Good Food Jobs

Good lord, don't let Adam hear about this.

Eat, drink, and mum's the word, guys.

Figs and Pecorino

New York City is in the middle of an October heat wave that has sucked my will to live: our building had to turn off everyone's air-conditioning a couple weeks ago so we've been melting away in our apartment with 85-degree temps outside.  We'd buy fans...except there's no damn room for them, such is life in a tiny apartment.  All our windows are open...which lets in all the noise and, annoyingly, very little breeze.  Bug can't sleep, we can't sleep. We're all grumpy.  It has not been pretty.

So yesterday I declared that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was turning heat on in this place in order to cook.  Which ended up being untrue, alas.  I found a recipe in Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy for sticky figs and it struck a chord with me.  All it calls for is taking a pint of figs - or however many you have - and halving them.  Then you put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Jamie calls for them to be baked at 120 degrees for two hours but my oven only goes down to 170 degrees.  So I did that for two hours.  Done.  That's it.

I paired the figs with a crumbly, salty Pecorino.  This is one of those cases where you should find the best Pecorino you possibly can since it's one of the stars of the meal.  We added Prosciutto di Parma, rustic Italian bread, and dipping oil (really good-quality oil, sea salt, pepper).

Very little heat, very little fuss.  I know there are some of you who read this who will say, "They had only that for dinner?!"  And the answer is a resounding YES.  It's too damn hot to eat anything else.  Seriously.

Eat, drink, and keep it simple.


UPDATE #1: Naturally, Bug didn't want anything to do with the figs (though we did make her try just one) so she had a sliced apple.  She also wasn't a huge fan of the Pecorino - she thought it was "spicy".  But she ate almost that entire pile of prosciutto - I had to add more to the board - and she had bread with butter slathered on it (she claims, falsely, that she's "allergic" to olive oil).  This is such an easy meal to cater to picky eaters.

UPDATE #2: Foolishly, I forgot to mention what we drank and thanks to my good friend Daphne for reminding me!  Per Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page's What to Drink With What You Eat, I drank a Riesling: Arthur Metz 2010 from Alsace.  It paired very well, but didn't wow me.  Adam had the winner: Brooklyn Brewery's Monster Barleywine.  It was huge in flavor, but didn't overwhelm the cheese or figs.  It was an unexpected, much more interesting pairing than the Riesling.  I highly recommend it.

Resto

I was thrilled when my friend Jen suggested a big group dinner out this past Friday night.

This last week was my last one at Harper (no more freelancing), Jen has had some issues at work, and the Soul Twin was starting the healing process after a family tragedy: we were a rag-tag group, for sure.  Put in charge of getting a reservation, Resto seemed the perfect place to eat.  Gorgeous quality, heavy on soul-soothing food, and a casual atmosphere was exactly what we needed (check out the dinner menu - you'll see below that they even offer large format meals with "nose to tail" options).

Friday night was a beautiful autumn evening, crystal-clear with temps in the 60s.  Perfect.  Our group of 7 scored the only table out on the sidewalk so we were able to escape the noise inside; it felt like our very own private space in the middle of a city sidewalk.

One of my favorite things at Resto is the deviled eggs.  They're served on "pork toast": a pig's head is boiled down until it's fatty and melty and then it's smoothed flat in a sheet pan and frozen.  Once solid, it's cut up, breaded, and fried.  Crispy on the outside, melty fattiness on the inside, it's nothing short of pork heaven.  A slightly spicy deviled egg is served on top.

It's insanely rich - four of us shared this and we were more than satiated.

Andrea and Brian shared the moules et frites with Dijon mustard, house-made bacon, Parmesan, onion confit, and tarragon.  Tina and Jen shared the moules et frites with green curry, lemongrass, coconut milk, and kaffir lime.

Adam and Phil both had the burger.

I ordered the skirt steak with wax beans, fine herbs, pistachios, walnuts, pine nuts, and honey.

We also ordered every one of the dipping sauces for the frites: lime pickle; mayo and onion; sweet chili; Old Bay; mayo; Cajun remoulade; Sriracha; lemon and smoked paprika (my favorite!); yogurt, cumin, and roasted garlic; gribiche.

Resto is also one of the rare places that has an outstanding wine AND beer list - it seems that most places only have one or the other. This list isn't the whole book you see below but it's damn close.  The best thing is that I've never had a server at Resto who didn't know their beers and wines from top to bottom - they can find the perfect pairing to anything, I'm sure of it.

