Apologies for the extended delay in posts, we’ve been a bit busy with our other blog. But rest assured that Brunchtastic is back in full effect and just as angry as before, if note more so.

I know one of the reasons I’ve been so lackadaisical about posting is the winter and its never ending monotonous march of root vegetables and mealy apples. It doesn’t seem as though there is a new thing anywhere to taste, never mind to bother writing about. Much of my disillusionment stems from my winter CSA share, which, if anything, would seem to alleviate the winter produce blues. Unfortunately, my roommate and I faced month after month of nearly rotting beets, potatoes, turnips and tired greens. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, and this is coming from two people who are obsessed with their summer share (and I mean obsessed), but carrying home 30 lbs of this stuff only made us lament the never coming spring even more.

So here’s hoping that April brings green things; it will, at the very least, bring Passover, and for that I am grateful indeed.

ps- We are not actually responsible in any way for Stuff White People Like.

I’m currently reading Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, and it brings to mind the curious trend of impossibly narrow food challenges that people have imposed upon themselves this year as the wave of food politics has swelled to tsunami-like proportions.

Barbara Kingsolver and family eat locally for a year, growing nearly everything on their Appalachian farm and sticking pretty well to it during the lean times, which is more than I can say. She’s an unapologetic locavore and a hell of a writer, making for an interesting read that mixes recipes, anecdotes, and serious politics.

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com

 

Then there was that crazy (but sort of awesome) guy in Bay Ridge who planted a farm in his backyard intending to eat only from the veggies and animals he raised himself for the month of August, only to be hit by the freakish tornado that touched down there. He was the subject of a New York Mag cover story and made me want to move to a semi-detached in Bay Ridge.

http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/37273/

 

But there’s more—the New York City Council Member who ate for a week purely on what could be bought with food stamps—and nearly starved to death (ok I’m exaggerating, but barely). His stunt was political to be sure but still a sobering reminder, and one of the more honest food challenges to surface this year. Clearly he’s not the only one doing it, but WNYC did a great story (if only I could find it online)

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/tags/eric%20gioia

 

The big NYTimes article about freegans from this past summer. I’ve done my share of dumpster diving but cannot fathom wrangling a healthy diet from it. Cheers to them, I suppose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/garden/21freegan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

Even Adam Gopnik got into the game, composing a week long mélange of foods produced in the five boroughs.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/03/070903fa_fact_gopnik

 

The result? Am I more conscious of every bite of food that I put into my mouth now that I was on December 27^th, 2006? Undoubtedly yes, but I am also a little sick of the notion that eating responsibly is a challenge at all, something that can only be done in bits and spurts, before one grows tired, fed up, or literally hungry. Everything in moderation, after all.

 

(sorry for the weird formatting)

The Seventh Avenue Donut Luncheonette (actually, I have no idea what it’s real name is) on Seventh Ave near 9th Street in Park Slope has long been a source of comfort with its dizzying array of homemade donuts. We’ve always been particularly fond of the Boston Cream, wheat, marble twists, and of course, the famous but rare Puffs.

The diner is open 24 hours and a dozen can be had for about $4.50, $2.55 for a half, which brings me to the crux of the issue: is one donut, no matter how fabulous, ever worth $2.50 when six good ones can be had for the price?

I am often tempted by the stunning, square Doughnut Plant donuts that sit right next the cash register at the Dean & Deluca on 85th and Madison, as I pay $2.11 too much for a half-caf on occasional mornings, and I always make sure to snag a sample from the broken pastries plate, savoring it as I stir in a huge amount of Splenda (say what you will about Dean & Deluca, but they are not cheap with the freebies). Last Friday, I finally broke down and bought one, or three, in order to engage in a very official taste test– Doughnut Plant vs. the Seventh Ave Donut Shop.

And yes, the Doughnut Plant ones were delicious, with a weightier texture than the barely-there yeast donuts from 7th Ave, but still somewhat lighter than the diner’s wheat cake donut, they are flavorful, inventive, and pretty perfect. The Coconut Cream was full of both coconut and cream, the Blueberry Jelly had a veritable ton of nice jelly in it, and the Hazlenut would have been the perfect complement to a cup of coffee, with a nutty flavor that would have stood up to dunking.  The flavors are simply more intense than anything offered by the diner; they deserve to have their names capitalized.

