The Chicken in Paris

For those of you that don't know, my pet name is chicken. And I am in Paris. I arrived yesterday in fact; and because of one screaming airplane baby, yesterday was largely a manic blur. My friend Pierre took me to see so many parts of Paris that I had never seen. My favorite by far was the amazing Parc des Buttes Chaumont. It is off the beaten (read tourist) path which is part of what makes it so lovely. It has a beautiful view of the whole city, and near the "top" you can grab a drink and watch all of the families and runners go by. Who knew that Parisians exercised?

But (and it was bound to happen) after 2 verre de vin (I could have used that word "verre" the last time I was in Paris) I went back to the apartment and bought 4 slices of jambon sec and a potato pancake and fell asleep... For 13 heures.

Back to today, I woke up in yesterday's clothes and promptly looked up a place to go for brunch. Chez Casimir was the hands down winner. It was close to where I was staying and The Accidental Parisian gave it a good review. It was in the less desirable neighborhood around the Gare du Nord, but once inside the grit of the surroundings melted away like a kilo of buerre on a hot croissant. The place was small and rustic and the maitre'd was also the bartender and the jambon slicer. In the middle of e small dining room was a buffet of different plates: lentils, tuna, pates, braised leaks, salad greens, escargot, betterave (beets), bread, butter, moutard and even more bread (bien sur). In a shiny red meat slicer there was jambon sec though the aforementioned bar tender/maitre'd seemed to take e meat slicing portion of his job lightly.

From the kitchen came a small cup of squash soup and a plate with a slice of baguette covered with saumon fume and butter. With that came a soft boiled egg with the brightest orange yolk and a dollop of whipped potato and olive tapenade. In America we put cream cheese on smoked salmon, but after this dish I propose that as a country we seriously rethink this and opt for butter. And just when I thought I was full, out came a small cocotte of beef and white beans

"There is a dessert buffet," the kind waiter said to me in English. How could this be? The French do not eat like us piggish Americans. But I looked around and sure enough all the thin Parisian girls had their plates loaded with desserts. And despite the fact that I am not a dessert girl a small vaguely French voice in my head whispered, "Well, when in France..."

The strawberries put the strawberries at Mountain Sweet Berry Farm to shame. THESE were strawberries. And so one half of a strawberry rhubarb crepe, two strawberries and a creme caramel later, I paid for my feast which was 25 euros, but I was none the poorer for having
gone.

My Love Letter to David Chang

The Momofuku's, in my mind, represent everything great about Asian food, American culture and downtown NYC. And so when Mark, a great designer and an even better friend, was granted a fellowship in Scotland to design for Glenlivet, we decided to have a going away party. What would the theme be? Well we all decided it should embody something that Mark wouldn't get a lot of in the next three months. And before you start guessing, the theme was Asian food.

And so Mark's going away dinner was my Love Letter to David Chang. Not in that weird groupie way that makes people take off their clothes. And not in that teenage squirt perfume on a note and fold it up and pass it in class sort of way. No this was my unabashed attempt at making Chang's thoroughly modern, utterly honest cuisine.

First course: Arugula, Pickled watermelon rind, Lardons and a Bacon Vinaigrette... this recipe without a recipe was in David's cookbook. What is better than bacon and watermelon? (of course you can consult my blog about Zak Pelaccio's famous dish)

What I like about Momofuku Ko is that after you eat your Chicharrone and amuse, they always serve 2 raw fish dishes. These are two of the best courses in the dinner. The first dish was a success. Scallop crudo, Sriracha Creme Fraiche, Yuzu Usukushi, poppy seeds, Chives and chive flowers.

The second was not such a success. It was actually a deviation from the world of Chang... it was inspired by Fedora's chef, Mehdi Brunet-Benkritly's amazing (lightly) cured mackerel with BBQ potato chips, sriracha and avocado cream. I whole heartedly recommend his version. I did not really recommend mine. We shall skip the picture of this course. It photographed the way I did in sixth grade. Poorly. Okay... without the perm.

Each spring, there is one farmer at the Greenmarket who sells wild asparagus. And while the debate rages on as to whether this truly a different species or just cultivated asparagus run amok, I took yet another cue from David Chang and set roasted asparagus above shiro miso butter and under a slow poached egg. My first attempt at keeping a dozen eggs at 140 degrees for the better part of an hour? Comical. Clearly, my technique needs some work, but luckily miso butter (like bacon) makes everything better.

After three appetizers, we were on to Bo Ssam. Eight pounds of pork shoulder with Ssamjang, Ginger Scallion Sauce, Lettuce Wraps, and thanks to Randi, Chinese Buns. I won't elaborate: I'll let the pork speak for itself.

