Summer Soup Mayhem

Looook at all this fresh produce from the farmer's market in McCarren Park! I used it all to make three fat batches of soup so that I didn't have to cook for, like, a whole week. I also sucked up to my boss whose wife is about to have a baby by giving him loads of soup to freeze and have on hand for post-baby-having. He didn't take the soups home and freeze them for many days, so I now absolve myself of any food poisoning responsibility.

The best soup: Corn chowder! Favorite soup of summer ever. Sauteed up some onion, red pepper and potato in bacon fat, then dumped some Wondra in to form a nice roux-y thing before adding a bit of homemade stock and milk... and then 6 ears of fresh sweet corn! Havavaaaaa.

Other soups included zucchini basil with parmesan, plus heirloom tomato and roasted red pepper, yummedies.

For Meg: Homemade Tortillas and Rockstar Fajitas

I knew that chicken breast leftover in my freezer would come in handy! Fear not, flavor fiends: This was a Meat Hook chicken breast, bone-in, skin-on, full-flavor holiness. And I had onion in the fridge and a hankering for technicolor peppers (now in season at a farmer's market near you)--no better excuse for fajitas.

 

But then came the huge gamechanger: homemade flour tortillas. 

Yes, that. Yes, you wish they were in your mouth right now.

I also tried to pretend to drink some of that scrubby horchata, so that I'd look really authentic. And I grilled some of the most sugary delicious corn on the cob from the farmer's market, too.

Here's to Megan: My fingers smell like fajitas!!

Me+ Seltzer Forever

Lookie what we bought today!!! All my dreams come true! Free(*ish) seltzer and soda for the rest of my life without the waste of cans and zillions of gallons of fuel wasted in their transporting!

I have been wanting this pure refreshment for so very long. Now it is mine. All mine!! And so easy, toooooo!

Homemade Horchata - Or: A Giant, Tangy Pain in My A**

Whole lotta talk about horchata these days. And I like to be food-trendy. I do. So I bit. Grind some rice, throw in some almonds, cinnamon, water... let sit. Simple enough. And yet...

Why so bubbly next day? Smells a bit yeasty fermenting or some nonsense. Google searches for "fermented horchata" and "Can horchata ferment?" and "dangerous fermentation horchata" find basically nothing. So I continue. Blend it all up with a bit of sugar, more water and a dash of vanilla.

Yeah, it looks good, eh? Do not be fooled.

Then you have to strain that crap, which no one tells you takes five hours and yields a sicko-looking watery cheese whey product along with sludgy rice goo all stuck up in your cheesecloth.

And after all that hassle, the junk tastes distinctly tangy and, who knows, maybe even dangerous. Shut up, Vampire Weekend.

My Baby Takes the Morning Train

Every Friday, I get on the L train at 8:45, hope it's not delayed, and arrive at 98th Street on the beach in Rockaway by 10:10, Coors Light in the cooler and styrofoam cups at the ready. If it's a good day, there's a barefoot run along the shore, envying the surfers and trying not to cut my toe open on a splintered shell. By 11am, one Coors Light is gone, and I'm falling asleep to the sun drying the salt water in my hair.

The cycle continues like this: Splash in waves; down Coors Light; nap. Repeat. Until 2:30, when I'm a bit sun-drunk and dazed and starving, and then I purchase refreshing and rehydrating jugos and as many tacos as I can afford at Rockaway Taco.

Stuffed and sleepy, I board the train back to reality and am home by 5... to find my baby waiting.

The Beauty of Beaujolais

Dear Delicious Beaujolais,

I'm sorry that people haven't paid enough attention to you. You are so tasty, and so easy to drink, and so wonderfully full of diversity, and SO affordable, that I want you to know you are very loved and appreciated. And if other people are just now catching on, please don't let yourself sell out and get too cool (and expensive) for school. Below please find a list of assorted tasting notes from our recent Beaujolais Cru party where we tried to hype you up a bit. Please don't be offended--some of us were professionals, others semi-wine-nerds, still others total fantastic amateurs. We all loved you.