But they were also $2.50 a piece. Some of that is, of course, a mark up from D&D, but that is still a ridiculously expensive piece of fried dough. I respect the artistic genius that goes into creating artisan donuts as much as the next person, but is there a point when the humble donut becomes more than just a tasty way to soak up excess alcohol? How can it not be a status symbol at that price? Is the difference in quality enough to justify the difference in price? Like that expensive latte in the sylish Dean & Deluca cup, when you place a Doughnut Plant Donut on your breakfast plate, you are making a statement about who you are, how much you know, and how you live. Most of the time, it’s a statement I’d rather not be making, regardless of how perfect the crumb is.

On a side note, I highly recommend the book Donuts, An American Passion, by John Edge.

lifehacker posted this article today about their top 10 food and drink hacks.  Highlights include everyone’s favorite no-knead bread recipe, and how to avoid crying while chopping onions.

Some days you just gotta embrace your inner wasp (not that I have a wasp bone in my body, but hey.) My embracing of waspness tends to involve cucumber sandwiches, tea, crumpets and most importantly, scones. I just made some fucking kick ass cream scones. And they were soooooo easy. If they did come outa wee bit flat. I’m a sucker for adding too much liquid, what can I say?

I found this on my favorite geeky website of all time, instructables.com. It was posted by Canida, who I adore from afar. She made the awesomely gross mouse mouse. Also, she cooks. And from this recipe I’d say she knows what she’s doing. (Mine however, not fluffy like in the picture)

The scones involved one bowl and one baking sheet. I added freshly candied lemon peel and currants. Delicious. It’s all I can do from keeping myself from eating them all.

Cream Scones ala Canida:

pre-heat oven at 350

2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 generous handful of currants and minced candied lemon peel 1 1/4 cups heavy cream (I used half heavy cream and half buttermilk)

Mix all the dry ingredients together, including the fruit.

Add heavy cream to your dry ingredients, and stir everything together with a fork. This will make a rather moist biscuit-like dough. You don’t need to make it completely homogeneous; just get all the pockets of dry ingredients worked in. Add the cream a bit at a time. The less you work the dough the crumblier they will be.

I found the dough to be rather wet so I made drop scones. Use two spoons to push about two tablespoons of dough onto your ungreased baking sheet. Leave about an inch between your scones.

Sprinkle a bit of granulated sugar on top of the scones. You can use a bit of cream to wet the tops of the scones first.

 

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes the tops should be a light golden brown.

 

Eat with devonshire cream and jam.

Candied Lemon Peel (from the second edition of the Joy of Cooking)

I adore the second edition of the Joy of Cooking. It has all those old fashioned recipes that you always seem to need, like candied citrus peel. Also, it tells you how to skin a small mammal.

This takes a while but you don’t have to pay attention to it.

Cut lemon (or any citrus peel) off of the fruit. You can leave some of the white pith on the peel.

Cover the peel with cold water in a small pot, it should be about an inch or two of water. Slowly bring to a boil, turn down and simmer for ten minutes. Pour off water and leave peel in the pot. Repeat three to five times.

For each cup of peel make a syrup of

1/4 cup water

1/2 sugar

Add peel to the syrup and boil until the peel is transparent and most of the syrup is absorbed into the peel. Any left over syrup can be poured on a buttered baking sheet (or wax paper), it will dry into hard lemon candy.)

Remove peel from the syrup and roll in either granulated or powdered sugar. Let dry. If you like you can dip them in chocolate and eat them like candy.

This Thanksgiving I was lucky enough to be able to cook diner for my family. Granted it’s a pretty small family, just myself, my two sisters, and my mother. Nevertheless, I think that my menu managed to be just a little ambitious, but at the same time well within my capability, and int the end turned out pretty well. I improvised a lot of it the day of so I don’t know if I can remember every detail, but here’s basically how it all went down.

