Author: zora

My favorite kind of cooking

As I just mentioned, Peter and I are moving. To 30th Avenue, the beating heart of Greek Astoria, just a couple of blocks from the 24-hour produce store that made me swoon on my very first visit to the neighborhood. A sort of homecoming, if you will, or my finally achieving my dream of living by the largest pile of eggplants in all of New York City.

And when you’re getting ready for moving, you’re looking around and paring down your belongings, trying to minimize additional purchases (or you do if you’re not a complete packrat, like some people I could name). That attitude has crept into my food consumption as well, which is a little flawed, because we don’t move till Thursday, and I haven’t bought any groceries in many, many days.

But when you set strange limits, you have to get creative, and you surprise yourself. Like the other night, when it seemed the cupboard was utterly bare. And I actually did something I have never, ever done in New York: I ordered takeout.

I know, for most people, especially here in NYC, “my favorite kind of cooking”=”I ordered takeout.”

But it has been a point of pride for me never to cave to that urge to just give up and have some guy bring food to your door. So you know I must’ve been desperate when I called up Mundo.

Well, actually, I was really hankering for some manti, but I didn’t feel like I had time or energy to go out to the lovely and charming restaurant of Mundo itself–which, come to think of it, I suppose is the main reason why people order takeout. (Also because they are too disorganized or don’t know how to cook, but that’s a different problem–one you can solve.)

So I was talking to the guy on the phone, and I ordered the celery root veggie dish, and he said they were out. “How about the artichokes?” he asked. Normally I’d yell YES!, but actually that reminded me that Peter had bought some artichokes a couple of weeks ago, and they were probably still in the fridge. So I capped my order, and went into the kitchen to investigate.

(From here on in, I have to warn you, this becomes like those blogs I hate, the ones that go, “I made this lovely thing, and ate it, and mused on the loveliness of life.” But at least there are no photos.)

Indeed, there in the fridge were the artichokes. And a bowl full of lettuce that Tamara had washed the weekend previous. So I set the ‘chokes on to boil, and I made a salad dressing for the lettuce. Because it didn’t look like there was anything else in the way of veg, I thought I’d make the dressing extra lively, and stirred in a big glob of yogurt, which had also been languishing a while. And grated in some really hard Dutch cheese someone had brought us as a present a couple of months back. And did manage to find a cucumber. And lo, it was a magnificent salad, wrought from nothing. I melted some butter for the ‘chokes just as the doorbell rang.

Mundo treats: manti (Turkish dumplings), beef empanadas (all silky, sweet-and-savory ground meet), and red-lentil-and-bulgur patties. The humongous cheesy-yogurty green salad. The artichokes with butter. A half-drunk bottle of rose from the fridge (when has there ever been a half-drunk bottle of wine in our fridge?!). We had so much food that we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Loaves and fishes, fishes and loaves.

The added salad made me feel like not such a chump for ordering takeout (and if I hadn’t ordered, the artichokes probably would’ve continued to be forgotten). And the whole positive experience has made me quite cocky about grocery shopping in the next few days. All condiments, all the time!

Awesome Astoria!

Thank god–someone else is doing the job I am far too daunted by:

“2 german girls review Greek cafes in Astoria Queens”

I’ve just started to skim. Reference to Lindsay Lohan-style lace leggings? Always gets me. Snark about glowing walls? Uh-huh. Willingness to bend the bounds of mission (with review of not-exactly-Greek Wassi, which I was curious about)? We got it.

What’s really astounding to see, though, is their master to-do list of cafes–which is far longer than I ever could’ve imagined. Yipes. That’s a lot of frappes.

I wonder, though, have they discovered the perverse genius of the iced-tea frappe?

I think I’ll go make myself one now. My goal before I move on Thursday is to eat everything in our pantry that is less than a third full (bonus points for spices), and the Lipton iced tea mix is just barely in that category.