At this point we took a brief break. But not for long. At Osteria Morini, Michael White's crew whips up a lovely torched grapefruit with demerara sugar and basil. Simple and utterly perfect. So our palate cleanser was a grapefruit granita (with a little raspberry thrown in for color) with basil sugar.

Of course no love letter to David Chang would be complete without a mention of Christina Tosi. She is the genius behind crack pie, compost cookies and cereal milk. And our dessert was cereal milk, avocado puree, candied cereal, and chocolate. It wasn't pretty. But it was gone by the time we were all done. And ultimately, even though the meal was not perfect, the friends and the cause could not have been better.

Food and Other Causes

I've had a strange relationship with food and my weight for my entire life. I was a chubby kid that wore pretty plus sizes. The one who had a Janet Jackson-esque wardrobe malfunction in a yellow tutu at the age of 6, effectively ending my budding chubby ballerina career. There was a point in my life when I was actually thin, but I still thought I was fat, and by the time I realized I was thin, I was fat again.

Come high school I wore a mother of the bride's dress to my prom and though I evaded the freshman fifteen, I succumbed to the third year thirty. It did not help that I was MVE (Most Valuable Eater) on my college soccer team. Some people got off the bench. I got in the cafeteria line, even going so far as getting cut off one day in the cafeteria line after consuming 13 cheesesteaks. When I returned to the table that day, my friends asked, "Where's your [14th] cheesesteak?"

"I got cut off, " I replied.
"That's amazing, " my friend John said.
"Why?" I queried.
"You made the cafeteria lady care."

And that was my first experience with eating as a social cause.

When I was in medical school, I ran into an old friend from college who asked me to dinner. And two weeks later, we were sitting in a sushi place in Tribeca called Nobu, dining on the omakase, and changing my life forever.

From then on I vowed to myself that I would only eat food that I loved and would not eat for subsistence. But alas, without the skills to cook anything but Spaghettios nor the wallet to buy anything more than one of the X-Large pizza slices that Hoboken is known for, I did not make good on my promise.

These days eating seems more complicated then ever. Do you eat local? Hyperlocal? Regional? Foreign? Are you vegetarian? Vegan? Pescatarian? Lacto-ovo-uh-oh-tarian? Are you steak only? Pork only? Kosher? Glatt kosher? Halal? Do you buy hormone free? Antibiotic free? Non-GMO? Monsanto? Do you eat for yourself? For the environment? For survival only? Do you cook? Order in? Go out? Drive through? Perhaps forage? Farm? Cultivate? Whole Food? Will that be Braised? Broiled? Raw? Super-sized?

You get my point. These days every bite matters. Every meal is a political, social, environmental, and health statement. For my own part, the most common question I get from cancer patients is, "What should I eat?" And though some suggestions can be made, the overwhelming evidence suggests that it is not what you eat once you are diagnosed, it is what you should have been eating for the last 50-odd years of your life.

And on this, day, when I am about 10 pounds above my happy weight and 20 pounds above my dream weight, and I'm toying with pragmatic pescatarianism and more time spent at the gym and Greenmarket, I still can't help but eat for the simple joy of the food, meal and the company. And if, along the way, you can make the world a little better, a farmer a little richer and the cafeteria lady care... well all the better.

Thanksgiving: The Return

And so it begins again. The holiday. Actually the poultry that really started this blog in the first place, is rearing its ugly (but often tasty) beak again. Yes... Thanksgiving is around the corner. As Thanksgiving has gone, I have battled turkeys countless times. I've wet brined. Dry brined. No brined. I've slow roasted. Fast roasted. Both roasted. I've started breast up. Breast down. Breast flipped more than Pam Anderson on a trampoline. And yet still, I've come to no other conclusion but this:

Turkeys were not meant to be roasted in an oven.
Period.

I'm convinced that when I hear my friends say, "My mother's turkey was SO moist! She didn't have to do anything, " that they are merely referring to the oil and salt injected poultry in the neighborhood grocery, which, while state of the art at the time, is the Thanksgiving equivalent of reading the last page of a brainless Candace Bushnell book first: it certainly saves you time, but can't be good for you.

Either way, this year the bird is getting braised. Yes you heard me: BRAISED. There will be no Norman Rockwell moment (but there never, in all honesty). Mark Bittman's braised turkey recipe is the recipe of the year if you must know; made ahead of time in all likelihood. And this year I will not get drunk and burn the brussel sprouts. And I won't give myself carpal tunnel ricing potatoes. No this year, will be a fun, injury free Thanksgiving. This year I'm putting this bird (and this battle) to rest.