I love you,
Stevie

2008 Jean-Paul Brun l'Ancien: iron, strawberry, cranberry, very tart with white pepper, quite light and simple but tasty 

2009 Dupeuble Beaujolais Villages: much more fruit than previous, more garnet color and violet, very violet and grassy nose, a bit stemmy, richer and more supple on the palate

2007 Trenel Fleurie: less vibrant but richer look, thick floral rainforest musk, green pepper on nose, spicy palate, something very heady and sensual but hard to place... pheromonic

2008 Descombes Regnie: Christmas spice and gumdrops, candied violets, Pepto Bismol, herbal, menthol, fertilizer (but in a good way), palate-staining (the first time I've personally felt compelled to use this overused tasting note), huge and inky with minty finish, sour cranberry and blackberry and strawberry finish... REALLY delicious; super well-balanced with big acid yet big tannin

2009 Ducroux Regnie: So stinky upon opening but now (two hours later) really tamed and pretty menthol beneath dark fruit beneath stink; something Grandma's atticky... FERNET Branca! menthol with bitterness, less balance than the last with more super-fruit cranberry

2008 Pavillon de Chavannes Cote de Brouilly: more faded color, less vibrant and restrained on nose, herbs and flowers more than fruit, less musky, cinnamon red hots/hot tamales, cherry coke, bricky minerality... try it after a while? cheese shuts this down completely

2006 Martray Cote de Brouilly Les Feuillees: OHH THAT SMELLS GOOD; wet forest, wet leaves, wet armpit but seductive?, grape Kool-Aid!, toasted sesame, soy, smoke, umami, petrol burnt tire-y, the most complex with a satiny floaty sexy miso-finish

2009 Lapierre Morgon: "Bringing sexy back"; yoked-out, Christmas spice and pine soap, so purple in color, banana and pear drops, roses!, pine needles with dried cocoa powder and a bit broad... wait to see what this decides to reveal in a couple years

2007 Descombes Morgon VV: still really vibrant color, very very ambiguous spice and fruit and flowers but hard to really place what exactly... shut down?, structurally seems to be going in a really good direction; this was open and beautiful earlier and now seems tight-lipped

2007 Lapierre Morgon MMVII: (Sourced mostly from Cote du Py) very musky fruit with some complementing freshness something, yet still a bit shut down, surprisingly soft and supple but very spicy palate with a rooty medicinal, dried potpurri and cherry-flower thing

2009 Fessy (Louis Latour) Moulin-a-Vent: On the color, first impression is Bordeaux?! cocoa dark stinky chocolate, grapefruit rind, charry charcoal, bright acid but really dark ripe sweet fruit, raisiny finish, smells like fruit rollups... perhaps unfair b/c this was opened a couple hours after all the others

Homemade Peach Salsa

Same day as the olive bread rat-like nibbling, I bought all the makings for homemade salsa, taking inspiration from last weekend in North Fork when we made our own with fresh peaches.

I had leftover cilantro and onion on hand, then I got a peach, three different tomatoes, a jalapeno and a tomatillo to throw in. I chopped everything up in the Crush tasting room and then sat down with a bag of chips and my afternoon's work.

Quite simply, the best salsa I've ever had.

Best Bread in NYC

I've been looking for it for a long time. Squishing the loaves when I see them, surveying their girth and their crust bubbles and their pull and chew... looking for the best bread in New York City.

Contrary to what one might think, the best bread has never been at the farmer's market, where I find most loaves to be dry and lacking chewiness, always a bit too dense and a bit too stale and grainy.

But I'd been eying Not Just Rugelach's olive bread for weeks. All visible criteria met. The squish test wasn't able to be carried out though, due to their not wanting alien hands molesting their loaves. Mama always told me never to buy bread without squishing it first. Finally, on the fourth week, after I did my little stare-down, bread ogling routine and asked, again, "How much for the olive loaf?" ($4), I finally went for it. Just plunged in and took a risk.

Well, well, well worth it.

See that gigantic hole I bit into the side? I couldn't get to the olives fast enough, so I had to go for the jugular and angle in through it's rib cage, sucking out its delicious, salty guts. Texture spot-on. Flavor just right. Olives inside nearly excessive and so, so tasty. So there it is: the best bread in NYC.

Like Fast Food, But Not

The other day, while searching for what to do with last weekend's leftover pork chops and avocado, I came across this delectable discovery and couldn't stop fantasizing over it.

We finally made them last night (with fresh pork, fear not!), and there was just enough of everything for one messy leftover spicy pork burger tonight, totally disheveled even as it was with sloppy grilled jalapeno and onion and tomatillo, cilantro, mushy creamy avocado and generous shmears of stinky munster on one side of the challah bun and homemade chipotle mayonnaise on the other.

Incidentally--or not so incidentally--the chipotle mayonnaise was naughty on the duck fat fries, too.

Then I took some leftover grilled corn and shaved it off into a salad with leftover onion, cilantro, a tiny bit of lemon juice I'd saved, some fresh black pepper and a kick of Sriracha.

For dessert, Oloroso-and-orange-zest-spiked homemade rice pudding! A virginal attempt, and a damn good one if I do say so myself.