News from elsewhere

Peter reports on our barbecue-rib bonanza last night chez Tamara here: Grizzled Gastronomes Guzzle NYC BBQ. I would write about it myself, but I just sat at home all day doing crossword puzzles, and then showed up just as the ribs were ready for eatin’. They were goo-ood.

Then, from farther afield, Matt Shaw proves that Hawaii Mart kicks U-Mart‘s ass: Your Goose Uterus Superstore. But he’s in L.A., so it’s not quite a fair comparison. Still, I’m envious.

Alex Witchel, unhappier than ever

And so am I. There’d been a breather in the New York Times Dining section, several Witchel-free weeks when relatively normal food-loving people were getting all the attention. There was that great story on global cold drinks, for instance, which gave props to frappes in Astoria. And all those Anna Sortun recipes, for things like Persian-spiced fried chicken.

And then, rats, Ms. Dismal Diner was back, with a bee in her bonnet about impolite behavior at charity dinners.

Yawn.

I mean, really. I’m supposed to feel bad for her? To give her a consoling squeeze on the shoulder (mentally) and say, “I’ve heard the life of a socialite is hard, but gah, you poor girl! To have to endure a whole formal dinner with a guy sitting next to you sending emails all night? And you only got a mis-cooked lamb chop out of it? I don’t know how you do it!”

I’m sorry, but complaining about someone’s socially inappropriate use of a BlackBerry is about as played out as Brokeback Mountain jokes (ahem). It adds nothing more to our cultural conversation.

And what’s the point of an elaborate blind item (the chronic emailer is a “Hollywood Big Shot”) if there’s no chance of my guessing the name? Oh, wait, I know: the point is to impress me with the fact that not only does she go to dinners with HBSs, but she’s so worldly that she’s bored to tears by said studio moguls.

Then it all ends with this last-paragraph veer into a random James Beard pasta recipe that she plans to cook when she escapes this social hell. Which I guess would be OK, but in the couple of sentences she’s got left, she can’t resist a comment on the dish’s apparent unhealthiness: “…I wouldn’t serve it to my cardiologist,” she admits.

How self-defeating and miserable-making is that? This woman (1) drags her sorry ass to a totally optional charity dinner, (2) doesn’t have the balls to “accidentally” spill her wine all over HBSs BlackBerry, and then (3) can’t even enjoy her consolation pasta dinner later without noting how it will surely kill her one day.

This is the whole reason I object to Witchel so much: her columns present no real choices. If you endure a crappy formal dinner, then you go home and have something you’re afraid might be artery-clogging. Or maybe you kind of enjoy a dinner, for once, but then discover it was all a catered hoax. Or you go out to one of the better restaurants in the city, but realize you’re not in the mood, but you can’t bring yourself to leave and go eat somewhere you’ll feel more comfortable. (That last was in a March column about enduring haughty treatment at Cafe Gray because she secretly wanted to eat lasagne or something.) At the very ends of her columns, she always seems to be retreating to her house to sulk.

The beauty of food, and dining, and cooking, is that you have a million choices (at least in middle-class-and-up America). With food, you have a chance to make yourself happy three times a day. And yet Alex Witchel doesn’t seem to have enough personal agency to wring a moment of joy out of a single meal–or not that we ever hear about. A tragic waste, both of her gastronomic life, and of prime column inches. I suppose reading about happy things is boring, but it’s like the Times Dining section was afraid of getting called out for bias, and so felt obliged to give space to the opposing view, that eating actually sucks.

Well, I’m a genius–solved all that. Now I’m going to eat a normal dinner, once again, with people I like and without place cards. A few weeks ago, a new person came to our Sunday dinner, and at the end of the night, she said, “Hey, I just realized no one ever asked me what kind of work I did! That’s so nice!” I take a certain pride in that. But does it mean I may have been eating dinner with a Hollywood Big Shot and not even known it? Talk about a blind item.

Pret a Manger, I wish I could quit you.

