AnimaMundi

Autumn in NYC

Our trip to NYC was a good one. The Excelsior Hotel is a great place to stay if you can get a reasonable rate. It's right across the street from the Museum of Natural History. I figured we parked somewhere under the Hayden Planetarium in the constellation of Orion. On Friday we had a fine lunch at Land Thai Kitchen. The place is small, but big on hospitality and flavorful food. They don't hold back on the robust spices and chilies. The Massaman curry with chicken, the green curry with chicken and the wok cashew nut with shrimp were all top shelf. Thanks to Gastropoda for the deem. I went again on Saturday night and ordered take out to bring back home. Our waitress from the day before, Pookie, remembered me. I found this a comforting touch. How many places have I been in where a person remembers me from a one time visit? In a city of millions of people.

On Friday night we met friends for an early 6:30 dinner at Fatty Crab at their Hudson Street location. Without a doubt, I can rank this as one of our worst dining experiences in Manhattan dating back to 1980. What's up with that, Zak? Where is Zak Pellaccio amidst your empire? Nowhere man. It is something I don't even want to blog about. The food and music were that lousy. The decibel level at the place was in the redzone continually. Think hardcore-screamo-noise-pop-grunge-garage-punk cubed. The food was flat, meagre and exorbitantly priced at $155 with 4 glasses of wine before tip. Luckily, the gracious people we met there made it all worth it. I tried to get even by posting on City Search, Chowhound, Menupages, Yelp, NY Magazine and post #80 on eGullet. I felt that I had to say something. 

Maud and Max are good, very talented and humble people. They both have that languid southern feel. We like that.  We were fortunate to get to meet you both. Big up to both of you. Thanks again for taking the time to get together. And Maud, bless her heart, managed to drag herself away from Ancestry.com for a few hours.

On Saturday we made for the Chelsea Market before the swarms of people attending the NYC Wine and Food Festival clogged the place. After walking around the West Village and the LES, we decided to try Sigiri for lunch. The place is small, but big on their welcome. The curries were bold and robust. There is no holding back here either. We shared the prawn and chicken curries. Sri Lankan cuisine is similar to southern Indian, but different and unique in its own way. Sigiri is definitely on the return visit list.

Saturday night we made the obligatory visit to Fairway Market for Parmigiano cheese, sherry vinegar and a few other things. Aldea and Locanda Verde will have to wait till our next visit. Our energy levels were not optimal so...

On Sunday, the line at The New French was very long so we opted for Petite Abeille just down Hudson Street a few blocks. It was decent enough. The staff were very friendly and the food was good. Nothing exceptional, but solid fare.

We spent the rest of the day walking to Washington Square and Union Square.

In NYC the rare always happens. It is bound up with the people of the city. This is why I love NYC. The people make NYC. This is what makes us keep coming back.

P.S. Oh, these were all over the pavement.   

 

Gourmet Magazine RIP

We had a subscription to Gourmet magazine for a few years. I enjoyed looking at the luscious photographs, reading the articles and trying some recipes. The copies are still in our cellar. (If I toss them, you can be certain Conde Naste will start charging to access Epicurious.) I especially liked the travel pieces, but were the accommodations and restaurant suggestions all that affordable to those who could not live the Gourmet "good living" lifestyle? I always got a chuckle when Gourmet would offer their budget suggestions for a hotel. Once upon a time, we knew people who thought that they lived out of the pages of Gourmet, literally.

Regina's thoughts on the demise of Gourmet.

Fucking Idiotic Is As Fucking Idiotic Does

Friends of The (Gurgling) Cod, or FOC, know of what The Cod speaks. So it should come as no surprise that he has been labeled a "fucking idiot" for reviewing a book about Saint Alice Waters and her devotees. This can be read on many levels, as you choose or as they choose, whoever "they" are. As the Cod says, if he is a fucking idiot in the use and comprehension of the English language, then maybe he should look for another day job. I don't think his students would agree, but that's another story.

DI/DO Dallas and Oakland

Two cities that I have never visited, yet, recently took hits on their dining choices. In the case of Oakland, it was a very unfortunate case of omission by Tony Bourdain, whom I have grown tired of. My significant spouse dvr'd Tony's latest show on San Francisco but I am in no hurry to watch it. His shows are glossy and sassy, but like I said I am pretty much blown out on Tony and his antics. "Kitchen Confidential" was a good read and he should have stuck to $print$. Tony, if you going to do a show on San Francisco, stick to the city and don't mention Oakland in the way you did.

