Forking Tasty

Football Meatballs

I know you all over ate. I know you are feeling bad about yourselves but remember, we are all in the same boat. Our Superbowl started with these killer meatball poppers. Downing them by the half dozen set the pace for the mild but still overindulgent feastival. We followed that with 5lbs of Superwings, two pizza’s, a sweet potato and onion/potato knish from Zabar, apple/feta/iceberg salad and , of course, power nachos. Let’s not forget a fresh growler of beer and enough “DC” to wash all that down.

Ready for lunch?

My Favorite Hostess

Memories of visiting the Hostess store as a little kid rushed back tonight when I popped into a 7-Eleven in downtown San Francisco. Think Twinkie + Yodel shell + Crocodile = Chocodile.

IN-N-OUT of a Defcon Situation

On a recent trip to California, me and that wonderful Canadian found ourselves in a defcon situation. (Defcon scale+amount of hunger=how processed your food is). After a day of wine and beer tasting in Paso Robles, we made a quick detour to wack down these beautiful In-N-Out burgers. The glory of fast food, big box chain’s and IN-N-OUT burger in particular, is the consistency of the experience right down to the building in which you have the experience. In fact, IN-N-OUT has exactly the same layout in every store I have ever been in. Once inside you wouldn’t know if you were in San Francisco or Modesto. Necessary evil or charmingly delightful, this cookie cutter aesthetic creates a window in which the attentive and observant will cherish.

Because the surroundings, employees and menu are all the same, the focus becomes on the guests waiting and ordering with you. As you sit on that little white bench waiting for your number to be called by the tall, football type, teenager in the too small paper hat and stretched red apron, take a look around. San Francisco and Modesto certainly have different citizens but I have found you are likely to see a myriad of burger fiend diversity no matter which city you are in. Our star customer this day was a young latin girl who decided dressing like Pat Benatar in a mostly rural farming area would be the best way to stand out. In her 4 inch black leather heel boots she barely scraped five feet tall. In the corner was a family of five. This 45 year old mother corralled her three kids while her young Mexican husband filled the drinks at the fountain machine. I’d love to know more about that story. To top off the mix a trio of farm hands came in for their early dinner sporting crisp dark jeans and worn, dusty cowboy boots. The whole ensemble was complete when I watch them all simultaneously tip their cowboy hatted heads up to read the menu. The motion reminded me of a farm machine starting up in the field.

Of course we still come for the food, but there is so much else going on during any out-of-the-house food experience. I implore you to take a good look around the next time you are waiting for your double double to be ready. I promise it will be an interesting game.

‘Mata’s

When I was a little kid we always had a garden. I hated it. It was a lot of work. When you are 5 the last thing you want to do is clean up weeds, pick ripe specimens and protect the growing crops from horn worms, flying things and the occasional 4 legged mammal. The garden was large, about a third of my backyard at its largest. That translates roughly into a 40×60 foot plot of peppers, radishes, tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, lettuce, blueberries, strawberries, eggplants, cucumbers and all types of herbs. To add to my misery, I found little logic with the garden and its yield. In the height of the summer we could barely the pick ripe fruits and vegetables fast enough, let alone eat them. This led to a weekly delivery service run by my parents with my brother and I as the primary delivery boys. We would bring crates of tomatoes and zucchinis to our neighbors on the block without as much as a dime. The occasional pat on the head and a “tell your mother she is too kind” was about as rich as we got.

As I look back now I see…

TURDUCKEN!!!

And you thought it was a myth. Worse you thought it was impossible to make. Well, you were wrong. Dead wrong. This past Tuesday Aimee, Mark (a good supperclub buddy) and I took on the task of making a turducken from scratch for the Gastronauts. The Gastronauts is a club for adventurous eaters who explore the astounding variety of global cuisines in the far, and near, reaches of NYC. Their reason for being is very similar to ours. It’s just as much about the company as it’s about the food. So, when they asked us to host a dinner on the deck we were overjoyed.

The theme was Creole/Cajun cuisine. We had the standards; Jambalya, Crawfish Tails, Cracklins, Black Eyed Peas just to name a few of the 12 plus dishes. To add to the NOLA effect the mercury jumped to 103 that day setting records. The full review of pics can be found on the Gastronauts site. I thought I would chronicle the turducken steps below so you can see what a massive undertaking this was. Just to put your head in the right place we started with a 5lbs chicken, a 5 lbs duck and a 30lbs turkey. The first thing you need to do is debone all the birds WHILE keeping it whole. Here we go…

Matter over Mind

View NYC Food Tour 1 in a larger map

This blog has proven that I have a disposition to over indulge. It’s a problem and a constant battle between my brain and my waistline. I rationalize my decisions to stuff myself with the idea that the opportunity at hand is unique and once in a lifetime. This is rarely the truth but often the perceived reality. Regardless of the motivation, this post trumps all the others in ridiculousness.

I had just flown back in town from Chicago and two friends from San Francisco when a txt message popped up on my phone. Two buddies from San Francisco were in town and wanted to go run-a-muk stuffing our faces all over town. Truth be told, Ben, Chef of SPICE Supper Club, had been riding me for weeks about the “eating tour” and now he was ready to roll. Irrationally deciding I had to…

RECAP-REEL TASTY: Indiana Jones

photo credit: Kun Kim

A week ago 16 guests joined us on the deck for a gasto-adventure of summer blockbuster magnitude. In addition to our guests we were visited by one very important person. Dr. Henry Jones took the deck by storm just as the sun settled behind the building he was projected on.

For those who are a little lost, Reel Tasty is our summer supper club where Aimee, my co-chef/host, and I screen a movie on a 2 story building while feeding our guests some of our latest gastronomic creations. The menu that evening was crafted around traditional dishes from the countries Indiana Jones visited in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The giant leg of lamb was set up on the rotisserie hours before guests arrived. Basted in prune juice and red wine every 20 minutes the…

Noodle on This

A quick one today. Ramen has been a mini trend in NYC in the last 6-9 months. I finally mustered up the time to go see what was so different then those $.29, hot pot prepared, college quick hits we would all load up on when hitting the local stop and shop once every 6 months. What was wrong with us back then? Why would it take us so long to go to the grocery store? And when we did, why did we think it was like the opening 45 minutes to Red Dawn where we only had 15minutes to get provisions for the next 6 months in the woods?

A couple things to note. 1. I have already had the best ramen in the world. 2. I prefer my noodles when they have red sauce surrounding them. That said I didn’t think I was going to be able to replicate what I tasted in Singapore at all. I was pleasantly surprised as soon as I popped into the little shop just off St. Marks place in the East Village. There was a lot of foreign Asian languages being spoken, the signs were predominantly in Chinese and I saw a lot of smiling faces. So far, so good. I sat down and got right to…

Beets & Rhymes

I have been really into beets lately. I never really experimented with them. Certainly I never had them raw. I have found them to be clever. They are more versatile than I thought. Plus they are a double hit. Beet greens make a great salad. This post is all to say, I love me some beets. Take a second look at the options.

Leftover Lunch Goodness

REEL TASTY was a success this past Saturday and the spoils keep on a comin’. Some left over hanger steak was calling my name from the refrigerator. One nice part of working from home I get more bonding time with the old chill box. A fresh Portuguese roll was my vessel. What you are looking at above is some thin sliced hanger steak with fresh ricotta cheese spread across the toasted roll. I added some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and fresh pepper for good measure. I love leftovers in sandwich form. More on the REEL TASTY coming soon.