Happy Birthday to my brother today! He turns 20.

Bill and I will be going to Bloodroot Restaurant in Bridgeport, CT for a "special pre-New Year's Eve Brunch" featuring:

Soysage Biscuits, and Gravy w/Caramelized Apples

Linzer, Korova, and Gingerbread cookies & more Winter Fruits Persimmon Sorbet

Champagne and Non-alcoholic beverages

What's a soysage biscuit? I have no idea. But how can I say no to feminist vegetarian cuisine? I dare say it might even be vegan. I'm especially intrigued by "winter fruits". Around these parts, "winter fruits" translate as "a bushel of apples in the basement" and maybe a few hardy squash if you decide to bend the definition of "fruit". Tut tut, are those persimmons locally grown? j/k Bloodroot, I love you.

Incidentally, my girlfriend Deborah Madison is a freaking genius. Some of her recipes don't resonate with me but it's her most simple ones that have blown my mind when my meager improvisational cooking skills falter. Bill and I tend to roast most squash in the oven, and we were shaking our heads on the blah roasted delicata. Since we had a small windfall of the dainty squash, we decided to turn to Ms. Madison for some alternative ideas. Why the hell not, let's slice it up and pan fry it. Turns out freaking delicious. The outside carmelizes a bit and brings out the sweetness and all it requires is some olive oil in a cast iron skillet. WTF, Deborah. Let's get married. Bill doesn't mind that I have a harem of cookbook authors because I SHARE.

Ah, dear two or three readers, towards the end of summer. I don't write much here. Summer fresh veggies and fruit are awesome. My latest Union Square desires:

I'm lately becoming obsessed with the thought of foraging for mushrooms, but I haven't mustered up the commitment to actually go foraging with the local mycological club. So, the next best thing is to purchase semi-wild mushrooms. Honey Hollow Farm currently has chanterelles, but I suspect the stand often sells out and packs up before lunchtime. I got up early once to buy them, and I was disappointed when I cooked them up and ate them, but I think it's because I was expecting something meaty like portobello, but it's not. It's pretty tasty though. I'd like to try them again -- if I can ever purchase them again. They sold for $19 a pound which sounded like highway robbery until I saw that Dean & DeLuca were selling much smaller ones for $45/lb. WHAT??? Were they foraged from a magical forest or something? The D&D ones didn't even look that good. Looked like they had been sitting around for a couple of days, whereas the Union Square ones still looked perky. Like trumpet-shaped boobs.

Keith's Farm has his famous rocambole garlic. P cut into one and the skin inside was still soft and moist, and the garlic itself is crisp like the inside of an apple. Freakin' amazing, and it's totally a seasonal thing. I've tried keeping his garlic around for the winter, but it just doesn't keep well, I don't know why.

Tristar strawberries are back in season. I guess strawberries have two seasons -- early summer and late-ish summer. Berried Treasures and Sweet Mountain Berry have Tristars. Supposedly, Tristar strawberries have a strain of wild in them. The seeds sit up higher in the flesh, and it has little mini-antennae thingies that stick out just under the leaves. The berry itself is smaller than the usual sized strawberries we're used to in supermarkets, and even at the other Union Square stands. P likes Tristar strawberries better than the regular ones, but that's because he's a classy guy. Blueberries are in season now too. Fantasy Fruit Farm has big sweet ones. Supposedly blueberries help ward off dementia, which is useful because my family has it in spades.

Toigo Orchards rocks. No stand at Union Square, but P and I frequent their stand at Tompkins Square Park on Sunday. Amazing peaches, truly. I'm thinking about buying a jar of bourbon peaches for the winter to try. $12 a jar, which is (yes, I know) pricey, but online they're selling for $15. I take it that bourbon is a pricey liquor? Also, I am strangely drawn to one of the farmhands who works the stand. He reminds me of my alluring smoky attractive friend George Basil. When I visit the Toigo stand, I like to make conversation with "my friend George Basil" and I almost always buy something. George Basil, you are a good salesman!