I know, Brokeback jokes are already totally over. But I do have a troubled relationship with PaM, which is the closest sandwich shop to my freelance magazine job. I swear it off, and then it lures me back. Last time it hooked me was with a hot, hot new manager and some good chocolate croissants. But then I had some more weird soggy sandwiches, and gave it up again. Until this week.

This week I failed to buy breakfast stuff for home, which is the perfect excuse for a chocolate croissant and a little rekindling of the flame with the manager. I waltz into PaM, and not only are they out of croissants, but my beloved is nowhere to be seen–he must’ve gone back to play acoustic guitar in the lefty student bar in whatever Latin American city he’s from.

Sulk. Sulk. Sulk. Fine. I’ll have some freakin’ oatmeal.

Which was awesome! They add granola and raisins and sesame seeds, and then ladle on some maple syrup. And by the time you get to your desk, it’s all congealed perfectly. And only $3. Oh, and the new manager is not bad-looking either, if you like a tall, sharp-dressed black man.

So then on top of it all, I’m sitting at my desk today thinking, Time for a sandwich. I wish PaM made half sandwiches. Guess I’ll have to choke a whole one down…

And then I wander downstairs and, you guessed it, they now have half sandwiches. I kind of resent the “Pret Slim” label and the side-of-box copy that suggests you’d only eat these if you’re dieting, but I guess they can’t really say you might want to eat them if you just plain get tired of a whole damn soggy Pret sandwich. Or if you don’t have all that much cash that day, or have already filled up on cupcakes that were sitting around the office.

Oh, and they have that nice credit-card system where you don’t have to sign anything.

I just don’t know what to think anymore. I might have to take PaM back.

World Cup (o’ Soup)

This World Cup thing… I’m not sporty, but I like the idea. It helps that pretty much all the teams that are winning so far have vocal representatives in my neighborhood. Sitting in my living room with the windows open, I can tell when a match has ended, and guess who won, just by the whooping, and whether it’s coming from the left (Mexicans at the bodega) or the right (Croatians next door). Alas, Ecuador was beat–I didn’t hear a peep out of them.

But still, I’m sitting in my living room. I haven’t gotten out to the Argentine bar, or to one of the many, many Brazilian joints here on 36th Ave. Last go-round, I really kind of intended to go to the playoffs and celebrate with local Brazilians, but then before I knew it, it was all over–I didn’t realize the World Cup doesn’t go into endless finals the way the NBA playoffs do.

Why can’t I catch the World Cup fever? I’m looking for a bit more of a hook, I guess.

Enter Rod Ben Zeev, boat captain and comedian of Amsterdam, who’s doing a blog for the International Herald-Tribune about the cup. Today’s entry puts soccer in terms I can understand: culinary terms. (Plus, it gives a little more context for the krokets mentioned a few entries back.)

The other thing that might hook me comes via another Amsterdam comedian friend, Brendan Hunt, who’s doing a daily video report for MSN called The Unlikely Fan. Brendan’s more of a burgers-and-fries guy, but his total mania and extreme goofiness are pretty compelling. Goofy sports I don’t mind–I only tune out when people start getting very serious.

OK, I’m almost ready to go to a bar somewhere and drink beer and sing silly songs. Please tell me I haven’t missed it all again.

Gorge!

Initially, I’d meant “gorge” to be short for “gorgeous,” in reference to this photo of a sandwich from Sal, Kris & Charlie Deli in lovely Ditmars-area Astoria. But, ha, now I see the more obvious meaning, when considering the sheer girth of “The Bomb” and other legendary heroes from this great little Italian sandwich joint.

But they do make a beautiful sandwich–and they know it. Every time I’ve been in there, the deal wraps up, just in front of the cash register, with this lovely little ritual: the guy (Sal? Kris? Charlie?) puts the sandwich on the big sheet of deli paper, slices it in half, and then ever so briefly tips the sliced sides up and toward you, to show off the sandwich’s perfect striation, like a little cutaway from the Grand Canyon of Lunch. Then the guy proceeds with wrapping the sandwich, which takes .02 seconds.

