Local, Surprising, Crazy

I am one of those non-New Yorker New Yorkers that feels  a connection to NYC, as it is the closest major metropolitain area to where I live;  the hinterlands of Long Island.  It is not the actual place that I live, but I spend a lot of time in New York and the boroughs.  I have a deep appreciation for its vitality, energy and exceptional food and drink. However, this does not make me a New Yorker.  And there are those that might remind me of this with taunts and names, such as "Bridge and Tunnel".  I get it, I get it.   To you, I am an invader. A poser.  A carpetbagger in the place where you actually lay your head at night, every night and where you wage war each day with all of the ridiculous and sublime that NYC has to offer.

As something of a theater nerd, we see a lot of shows, both on and off Broadway.  This weekend, we were in the city to see an off-Broadway production at the Minetta Lane Theater.  It wasn't a play, but a reading of a screen play, by Billy Crystal, called "Have a Nice Day", which was was being recorded for Audible.  The Minetta Lane Theater is a small, intimate theater in a far corner of the East Village, just bordering on the West Village.  The performance was terrific.  It included many famous faces, such as Annette Benning, Kevin Klein (who was valiantly battling a head cold), Rachel Dratch, Justin Bartha (the fried groom from the Hangover) and a collection of talented comedy players.

We found parking on East 9th Street and planned to walk through Washington Square Park, something neither of us had done in about 25 years.  We had an early dinner reservation at Minetta Tavern and we shuffled through the park in a hurry, as neither of us had eaten since breakfast.  Still, in spite of our hurry, I could not help but appreciate the beauty of the arch, the central fountain and the dog park on the far end, filled with fluffy pups of every size and variety.  It was crowded, unseasonably warm and truly beautiful.

Central fountain. Washington Sq Park.

Looking toward the Freedom Tower from the West end of Washington Sq Park

We walked up to MacDougal Street and hooked a left toward Minetta Tavern, tummies rumbling and anticipation building.  As we headed down MacDougal, a tall, dirty and very agitated man came stomping up the pavement toward us.  He was yelling something that I could not make out at first and when we got close enough to him, I could see that he was shoving people out of his way.  Intentionally walking between couples and shoving them apart at the shoulders to clear a path for himself.  As he careened toward us, I tried to move to my left in order to separate from my husband and create a clear path for him, but his arms were long enough that once he got to us, he was able to shove us both on the shoulders and yell "Excuse me!".  I was in something of a state of shock.  A stranger had put his hands on me in an agressive way.  I looked down and caught a glimpse of my feet.  I was wearing pointy toed boots.  I was suddenly over come with a need to kick him squarely between the legs. I went from shock to anger in the blink of an eye, once I had composed myself long enought to play back the fact that a crazy, dirty old creep had put hands on me. I turned back to look for him and he had already gone a block and a half past us, making his way into the park.

Your garden variety crazy old guy

I thought through the scenario in my head.  What if I had chased him down and kicked him?  What would have happened?  Would he have tried to kill me? Would it have worked out in any kind of positive outcome?  No. Definitely not.  Shaken up and still a bit stunned, we went in to Minetta Tavern and had a couple of cocktails at the bar, while we waited for our table.  By the time they seated us, I had settled enough to remember how hungry I was.  Food was flying by us, looking good and smelling good.

Confit Duck Leg on Parsnip Puree

We started with a confit leg of duck before our main dishes of steak frittes and pork chop.  My appetite was strong, so I didn't wait to take a picture of my steak.  I just dug in.  It was topped with a disc of garlic butter and it was insanely good.  We ended our meal with a three way Pot de Creme (chocloate, coffee, vanilla), that was so delicious, I wanted to lick the ramekins.  At this point, our encounter with Captain Crazy, was fading a little and I finally felt settled.

This was the first negative encounter that I have had with anyone in NYC in what may be a thousand visits.  There is no overstatement in that number as I worked in Manhattan for a few years and I have been back for personal  reasons once  or twice a month over the past 10 years.  I'm not saying that I have never had someone yell things at me or aggressively panhandle, but I have never been physically assaulted like that.  Will this encounter change my love for NYC or my willingness to go in and just hang around?  Not in the slightest. In my opinion, that could have happened in any gathering where there are a large number of people.  It did not have to happen in the city.  It could have been anywhere. I will not change a single thing about the way I live my life. I will defiantly continue to be an New York City interloper, carpetbagger and Long Island Railroad riding Bridge and Tunnel Bitch.  Except, I am probably going to invest in a pair of steel tipped boots.