Butternut Squash Soup – I made this the day before, and it turned out really well. This was my first squash soup, so I was delighted at how easy it was. You can really do whatever you want with it, and it’s bound to taste good. Mine relied heavily on ginger, with some garlic, onions, and brown sugar thrown in.

(my mom and my sister paralyzed with delight)

Cajun Rubbed Turkey – This was great, or at least I thought so. My approach to the turkey was one of little effort. You see, in the Malin household – my household – we’re not so much into the turkey. There are after all more important things going on, so why waste the time? Thusly, I decided to stick with a really simple rub for the turkey. It was perfect for the situation. The turkey had a little extra flavor and avoided being dry, and I was able to concentrate on more important dishes. Nice.

Curry sweet potato mash with walnuts and marshmallow – Again, as with basically everything else on the menu, this was super easy to put together. First I cut up the potatoes into half inch cubes and boiled them. Then, I went ahead and mashed them with all of my seasonings, as well as the walnuts and some of the marshmallows. That mix stuck around in a casserole dish until the very end, when it was put in the oven for another 10-15 minutes to heat up and melt the marshmallows on the top.

Roasted vegetables – Mushrooms and cauliflower with olive oil, garlic, and seasoning. Everyone seemed to like this the best, which is a bit of a disappointment as it was the easiest thing to make.

Roasted red potatoes – Exactly what you might imagine.

Ginger green beans – Good, but we used frozen beans. My sister isn’t allowed to buy the groceries anymore.

Biscuits – These are the biscuits I wrote about way back when. They were good, but not nearly as pretty as in the past.

My mom topped things off with her incredible stuffing and cranberry sauce. we all insisted that she make both considering they’re the highlight of the meal for my sisters and I. Maybe if I ask her nicely, she’ll write a post about it. Here’s what it looked like all put together.

After we ate, everyone passed out for a few hours, which I’m pretty sure was a good thing.

Of all the lessons learned last Thursday, the most important was that there will never be enough mashed potatoes.

Sure, 8 pounds sounds like a lot for 10 people, but you must take into account that when these 8 pounds are divided into 4 varieties, everyone is going to want to get their dirty little forks into some of each variety, leading to a not-so-happy situation come leftover time.  So make a lot, because they will go, and honestly, they will never go bad (come on, who’s ever seen moldy mashed potatoes?)

The brilliance of the mashed potato is that you can add whatever you want once you mash them, making it much easier to make 4 varieties of them, rather than say, 4 varieties of cranberry sauce, each of which must be made completely differently from the get go.

The varieties and the verdicts (all made by my roommate– she is a genius and mashed potato fanatic)

Caramelized Shallot with Sage – We added way more fresh sage and way more shallots than this called for, making a sort of brownish mash, but oh were they good. Like giving your old mashed potatoes a face-lift and buying them a fancy new cocktail dress, if mashed potatoes were an old woman, that is.

Corn Saffron - My favorite, with a gorgeous golden hue and a nice subtly sweet flavor. The saffron wasn’t overpowering, and the corn gave it a great texture. Like my old blue collar favorite, Shepherd’s Pie, but without the nasty meat.

Horseradish with Sour Cream – The aforementioned grabby forks ate all of these before they made it down to my end of the table, but I imagine they tasted decadent.

Garlic – Can’t go wrong with the classic. Also disappeared mighty fast.

That’s a pretty plate,  not withstanding my popover disaster, prominently featured in the foreground.

In yet another fine showing on the information super highway, Brunchtastic has held up to its reputation as a beacon of class and sophistication on the internet. Here are some of the search terms that lead you fine readers to our website.

I apologize to all of you who were hoping for straight-up food network porn. I’ll work on that in the future.

Alright. I haven’t written anything in a while, and I think that sucks. Jen’s been picking up the slack, which is great, but I think I need to show some real commitment to Brunchtastic. I can’t get lazy now that I’ve achieved my goal of fame and fortune on the interweb.