An amazing night of good food, good wine, and good friends.

Eat, drink, and share a communal meal to cure what ails you.

Improvisation

I did something radical last night: I went to the store (Eli's Manhattan) to get ingredients for dinner.  And I had no idea what I was making.  I'm a list-maker and a recipe-follower; I don't generally just show up for the party without some sort of plan.

The key to spontaneous food shopping is to mentally catalog what you already have available at home and, if you can't remember for sure, hopefully you can call someone at home and have them check.  Adam regularly fields calls from me, asking if we have such and such ingredient in the fridge.  For instance, in this case, I knew I had pizza dough from Fresh Direct that I had put in the fridge to thaw just that morning.

So with pizza crust in mind, I went into Eli's.  As I perused, I thought about shrimp - what about a shrimp pizza?  Which then jogged my memory about a shrimp pizza I had at Ramblin Jacks in Olympia, Washington way back in 2000 when we lived there.  In my memory, it had shrimp, Brie, and apples on it; it looks like they're still serving something similar, sans shrimp.

Okay, so shrimp and Brie on the pizza.  Now what?  I was then reminded of shrimp skewers that Amy made when we were visiting them: bread cubes and shrimp tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fennel seeds.  Shrimp and fennel seeds is a sublime combination.  But what about a vegetable?  Maybe baby spinach?  Sure, why not?  So I threw that in my cart too.

I generally like to have two separate pizzas - for variation - when I make them.  I also had two crusts.  Eli's had some gorgeous figs (from California, of course) so I grabbed those.  Blue cheese sounded too rich so I grabbed some ricotta - I thought they would be a good combination.  And I had ham in the fridge at home - maybe I could add that.

And I went home to put it together.

I shared all the above information just to illustrate my thought process.  It's all about thinking about tastes you've enjoyed before, putting them together, interpreting them differently.  And not being afraid to try something.  You might fail, but so what?  I still had cheddar cheese and a loaf of bread at home - if I made inedible pizza, we could always have grilled cheese.

Here's how it turned out:

The fig pizza wasn't great, I have to be honest.  Figs and ricotta?  Great.  But it needed something...  I initially thought about walnuts, but I don't think that was it.  It needed brightening.  Maybe lemon zest.  Maybe red pepper flakes.  The blue cheese might have been the way to go.

The shrimp pizza was absolutely fantastic, though.  Brie and shrimp is a wonderful combination, and the fennel seed added some pep.  You could even add some actual roasted fennel.  I do think that, doing this again, I would add lemon zest to this as well.  I believe it was Mark Bittman who said, "I never regretted adding lemon zest to anything."  I subscribe wholeheartedly to that way of thinking.

I'm not going to regularly experiment like this - I still enjoy the list-making, menu-planning, and premeditation.  But this was fun; I like pulling from my previous memories and experiences of great meals.  Not to mention that, when you improvise like this, you begin to gain more and more successes.  And your confidence in the kitchen grows.

Eat, drink, and step outside your comfort zone.

La vie, toujours, la vie

Aw, guys. I really want to thank you for sticking with me - I know I've been all over the place lately, and I'm so glad you're still here.

My mom was visiting for the last week and we had the loveliest time. We ate at Resto, shopped at Ann Taylor (I bought this sweater), and visited the High Line. We also tried to navigate the insanity of the TKTS booth in Times Square (result: an hour in line and NO tickets to Mary Poppins). Here's the view of the insanity inTimes Square (photo by Mom):

And my mom is on a restricted diet as of late so making up a menu was a challenge: limited dairy and animal protein, limited wine, no refined sugar, everything multi-grain and whole wheat. Here is one thing I made while she was visiting:

Food and Wine's Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cabbage and Pine Nuts, served with ricotta-topped grilled bread (I omitted the ricotta on my mom's plate).

I've also been busy working on my iTunes playlists. As you know (here and here, among others), playlists play an integral part in my kitchen and eating life. And with the new computer, I've had to work on reorganizing my 10,000+ tracks. A huge task but one I love, actually.

Also, those of you who have been reading awhile are familiar with the Soul Twin and her husband, My Other Husband. They've had a family tragedy recently that has left me feeling helpless and sad. Ugh. I'm just sick over the whole thing, and I don't know what to do. Cooking, hugs, love...sure, that's all great but it won't bring someone back who never should have left. Shit.  I just can't find words.