And then you pay, and push out between all the assembled cops and various other regulars, and, perhaps you end up sitting on the Ditmars train platform, waiting for a train and unable to wait to eat this most beautifully striped sandwich.

And then the train comes in, and the conductor gets off and walks right past you, and then does a full slapstick double-take. “LADY,” he gasps, “where did you get that BEAUTIFUL sandwich?!”

So I told him: 33-12 23rd Ave., right under the Amtrak tracks. Very convenient for MTA employees, and anyone else in search of lunchtime perfection.

All signs point to U-Mart

For the first time in my life, probably–except for visiting Dairy Queens along I-40–I followed the advice of a billboard.

I was biking back from Elmhurst, following a third failed attempt to pick up my glasses from the half-assed insurance run optical shop, when I saw the little billboard for U-Mart, at the corner of Northern Boulevard and Broadway. Big red arrows promised it was nearby. Tiny print, too small to be read by passing motorists, promised all kinds of Asian delicacies.

I made the short detour to 56-02 31st Avenue, pulling up to the back door of the place, off 56th Street. First of all, it’s a novelty in NYC to have that set up with the back door into the parking lot. I felt like I was in L.A.

Then I really felt like I was in normal suburbia when I walked through the sliding auto doors and was deposited first of all in the beer section. I put a $4.99 six-pack of Tsing Tao in my basket and proceeded on.

Actually, I didn’t buy much more than beer, some 409 and a mango, because I knew I wouldn’t be cooking at home for a few days, but I saw plenty of intriguing things for a future visit:

  • Wonton wrappers, both “Hong Kong style” and “Shanghai style”
  • Skimmers, strainers and all sorts of other devices for picking deep-fried goodies out of hot oil
  • Prepared Chinese deli snacks, the types of which I can’t really remember, but some involved chicken kidneys
  • Reasonably priced organic milk
  • Vats of olives, which aren’t the least bit Asian, but I guess every full-service grocery worth its salt now has to have the olive buffet. There was also a display of not-so-great faux-yuppie bread.
  • Whole frozen eels
  • Whole frozen ox penis
  • Live fish, in aquariums placed right below the dead fish, fileted and plopped on ice. I wondered if the live guys could hear the sinister cha-thunk of cleavers on the heavy boards right behind them.
  • Not the greatest-looking greens, which is surprising for a Chinese-run place. Not that these were bad, but they weren’t that crazy, lively, amazing kind of produce you usually see that makes you want to buy it that instant.
  • But this was made up for by 13 different brands of fish sauce! I mean, you’ve got your Squid brand, your Golden Boy, your Tsiparos, but, whoa, most of these I’d never even seen before. Hot diggity.
  • Also, a huge selection of frozen stuff, from dumplings to lemongrass to kaffir lime. Sure, it’s nice to get this stuff fresh (which I think they also had), but frozen is still better than nothing in/around Astoria, which is generally a Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese wasteland.

So, U-Mart, final review: pretty damn good, and the closest fully stocked pan-Asian grocery to Astoria.

Here in Astoria proper, you can find a few things on random shelves: for instance, the Guyanese-run grocery on 36th Ave and 33rd St has fish sauce and dried shrimp, and the produce place on 31st St right under the Ditmars train stairs has fish sauce and noodles. But no consistent source of greens or other condiments.

After I left the store, I went around the front to see the main facade. Huh–I’ve been biking by the place on my way to Jackson Heights for years, but I guess there was a tree in the way of the sign, or I just wrote off the whole block of shops because it started with the Bagelman of Woodside.

The weird thing is that since I went to U-Mart, I’ve now seen its ads everywhere–random flyers on the street, guys with a U-Mart sandwich board outside the Steinway subway stop, etc. But you heard it here first: U-Mart wants to feed you some chicken kidneys!

My Husband Went to Morocco and Amsterdam, and All I Got…, part II

thorsThe other not so great but kind of intriguing thing Peter brought back was this flyer for the ultimate kroket.