Momofuku Cookbook

Last Friday, after wandering around the Greenmarket, I bought myself the Momofuku Cookbook. I bought it as a gift to congratulate myself. I'm not sure what I was really congratulating myself for. Making it through another week? Remembering to put on my sunscreen? Gaining 5 pounds while I'm trying to lose 10? Either way, I felt that I needed congratulations, so I bought it.
It is 5 days later, and I've read 80% of it straight through. I'm obsessed. I think what I like best about it, is that it is not a self-congratulatory tome. I've read a number of cookbooks. One, by a famous French chef, stands out in particular. The chef had another author write the prose and the intervening stories read like a seafood Harlequin novel.

"The tides roar in and Chef SoandSo decides he wants to make us all fish for dinner. As we all turn to go to the car, Chef SoandSo rolls up his pants and dashes into the water. He momentarily disappears under the angry gray foam. We gasp for a moment and then breathe a sigh of relief as he stands, victorious, with a 10 ton tuna in his right hand, shirt ripped open by the currents."

Okay, I know I'm exaggerating. But in my mind, despite the fact that Chef SoandSo is extremely talented, the dramatic stories overshadow the real star: the food.

David Chang's book, on the other hand, really comes off as a humble collection of recipes and the story of his restaurants is a super compelling mixture of luck, temper, hard work, and trial and error. Dropping a mixture of F-bombs, kimchee, and menu brainstorming into one book is pretty cool. Like Thomas Keller, he pays tribute to some of his amazing food sources: Bev Eggleston and Allen Benton. To dispel misconceptions about foie gras, he dedicates a couple of pages to his foie gras source, paying particular attention to the animals' wellfare. His true respect for the talent of Marco Carnora (Hearth, Insieme), Andrew Carmellini (formerly A Voce, now Locanda Verde), Wylie Dufresne (wd-50) and many of his own partners comes off as sincere deference.

Credit is given where credit is due.

My Smart Wine Friend (SWF) thinks that many of the ingredients are inaccessible as are the times and techniques which is true. These certainly are not Rachael Ray's 30-minute meals (thank goodness) and would be a challenge to put together on a weekday. But as a weekend project they are utterly tempting. I truly appreciate Chang's "ghetto sous vide" method. And though many cookbooks do not tell you what can be made ahead of time, Chang's book seems to recognize that while life may be "a la minute" not all cooking can be.

I totally recommend this book. Stay tuned for a demi-glace blog... yup had a major demi-glace triumph this past weekend!

New Year, New Lobster

Every New Year's Day, my best friend, whom I refer to as SWF (Smart Wine Friend) and I have a lobster dinner. This started 8-9 years ago, though the origins are somewhat unclear. Legend has it that there was an old ogre named ... eh. Screw it. The real beginnings were more like this:

SWF: Hey Courtster. Wanna come over for lobster tomorrow?
Me: Uh Duh. Yes.

That first dinner was pretty slamming and since then the tradition has kept up, hangovers not withstanding. Every year we have been getting a little more hardcore culminating in our rendition of Thomas Keller's Butter Poached Lobster on Sauteed Leeks with Pommes Maxim and a Beet Reduction last year. Now smart wine friend is the pragmatic one. He is organized, neat and always insists on impeccable presentation. I, on the other hand, am over-ambitious, under-skilled and not the least bit organized.

But this year, we kept it simple. Neither of us were feeling up to butter poaching, or stacking Portale style, a lobster claw on top of its tail, on top of a puree and underneath some fried thing, much less leaving the warm confines of our apartments with our significant others in tow.

Canneloni was the initial thought weeks ago, before New Year's Eve reveling got in the way. But neither of us could agree on a sauce and on the day of, neither of us wanted to drag out the pasta maker.
Plain old boiled lobster or roasted lobster would have been simple but neither of us could fathom boiling something and just throwing it on a plate.

There were emails. Recipes. Arguments. Smoke Signals. Mom Jokes. And finally we settled on:
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/spicy-lobster-noodle-salad

Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Spicy Asian Noodle and Lobster recipe it was. Light enough to satisfy the requirements of most New Year's resolutions, spicy enough to get your taste buds going, yet hearty enough to fill us all up. The only subs we made were using Bean threads instead of cellophane noodles and Elderflower syrup instead of Elderflower Cordial (the latter being much thinner than the former, but an equivalent amount of syrup was fine in this recipe.)

The final product:

Looks a little weird in the picture, but was beautiful in person (my mom used to say that about me a lot when I was a kid). And delicious. Hopefully 2010 will continue to be just that: delicious, light, beautiful and a little spicy.

Chicken Stock

At some point in my life I became moderately obsessed with stocks. No not like "Hi I'm Bernard Madoff and I love spooning with my cellmate because I sold bad" stocks. I'm talking chicken, beef, and veal stocks. Like the bowl cut I had in kindegarten (see Exhibit A), I am not entirely sure why this came to be, but it has. I am fairly certain that Nina Planck's Real Food had something to do with it. I am also relatively certain that it had something to do with my rather unattractive Type-A-I-Must-Control-Everything personality that my 11th therapist told me was irrational. I am positively sure, that it also had something to do with money, because my first 8 years in New York City were spent being broke, tired and hungry. In that order.

