy cookies to soothe the chocolate monster.

You know, it occurs to me--we need to start thinking about who to tag next! C'mon, if I can do one, anyone can. If you're interested in being the next fabulous blogger, PM me and let me know!

K

[bergerka]

Dinner time. Lord, this was an exhausting day. I spent the morning alternately panicking and tracking down Eric "no cell phone" Malson in Madrid, then working my ass off for this attorney all afternoon (at least it was interesting work).

I'm very happy to report that a day of resting the thigh seems to have taken care of the problem...so I was back to 1/2 hour of Pilates and 20 minutes on Mr. Stairmaster today.

First, we had vodka gimlets. mmmm...vodka gimlets.

We were GOING to have a frittata of leftover kale with potatoes & stuff, but upon discovering that we only had two eggs, Sam improvised. We had, instead, spaghetti with spanish chorizo and fresh thyme, steeped in extra virgin olive oil. Yummmmmmm.

Here it is!

Doesn't that look yummy?

Sam's now going to grind up chickens for the ferrets and then I'm going to go take pictures of us playing with them. In the meantime, I'm watching "Catch me if you can," which with "What's eating Gilbert Grape" marks only the second time I've ever enjoyed Leonardo diCaprio in ANYTHING. He's really at his best playing a teenager, don't you think?

K

[bloviatrix]

Who's the Fresca drinker?

[Ladybug]

Off topic: Bergerka, what do you think of American Idol? Do you follow it at all?

On topic: How often do you guys eat dessert?

[alacarte]

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!

[bergerka]

Morning, all!

Sam and I are both Fresca drinkers. We like Fresca, Diet Barq's root beer (increasingly difficult to find in NYC, for some reason) and caffeine-free Diet Coke. HE likes vanilla diet pepsi, I think it's nasty beyond belief.

We rarely eat dessert in the winter, unless I remember to buy ice cream or make cookies. In the summer we tend to have a LOT more ice cream around the house, and have dessert more frequently. I also eat ice cream for lunch in the summer sometimes. I REALLY like ice cream.

To be honest - I've only watched about 2 episodes total of American Idol. I don't find it all that interesting, although I'd love to have Simon critique MY auditions. Every singer needs someone that honest and willing to cut through the bullshit on his or her team.

Alacarte, total bummer about the tortilla at the St. Mark's Place Chipotle! I haven't noticed that problem at the one on East 44th Street.

Breakfast!

All I had time for at home today was coffee (for some reason, all three of us needed to be in the bathroom at EXACTLY the same time. I would kill for two bathrooms, absolutely kill), so I bought a vanilla Dannon yogurt downstairs and am eating that for breakfast. Need to have a small one, because my lunch hour is early today (12:00, what a stupid time to have lunch).

K

[sequim]

You tend to cook alot of Italian?

Well, yes and no. My culinary outlook and kitchen learning experience is mostly regional Italian. However, I wouldn't say that most of the food I make is Italian per se. Which is to say that most of the dishes I make aren't traditional Italian dishes, but rather dishes made with an Italian-influenced approach to ingredients. Nothing in our meal of last night, for example, strikes me as particularly Italian.

I agree. After I made that remark, I started thinking that there wasn't anything particularly Italian about that meal, yet I thought "Italian food" when I saw the pictures. Wonder why that is. Maybe the simpleness of the food and using olives and artichokes.

[richw]

Are there going to be any pictures of the coffee drinks produced by that shiny Rancilio Silvia?

[bergerka]

Unfortunately, we're out of beans for the Rancilio...and since Sam roasts his own, he's in charge of re-ordering, which I don't think he's gotten around to doing.

K

[slkinsey]

Not to mention that I don't want my humble "latte art" efforts compared to Melkor's.

[phaelon56]

Not to mention that I don't want my humble "latte art" efforts compared to Melkor's.

Melkor's are way better than mine Sam. You and I could have a contest and you'd probably be an odds-on favorite to win. I have great crema and can get the righht milk texture but the pouring speed and wrist shaking thing seems to elude me.

one of the things that's so delightful about eGullet is that you can't predict shit from past knowledge .

So true but I'm one of those people who often can't predict shit even from present knowledge (or possibly future knowledge if I was so lucky to receive it)