| CARVIEW |
Those of you bloggers out there might be familiar with the slump that procedes that initial blogging fervor, where you go from “postpostpost!facebook-we-have-new-posts!-post” to “meh, I could expend extra time and effort and brain cells writing a post, or I could catch up on Real Housewives of New York City.” Well, I haz it. Still. But, after:
- 8 weeks of stress-fractured-foot-induced lassitude.
- 4 sojourns south (New Orleans) and east (Italy) and still east(Boston) and more east(ditto) again.
- 5 million reminders that a) we have a blog, and b)we ARE posting again. and again.
I’m back.
With a post about Times Square, because its recent near-immolation made me see it in a kinder light. I’m lying, actually. Times Square is a horrid, soulless, chain-filled wasteland, but it is in this post, because this post is about my walk from work at 4 Times Square to our apartment in Cobble Hill.
One-way walks, when you can fit them in, are so satisfying—your backdrop never repeats, and every step is taking you thatmuchcloser. This one hits all the major squares in lower Manhattan: Times, Herald, Madison, Union, and Washington, plus Tribeca and the Brooklyn Bridge. In total, it’s a bit over 5 miles, so get your good shoes on player, and get ’em tied up tight. Va be’? Andiamo!
Ninth Circle
Part One: Midtown, Flatiron
New York Magazine always asks the people who take their “21 questions” survey which Times Square they prefer: new or old. Almost all of them say “old” or “neither,” especially those born after the district switched its lights from red to neon. Judging from the photos at the City Museum of New York, I wouldn’t exactly call the old version charming, but I’ll take saggy hookers over TGI Fridays every day. Except I can’t, and neither can you. What can you take? Besides the TGI Fridays, TS boasts a Ruby Tuesdays, ESPN Zone, GAP, Walgreens, Red Lobster, Uno’s, 3 Starbucks, Ann Taylor Loft, and a smattering of red metal bistro-style tables and chairs, the better for viewing the commercialized landscape. The good news is, we’re leaving, heading south on Broadway, with its scuzzy clothing shops, delis, and Tastee Delites, until boom! more bistro-style chairs and tables, this time in pastel green. Which means: Herald Square, the armpit to Times Square’s a**hole.
[image via NewYorkHotels.com]
Both Times and Herald Squares abut massive transportation centers and have comprehensive subway stations, but I am not sure why they are so popular with tourists. Times Square at least has Bryant Park one block over; Herald has nothing, though I’ll concede the chairs and the ivy do dress up the nothing a little bit. Also, Macy’s still has their flower show windows, which are really intricate and lovely, though the audio was a misstep.
Fershlugginer.
Post 32nd street, bear with me just a little longer, and you’ll notice the scuzz-quotient decreasing rapidly. We’re entering Chelsea, home to galleries and gays, neither of whom stand for scuzz. Chelsea, especially on the streets, has a lot of classic brownstones, along with a bunch of interesting modern buildings like Jim Kempner Fine Art and The Standard, which affords walkers on the Highline a much classier peepshow than they ever could have gotten in old Times Square. But we’re not going to the Highline today, sorry! Instead, we’re heading east until we hit Madison Square Park, which runs between 5th and Madison Avenues and 27th-23rd streets.
[image via Alan Miles NYC]
Ooh, Madison Square is really lovely now—its big, gnarled trees drip pink and white petals all over the grass and windy paths and sandpit and endless line of hopeful Shake-Shackers. Also the Flatiron is one of my favorite buildings in the city, and the view of it coming south, where first you’re confronted with just a narrow slice of gray stone and then slowly you watch it fan out, is best. Now we continue down Fifth Avenue, having a quick leche-vitrine at J.Crew and Anthro. (I know, after all my chain-bashing! Comme je suis hypocrite.)
Part II: Union Square, Greenwich Village, NoHo
It is after 5, so the ramp foragers and red-current-jam-makers and raw-cheese-purveyors will be packing up, but Union Square is by no means empty. Look at the man drawing pictures with sparkly sand! Look at the six year-old in a street-vendor fedora earnestly playing Mozart’s 12th on his violin! Look out for the free-hugs people! And we’re through, cruising down University Place, where the traffic is mostly sleepy violets in weensy pastel bermudas (boys) and those silly ankle-sock sandals (just girls, I hope). Aside from the abundant opportunities to play sartorialist, University Place is great because it holds the Washington Mews, a gated, brick side street whose northern side is lined by creamy nineteenth century stables (the buildings on the southern side are 1930’s Greek Revival, and also very pretty). Narrow lanes with low buildings really speak to me—if they speak to you as well, Forgotten NY has a terrific post on Greenwich Village’s alleys.
