I always thought Beer Cocktails was a "bartender with too much free time" bad idea jeans, but this baby changed my mind. It originates at Rasika in DC. I make it with Stirrings Ginger liqueur instead of the much pricier Canton, and it was more than fine. More than fine--it maybe the ultimate hot weather thirst quencher. Give it a spin.
From ripe, juicy plum to wrinkled prune may be a petrifying analogy to our human journey, but you got to admit prunes have more taste than putrefying flesh (not that I'd know for sure). Intensified with the right ingredients, you got a bomb of a cake. This recipe is my mother’s, and it goes with any occasion.
1.5 cups prunes
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup soft butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Pit and dice prunes. Add lemon rind, set aside. Grease and flour a 9’’ tube pan. Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, salt; remove a quarter cup and toss with prunes. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. slowly beat in flour mixture, alternately with sour cream and vanilla, beginning and ending with flour. Fold in prunes, brown sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 350 degrees 55 minutes or until done. Cool in pan on rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before digging in.
The interesting thing about this recipe is it was imported to Denmark 35 years ago by my then au-pairing mother in Rhode Island. Now it’s back in New York and hittin' the vibe of high-calorie coffee cakes, right in tune.
NYC is a great pizza town (Luzzo’s and Motorino and Co. are three of my faves—Artichoke is the most overrated) but the cheap ingredients and assembly line atmosphere of most places gets me down after a while. Kat and I had a new Czech friend over for dinner, and we were itching for a pizza party.
Of course, our landlord supplied stove can’t go to the necessary heat of a real pizza oven (it tops out at 500 and feels like it’s going to melt at that) but our pizzas were light and delicious anyway.
We made three—a clam/potato pie which Kat was surprised she really liked (she’s from Rome and a traditionalist), a marinara and Prosciutto pie that was simple and awesome, and a “leftovers pie” (SEE DRUNKEN IPHONE PIC BELOW) with pork sausage, mozz, a little stilton cheese, tiny sweet peppers, olives and minced pickled jalapenos. Which was very good as well. We had a bunch of Czech beers and then I made Moscow Mules and then nobody seemed to make much sense when they talked. The End. ZZZZZZ.
KAT’S DOUGH
King Arthur flour will do the job, but if you mix in a bit of semolina you’ll get more of a bite. The easiest and best procedure is to make a starter. Take half a cup of semolina and mix it with 1,5 cup of white, unbleached, and enough luke-warm water to produce a liquidy dough. Mix up the dough with a fork, a pinch of dried yeast, generous pinches of salt and let it stand covered for 5-9 hours. 3-4 hours before you are ready to eat, mix in the remaining flour (approx 1,5 cup, but it check the texture: it needs to be springy when you’re done kneading it, but not as firm as actual bread). Keep kneading it till your arms give in (at least 10 min), then let it rise the second time, approx 3 hours, it needs to rise to triple size. When hunger seizes you, part the dough in four and start preparing the toppings. To produce a flat and round pizza, roll the dough into a ball and flatten it on a floured table, using the balm and fingers of your hand to stretch it. You can also use the gravity and hold it in the air, but it might take some practice!
CLAM AND POTATO WHITE PIZZA PIE
YOU’LL NEED:
Pizza dough (see above)
Minced garlic
Herbs—rosemary, red pepper flakes, sage, oregano, whatevers
One medium sized potato
Can of clams ( 6 oz can should do it)
Half a ball of the best mozzarella cheese you can get
Little wedge of Parmigiano cheese (grated)
DOIN IT: Slice up a potato into thin (but not potato chip thin) rounds. Fry in a skillet for about 6 minutes until edible. Sprinkle with black pepper and a little salt.
Roll out the dough, and sprinkle with a teaspoon each of your favorite herbs—minced garlic, sage, finely chopped rosemary, basil, red pepper, etc.
Cover with potato slices. Put into the oven at the highest possible temp and cook until the crust is firm and slightly golden.
Cover pizza with clams (and let that juice fly around as well), thin slices of mozzarella and a healthy dusting of Parmigiano cheese. Put back in the over and cook until the cheese is melted and the crust browns.
Grind a little black pepper on it. Eat it up and think good thoughts of us.