I'm not much of a beer drinker. Lately though, I've been getting into microbrews, especially ones that are from breweries in the area. I don't like carbonation, so I find that hand-drawn cask-conditioned ales are right up my alley. And behold, there is a British group that celebrates and encourages the return and rise of cask-conditioned ales.
http://www.camra.org.uk/

I'll be going to the Hop Devil Grill in the East Village tonight with P. and his friend, Radium. There's going to be a christening of a tap exclusively for the Belgian beer, Delirious Tremens. Free t-shirts, hats, and hijinx galore! Also, Thursday is cask day at the Hop Devil, so I'd be curious to see what's on offer this week.

http://www.hopdevil.com/

My very first cask-conditioned ale was a Sixpoint Brownstone. I had it at d.b.a.

http://www.drinkgoodstuff.com/ny/default.asp

It tasted a little like dark chocolate, with some pleasantly burnt edges. It was warm and nary a carbonated bubble appeared. It was my kind of beer. I liked it. Sixpoint Brewery is a fairly new microbrewery based in Brooklyn. I think only one of its beers is bottled. The rest of its beers can be found on tap (or in cask) in selected bars in the tri-state area, and maybe Massachusetts.

http://www.sixpointcraftales.com/

I'm not much of a blogger about my personal life, because I'm just not the type to get confessional in a cold open space where goodness-knows-who will read it and assume they know me. Gah!

Having said that, a former improv classmate of mine named Rachael has been writing very interesting posts lately, all stemming from her being tagged to list 5 things that people didn't know about her.
http://www.rachaelmason.blogspot.com

I'm just eating it all up, because 1) she has definitely lived through some pretty wiggy stuff, and 2) she grew up in NYC, just like me -- she in Manhattan, me in Queens. Also, there are a few similarities in the details.

I don't think it's toooooo self-indulgent if I make my own list, untagged and loose-tongued? I've been in a foul mood and of icky body tonight, so I could cheer myself up with some memories of yonder.

1) I worked in a nudist health spa in England.
2) I lived in a vegetarian feminist cooperative in college.
3) Once I was propositioned by a stranger to get together and engage in mutual masturbation.
4) I won the school spelling bee in 6th grade.
5) I briefly was the organist at my church when I was in high school.

That's it. Hope my readers (all two of you) enjoy. I do feel a bit more cheered.

As for food:

I need to up my insoluble fiber intake asap. I bought salad mix and a bunch of chard from Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday. It's really hard this time of year to find dark leafy greens by the bunch at the Greenmarket. I was only able to find it at the stand that used to have the "hydroponic" banner. They grow a lot of Asian greens. The lady who helps out at that stand recognizes me, and will talk to me, because we can sort of communicate in Cantonese. She will often dig up the nicest bunch for me, or give me a little price break on salad. Sweet! Once she asked if I was pregnant, because I looked big in the belly. I think it's because I was wearing three layers under my coat. Also, maybe I've gotten rounder in the middle over the year.

Nothing says "dark leafy greens" like chard and kale. I didn't know what chard and kale were until late in college. I thought Swiss chard was a type of cheese. My housemate, Devin, had picked out a recipe that required chard, and my other housemate, Misti, and I were in charge of shopping for all the ingredients of the week. We walked around the supermarket, absolutely baffled, because we didn't know what chard was. I discovered lacinato ("dinosaur") kale at the Harvest Food Co-op in Cambridge, MA. This was maybe during my last winter in college. I was fascinated by the ridges in the leaves. It's hard to mask the healthy hearty dark greens taste of chard and kale. I wouldn't want to, anyway. I know that by eating it, I'm scrubbing out my insides, and I derive immense satisfaction from that knowledge.

It's been awhile since I posted, so sorry.

Here's something very unfood-bloglike. But I thought about it today, and in a sick way, I find it a little amusing because human beings can be so fucked up that we tsk tsk on the one hand, and we laugh with the almost embarrassing realization that to some degree, we can identify with elements of that fucked-upness on the other hand.

I have a theory about John Mark Carr, the man who has confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey. Here's a roughly paraphrased conversation that I had with my dad in the car.

Dad: He's a pedophile, you know.
Me: I know. It doesn't sound like he killed her, though. Sounds like he's confessing to something he wanted to do, but didn't actually do.
Dad: But he's a pedophile!
Me; So if he's guilty of hurting a kid, lock him up. I just don't think he committed this particular murder.
Dad: What does it matter? Lock him up, then justice is served.