Have a Nice Day Playbill

Cast of Have a Nice Day

Washington Square Arch

Mashing Up My Cocktails

Italy is my favorite place on the entire planet, bar none.  Not a day goes by when I am not daydreaming about my next trip. When I think about travel, it is always Italy first, but every now and then, I let my mind wander to other European destinations that are on my bucket list.

Lately, I have been thinking about Spain.  Like Italy, it has a relaxed way of life, centered around a cafe/bar culture with iconic food and drink. We are considering a run to Madrid in the winter, if we have enough airline miles to do it for low/no cost.  The very possibility of this has gotten us doing research.  And when we do trip research, we dive in pretty deep.

One of the things that came out of our research about Spain is a drink called the Tinto de Verano.  It is essentially a slightly sweetened red wine spritzer.  Similar to a sangria, but simpler and made by the glass, a la minute. This summer, I discovered that I LOVE a similar Italian drink called an Aperol Spritz.  The composition of an Aperol Spritz is equal parts Prosecco, Aperol and Seltzer.

This afternoon, my husband opened a bottle of red wine and started experimenting.  He threw a healthy glug of aperol into his glass of wine and topped it with a splash of seltzer.  It was unexpectedly delicious. I added a couple of slices of fruit and got the measurements down to a repeatable recipe and a cocktail was born.  It's kind of like the bad baby that resulted from a foolish night of passion between the Tinto and the Spritz.  We have named the love child "Bacio da Madrid" or Kiss from Madrid.  Give it a try before it's officially cider and whiskey weather.

BACIO DA MADRID

5 oz Fruity Red Wine (Rioja, Shiraz, etc)

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons Aperol 

4 Oz Seltzer (orange flavored seltzer works really well here)

1 Slice Lemon

1 Slice Orange
Ice

Fill a large wine goblet or tall glass halfway with ice.  Pour over the wine and aperol and mix well with a spoon.  Drop in the lemon and orange slices and stir again.  Top off with Seltzer.

Mommy

Daddy

Bad Baby

Screeching into Tuesday, Like...

Tuesday is not my good news day.

Why is Tuesday, even?  Let's examine.

Tuesday's only real value is to remind us that it is no longer Monday.  It does not posess the inherent virtue of Wednesday, whose claim to fame is marking the midpoint of the week, allowing you an opportunity to placate yourself with a reassuring "its halfway over" or have your coworkers wish you a happy "humpday", which I am pretty sure is an HR violation, but it keeps skating the law, somehow.  Wednesday is not a spectacular day, but it serves a purpose and therefore can remain on the payroll.

Tuesday is also not the villian of the week.  That job falls squarely on the shoulders of Monday.  Monday is the day that breaks up with your weekend, probably by text.  It pops up uninvited and all too soon, to spoil that split second at the end of the week when you caught up on laundry and allowed yourself to exhale.  Monday careens into that relaxing breath like an out of control bread truck. And yes, I chose a bread truck for that analogy because I love carbs and they clearly hate me.

Tuesday is also not Thursday.  Thursday is like a mini-Friday. Not because you go out for drinks at the end of it, but because Friday is so close, you can almost touch it.  Thursday pulls you through the quicksand and deposits you squarely into Friday's waiting arms.

Friday is a fickle mistress though.  She is seductive, with an unmatched allure.  But if you are ever going to get stuck at work on a heinous, unforgiving and thankless task, it's going to be on a Friday.  Friday giveth and she taketh away. She must be a Gemini.

Saturday and Sunday. What can I say about them that hasn't already been said in a thousand sonnets or at least a couple of teen rom-coms? They are superstars and I have no interest in further puffing up their inflated egos.  You don't tell the captain of the football team how handsome he is.  You don't need to help feed his already bloated sense of self. If you don't watch closely, Saturday and Sunday will cheat on you with a trip to the emergency room for appendicitis faster than you can say "the copay is how much?!?".