In the Dallas News, the new restaurant critic, Leslie Brenner, takes the city to task for not using more fresh local ingredients. She also thinks some of Dallas' restaurants are mired in the past. I have a friend in Dallas who knows food and wine and he probably agrees with some or maybe most of what she has to say. I don't really know. What I do know is that he has been both critical of and positive about the restaurants that he and his friends frequent. I believe he knows that very good things are happening in Dallas' culinary world and on the other hand he equally admits that some eateries are in need of a transfusion of something, i.e. contemporary culinary wild yeasts in the air, wine lists that reflect a communication between chef and sommelier, wine lists that reflect the economic times and the global market, i.e., some books are enormously rich and deserve more scrutiny, more connectivity with local farms et al. Infamous Dallas may not be the culinary destination in the country, but people, it ain't fly over country anymore, not by a long shot.

Summer 2009

  Tropea onionsNiman Ranch French Pork Roast old vines in the backyard Radishes & garlicRed cabbagesGarlic from Katchie FarmGrilled haricots verts from our garden
Haricots verts from our garden

Have You Had Enough To Eat Yet?

If you haven't heard about the film Julie and Julia, (turn those speakers down!) then you must have missed the death of Michael Jackson too. When I first heard of it, I thought the movie was solely about the master of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1". As I type this there is a French pork roast sitting in our frige that is turn covered in a marinade, actually a combination of two marinades, from that very book. Odd isn't it? Synchronicity, as the movie is set for release? Or another blogger looking to make good on dear old 6' 6'' dead Julia? Then I learned that there is another story line interwoven with the first. End of interest. So when I clicked over to The Gurdling Cod, it was with great pleasure that I learned of the Cod's hypothetical genesis of this wonderful cinematic event. I say get the damn movie out already so it can go straight to dvd. Or is that blogger going to do a followup movie based on Volume 2? We can only hope and pray.

Delmar Farmer's Market

 

A new farmer's market opened last Saturday just down the street from us. This is good news since the only existing market was rather small and did not offer the variety that the new one does. I found it by accident after I bought some inferior salad greens from another farm down the road a piece. I'll have some pictures next week unless it's a rainout. One of the vendors at the market is Katchkie Farm owned by Great Performances. I was curious as to the news of a new greenmarket in the Port Authority and one of the two vendors being from Kinderhook, NY, a beautiful area near which we lived from 1972 to 1980. Ah, but the farm has never before been farmed until just recently. So it's sort of city, country, city, but that's ok if the produce is fresh and honest. Their radishes are excellent and the people working their booth were very friendly and helpful, I might add. 

 

DI/DO

 

 

 

 

Just when I thought cooking at home was making a comeback, Mr. Italian Wine Guy thinks we should making dining out in again. Of course, he is in the wine business so it makes sense to encourage people to dine out more often and while doing so order that bottle of Amarone or Nero d'Avola blended with Syrah. Just watch out for those seersucker pants. Red wine stains are murder on them. If you lucky enough to live in or close to a metropolis that has an abundance of quality restaurants, this makes sense, especially if you can afford it. Or if you live on Lipari, in Marsala or Soverato, it would make even more sense given what you could get for 70 Euros or less. Give me a solid pasta with vongole, I'm there. Imported pasta asciutta al dente with plenty of plumb sweet briney vongole with a little tomato and chile. But how many places get it right in the US of A.? Not many @ $15-$20+ a pop. I can name three. Two are/were in NYC. One is the late Vucceria and the other is Barbone on Avenue B. The third is in Newport, RI, at a little place called Pronto. We recently went to a new restaurant nearby in Albany. It's hot now. Everyone's there. ("No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded."-- Yogi Berra) The bar's hopping. The chef has a name he made for himself at Justin's in Albany and in Woodstock. Right down the street is superior place that is now half empty. I order the pasta with vongole @$18. It is non-descript lacking in kick and vitality. A glass of Regaleali rose can't redeem it. On the other hand, K's Thai-inflected noodles with shrimp was more flavorful as were the fried calamari app with hot Asian dip. So, do I go back after they get their legs? Do I want to pay $18 for another pasta with vongole that left me cold? Or do I order something else? The dinner--one appetizer, two entries, one cocktail, one glass of wine--total = $80+ with tip.