My dad can be an overly simplistic man. He speaks to everyone in very simplistic quasi-sentences, as if we can't handle him speaking complete sentences in English. Bear in mind, he is a native speaker of English, my siblings and I are native speakers of English, and my mom is bilingual. His desire to oversimplify things often spills into the political and social arena. It makes talking to him very frustrating. Like today, he asked me if I would need to "take a poop" before he drove me back to my apartment. Shouldn't "take a poop" be phased out of father-daughter discussions after the age of 6? But guess what, kind readers. It turns out I did have to TAP. So who's got egg on her face now?

Back to John Mark Carr. He's made all sorts of specific statements about how he went about kidnapping her, but none of the facts add up to his account. He claimed that he picked her up from school in his car and drugged her, but she didn't have school on the day she was killed, and the autopsy doesn't show signs of drugs. His ex-wife claims that he was in another part of the country when the murder occurred. He's making really intense statements, like "I loved JonBenet," "It was an accident," but here's my grand theory: He's just fantasizing and embellishing on a crime that he wishes he committed. Something that might even get him off, if he's got gruesome pedophilic killing urges. And all of this international attention on him now as a sick JonBenet-loving-killing pervert might perversely get him off some more.

I'm no psychologist. That's my pop-shrink analysis. Onward!

UTI infections and cranberry juice are like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. It's the battle that one can't have without the other, and everyone knows about the epic pairing of the two. When I first heard about UTIs, the mention of cranberry juice was not far behind. I tend to get UTIs when I'm sick with stomach cramps, and I stop eating and drinking fluids (which is bad). I inevitably get dehydrated, and that's when the UTI shows up. I'm on the upswing of some virus now, but according to the doc, I've got traces of a UTI, so I'm hitting the cranberry juice bottle.

Usually, my options are something along the lines of Ocean Spray. This time, I decided to mosey into my local neighborhood health food store to see what Neil had in stock. I left with two bottles of Lakewood 100% organic cranberry juice, not from concentrate. The only ingredient is "fresh pressed juice from certifed organic cranberries." Cost? $8.99 for a quart. Neil warned me that it's pricey. Cranberries are pricey, though, if you try to buy them as berries on their own, so the price kinda made sense.

This juice doesn't pull any sugary tasty shit on you. It is all cranberry juice, and it warns you to dilute it with water or other juice because it's full strength intense cranberry all the way. It's not sweety tart. It's plain ol' tart in an almost unpleasant way. Forget about drinking it straight -- it's too strong by itself. Adding water dilutes it a little, and adding another juice (like orange) distracts away from the tart, but it hasn't become tasty for me yet. But it's such an educational experience in viscerally realizing that the Ocean Spray stuff is sugary processed crap that smooths the cranberry down your throat, but how much cranberry juice is really in that bottle? When you're fighting a UTI, would you want to gently paw its face with a cute little feather riding crop, or would you want to take charge and rough it up and kick it out of the neighborhood? I get the sense that Lakewood is for big haters of pussy infection.

I'll let you know when I stomach through a whole bottle.

Long time no update. Good news: I've been to Japan, and I had some rocking food there in unexpected places. More on that later.

I went to the Broadway Panhandler for their big moving sale. I spent an obscene amount of money. But I am now the owner of some of the things I wished to covet 3 months ago, with some variations:

1) I now own two Microplane grater thingies. One's the size of a big cheese grater, and the other one is a small handled one that I can stick in a drawer that's good for zesting. Yay!

2) I thought about buying a stick blender, but I opted to go for a heftier, hopefully sturdier regular Cuisinart blender. It's made of glass, so I'll need to be careful, but I bought it because I'm assuming that Cuisinart is a reliable brand. I don't actually know. Yay!

3) I bought some of those little utensils that you don't think about until you need 'em, like a peeler, measuring cups, slotted spoon ... I bought two expensive silicone oven mitts because I'm using cast iron pans almost exclusively now, and I often need to lift a really hot and heavy pan with both hands. They're sitting on top of the fridge now, but when I use my cast iron pans, down they come. No no, I'm not using Le Creuset ... damn those pots and pans are really expensive.