Oh! and now we’re in Washington Square. Let’s head west a bit so we can hit the mini Arc de Triomphe. Washington Park is always bustling at this time of day, its benches filled with students, faculty, and bag ladies; its empty fountain and green spaces filled with musicians, acrobats, and frisbees. The buildings on the north side are stunning, I think–varying shades of brick, some painted, all relatively narrow and uniform in height with tidy black shutters and window boxes! Window boxes make everything better.
And now, street-wise, you’re spoiled for choice—all narrow, all cast-iron and brick, all draped in verdant green and magnolia and cherry blossoms. Today I’m taking Thompson, because City Girl Cafe is here, and I want one of their crackly brownies, but you can take Sullivan, Mercer, Laguardia, or MacDougal if you’re craving cheap falafel.
Part III: Soho, Tribeca, City Hall, Brooklyn Bridge
Passing over Houston and into Soho, the buildings get just a bit taller, and the streets go cobbled, which I love. The people watching is excellent here, as are the window-licking options, though not if you feel fat, or poor. The last block between Grand and Canal gets a bit dodgy towards its end, and you will, unless it’s very late or early, be encouraged to purchase fake Louis/perfume/ gauzy polyester scarves. But look ho! At wide, slanting Church Street, with its mix of craggy brick and sleek glass and somewhat hulking cement buildings. The proportion of buildings I like vs. cold war-reminiscent horrors is favorable, though light is hard to come by.
TriBeCa is moshspeak for “Triangle Below Canal,” but it has many, all lopsided slivers, most of them brick, some of them, like my favorite, occupied (in this case, by the Tribeca Grand and its gorgeous brassy clock).
Now we head east until we reach City Hall and its immense, Batmanesque government buildings.Not my style, so much, but kind of cool in a bleak, Camacotzy way.
Part IV: Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill
And then, the bridge! Ushering the tired, the poor, the huddled and resolutelydrawntothebikelaneevenwhenyouareonyourbikewhosebrakesdon’twork masses from one side to the first tower—clickclickgiggleclick–to the second–ditto–and down, turn around, back to Manhattan.
Except, we are not tourists, but rather brave, pioneering Brooklyners, so on we go, down the stairs and up through Cadman Plaza—helloooo, more Batman government buildings!—and then, pass through heinous, highwayish Tillary Street, and onto Court Street, which is filled with fairly scuffy examples of crayola commercialism–a cinema, Barnes and Noble, $179-Air Conditioning/We Install Free/Comes with a Deck Chair/And a Sunflower Mumu kitchen-sink shops, two froyo+pretzel places, banks, bodegas, and delis. Cross over Atlantic Ave, home to the oldest subway tunnel in the country, and turn right on Pacific St. Classic Brooklyn all the way—tidy brick and stucco brownstones with clean slate steps and big maple trees and well-tended shrubbery and glossy, stout wooden doors and the constant trill of the Mr. Softee man (Cobble Hill is more bobo and less post-consumer ecochic than Park Slope—we have not yet banned him). Cross Clinton St and, voilà. Home, sweet home. For us, at least. You can go on to Henry Public and order your first Eagle’s Dream—we’ll meet you by the second.
Our kitchen goes through states, which may or may not reflect the general life states the roommates are going through. Right now, in general, there is a sense of unexpectedness, of disorder, of a little anxiety of what’s to come for all of us. (See: canning.) Usually our kitchen is a near perfect balance between cleanliness and disorder, not so clean you feel like you have to pick up every crumb you spill (well, god knows I don’t) but not so dirty you don’t want to spend lots of time there, either cooking or hanging out. Because we do, we love to spend time together in the kitchen.
The other night the kitchen was cluttered, it was filled with canned goods and rice and dirty dishes and my computer and shredded coconut and the millions of water glasses I am currently going through. The next morning it was a little better, as all cluttered nights feel better after you sleep on it. And I think as the week goes on, it will most likely stay on the cluttered side, but I kind of like that. Life is never a shiny, clean kitchen. Especially when you’re graduating. But regardless, even the most cluttered kitchen has the potentiality to produce the best kind of cookie: Coconut Oatmeal white and chocolate chip. Yeah. These cookies go into the baked goods hall of fame.