Alfonso hits on more than a few viable points about America Norte and its ambiguous relation with food and dining out. Is dining out recreation or theatre or both? Does it always have to be a reality show? Top Chef? People like to go out and dine with friends. Suspend time and cares for a few hours or more. Have a good time and drink some reasonably priced honest wines along with carefully prepared food that gets their attention. What with all the hyperbole, some restaurant entries require an adjective-heavy paragraph on the menu. How many reductions of reductions do you really need? Simple food with fresh ingredients, not tortured into something it isn't. I'll take a humble tavola calda in Italy over offal Babbo anyday. Too much and too little. Over the top and under the radar or the table. At times, dining in seeks to recreate the experience of dining out. Dining out attempts to fantasize being at the home table. You tell me.

If I buy a bag of 50 Rhode Island littlenecks (you Texans don't know what you are missing) for $18, Kathy will steam them to perfection with olive oil, white vermouth, shallots, Argentinian garlic, San Marzano tomatoes, hot red pepper, fresh herbs from our garden. She then tosses them with freshly cooked imported pasta asciutta al dente. We share some red from either Sicily or Puglia. We are silent as we eat, except for an occasional moan of enjoyment. And I don't have to worry about drinking too much wine and driving home or figuring out what 20% of X is.

Hiatus

I posted three times in April, an all time low for me. Allergies and outdoor work are the main reasons. It's not like I didn't hear lots of new music, drank some noteworthy wines, enjoyed some exceptional home made meals and discovered things on the Internets that I could have linked too. My ability to read books and longish web content is definitely affected by those microscopic bits of pollen and the detritus from last year. I pour loads of eye drops into my eyes everyday and take benadryl. My vision and neuron synapses suffer. So needless to say, I didn't post since what I would have posted would undoubtedly have been more inane than usual. This and Facebook.

So I will return to my impetus to start blogging in the spring-summer of 2005: New Orleans. That good ole warrior, Ashley Morris, would have appreciated this news about "The Wire", especially since David Simon wanted to speak with him about the city of New Orleans. Yeah mon, maybe the exodus will be stemmed and the TV wizard's wand will bring some of your city's soul into livingrooms around the planet. Maybe, just maybe, the rest of the country will finally realize how much the city has given it. There are so many things El Norte; as tangible as an oyster po' boy and as intangible as rolling a certain way.

Then there is that other word smith at Toulouse Street who continually lambasts my soul with his prose-poetry. He's always riffing on something that gets under your skin like scar tissue. His words rumble around within your head for days and weeks.

Oh, one more thing Allen Toussaint's "The Bright Missippissi". Listen to it a few hundred times.

 

"The portion we see of human beings is very small: their forms and faces, voices and words, their ages and race perhaps; beyond these, like an immense dark continent of which their obvious self is but a jetting headland, lies all that has made them--generations vanishing into the barbarous night; accidents and impacts not only on themselves but upon their forebears; the cry of the conqueror, the sighing of slaves. Even the chemical variation of substances--airs, food and waters--are all gathered to that point of light which is the person we know. He himself is unable to communicate, forced to use fluid words as if they were solid, and --if Anglo-Saxon and well brought up--is anyway not expected to wish to communicate at all. And when two human beings meet even in the most simple intercourse, it is not the tiny visible substances, but the immense invisibles that come together. It is these that must determine the liking or disliking over which we have so little control."

Freya Stark

Happy Saint Patricks Day, Adam's Curse and Blackcat Coffee at 9th St Espresso

Ninth Street Espresso in NYC has changed its blend. We always stop there for coffee when in the city. One of its locations is in the Chelsea Market where there are also Lipari capers in salt and jars of fiery red peppers from Tutto Calabria at Buon Italia.

From today's Writer's Almanac "Adam's Curse" by WB Yeats.

We'll be boiling breakfast later today to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and the wearing of the green!

Martin Hayes: Download 09 The Lafferty's-Grogans-Star of Munster