To show my dedication, I went ahead and shelled out the big bucks (nothing really, for a baller like me), and went to craftbar, Chef Tom Colicchio’s elaborate wine bar restaurant in the not-so-lower east side. Actually it was a friends birthday, but still, I had my review in mind the entire time.

Here’s what I ordered:

To start, I ordered Le Serena. A very thick and creamy Spanish sheep cheese. It was served with two slices of cranberry walnut bread. It was really good, and stinky. I happen to like spreadable stinky cheeses like this one.

For my main course I got the Scottish Salmon with Apples, Smoked Bacon, and Brussels Sprouts. This dish left a lot to be desired. While the fish was cooked well, with a nice crust on the top, the supporting ingredients fell far short of my expectations. The fish was served on a bed of the Brussels sprouts with diced apples and the smoked bacon. The flavors were nice together, but they went so light on the bacon and apples that you could barely taste them. Subtle flavor is nice, especially when you’re dealing with fish, but there has to be a limit. Also, the dish as a whole lacked acidity. There was no citrus, not nothing. This, as I said before, was disappointing.

I didn’t end up getting desert, as by the end of the meal I had built up a substantial bill. A few of the other diners did however, and I have to say everything looked great, so I’m assuming it was.

Lastly, and this is really what put me over the edge as far as disliking the meal is concerned, the service was really not what it should have been. The wait staff seemed kind of clueless, which at times was incredibly frustrating. For example, I ordered a beer at the beginning of the meal, and I was looking for a little assistance from the server as to what I could have expected from a particular IPA. When I asked her to describe the beer, her responce was, “It’s good. People like it. So you want one?” Thats wrong in so many ways.

First, that’s not what I asked her. Second, I don’t care if people like it. A lot of people like a lot of different things, and most of them suck, so whatever. And lastly, don’t peddle your food on me. I’m paying a lot as it is, so don’t try to up-sell me, it’s in poor taste. Not to mention, the beer was pretty balls. It was Impaled Ale, a pretty dark local IPA, if any of you care.

So, my final thoughts on craftbar are that you probably shouldn’t go. While in most cases I’d revel at the opportunity to bash celebrity chef’s restaurant, and by extension of that, the celebrity chef himself, that just doesn’t feel right in this situation. In experiencing craftbar just once, it’s become abundantly clear that it’s not so much a restaurant as it is a wine bar with overpriced food. There is a huge wine selection, and a really subdued comfortable feel to the place. The party I was with had a late reservation, so we were sitting around until around midnight, and there were still a bunch of patrons sitting around, drinking wine. That, in conjunction with the lack of attention payed to the actual dining experience, leads me to believe the place serves the ulterior motive of boozing up the rich and lame. So, if you happen to be into that kind of thing then maybe you should check it out for yourself. Then again, that would make you a fatty d-bag.

The three:

1) Cranberry Grape Compote

1 lb cranberries, 1 lb grape, salt, about 1/4 cup honey

I made this (and made up the recipe) and therefore am able to talk shit about it. The other two versions we had were both a little more out there, so I intended this to be the basic version, and it was. But it could have used a bit more oomph, to be sure. Citrus perhaps? While good, and pleasingly simple, I think it would have been a crowd pleaser for less adventurous palates (or kids) which we thankfully had none of at dinner.

2) Vanilla Cardamom Cranberry Sauce

Cooked, with a vanilla bean, a healthy pinch of cardamom, 1lb of cranberries and considerably less than 1/2 cup of sugar.

Fuck, that was good. If my cranberry grape was the awkward adolescent, this one was the refined, slightly eccentric but always elegant member of the family. I cannot overexaggerate the importance of the actual vanilla bean in the mix. It all worked perfectly and was subtle, unexpected, and the perfect blend of sweet and tangy.

3) Raw Cranberry Ginger Relish

I can’t find the recipe, but it went something like this: Chopped, raw cranberries, a tangerine and its zest, lots of crystallized ginger and sugar

Raw! I had very little to do with the making of this one (Eli and Brittany, tips?), but I think it was everyone’s favorite. Tangy, sweet, crunchy, spicy, I can’t really think of a personification, it was just awesome.