But I was going through the blog the other day and looking through past posts (from waaay back!) and thinking about things that I've done, what a full life I've had, and how much I've laughed.  And how much amazing food and drink I've had.  So if you'll indulge me, I'm sharing my trip down memory lane with you:

Back when I still blogged children's books, I went bowling during BEA with Chris, Jack, Scott Westerfeld, and David Levithan.

My first souffle!

Adam and Bug: one of my first photos with my new camera

Homemade calamari is so simple!

Relaxing at home while Adam was on a business trip (this was a Stratus Chardonnay).

A trip to Florida with the Soul Twin

My first taste of Cubanisimo's Rosado

My trip to Anguilla that I never did tell you guys all about, as I promised.

Mixing work and foodie pleasure with In-N-Out (thanks again to Liz Burns and Angie Manfredi for creating one of my favorite conference memories)

Golden Globes party with the Soul Twin 

Beer, sausages, and pretzels for breakfast

My first macarons at Bastille Day 2011!

Lastly, on a really high note, I have to share a video with you. I've been mum about it but now it's known worldwide that Dogfish Head Brewery and some Googlers collaborated on a beer together: Urkontinent. Guess who's Google-y husband spearheaded the project? Mine! Guess who's husband got to brew beer with Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head? Mine! I couldn't be prouder of Adam. The video is below. It's a little on the long side but I promise that it's entertaining and you'll learn some interesting stuff about the brewing process. Not to mention that there's a tall, cute blond guy for you all to look at. Enjoy!



Eat, drink, and let someone know today that you love them.

New computer

It's here!  Finally!  I am now the owner of a 13" MacBook Air!!!

Which means that regular posting will resume shortly.

In the meantime, I'm the sort of precious person who likes to name their inanimate objects.  Anyone want to suggest a name?

I'm thinking of Squishy because, right now, I'm in love and talking baby-talk to it.  But it'll eventually burn me, I'm sure.




Because that's the sort of cynical computer owner I am.

Coffee

I can't do without coffee, I can't.  I get up in the morning, go to the bathroom, wash my face, and then get started on the coffee.  Which means that a mere 15-20 minutes after I wake up, I have a cup of coffee in hand.

But I can't say that I chase the good stuff.  I've had outstanding coffee: Ninth Street Espresso, Blue Bottle Coffee at the Ferry Building, Philz Coffee (my favorite ever).  I know it's good and I appreciate it's good. Ultimately, though, when it comes down to it, I buy Starbuck's and pretty much subsist on that.  It's easy, it's accessible.

Adam was just on a business trip in the Bay Area and came back with a bag of Blue Bottle:

The difference between this bag and my usual Starbuck's was marked.  Which won't be a surprise to you coffee aficionados.  But it has certainly inspired me to make more of an effort to get the good stuff. I mean, I live in NYC, for heaven's sake.  It shouldn't be that hard.

I insist on quality in so much that I put in my body - why not coffee?

What about you, fellow coffee drinkers?  What do you drink?  How do you brew it?

Eat, drink, and seek out quality.




For more about coffee, check out these links:

• My good friend, Amy: she calls herself a "coffee snob" but she's more like a coffee evangelist, spreading the Good Word to as many people who will hear her.
• Ashley at Not Without Salt has written loads about coffee: roasting your own beans, flavoring coffee, coffee pudding (which Martha's Circle and the gorgeous Kinfolk Magazine linked to!), and coffee tasting.
• The Amateur Gourmet couldn't say enough good things about Joe: The Art of Coffee when he was living in NYC. As it turns out, there's an outpost rather close to my apartment - I'll visit there ASAP!
• The Paupered Chef has a great tutorial on brewing the perfect cup.

Where to Find Me: Social Media

While I'm waiting for my technical kinks to get worked out, there are a few other places you can find me:

• I recently started a Facebook fan page: Pinot and Prose.  Come on over there, "like" me, and we can keep talking over there.
• Hopefully you know that I'm on Twitter (@foodandbooks) - you can follow me there.
• I'm addicted to Pinterest.  Seriously.  Just love it.  If you're on Pinterest, say hi to me there as well (though I have to confess I seem to be pinning fashion more than anything!).
• I started a Tumblr blog but, honestly, I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet.  Nevertheless, I'm there too. 

Also, I'm still working on my blog redesign - my awesomely talented friend, Shannon of War Admiral Press, is helping me out.  So stay tuned!

Eat, drink, and be social with me on social media!