4) Tangent: I bought a chef's knife -- in Tokyo! It's my baby. I also bought a stone to sharpen/hone it, but I haven't used it yet. I'm scared to, and my knife is still sharp. It's a Kenmax, which is probably a meaningless brand in the world of Japanese knives, but it's the in-house brand of the store where I bought it. The store's name is Kamata, and it's all knives in there. I was dazzled. The knife man seemed to know his stuff. The store's been there since I dunno, I'll have to look it up again, maybe late 1800s, early 1900s? Rows and rows of knives behind glass, and open drawers that allow customers to pick up knives to get a feel for them. It's the only way to get a knife -- it's important for the owner to be really comfortable with the grip. Those jazzy-looking hyped Global knives are really expensive, and feel really weird in the hand. I wouldn't recommend them.

5) I bought matching Peugeot salt & pepper grinders. Pricey, wooden, made in France, so here's hoping that they last forever. Goodbye, Unicorn Magnum! I wanted you, but you weren't on sale.

6) Little Cuisinart chopping machine. Looks like a tiny mini food processor. Might be useful to grind up nuts or chop garlic. Got it for something like $11.

7) Utility/paring knife, by Wustof. I also bought kitchen shears by Wustof, which have been quite useful.

8) Cast-iron square grill pan by Lodge. It's my first brand-new Lodge piece. I saw an old man carrying it, which convinced me that it was possibly a good deal, although in hindsight it probably was just okay. Technically, it's already seasoned, but I think I'll do it again. Do I even need a square grill pan? I sure hope I do.

9) Tangent: bought a small Griswold skillet in an antique store in Fairfield, Connecticut! I don't care too much for the smallness of it, but the urge to own a Griswold was too great. The iron is so smooooooth. I need to give it a scrub and a seasoning. I'd love to do some little things in it, like an egg, to see how it holds up. Relatively inexpensive investment -- something like $13. It's not a mega-valuable Griswold, based on what I've seen on ebay, but that's okay.

What I still want to covet:

1) Mortar and pestle
2) Wooden chopping board
3) Rolling pin
4) Silicone spatula
5) yogurt strainer
6) salad spinner
7) yogurt maker? I'm conflicted on this one.
8) Thermometer

I'm such a consumer! Boo me. Yay products!

I don't have much time to write, but for the 3 of you who read this blog, I apologize for the hiatus. I love to eat, and I have certainly had interesting eating experiences since the last time I've written, but time is always lacking.

I'm in a kitchenware covetousness mood. Here are the things I'd like to own, one day:

1) Unicorn Magnum Plus peppermill. It costs more than $40. It's 9" long (that's right, boys), so it doesn't need to be refilled as often as the little ones. Apparently, the awesomeness of the mill is in its efficiency. One little twist of the wrist yields a lot of pepper. Bless her heart, my sister eBayed a cute little brass peppermill from Turkey as a gift to me, but it's always a battle of wits when I wind its handle, and I never get enough pepper.

2) (Thai) stone mortar and pestle. I've never used on before, except maybe in high school chemistry lab. I liked the hands-on earthy method of grinding things down, and with stone, the sound would be awesome. I've done a tiny bit of research, and people seem to like the Thai stone ones.

3) Chopping knife and/or cleaver. My roommate has a Wustof, which is nice, and I've been borrowing it, but I should get my own. Don't know what I should get.

4) Microplane grater. So pretty. So effective.

5) Handheld blender. It was a typical appliance to have in England, but I haven't seen them so much here. It's a big space-saver. Maybe it's not so popular here because Brits are used to having little counter space, being such a small island and all, and as a country, we like big. Big cars, big appliances, big energy spenders, big.

6) Wooden chopping board

7) General kitchen items, e.g. spatula, measuring cups

8) Kitchen scale, because weight is more important than "spoons" and "cups".

9) Vegetarian Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen. Yesh, I know it's not kitchenware, but the photos in her cookbooks are food porn, especially the ones in Local Flavors. And I love soup.

Bye!

Sorry for the lack of updates. (I'm apologizing to all three of you who read this here blog.) I've been so exhausted these past few weeks. Improv improv improv -- classes, shows to perform in, shows to watch. But I'm done with it all for the next few weeks, and I'm not-so-secretly relieved. A break would be good for me, I think.