I recently tried these, only a vegan version, and I was blown away. The cook used vegan sugar, agave nectar, and maybe other weird things. (There is like… vegan cream people use for cooking? I don’t know.) Anyway, I knew with the power of butter on my side, I could probably make a better cookie. Mine, while not a million times better, were definitely much moister and fattening. I don’t have the vegan recipe for you, but if you were to make these without milk or butter or eggs, they would still be an amazing cookie. Nicole called them Crack Cookies, my greatest compliment to date!
Coconut Oatmeal White and Chocolate Chip Cookies, or, the Crack Cookie, adapted from baking sheet
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon (or more, I think I did a very generous 1/2 tsp)
1 stick butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark), firmly packed
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup quick cooking oats
3/4 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
*Note: I totally guessed on home much coconut/oats/and chips to use. This is a rough measurement, just use however much looks right to you, or however much you want of each ingredient.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Sift together flour, soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl.
Cream butter and sugars in a large bowl until well combined. Beat in vanilla, milk and eggs until light, about 2 minutes. Stir in flour mixture. Add oats and coconut.
Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake for 11 minutes at 350F. Cookies will be lightly browned.
Let cool for a few minutes on baking sheet, then move to a wire rack until completely cooled.
HOLYCRAPYUM!!!
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Zoe called it a “canning bender.” I called it “preparing for the apocalypse,” because that’s exactly what it looked like Zoe was doing each time I would come home to yet another set of canned goods. But really, as far as different methods of dealing with one’s anxiety go, this is by far the most productive.
So let me just say, the lemon curd was to die for. Never thought I’d want to eat lemon curd straight out of a jar, but I did have to contain myself. I quickly whipped up a cake that would perfectly complement it: a yogurt cake that I think Emily may have made several months ago. It’s from Chocolate and Zucchini, with some slight moderations, as I only had a few spoonfuls left of cooking oil.
So for the recipe, you need:
– 2 eggs
– 1 1/4 cup of whole milk Yogurt (Ronnybrook Farm Dairy has a shop in Chelsea Market… as a non-meat-eater, this was definitely my biggest perk from Zoe’s working at Jake’s butcher shop right next door. Their yogurt- and milk- is incredible.) If using vanilla yogurt, make sure it’s still pretty tart.
– 1 cup of regular sugar
– A few splashes of olive oil
– 2 cups AP flour
– 1 1/2 tsp of baking power
– 1/2 tsp baking soda
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 1 tbsp rum
– Topping: see Zoe’s lemon curd recipe
To bake:
– Preheat oven to 350. I greased (and sugared) a small bundt pan. A 10″ round dish will also do.
– Stir together the yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, oil, and rum.
– In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Mix it into the yogurt mixture, but be careful to not overmix the dough.
Bake for about 35-38 minutes if using a bundt pan. Less for a round or square dish. When finished, the top will turn gold brown and the cake tester should come out clean. To serve, cut the cake and add a light layer of curd to each slice.
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I’m on a canning bender. No rational reason really applies: it’s not canning season, and I don’t have a lot of free time on my hands. Suspicion was aroused on day 2 of the bender when caramelized onion relish and lemon curd joined the pickled asparagus in the growing pile of jars on our counter top. I want to have lots of good food from home to bring when I move upstate. That sounds so reasonable in my head! I think it’s really an expression of not-so-secret anxiety, an unconscious choice to substitute boiling of water baths for boiling over of tempers. When I say I’m canning because I’m worried about leaving the 24 hour delis, the grocery store within walking distance, Jakes for meat, I really mean I don’t want to leave my roommates. I don’t want to leave our apartment.
What if I miss out on collapsing in Prospect Park on hot days? What if I miss out on how long the daylight gets between the end of work and bedtime and how much fun can fit in there? What if I miss out on living with Liz again, or another really great sub-letter? What if I miss out on the list of summer concerts Nicole is currently compiling? The condition is called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), and right now I’ve got it bad. Luckily, this is a regular occurrence for me, and soon after I leave, I’ll realize there is grass to nap in out there, roads to bike and hopefully a good bar or two. That the sun sets only 2 minutes earlier today in Tivoli than in Brooklyn, which means there will still be those long summer afternoons. I hope there will be friendly people to meet up where I’m moving … and if not, I know I’ll come back to this city, not so long from now that my friends will be gone … and … there are some great videos on Youtube on learning to knit I’ve been meaning to watch.
Anyway, canning is the perfect cooking project for anyone who suffers from FOMO. You can catch produce at its peak, press pause and keep it for a bleaker season, or a bleaker moment in the contents of your cupboards. Right now, asparagus and ramps are the way to go, locally. Citrus has been on my brain too, because even organic citrus is so so cheap right now!