So, allow me to posit yet again...why is Tuesday, even?  I think Tuesday is only here to remind us of how bereft of value he is (yes, Tuesday is male because, duh). Tuesday is the day you need to live through, to endure, so that you can get to all the other days.

So I am crashing into Tuesday, reluctantly.  With my guard up and ready to fight, because Tuesday is no gentleman and he will hit a lady.  Luckily, I have a mean left hook and Tuesday doesn't stand a chance. I'm talking to you Tuesday, when I say (does best Clubber Lang imitation) "No, I don't hate Tuesday.  But I pity the fool".

Like a Bad Penny

It has been a long time since I posted.  It has actually been close to two years since I made my last entry to this blog. It isn't because I have lost my interest in writing or cooking.   Quite the opposite, actually.   I have been writing like crazy, trying to catalogue all of our family's recipes for a family cookbook. Our family has been through some significant losses over the past few years and the need to chronicle and preserve the family legacy seems more pressing to me these days.

My goal for the cookbook is to have it ready to distribute to family and friends by Christmas of this year.  I don't know if I will look to distribute it beyond the immediate family, but if not, I think that a good deal of the content will end up here.  And for that reason, I think it's time to come back to this forum and catch up.

When I put up my last post "Channeling my Inner Nonna", in December 2016, I was fresh off a trip to Sicily, Italy and London.  We have since gone back to all three, as the pull of Sicily is strong, due to our family heritage and we can't be in the region and not go to Rome. London, a relatively new discovery for us is just great fun.  I have to say, it is the most spectacularly drunk town that I have ever been to and it has THE WORST traffic.  I would say that the traffic problem in London is far worse than New York City, which is pretty rotten in its own right.

Our most recent trip to Sicily centered around Palermo, a city that was surprising to me on many levels.  I think I was expecting it to be gritty and dirty and tough, like Naples, but moreso.  I could not have been more incorrect.  Palermo is beautiful and elegant and full of history.  With side trips to Erice, Trapani and Mondello, the beauty of north eastern Sicily unfolded like a flower, revealing layer after beautiful layer.

So without much fanfare, I return to the place where I began the journey of chronicling my adventures in cooking and travel. I have new things to share and many reflections on the past that are currently bubbling under the surface. I never considered myself a writer, more of a kibitzer. Someone who makes snarky comments from the sidelines, but is never really in the game.  My goal is to change that and to jump in with both feet. Let's see where this goes...

Alcamo Beach Sicily

Teatro Massimo

Theater Horse

Dramatic Theater Horse

Horses that are probably jealous of the Theater Horse

Palermo Marina

Cannoli

The breakfast of champions

Channeling my Inner Nonna

You ever have one of those days where everything aches for no reason and you walk slow, deliberate and a little like you have a poop in your pants?  Think Fred Sanford, but less elegant.  No? Just me?

OK, whatever.

When I have those kind of days, I think of it as coming down with a case of "The Grandmas".  When you get a case of The Grandmas, everything aches, it takes forever to walk from one side of the house to the other and you forget how to use all your electronic devices.

But sometimes, instead of a case of The Grandmas, you get a case of "The Nonnas".  When you get a case of The Nonnas, you become an elderly superwoman.  You put on your housecoat, cook all day and all night, wash and fold 40 loads of laundry and pick vegetables from your beautiful backyard garden (even if you have neither a back yard or a vegetable garden, when you get The Nonna's they magically appear).

Last weekend, I got a wicked case of The Christmas Nonnas.  I was posessed by the impulse to make Struffoli.  For those of you that don't know what Struffoli are, they are little round balls of fried dough, soaked in a honey syrup and covered with non-pareils.  If you grew up with at least one Italian grandmother, you know what they are and you have warm memories of being shooed away from pots of hot oil, being covered in honey from head to toe and not being able to put anything down after you pick it up because everything sticks to your fingers.

My Nonna did not leave me a recipe for these delightful treats and honestly, I have not ever wanted to make them before because I hate frying.  I hate the smell it leaves in the house, I hate the mess and I hate spatter burns.  But, when the spirit of Christmas mixes with the spirit of Nonna, the compulsion for struffoli can outrun my more neurotic, Felix Unger-type tendencies. Being that I did not have a recipe from my own Nonna, I did what any red blooded Italian Grandmother would do...I used the Internet.