Let’s face it, New York’s parks may be riding a wave of Saturday Farm Markets, but an apricot in season is still outfaced by a corn syrup coke, and for a pound of artisanal cheese, Western Beef will proffer steaks enough to make your extended family belch. If you want to balance a healthy diet without having to eviscerate your cat’s insides and sell them to Stradivarius makers, the 29 cents a pound department of your local grocery store may be an option you want to consider.
For fear of mental apoplexy and similar ailments stemming from recurring actions causing irreparable damage to the springy nature of the heart and soul (no mentioning of coffee, cigarettes or hard drugs here), my partner in crime and I are adamant opponents of habits of any kind. However, because only a great orgasm beats a good bargain, we have made an exception: when we cook, we drop by the half-fresh-to-putrefying part of our grocery store.
Upon extensive doodling on a serious subjects, let God’s Growths Gone Bad shine for themselves:
Red, yellow & orange peppers, baby eggplants
He roasted the peppers, sautéd the eggplants in ketchup and hot sauce and blended the lot with a dash of salt and a dollop of olive oil. Voîlà!
Radishes
Slice’em and sprinkle their pink bodies over a couple of torn leaves from a crisp 2$ green-leaf farmer’s market salad (it will last you a week if you put it in a plastic bag in the fridge). Beautiful.
Dented strawberries
Are excellent if you cut away the brown parts, quarter them and let em soak in sugar and lemon an hour. Uuuuah. We had a delicacious desert for 18 cents worth of berries, beat that?
Apricots, who don’t love’em
Are best when soft as granma’s boob. If you’re tired of apricot tart, caramelized apricots, roasted apricots, apricot jam and apricot cake, try this freeze-light delight: mush your boobies, ups, babies up with sugar, a pinch of salt, a generous squirt of vermout and freeze, stirring occasionally. Serve with 9 cents worth of strawberries. Delish!
I want to direct all the people who say poor people eat fast food because it's cheaper than real food to our rough and tumble hood. As long as there's a grocer or supermarket with a bruised and neglected bargain bin for produce, there is no excuse not to eat good. Take that, Big Mac!
Hot sauces are nice, and there are infinite varieties, some even that break away from the standard hot pepper and vinegar recipe, but I find them a little limited after a while. I discovered this Brazilian Pirata garlic sauce a few years ago that I love. It doesn't have the overly strong taste or aroma of concentrated garlic--it's almost like a garlic creme sauce. And at under 2 bucks, it won't make your budget walk the plank.
It's great on bean pots, in homemade hummus and other dips, but it excels as the secret ingredient sprinkled on my steamed kale or veggies--giving savory garlic flavor and a slight vinegar tang without overpowering the vegetable goodness. Check it out.
Queens Comfort is a lot like much of Manhattan and Brooklyn--pre-made, cute, safe. A theme park version of what a fun NYC restaurant is. There's nothing unexpected, strange, scary or excellent or surprising to be had, but by golly, judging by the scores of half-cool Brooklyn types there happily lining up, that's what NYC douchebags crave these day. On a street with a gay bar with amazing hamburgers and good cocktails, and a beautiful Italian deli, this half-ass place packs em in. Fuck tourists and trend followers. Walk around a little and perhaps make up your minds and try something that you've not already been told to do by NY mag or some website. How lame is this place? My OLD BOSS came to Queens to eat there.
The details--the brunch burrito is tasteless, the chicken is too salty and waffles are EGGOS (frozen supermarket shite), the fried green tomato sammy is bad fat people food.
I liked the DVD of Destroy All Monsters (Japanese monster flick) on the wall, but that's a bar vibe, and so is the loud 60s rock on satellite radio. And this is not a bar, THEY DON'T EVEN SERVE ALCOHOL.
RATING: Boo Hiss.
Queens Comfort 40-09 30th Ave Queens, NY11103
(photo by guest photo snapper Chante Tenoso, whom I still owe for this meal. )
Sorriso's Market
44-16 30th Ave
Astoria, NY 11103
718-728-4392
If you venture past Steinway on 30th street, into the land of Sicilian accents and cigar-smoking men in suits in front of "members only" clubs, the small grocery shop Sorriso should not escape your attention. Paralyzed in the aisle as we ogled the array of mouth watering products, we were interrupted by a new friend offering us thick wedges of soft&white-as-a-babe's-bum-before-spanking home made (every hour) mozzarella -- and while the Italian sprinkled our tongues with slices of sausage, we whipped out our $$, and left the shop enriched with two pounds of that better-than-a-milking-breast mozza, a basil-tomato-sausage (custom made, big enough for two, and only $6.50), and a sandwich the angels would weep for. Due to an unforeseen onset of rapaciousness no pictures are available of the die-by-panino, but let it be said that our taste buds were opened by a touch of balsamico, then tickled by the spiciness of the hell-hot salami, and finally embraced by the salty fattiness of the lush cheese, a singular experience comparable only to the the tears of the compassionate Madonna soothing your existential pain.