So today, marmalade.
And yesterday, deep purple onion relish with red wine and vinegar and a pale yellow lemon curd (made with yolks from such pretty blue eggs!).
And the day before, asparagus.
And tomorrow? Who knows what we’ll add to the pile. Ideas?
Recipes (and basic jar-processing instructions) after the jump …
1. How to Process Jars
This part of the canning recipe applies to anything you can in a hot water bath. This includes acidic things like pickles or tomatoes, and anything preserved in sugar, like jams.
You will need —
A big pasta pot (with deep strainer insert)
Small saucepan
Jars/lids (new lids)
Tongs
Place empty glass jars in the pig pot and fill to cover with water. Make sure there are no air bubbles! Bring to boil, and allow to boil for 10 minutes. (You are going to want to time this 10 minutes to finish at the same time as the filling for the jars is complete, so you can fill and process them while they are as sterile as possible). Boil lids in small saucepan to sterilize them too. Lift out with tongs, dump excess water, and place on clean surface. Don’t turn off the water — keep it boiling! Fill jars with any of the recipes below, or with another recipe for hot water canning. Place inner lids atop the can and screw on the outer rings as tightly as possible. (Your cans will be hot! Use tongs!) Use the tongs and a glove to put the full jars back into the boiling water for the amount of time specified on the recipe. When the water begins boiling again, start timing. Remove processed cans and place on a dry surface. Wait to hear the satisfying pop so you know they have sealed! If, for some reason, one of your jars doesn’t seal, don’t worry. Just put it in the fridge and use that jar fastest.
Vinegar Pickled Spring Asparagus:
Annie and I made this together, and we doubled the recipe. (But we used about 9 lbs of amazing asparagus from the Union Square Market, the kind you can only get if you’re there around 7 am … thanks Annie!) For us it made 10 pint size jars.
This recipe will make 5 pint size jars, which uses a more reasonable amount of asparagus. If you want to double it like us — go for it!
4 lbs of fresh asparagus (sometimes I need more or less, depending on spear thickness)
5 garlic cloves, peeled
15 allspice berries
50 black peppercorn berries
20 coriander seeds
Red pepper flakes
Nutmeg
2 ½ cups white wine vinegar
2 ½ cups water
2 ½ tsp canning salt
2 T sugar
To make the brine, add white wine vinegar, water, salt and sugar to a pot and bring to a boil. While the brine heats, mix spices together so you can add them easily to the jars. If you use tall jars for this, you won’t have to cut the asparagus. But we used shorter, fatter ones, so we trimmed our asparagus down and filled each jar with half heads and half stalks. Fill sterilized jars with asparagus spears and spice mix, and pour boiling brine over top. Quickly tighten the lids and return to boiling water bath for 10 minutes to process. (If you are making as much as we made … you’ll need to make this all happen in batches. It’s a process. Turn on the music, sit on the floor, and drink a beer.)Wait 4 weeks to eat!
There are the ingredients … all assembled!
Lemon curd:
I haven’t tried it yet but every day on my way out the door I think about just taking a spoon to it. You’ll realize why that’s a little gross when you read the recipe. But Emily makes this yogurt cake that reminds me of something my mom makes and is just the best thing in the world. I can’t stop thinking how good it will be on that. So I’m holding out. I’ll tell you how it is when we try it!
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
3 meyer lemons, juiced (you should get a generous 1/2 cup. Make sure to strain it, to ensure you get all the seeds)
1 stick of butter, cut into chunks
zest from the juiced lemons
In a small, heavy bottom pot over medium heat, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar. Add the lemon juice and switch to stirring with a wooden spoon, so as not to aerate the curd. Stir continually for 10-15 minutes, adjusting the heat as you go to ensure that it does not boil. Your curd is done when it has thickened and coats the back of the spoon. Drop in the butter and stir until melted.
Position a fine mesh sieve over a glass or stainless steel bowl and pour the curd through it, to remove any bits of cooked egg. Whisk in the zest.
Pour the curd (a single batch will make one pint of curd) into your prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. If you want to process them for shelf stability, process them in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes (start the time when the water returns to a boil). It is best to process only in half-pint jars or smaller, as they allow better heat infiltration.
3 Citrus Marmalade
(from Food in Jars — a great website with beautiful pictures of the process … check it out!)