What I found is that there are no shortage of recipes for Struffoli.  Everyone who calls themself an Italian cook has a version - Giada DeLarentiis, Lidia Bastianich, Mario Batali.  They all look pretty good and the recipes are similar...flour, eggs, a splash of alcohol, honey, etc.  But since I was overcome with the spirit of Nonna, I went to the source, Cooking with Nonna.

If you have not seen this adorable series, a young Italian American woman, Rossella Rago, cooks traditional Italian and Italian American recipes with grandmothers.  Yours, hers, any Italian nonna that will sit still long enough to teach her a recipe.  It's quite charming and sweet and it spreads the joy of having an Italian grandmother to everyone.  The recipe that I used, along with a "how to" video can be found here.  Enjoy and Buon Natale!

A Chicken Walks into a Butcher Shop...

I'll admit it, I get a little intimidated when I go into the butcher shop.  If there is one thing that I know absolutely nothing about, it's meat butchery.  On the very few times that I tried to joint up chicken wings or separate a thigh from a drumstick, it has been nothing shy of disastrous.  I end up with flesh that is shredded at the edges like Christmas tinsel.  I can take apart and dice a bell pepper with the best of them, but when it comes to knife skills in the meat world, I get a failing grade every time.

Everything about the process of the butcher shop is about mastery,  from the confident way they handle the different cuts to the understanding of which cut to use for what purpose to the blindingly fast use of a knife. So, like the puffer fish of the deep, I puff up my chest and stride in with a Dirty Harry swagger, as to not tip the professionals off to my lack of understanding or skill.  Think Billy Crystal in Analyze This, but with meat.

I confidently approach the counter and tell the butcher that I would like a pound and a half of ground sirloin and a pound of ground chuck.  I am sure the butcher is scratching his head over this odd ratio, but he is kind enough not to ask.  I don't want to have to tell him that I do this out of laziness because if I use all chuck in my chili, it takes too long to skim the extra fat off the top, so I mix in something leaner.

"Anything else?" he asks.  I momentarily seize up as I had not thought past the pot of chili.  "Yes", I blurt out trying to mask the hesitation brought about by my utter lack of preparedness, "I will take a whole organic chicken, cut up". It was the first thing I could think of and I believe that I have managed to convince him that I had planned all along to make chicken.  I laugh on the inside, believing that I have not tipped my hand (clearly a pair of twos) and exposed the fact that I had no clue what else I wanted, that is until he decides to throw math into the conversation.  If I have one Achilles Heel weaker than my knowledge of butchery, it's my knowledge of math.

"Do you want that chicken cut in eight pieces?" he asked.  The look that came over my face was probably something approximating abject fear and constipation as the thought of meat math was binding up my brain.  I started to do an inventory of chicken parts in my head, which is the meat math equivalent of counting on your fingers "Two breasts plus two wings plus two drums plus two thighs equals eight".  Then as if to provide a haughty "Go ahead, make my day" type response, I tell him, "No, make it ten.  I want to split the breasts across the middle so that all the pieces are the same size, and they cook evenly".

He slowly took two steps back from the counter and I could see the mental math that he was now doing in his head.  He turned to the butcher block and started hacking up the chicken.  And everything was right with the world.  I stood there listening to the solid "thwack, thwack,thwack" of his cleaver against the bird on the board.  I moved toward the register, ready to pay and take the spoils of my chicken victory when he held up the backbone of the bird and asked me if I wanted it.  Shit! How did we end up with an eleventh piece?  Defeated by vertebrae!  I looked down at my shoes and mumbled, "You can keep it" then I paid him and quietly slunk out the door, more Cowardly Lion than Dirty Harry.  Maybe next time I'll make a list.

Divining the Course of a Love Story Through a Pot Roast Recipe

I have a friend who has been crazy about a guy for the longest time.  He is one of those cute, funny, attentive fellows that makes a girl feel special on an almost constant basis. I have never wondered "what's the attraction?" when she talks about him.  I get it.  I totally get it.