So I've decided that my blog needs a serious injection of funny. Not painfully funny; maybe an incidental funny. I think lots of funny things happen every day -- not in a forced way, but human beings can be seriously ridiculous. Especially in NYC.

Here's something that I thought was funny:

Last week, I was talking to one of my co-workers about my law firm's company party, which will take place at the Waldorf Astoria tomorrow. Ooh la la, right? Fancy dandypants, hmm? My co-worker, C, expressed worry about what she should wear to the party. I said, heck, maybe I'll wear what I wore last year. It's a nice dress that I can throw on in 5 seconds, which is great for the low maintenance me, and it's actually a very presentable outfit for party occasions, which is great for the "I don't want to cause a ruckus in this silly conservative environment" me.

My co-worker looked at me in dismay. "Oh no, you can't do that. You can't wear the same dress!"

That sounds like a dare.

If only I can find the dress. I hope it's not plastered under a box on my floor.

I think this little situation was funny because the whole concept of firm-wide holiday party at a very expensive location is absurd. What, so I might be approached by a young single handsome lawyer as I poise myself in a cupcake ballgown with chardonnay in hand? Who the hell cares whether I wear the same dress twice? The social groups that gossip together at work, will be the same social groups that sit at the same tables, gossiping together at the party. The lawyers and other staff that never ever brought themselves to talk to me at work, will most likely never bring themselves to talk to me during the party. The food will probably suck, because my firm likes to cut corners in stupid ways. Oh, about food: if I wear something that I perceive as being super-duper-too-nice, I will probably eat less, because I wouldn't want to accidentally drop food on it.

That, my friend, is insidious. I love to eat. Clothing should not hinder my desire to pig out, but oh yes, sometimes it does, and it's shameful.

What is truly funny is the fact that I'm still at the same job. The last year me would be absolutely horrified. This year me is almost equally horrified.

I'll be heading to Barbados in two days. Yah!

Ugh, P and I didn't get to sleep until after 3am yesteday, and I needed to get up for work less than 6 hours later. My body is quietly breaking down. I felt awful at work, but then I took a decent nap at P's place before my improv show, and I definitely felt better. The show went pretty okay. Munchausen's last Harold! We'll be hosting in two weeks.

At work, I bought a 16oz. immunity booster Tropicana OJ. For lunch, I bought a freshly squeezed cup o' OJ. I clung desperately to the Cold-eeze, Airborne (effervescent tablets and chewy throat lozenges), and warm water. I still feel crappy, but what's that? I should get to bed? You're right. But I'm having a bowl of cold but brightly orange gazpacho before I take some meds. My stomach is pretty empty, and gazpacho is as good as any tummy filler. I made it from scratch, with some red and yellow tomatoes. I didn't realize that the yellow color would come out so strong.

Letmetellyou about my cast iron skillet find!

I *suspect* that it's an old Lodge, but I don't know how old, and I'm not absolutely sure that it's a Lodge. I just signed on as a registered visitor to the Wagner and Griswold Society (WAGS), at www.griswoldandwagner.com. It's a forum for cast iron kitchenware collectors. It's addictive to just lurk and read.

I bought my lastest find at an Astoria thrift/antique store called Second Best (I think?). It's right by Astoria Blvd and 31st St. I found it half-hidden in a laundry basket filled with other items, like a broken-open old jewelry box, and Italian-made wooden cheese grater box, and curtains. The skillet is quite heavy, and it's only marking is the number 10 on the underside of the skillet. It also had a "self-basting cover", the style of which is characteristic of Lodge, I think. The cover also has the number 10 inside. No logo. The cover is rusty on top, and the skillet could definitely use a scrubbing. I need two hands to lift/carry the skillet with the cover on top. Heavy!

