Sugar and Thyme...

What to order when in Mecca?

 

I'll head to Mecca in a few short days - no, not the actualy city in Saudi Arabia but the Mecca of my food world, Del Posto. It's Mario Batali's masterpiece. By joining forces with Lidia and Joe Bastianich, Mario and friends are tempting us with a veritable black hole of food awesomeness. The sheer magnitude of of their talent is almost blinding, almost otherworldly. Almost.

And so I'll be there this Friday night.

And I'm totally excited and intimidated by the menu. Honestly, I don't know what I'll order. What sounds good to you?

On Occasion

 

Every now and then I dream of starting a small-scale catering business. Nothing fancy, just offering delicious lunches for bridal showers or a night's worth of warm bites for an intimate dinner party.

And it's hard to avoid getting caught up in that dream with beautiful inspiration such as this

 

Can you recommend…

From M, my co-worker:

 

 

E,

 I’m taking Chris out to dinner tonight.  Can you recommend someplace in the area (Oakland/Shadyside/Squirrel Hill) that would be reasonable and conducive to conversation?

M

 

 

My response, which got me thinking that I need to sit down and craft a review for each of these places. That will come in time, but for now: 

 

 

 

Hey M,

What a nice idea! There are a few places you guys might like depending on what sort of food you’re looking for.

 

   

The Green Mango Noodle Hut is on S.Braddock in Regent Square. They have about 12 tables and serve the best Thai food I’ve ever had in Pgh. Everything is reasonably priced (9-14 dollars for a dinner entrée). Check out http://www.thegreenmango.com/. I heartily recommend the chiang mai noodles with beef.

 

There’s a killer Caribbean place right in East Liberty off of Penn Circle called Royal Caribbean. The service is slow and disorganized but the fried plantains and jerk chicken are great. Check out http://www.yelp.com/biz/royal-caribbean-pittsburgh

  

There are a few great places just off of Walnut Street – Girasole has fantastic Italian, and the ambience is really special, but their menu (especially their daily specials) can get a little pricey, with pasta/polenta/risotto running around $17 per plate. Check out http://www.733copeland.com/There’s another Italian joint off of Walnut that’s a little more relaxed and less expensive than Girasole but very delicious called Pizzutti’s. I’ve been there a few times with my family and we all really enjoy ourselves. Check out http://www.yelp.com/biz/pizzuttis-restaurant-pittsburgh

 

And the old standbys here in Oakland, Lulu’s and the Union Grill are great. Also, Ali Baba’s on S. Craig will forever be my go-to for middle eastern food. If you want Indian, check out Tamarind on N. Craig. My sister had her birthday here and it’s a beautiful old house that they’ve converted into a restaurant. The Dal is awesome. See http://www.tamarindpa.com/tfi/index.shtml

 

Hope this helps! Have a great time tonight.

E

Disaster #2: Burned Sugar!

Recently DK and I had an opportunity to visit a Caribou Coffee shop, where I indulged in an impulse purchase (you know, those little items they sell next to the cash register) of old-fashioned caramel. I’m not big on caramel, but I needed a little sugar jolt, so as soon as it was paid for I unwrapped the square, popped half in my mouth and gave the other half to DK.

My eyes went wide – this wasn’t ordinary caramel, it was cinnamon caramel, sticky and buttery with just the right amount of warm spice. It was so delicious, I was determined to recreate this treat in my own kitchen.

So I found a recipe for cinnamon ginger caramels on The Kitchn, a great blog that’s part of the Apartment Therapy series. I also found a post on a fellow food blogger’s site chronicling her attempt at making the very same recipe. Apparently during the first stage of cooking she didn’t let the sugar/water/corn syrup mixture get hot enough, making her caramel nearly runny at room temperature. Well, I wouldn’t be making that mistake. I would push my stove like a professional, bringing that caramel to the terra cotta color the recipe called for.

Twenty minutes later I’m standing in my tiny galley kitchen gagging on the huge puffs of smoke that were billowing from the pot on my stove. “It tastes like burning!” I yelled to DK over the whir of the stove hood. He was busy ripping open windows (during the first week of December) and fanning the black smoke clouds away from our smoke detector.

The timing here was remarkable. It took ten seconds for this caramel to go from perfectly toasted to terribly burned. To make matters worse, I’m not much of a baker or candy maker, so I didn’t know how to deal with the hot sugary mess. Could I pour it down the drain? If I waited for it to cool, would it permanently entomb my pot?

Eventually things settled down. The sugar cooled for a few minutes and then (while it was still syrupy and perilously hot) I did indeed pour it down my sink. Mistake? Time will tell. So far, the sink is still working. But my apartment suffered, smelling like burned sugar for at least 24 hours – after that my nose lost track of the stench, though a stranger surely would have noticed.

But I will not be defeated! Next week my office is doing a Holiday treats week, and I’m signed up to bring in something special for my co-workers on Monday. Can I manage to screw up this recipe twice? More to come!

Cooking like Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaartha

I made stock last weekend. Had I known that it would portend The Great Sickness (the current strain of office crud that I'm nursing) I would have spent last Sunday reading rather than boiling chicken bones. So, of course, now that I'm armed appropriately with homemade chicken stock, I succumb. 

And I'm going bonkers, not sick enough to sleep the day away but too sick to do much of anything for more than 20 minutes. So I've spent my waking hours reading through Maaaaaaaaaartha's new book, Martha Stewart's Cooking School (review to be posted later this week) and I realized that, at its core, my philosophy of cooking is much less Martha and much more Mario (Batali).

Batali, who I learned to love during the airing of his Molto Mario cooking shows, is Falstaff reincarnate. His approach to cooking, in his words, is best exemplified by "the cooking of grandmothers" He's not interested in those who chop, whisk, or beat ingredients into submission. And, like Batali, I'm less interested in dishes that impress and more interested in foods that nourish. Foods that are prepared with love and eaten with enthusiasm rather than awe.

And yet, the basics must be learned.

So in my sickness haze this afternoon, I threw together a last-minute soup and decided to brunoise my carrots rather than chop them in the usual half-moons. The fancy chop wasn't necessary, but I wondered just how much more work it could possibly be.

So first I squared off the carrot - I immediately felt wasteful because, unlike a professional kitchen, I had nowhere else to use or store the carrot trimmings. Strike one for the Martha approach. Next I chopped little carrot planks:

 

Which were then chopped into little carrot sticks:

   

And then, finally, grandly, the sticks were chopped into little carrot cubes. I will say that there was a certain satisfaction with seeing the perfect cubes roll off my knife. The pile of little carrot soldiers brought a buttoned-up feeling, a tidiness to the task at hand. I was no longer throwing together a random amalgam, I was crafting a meal.

Will I continue to brunoise my vegetables? Maybe, if called for. It can't hurt. But I'll never lose sight of the ultimate goal: the food of grandmas (and I don't think grandmas brunoise).