That said, their relationship has taken the slowest boat to come to fruition in recorded history.  If patience is a virtue, my friend should be a saint by now.

It's not through any fault of his or hers that their relationship took its snail-like course, it's more the circumstances of life that blew the ship onto it's non-linear path.

When they first started hanging out, he was a very good friend of her husband-to-be.   He was part of the type of large pack of friends that seldom hung together long after high school.  But, here they were, post high school, post college and still together every weekend. When she was introduced to her fiance's friends, there was no delay in getting folded into the group.  They hung out together every weekend, drank at the same watering hole, took group trips together and when it came time to tie the knot, everyone was on hand to celebrate.

Though they had a pack mentality and did everything together, there was always something special about him.  He had a way of standing out amongst all the big personalities in the group.  She felt an ease with him,  a pull to be with him.  But, since she was now married and he always had a girlfriend in tow, the attraction was just that, and nothing more.  But she wondered, does he feel it too?

Years went by, relationships and marriages came and went and through an unexpected encounter, he and she reconnected. Their first phone conversation in twenty years lasted for four hours and ended with a promise to get together.  The type of promise that she suspected might be a hollow and polite ending to a long conversation.  Turns out, it was anything but.

What came next over the ensuing year was a series of epic hangouts that would last for hours and hours, complete with drinks, dinners, shows, and long, deep talks that did nothing but reveal the seemingly endless list of things that they had in common.  What it never did was end in a goodnight kiss.  It looked like a date, it smelled like a date, it walked like a date, but it never ended like a date.

On one of their "dates" she went to his place afterward and he offered to send her home with some of his world famous crock-pot chili.  She declined, but made a mental note that not only did he share her interest in food, that he actually took the time to cook meals for himself.  They later had long conversations about cooking and she found out that he was something of a crock pot genius.  A short time after that discussion, he gave her a recipe.

He did not give her this recipe the way the rest of us might, emailing some snippet from the NY Times food section or texting a link to something on Epicurious.  Instead, he handed her a piece of paper, that contained a hand written recipe, which on inspection was unlike any recipe that anyone had ever given her before.

When she opened up the folded piece of paper, she saw the words "German Pot Roast" centered at the top. The title was written larger than the contents below it.  The contents below the title were lined up in three neat columns of caligraphy-style text.  The first column had the quantities for a small crock pot, the center contained the ingredients and the column  to the right, the quantities for a large crock pot.  The print was immaculate and perfect, the columns in perfect alignment and the footnotes at the bottom, instructing the cook in variations on and additions to the dish, perfectly centered to the title.  He had taken what must have been hours out of his day to lovingly hand-write this recipe.  The signs were clear, he was demonstrating his feelings by way of a recipe.

At least that was what we all thought as we watched what turned out to be a year of intense flirting, long conversations, hugs and hand holding and a tall tower of stacked up similarities and shared interests.  Then one day, he pulled the bottom brick out of the Jenga tower and the whole thing came crashing to the ground.  What started out as what looked like it may have been the great, romantic love story of our generation, ended abuptly with his offer to introduce my friend to his girlfriend.  He revealed that they had been dating for a few months and now that he was sure that she was "the one", he was ready to introduce her to all the important people in his life, including my friend.

The wave of devastation that washed over her was intense.  She cried more than I had ever seen anyone cry before.  And understandably so.  He had carelessly toyed with her feelings, without so much as a shred of self-awareness or empathy.  Or possibly worse, he knew exactly what he was doing and wanted to keep my friend on the line until this other girl showed a vested interest in him.

Initially, when he had given her the pot roast recipe I was impressed because it was what seemed like a loving gesture and was so beautifully hand written.  The other day, I pulled out the copy of the recipe that she had texted to me.  I printed it out and inspected it more closely.  As I read the recipe line by line, I took note of the fact that it used convenience ingredients such as packaged gravy mix and beef bullion cubes.  This was not a recipe for a lovingly prepared pot roast, but rather a 1970's housewife's quick fix slow cooker dinner.  Something where you chucked all the ingredients into a pot, set it and forget it. Which upon reflection of how he treated my friend, seems like just the recipe for him.