Forking Tasty

The Canadian’s Full English in America

I took the opportunity to write a headline that is truly global since my wife was determined to make breakfast for dinner this weekend.

For those avid readers this needs little explanation. For the new comers, my wife was born in the UK. This adequately explains her admiration for anything British, particularly bangers.

Her idea to cook a full English breakfast for dinner came immediately after I informed her of my Living Social coupon to Myers of Keswick. $10 got us $20 worth of necessary provisions at the little West Village shop. On a side note, I’m not sure you have to pay full price for anything anymore. Counter clockwise from the top…

Road Trip (Part 2)

….. continuing on with the road trip we found ourselves in Savannah Georgia. After dumping our stuff at a hotel we quickly headed down to River Street. River street is one of those rare street in America that allow you to drink alcohol on the streets. We took full advantage of this benefit before our ghost tour and dinner….

Road Trip (Part 1)

I recently took a road trip from South Carolina to Key West Florida with the southerner. The trip should take about 14 hours from start to finish. However, we did break up the trip and spent a couple days in a few places along the way and back….

Nuptial Nosh

As promised this post is all about the food at my wedding. Although, it is 3 months tardy. I can’t really believe how quickly the time has past. I am not exactly sure what happened but a little 48 hour mini-honeymoon in Philadelphia this weekend (stay tuned for that post soon) reminded me of what happens when my wife and I are left to plan eating a day at a time. Before we get into all this I feel compelled to give some of you a bit more context on the days events. First off, I married the Canadian. I have been coy in keeping her identity a bit secret over the years in this blog. Now that she is officially in the family you can expect some guest posts.

The Canadian, in case you have not followed the sloppy hidden path backwards to her identity, is of pure Indian decent. Her wonderful parents, my new in-laws, are from Bangalore and Mysore so her South Indian roots run deep. This has everything to do with the day starting with a traditional South Indian breakfast in the Gnesha temple in flushing Queens. The fact that we visited a year prior just to eat in the temple canteen, as did Tony Bourdain, heavily influenced our decision to have our ceremony here. Breakfast was straight from the heart of what South Indians eat daily and the preparation was…

A Hidden Gem

Momma Anello’s birthday was last Wednesday and the southerner and I headed to Long Island to have some dinner. We went to a little hidden gem that is always packed called the West End Cafe. The food is always great. There was a little confusion at the table and we ended up ordering about six appitizers. One of the more unique dishes we got were duck sliders. I thought it was going to come more like a pulled pork but it was in a paddy. It really had some good flavors. Speaking of flavors the crab tower was flavorful but I felt it needed more crab in it. (see above). The dinner rolls were also a highlight on the table. Really fresh and was baked with pesto and olive oil inside it. You never want to fill p on bread before the meal but this bread was worth every bit.

Finally Forking Spicy

It took over a year but chef Ben Long and I finally made it into the kitchen together. It had become our mission to collaborate on a 4-course meal since our mutual supperclubs, Spice and FT Suppers, came into existence. In our vision we cooked a magnificent, over-abundant, delicate and rich meal for over 40 bi-coastal diners who flew, walked and rode in just for the occasion. As it turns out we spent a random weekday evening crafting 4 succulent dishes for Ben’s wife, my friend and business partner, Kelly. Sometimes your vision is wrong and reality is the only thing that can prove what’s perfect. Shedding the pressure of the guests, the craziness of the kitchen and the perfection we both demand of ourselves we were left…

The Opposite of a Fast Food Burger

Forking Tasty – Black Shack Burger Joint from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

The Black Shack was a nice find. One correction from the video, The Steak House Burger does not have crispy fries on it, although that sounds great too, it has crispy onions, just like the Western Burger. After we were done eating the chief/owner came out to chat with us. The whole idea behind Black Shack Burger Joint is to give you a burger that the fast food chains of America have forgotten about when creating their burgers, essentially the correct way to make a burger. Those places like McDonald, Burger King, White Castle were the inspiration to show how a burger should really be made. White Castle is one of, if not the oldest burger joint. I’m sure their burgers were much better when they first came on the scene before the mass production line. Black Shack would be the opposite of White Castle, hence the name. Very clever.

I’m looking forward to heading back for a sloppy joe some time in the next couple weeks.

It Started With Pistachio Butter

For months now I have been porting in Puerto Vallarta but we never stay late enough to get a good dinner. Well times have changed and we finally left Puerto Vallarta at about 8pm, plenty of time to get a great meal. Since the southerner and I are not at a late port to get a Christmas dinner this year we decided that this was going to be it. I had spoke to a few people on the ship for some ideas and decided on the Vista Grill. This was not going to be a cheap Mexican taco type of meal, needless to say we were both very excited having had typical Mexican food for months now…

American vs Italian Fried Chicken

Saturday I decided to fry some chicken. After 2 weeks of hints dropped by the Canadian I figured I couldn’t escape the gentle coaxing any longer. It’s not that I didn’t want fried chicken, it’s just that…well…it’s a big, smelly, oil riddled production that always leaves the far reaches of my apartment smelling like a roadside joint in north Georgia. In addition, you never make just fried chicken. The chicken is just the gateway to creamed spinach, fried potatoes, beans, beer and the occasional hard narcotic. Ok, that’s a step too far, unless you can overdose on canola oil. The picture above reveals the ultimate success in the aforementioned madness. It wasn’t until Sunday when the point of this post was revealed. After such a calorie-counting-less indulgence I decided to keep it simple and clean on Sunday. Or so I thought.

I popped into the supermarket late Sunday afternoon and…

More Pretty Fish

You never get to play with your sushi in the restaurant so I thought I’d have a little fun at my coffee table in between some Travel Channel show about the Grand Canyon. Keeping with the pescatarian diet, I only ate chicken twice yesterday. Really this post is about the pretty picture of a bunch of stacked sushi. Happy low-calorie, fish-instead-of-cow, double gym Weekend.