We have some pretty crazy pictures of this somewhere … especially of the pith tied in cheese cloth (ours was not a cute small bundle … it was huge!) and of our attempts at supreme-ing …
I’m laughing just thinking about it. That’s the best part. I know when I eat this marmalade it will remind me of making it in our apartment in assembly line style, of Nicole hacking away at the lemons with a vengeance, and later boiling all the steps together with my roommates itching to go downstairs to Henry Public.
I’m going to post this now and update it with pictures later as they elude me.
Yield: 3 1/2 pints
2 pink grapefruit
3 lemons
4 navel oranges
6 cups of sugar
4 cups of zest poaching liquid
Wash and dry the fruit. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from the fruit. Cut the zest strips into a fine confetti. Combine the zest in a pot with 6 cups of cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce temperature to medium high and simmer for half an hour.
While the zest cooks, cut the white pith away from the fruit and separate the fruit from the membranes (see instructions above for greater detail). Collect the interior fruit in a large measuring cup and set the membranes and any seeds aside.
When all the fruit has been broken down, bundle the reserved pith and seeds into a length of cheesecloth, tying the cloth well so that no seeds can escape.
Drain the zest, reserving the cooking liquid.
In a large stainless steel or enameled cast iron pot, combine zest, citrus fruit, 4 cups of zest cooking liquid, 6 cups of sugar and the cheesecloth bundle.
Bring to a boil and cook vigorously until the mixture reaches 220 degrees (this takes between 30-40 minutes).
When the marmalade reaches 220 degrees and sustains it for one minute, remove the pot from the heat. Stir for about a minute off the heat, to help the zest bits become evenly spread throughout the preserve.
Fill prepared jars (see above for jar preparation instructions), wipe rims, apply lids and screw rings. Lower into a prepared boiling water bath and process for five minutes at a gentle boil (do not start counting time until the pot has achieved a boil).
When time is up, remove jars from the pot and let them cool completely. When they are cool to the touch, check the seals by pushing down on the top of the lid. Lack of movement means a good seal.
While writing this I have gotten some great ideas, and I haven’t even given you the onion relish recipe yet. (I think that will come in another post)
… Sami is craving a hot-sauce, rhubarb is starting to appear at the farmers market and recipes are sprouting all over for rosemary rhubarb jam or rhubarb chutney.
Oh man. 25 jars is soon to be 50 I can tell.
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There was some protest to the photograph I chose to lead my last post with, so this begins with a picture unarguably adorable. Looking at pictures of cows, being around cows, listening to cows moo, these things all make me indescribably happy. So you can imagine the state I was in the other week when I went to visit Hawthorne Valley Farm with Zoe. (We also took a visit to Zoe’s new home and I got a preview of her awesome new digs!) I was doing research for a piece I’m just finishing on the raw milk movement in New York City. Hawthorne Valley Farm, at 2 and a half hours away (if you don’t get lost, but that’s a different story), is the closest place for New Yorkers to legally buy raw milk. A lot of raw milk is delivered from various upstate farms into the city through the ‘raw milk black market’ (not making this up) but in the State of New York, the only way to legally purchase it is buying straight from the 20 or so farms with a milk permit.
There are a lot of legal issues, heated emotions, debatable health risks and debatable health benefits behind raw milk. After speaking to many, many people on the issue, I’ve come to something of a conclusion. I believe you take a risk drinking raw milk comparable to the risk you take eating ground beef from the supermarket. As long as the farm your milk is coming from is clean, small, and humane, the milk you’ll get is going to be good. It’s a great way to support local dairy farms, as milk is one of the few real money makers left for smaller farms. And, raw milk just tastes incredible. After you’ve tried it, ultra-pasteurization seems like a criminal thing: milk is not supposed to be watery and bland! It’s just not, and that’s that. And oh yeah, raw milk makes awesome cheese.
We toted two half-gallons of raw milk from the farm (see below) after a very, very long car trip home, and as we were walking to the subway, one of the bag handles holding the milk broke. Because I had already opened one half-gallon to drink it straight from the bottle in the car, the cap popped off after the bag broke. It was a raw milk explosion. Basically, it ended with me on my knees, my hands covered and dripping with milk, screaming to passerbys: “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! THIS MILK IS RAW!!!!” No one knew what I was talking about. A nearby homeless man said to me, “That milk is spilt, girl! You spilt that milk GOOD!” Needless to say, that story sums up how I felt about this milk.