The mozzarella below will be sacrificed tonight for a pizza, but we will not fail to follow-up on the use of any remnants of this piece of paradise.
Food Exchange (309 Madison Ave, NY, NY) is a typical worker bee/dumb tourist joyless food machine kind of place in Midtown. On a Sunday killing time before seeing a movie at MoMA, I saw the street in front of their place FULL OF BIG BAGS of perfectly good food, including these pristine salads (that cost 8 bucks a shot). Disgraceful. There's homeless people all over NYC, families barely making ends meet, kids who've never had a good salad in their life, and hundreds of dollars worth of perfectly edible food is out on the street as garbage.
I'm no dumpster diver crusty punk rat type, but I took a salad home, and it was fine.
F*ck Food Exchange, and restaurant culture in general. Make food at home--you'll eat better and save money.
Empanadas are wonderful ways to use up what you have lying around the house. These came out amazing! I also made a salsa full of leftovers (not pictured--greedy Kat ate it all) which has canned hominy in it, (my genius/desperate invention) which is a nice savory counterpart to the fruit--really worked well. Use this recipe as an inspiration to give it your own creative spin.
LEFTOVER EMPANADAS
10 Goya Discos Grandes (other brands will do but Goya is best--try the one with annatto in it)
two cups bean pot or dal (I had made dal the other week and frozen it)
1 red onion, diced
mango pickles (find in your local indian or pakistani market) or pickled jalapenos, diced
1 package Chinese fake pork, sauteed in ketchup and hot sauce and chicken broth
cranberry chedder cheese I got from East Village Cheese on sale for 75 cents a square (but any good cheese that's not too mild or too salty will do), crumbled
DOIN' IT: Defrost the Discos. Put two tablespoons beans, three small pieces of fake meat, sprinkle with cheese, red onion, pickles. Fold over and seal with fingers, then squash with fork on both sides to seal edges.
My brother got me a Fry Daddy for Xmas, which works much better than a skillet full of oil, but a skillet will do. Repeat and fry each one until golden brown. Put on paper towel. Cool and little, then dig in.
MANGO HOMINY SALSA
One ripe mango
1/2 cup blueberries, frozen or fresh
One small can of Hominy or Pozole, drained
juice of two limes
a couple of whatever hot peppers are cheap at the market, chopped fine
1 pickled jalapeno, sliced
2 tablespoons vinegar
1/4 cup molasses and or sugar (wing it)
salt/pepper
DOIN' IT: Peel and chop up the mango. Put in a pot on low heat. throw in the blueberries and the hot peppers and all the rest of the crap. Pour a little of the juice from the pickled jalapenos as well in there. Stir and simmer for about 5 minutes and season with salt and pepper.
Pour over the empanadas, dunk em, whatever just have fun. A good glass of cold beer or a margarita is a nice buddy to this meal
While on my way to the Folsom Street East kink fest (a decided letdown for anyone who's been to the San Fran version--big signs saying "Total Nudity Forbidden" will give you an idea how repressed NYC is compared to the anything goes West Coast version) I wandered upon this tiny, barely air conditioned place. The owner told me their all you can eat 10 buck buffet was gone because a pack of hungry bears (hirsute and heavy gay men--or as he called them "Street festival men") descended on the joint and cleaned him out. Fat guys and all you can eat mean nothing but trouble for restaurant owners for sure.
I opted for the Vegitarian lamprais (nuts, tubers, egg and pickles baked in a banana leaf with rice) which was not bad. Spicy, but not the lingering spice of Mexican food. Sadly no beer to wash it down on a hot day, but their native brand of creme soda was excellent.
The only weird thing was he didn't understand tipping. He argued with me why I gave him 17 bucks when the bill was only 14. Odd.
Would eat there again. Not bad and certainly a new cuisine to explore.
Banana Leaf
228 W 28th St. New York, NY 10001 Open daily from 11:00am to 11:00pm.
212-494-0000