Asking price? $20. I balked at the price a little, and I passively and circuitously tried/mentally wished to have the owner lower it, but she didn't budge. She claimed that all the cast-iron skillets that she sold in the past often sold fast, and she's savvy about the benefits of cast iron. I was doing some mental math. Sure, it'll need some work, but word on the WAGS forum is that Lodge ware today just isn't what it used to be. And to buy a new Lodge skillet of that size today (it's larger than the 10 inch one -- I roughly measured the diameter to be about 12 inches across the top), would probably cost at least $20 without the cover. The cover would probably run at least another $20. Most old ("vintage") Lodge ware isn't valuable to collectors now, except the acorn pan, whatever that is. Lodge went through a fairly long period of time when it didn't place its logo on their products, so today it's hard to date them, or even ascertain whether it's truly a Lodge or not. That's made it difficult to make them collectible items. But, hey, acquiring an old affordable and reusable piece that has a history kinda has an appeal, I think.

Anyway, I'm curious about my skillet's lineage. Hopefully, I'll be able to get P to come to Astoria to take digital photos of the skillet so that I can post it on WAGS. I'm going cast iron crazy!

I'm very fond of the full fat authentic Greek yogurt made by Fage Total. As an Astorian, I see it in stores everywhere. I think it's the least expensive at Titan supermarket, which is on 31st Street, about a block away from Astoria Blvd. It's a Greek supermarket, and you can even sample the olives! (I've never done it, but I see little plastic-container spitoons along the olive barrels.) Anyway, Total yogurt is mmmmm decadently thick. It's fantastic with honey, fruit, jam, whatever. It's ridiculously good. You gotta go blue-container, full fat. The no-fat stuff has the thickness, but none of the flavor. It was pretty gross, in my opinion.

My mission is to find a local yogurt that's just as yummy and thick, because local is better, and the farmers that provide it can also give you more information about the conditions and treatment of the animals from where the yogurt originates. Fage claims that it doesn't use milk from cows pumped up with bovine growth hormone, which makes sense if it's made in Greece, because I think only the US (and maybe Canada) are crazy enough to endorse it. However, how do Fage's milk sources feed their cows? Are they fed industrialized grain and weird cannibalized cow parts? Can they move around with some freedom? Not only is it a question of compassionate care with the animal's health and well-being in mind, but most of the time, when an animal is treated well, it will produce better eggs, or milk, or wool. If you eat meat, then chances are, it will also taste better.

Here are the yogurts I've tried besides Total: Krinos ("Greek-style", which means it was made in the US); Stonyfield Farm (whole and low-fat); Ronnybrook Farm (maple and coconut); Hawthorne Valley Farm (plain and maple); Coach drinkable Yo-goat (made from goat's milk); and most recently, 3-Corner Field Farm Sheep's Milk Yogurt.

Of all the yogurts above, the 3-Corner Field Farm yogurt and Krinos are pretty much tied for thickness. Krinos is available in supermarkets here. I bought the 3-Corner yogurt at the Union Square Greenmarket. It definitely has a sheepy taste, and it carries a bit of a hefty price ($6 for a small take-out container's worth). I know that sheep's milk yogurt is generally more expensive, because sheep just don't produce as much milk as cows, and not as many farmers have sheep farms. Also, 2-Corner Field Farm is a small farm. www.dairysheepfarm.com. To escape the sheepy taste, I doused it with ginger-maple syrup (from the Vermont maple folks at Greenmarket), or honey (either linden flower honey from Tremblay Apiaries, or bamboo honey from Twin Oaks Apiary, both at Greenmarket).

Ronnybrook has a reputation for high-quality dairy products. Its stand at the Greenmarket is always swamped with people buying milk (in redeemable glass bottles!), ice cream, or some other yummy. So I tried the yogurt. The cream rises to the top of the yogurt, so it's superthick on top, but it's runny/practically drinkable underneath. Same thing goes for Hawthorne Valley. I've tried mixing it up, but the runniness is a turn-off.

Yo-goat is drinkable. I've heard that goat's milk is good for ya, but uh, goat's milk has a goaty taste, and the plain drinkable yo-goat is no exception. I avoid the flavored ones because I want to minimize those kinds of additives in a product -- I'd rather add my own sweetener.

Total's yogurt is strained, which is why it's so thick, I guess. I read someplace that even a city bumpkin like me could strain yogurt, which would be nice. Also, I guess I could even make my own yogurt. Hmmmmm. Oh, so many things in life to do, so little time ...