I mean, just look at the place where it came from:
We were able to save about half of the spilt milk, and I took to drinking it with every meal, out of a wine glass. This is reminiscent of the first time I tried raw milk, at Claire’s dad’s farm in Pownal, Vermont. That milk was awesome, and we drank it out of shot glasses. We nicknamed that weekend REAL WORLD : POWNAL.
We knew we wouldn’t be able to finish the second half gallon before it spoiled (even if grocers could sell raw milk, they most likely wouldn’t due to the extremely short shelf life. The Whole Foods in California just stopped selling.) So we decided to make some cheese! I found this ricotta recipe from the lovely Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini and it looked really easy. I stopped into Park Slope’s Brooklyn Larder where the man I talked to was kind enough to donate us some cheese cloth. (PS: Stop over there sometime for the. best. gelato. ever.) And then we were set.
homemade ricotta
1 quart whole milk (best and freshest possible)
1 cup buttermilk
Set up a colander with five layers of cheese cloth. Look how pretty it is.
Pour the milk and the buttermilk in a nonreactive sauce pan, one with a thick bottom. Heat the milk under medium-high and scrape the bottom of the pan regularly with a rubber spatula as it heats up. When the milk starts steaming, stop scraping. The milk gets cloudy and then little cheese curds pop to the surface! Gently scrap the bottom of the plan to let any stuck curds be free.
When the curds form a thick layer that has separated from the whey (right above) and your mixture has reached 175 degrees, remove the pan from the heat and, using a ladle or slotted spoon, very gently move the curds into your colander. Let the curds drain for 5 minutes. Gather the sides of the cheese cloth into a little purse and twist to drain them further, without putting pressure on the curds. Let drain another 15 minutes, and then transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate. Yield is about 1 cup of cheese.
Notes: I think we let our milk get a little too hot, because the consistency was somewhere between ricotta and mozzarella. So keep a good watch on the temperature. I also just did a buttermilk substitute (one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and the raw milk, equaling in total one cup) and while I thought I could taste the apple cider vinegar, Zoe didn’t feel like she could. To try it again, I think I would just buy some good quality buttermilk.
Overall, I liked it a lot! Who knew it was so easy to make cheese?
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It has been a long semester, in both wonderful and challenging ways. It began, honestly, with this blog. We had been planning to write here in previous months, practicing our camera work and recipies, brainstorming blog names and themes. I got my beloved Canon Rebel for Christmas (thanks, mom and dad!) took a few pictures of the mason jars in our kitchen, borrowed the name Zoe cleverly thought of, and here we are. It’s overwhelming, really, to think of where we are now. I have a job! After many many many months of not knowing where to go after graduation, I have been lucky enough to get a job I am really, really excited about. And will keep me in Brooklyn. So I’m not going anywhere.
But roommates travel, leave, and hopefully come back. Not all of us are staying in the city, but I think you find something really wonderful around here after you put enough time in New York to call it home. Every time you leave, it feels like a breath of fresh air, but nothing is like returning to New York. Even if only to visit, the cold city becomes welcoming, friends from all across boroughs gather to reunite, and adventures happen. This post is about an adventure we had my first night back in New York this past semester, our last semester. And yes, it has something to do with food.
Our good friend Annie, who works for the Spotted Pig, asked us to tag along with her to Hunts Point Market. It is a HUGE wholesale market, located in the middle of the Bronx. It is also a night market, so off we traveled to the Bronx, late into the evening. But first we went to Annie’s with our good friend John Macnamera, and ate some good food in her great apartment.
I remember we had a really delicious salad that included potatoes and apples and beets… I think… and we should get that recipe from Annie.
Then, off we went.
This is a huge drop off station for produce that goes all around the tri state area and is the biggest wholesale market in the WORLD. Produce, meat, and fish. Here, we were entering the produce warehouses. We meekly walked in as semi-trucks plowed through, one after the other. It was a little intimidating, but we’re brave girls. Another example: they told me before we entered, under no conditions was I allowed to take pictures, and I would be under their jurisdiction if I broke this rule. Let’s see how much I cared.
I really wish I could give a feeling of the scope of this market, I took a ton of pictures trying to document this until they indeed told me I better put that camera away before they arrest me. We entered numerous long corridors, all with open areas for trucks to drive up, and room after room was filled with boxes of fruit and vegetables. It is also basically worked by men, and we made some friends.
After the produce market, we stopped for a broccoli rabe sandwich (photo above… do you love my makeshift hood?), warmed up (I still find the cold in New York to be worse than Colorado winters), and went back out in search of the fish market. Here, I could take pictures again, and everyone I met was incredibly friendly, albeit reeking of fish. And after we left, my clothes smelled of fish until I finally got my act together and did my laundry.