Now, if you know anything about Dutch food, especially the kind of Dutch food made for drunk people, you know that “ultimate kroket” is kind of a paradox.

A kroket is a little deep-fried wad of…stuff. Misc. goo. I’m not sure what it is, or what it once was. They’re in the category of borrelhapjes, literally the little bites you have with your glass of gin, so really, the flavor isn’t too important–you’re just out to protect your liver. A few years ago, I trailed at the one Dutch restaurant in NYC (now closed), and the poor non-Dutch chef who’d just taken over reserved a special expression of horror for the krokets he was obliged to make. He didn’t really know what was in the goo, either.

Anyway, done right, they’re deep-fried so they’re, like all fine food, crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. In fact, the middle is usually like liquid napalm, and if you’re drunk and eat one without letting it cool, you will suffer terrible burns all over your mouth, and thus feel even more regret for your boozing than if you just had the normal pain of a hangover. If you’re sober and eat one…well, you wouldn’t eat one if you’re sober.

So, what I’m getting at is that the kroket is really not something anyone would think to improve on, because you only think about krokets if you’ve been drinking (and if you wear a tracksuit and gold chains and come from Alkmaar), and then you think they’re perfectly good.

But someone had a vision. Some guy named Thorwald Voss. He happens to have been the original genius behind Supper Club, back when Supper Club was really crazy and cool and not an international chain of sort-of-crazy-and-cool clubs (and, I assume, the inspiration for Monkeytown in Williamsburg).

Now the guy is making krokets. (Which makes me wonder just what happened there behind the scenes at Supper Club…that’s a long way to fall.)

But they’re not just any kroket. They’re “Thor’s Love Croquet [sic…in fact, sic galore from here on out]“:

Every bite a different taste: bechamel, cream cheese, onion, marmalade, nutmeg, hot chili sauce, japanees ginger, artisjok, capers, japanees bread crumbs, sunflower oil, frying pan, lots of love.

In short, Thor has taken the kroket-for-drunks and made it into the kroket-for-stoners. As Peter says, it’s like the Everlasting Gobstopper of krokets: each bite is another flavor, just as the flyer promises.

As for the other promise on the flyer, the cryptic “Stop thinkin,” I’m not sure what to make of that. The kroket seems to be thinking it. But then it’s thinking. So it hasn’t stopped. Dude. You could think about that for hours.

And there’s more thought-provoking material on the back of the flyer:

There have been made 100,000 of these croquets by hand. The recepie changes everytime. A piece of art is never finished. The thought that everything is a thought, is a thought that can be thoughtless thought about. This has been approved by scientists. Let’s try and get conscious of are unconsciousnees.”

Whoa. Are those the same “scientists” that made the Future Protein vegetarian snacks from the previous posts? And is he suggesting these krokets also have a layer of LSD in them? This really, really makes me wonder what happened at Supper Club.

THORWALD VOSS: Hey, everybody, if we all take our shoes off and eat on beds, and people feed us hash brownies, and someone swings on a trapeze, then we’ll get conscious of are unconsciousnees, yes? Wait, maybe hash krokets would be cooler…

TV’S BUSINESS PARTNERS, AKA WANNABE CORPORATE STICKS-IN-THE-MUD: Uh, yeah, but the customers might also be unconscious of the check. Have fun with your krokets, Thor.

But who’s got the last laugh? Supper Club is now a sort-of cool place that’s losing edginess credibility at the same rate it’s expanding around the globe, but Thor is selling his mind-expanding krokets at summer festivals in Amsterdam for 5 EUROS APIECE. This is a 500% markup on your standard kroket. And people are buying them, and talking about them. Rod said to Peter, “Dude, there’s the 5-euro kroket guy. You HAVE to try one of them.” (I paraphrase.) His reputation as the kroket/croquet master, nay, kroket guru precedes him.

Rock your krokets, Thor. One day soon I too will be in Amsterdam, and I will be eating your kroket and thinking that everything is a thought. Or not thinking. Or something. Dude.