Boycot Food Exchange

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.

Vegetarian Empanadas with hominy/mango salsa

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

Banana Leaf--Taste of Sri Lanka

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