Oh yeah, and remember this night? Here’s where we found our crab supplier!
It’s strange this was only four months ago, I feel like since then we’ve grown tremendously as individuals and as an apartment …. it’s starting to freak me out how well we know one another. I don’t want to get too sentimental, but this was written for sentimental reasons, so there you go. I promise a RAW MILK CHEESE RECIPE (and another adventure…. this time to some farms!) very, very soon.
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This past week I booked a last minute ticket home to the Bay Area. While my visit wasn’t under the most ideal of circumstances, it turned out to be a great week. In addition to spending some quality time with the ‘rents, I got to celebrate with Katie for her 22nd birthday, watch Jill and the rest of Cal crew dominate Stanford and Wisconsin at the Lake Natoma invitational races in Sacramento and experience the infamous “Around the Clock” Happy Hour in Berkeley at the Bear’s Lair. My mom, who has perfected the art of taking a butter, cream and/or sugar-laden recipe and adjusting it to be more healthful and less caloric while still maintaining it’s flavor and integrity, shared with me an awesome muffin recipe that I will be very quickly adopting. They are called “six week bran muffins” because you make a huge vat of batter and keep it in the fridge for up to six weeks, making only as many muffins as you want at a time. My mom only makes two or three at a time so that my dad can take one to work at the hospital each morning. This batch didn’t last nearly as long as six weeks, however, after I discovered them. The muffins are not too sweet and not too dense, which are my biggest problems with muffins in general. Here’s the recipe…
NOTE: this makes 7-8 DOZEN muffins!
1 15oz box of raisin bran cereal, or equivalent
2 cups of sugar
5 cups of flour
5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 eggs beaten
1 cup of olive oil
2 overripe bananas (optional)
1 quart of buttermilk
– Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add eggs, oil and buttermilk.
– Store in covered container (ie a tupperware) in the fridge for up to six weeks. Bake as many as needed, whenever needed!
– To bake: grease muffin tins, fill 2/3 full, bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes
Photo Credit: Zoe Feld
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(Photo Credit: Dan Fuerst)
I just read an article today that had to go on this blog. It’s about recipes.
“The recipe book always contains two things: news of how something is made, and assurance that there’s a way to make it, with the implicit belief that if I know how it is done I can show you how to do it. The premise of the recipe book is that these two things are naturally balanced; the secret of the recipe book is that they’re not. The space between learning the facts about how something is done and learning how to do it always turns out to be large, at times immense.” – Adam Gopnik
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Photo Credit: Channing Kehoe
“This might be the last group trip we ever go on,” Sami and I told ourselves, climbing into the tour bus. We remembered field trips, overnight camping trips in middle school, community service trips, study abroad … we’ve sure been lucky in quantity and quality of trips. This recent spring break trip was through the Gallatin Deans Honor Society, a lofty name for a group of kids and professors that meet every other week to discuss, well, this year, Greece. And then we got to go there. So that was great.
Inspired before we even packed our bags, we experimented with dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), and brought them to our meeting for everyone to try. While these stuffed grape leaves grace many a standard salad bar and can be purchased in the frozen food section of your local grocery store, the homemade version is a different experience altogether. Ask Sami, who wouldn’t even try them the first time we made them — her experience up to that point with the dish was with the dense, turdlike dolmas, which seriously resemble in appearance and texture those owl pellets we used to dissect in science class. But ask her again now, three or four batches in.
What makes these so special? They are orphanos, or meatless — but hold your association with gelatinous rice filling — ours are stuffed with brown rice steamed with onions, garlic and dill, mixed with chopped raisins and toasted pine nuts and drizzled with olive oil and lemon. And they are remarkably airy inside (due to what many consider a dolma making faux pa, but I would call a fresh idea).
At the bottom of this post we’ve shared our recipe. But first — a little bit about our travels.
Transportation — We left for Greece twice. We packed (throwing in sandals just in case), stopped for a bloody mary send-off at Henry Public, and splashed our way to NYU campus in the pouring rain. 11 hours later we returned to Henry Public after a day of airport food and a foul weather frenzy at JFK. One late night out later, we were off again. This time, after much anxiety we got off the ground, and made it to London before the next travel hang-up. A night in a London Holiday Inn, complete with shrimp-and-mayonaise sandwiches was the only leftover snag between our group and Athens. For the rest of the trip the transportation issues continued: we encountered several 4+ hour bus rides, and a British Airways strike that delayed half our group’s departure by 3 days. But you know what the thing about school trips is? None of it was our job to figure out. Our job was to be cheerful and to listen at the ruins and to eat as many courses as we could. We played Taboo through the bus rides and one epic 2 hour game of Botticelli, which is like 20 Questions, but more fun. On other trips, figuring out the travel arrangements is part of the experience — how, exactly, are we going to find the bus depot where the bus leaves from Casablanca to Essaouira? But on this one, it wasn’t, and for this trip, that was to be appreciated.
What we saw is best conveyed through pictures.
(Photo Credit: Molly Gilbert)
The city of Athens
(Photo Credit: Sami Feld)
A hike up a hill on Day 1.
(Photo Credit: Molly Gilbert)
Epidaurus.
This picture does not accurately represent the number of Italian teenagers present.
(Photo Credit: Caroline Ritson)
Delphi
(Photo Credit: Channing Kehoe)
Graffiti in Psiri.
And even though we saw so many more beautiful things than shown in these few photos, we can’t leave out the parts of the trip spent cooped up in hotel rooms, in tourist bars, and on that tour bus with our guide, Miss Cleo.
Snuggling on the 3 twin beds of the Bass/Feld family suite.
And even though the traveling arrangements were frustrating and exhausting …
(Photo Credit: Lisa Bass)
Because of the strike, we ended up on a thing called “Open Skies” on the way home, which is the swankiest way I’ve ever flown.
(Photo Credit: Molly Gilbert)
THE END.
except you haven’t made our dolmas recipe yet!
Dolmas:
Dolmas have become a special event staple. I made them for Easter when Dan’s family met my family. (Unlike Sami pre-revelation, my dad can devour a dozen of this favorite food, no problemo). Sami made them last Sunday for organizers and guests at a vigil for Josh and the other two hikers held in Iran. We’ve got leaves in the fridge now, begging for a big pot of rice.
Grape Leaves —
You can either buy jarred grape leaves, or “fresh” grape leaves. We use an in-between kind … at Sahadi’s down the street we can buy grape leaves by the pound from big buckets. They are cheap and we’ve overbought each time but one. At $3.45/lb it’s easy, because even 1 lb is at least 40 leaves. They aren’t fresh, but they are easy to pull apart and not as oily as those that come in jars. But jarred and fresh work as well, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t happen to have the best discount Middle Eastern grocery in town on your block.
Filling —
2 cups brown rice.
1 yellow onion, diced.
1 clove garlic, minced.
1 handful raisins.
1 handful pine nuts.
4 tbsp fresh dill. (Spices are negotiable. Work with your spice rack to find an available option for you.)
We have also added: mint, oregano, thyme, and a mix called “Mediterranean meat spice.”
Salt.
Later you’ll need:
Lemon Juice
Olive Oil
Add water and rice in a 2:1 ratio to pot, along with onion and garlic, dried spices, and salt. Bring to boil, then simmer according to your brown rice instructions. (Ours usually takes about 40 min). In the mean time, coarsely chop raisins if you want to. Toast the pine nuts briefly over medium heat. When most of the liquid is gone, add raisins, pine nuts and fresh spices (dill, mint …) Continue to simmer until liquid has disappeared. Let cool.
To fold: Spread grape leave with dark green, flat side facing up and stem pointed towards you. Place a lump of filling about the size of a fun-size candy bar (the rectangle ones, not the tiny square ones) in the middle of the leaf. Fold up from the bottom a small amount, and then fold each side inward. Continue to roll up from the bottom until the entire leaf is wrapped around the filling. Place in casserole/baking dish seam-side down.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. (Know that this is when it might come to blows with anyone who remembers your Greek great – grandma … she cooked her dolmas on the stovetop.)
When the baking dish is packed full of dolmas, drizzle lightly with olive oil. Add equal parts water and lemon juice to cover dolmas at least very close to completely.
Bake for 45 min, or until liquid is evaporating and your oven threatens to singe the dolmas.
Note: Most old greek recipes require weighing the dolmas down with something heavy. I think this is exactly what has spawned the dense demon dolmas that haunt our salad bars … if you wrap them tightly enough there is no need to weigh them down. The dolmas are less like bricks this way.
So now you are in on our newest secret. Dolmas are actually tasty, and better yet, they are so easy to make. And finger food is always appreciated by … most honest humans. Serve with extra lemons if you like!
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