Exhibit A: Yeah... you want the knee socks don't you?

Now stocks and stockmaking techniques are essential for so many delicious things. All sauces. Soups. Stews. Remouillage. Broths. Fumes. And unlike my paycheck... a little goes a long way. Now if you are a stock virgin (which we all are at some point), there are a few principals that all good stocks obey. In no particular order, they are:

1. Impurities are bad. Bone stocks are delicious but there are a lot of impurities in bones. Blood. Cartilage. Fat. All of these things will leave a good stock looking (and tasting) like the East River (google it if you do not know what the glorious East River looks like). The "impurities" by the way, end up looking like a gross gray brown foam on the stop of your stock. And getting rid of these impurities is essential. There are a variety of ways to do this. Like most, Thomas Keller espouses skimming and a very slow simmer. But skimming every 5 minutes is only fun for approximately the first 5 minutes... after that it is the equivalent of watching wet furniture dry, Thoreau style. Tom Colicchio swears by a 2 minute impurity removing pre-boil. I was fairly resistant to this at first. All those yummy flavors literally down the drain. But this method (which is my current favorite) does not lose a lot of flavor though it does get rid of a lot of impurities. And then you can skim a little less frequently.

2. Low and Slow. I had a Home-Ec teacher in junior high school named Miss Bacon. Really I did. And whenever we cooked with milk, she would chant, "Low and Slow". Like the lyrics to "Islands in the Stream", those words play back in my head at rather inopportune moments (e.g. during college soccer games). But for stock-making, low and slow is key. Rapid boiling will recirculate impurities back into the stock. Always start with cold water. Warm slowly. And keep at a low simmer. Thomas Keller recommends one bubble per second.

3. Bones first. You can't skim once your veggies go in (because a lot of them are floaters). So simmer your bones first and once you are impurity free (and after about 2 hours... or whichever is longer) add your veggies.

4. Strain. Yeah, you think your skimming got all of the impurities out? You're WRONG like that MTV show "Jersey Shore". And that is where this final step is sort of important. When your stock is done it must be strained. Now Thomas Keller has all this fancy stuff, but a piece of doubled over cheese cloth in a sieve has worked perfectly fine for me. He recommends ladeling the stock into the sieve because pouring can force some of the chunks right on through. Ladel. Pour. Ultimately it is your decision, but I've already drank the Ladel Punch and that is where I stay.

4. Chicken Feet. Cow Feet. With those 4 words, I probably lost both of my readers as fast as I turn off a Cagney and Lacey re-run. And there is something weird about looking at unpedicured chicken toe nails (nee claws), that seems about as appealing as being one of Tiger Woods's girlfriends. But take my word, they do add a lot of flavor, they find a nice use for what is often considered waste, and nutritionally there is a lot of protein is those little feet.

5. Fat. I have no problem with chicken fat, but a fatty stock makes for a greasy soup/stew/sauce or whatever it is that you are making. So after my stock is done, I bring my stock to room temperature and stick it in the refrigerator overnight. Thomas Keller does this ice "shock" thing, but I don't have an ice maker and my little 12 cube tray doesn't fit the bill. The good thing about animal fat in cooking is that it solidifies and is easy to remove. The bad thing about animal fat in your body is that it solidifies and is NOT easy to remove. And not for nothing... (my English teacher just rolled over in her grave with that last piece of fine writing) there is a reason that the day after every Thanksgiving is like winning the lottery for most plumbers. Don't throw this stuff down your sink. Really. Unless you think your plumber is hot. If that's the case, throw it all down there... and find yourself a good therapist.

6. Garbage in... There is a difference between being resourceful and using disgusting. Stocks make good use of things that you might otherwise throw away (bones, etc.). Stocks are NOT, however, good hiding places for rotten vegetables. Garbage in = Garbage out.

7. The Great Celery Debate. Typical stocks use leeks, onions, and carrots. But celery... It depends which camp you join. Thomas Keller and the saucier's at Le Ferrandi do not add celery. They think it is too strong for a good stock or demi-glace. Tom Colicchio will use celery. Alice Waters uses it in her broths. Who is right? Well, I've never done a randomized, double blinded placebo controlled trial to be honest, but no celery means one less thing I have to buy (or one more thing for me to munch on while I skim). And thus, for no particular reason, I've joined the celery-free camp.

8. Brown stocks. You can make brown stocks brown by doing two things. First, you have to roast the bones. Second you add tomato paste. Lest you get romantic ideas of deep brown stocks arising from lovely roasted bones, the brown coloring of these stocks comes from the addition of tomato paste. (Sorry to disappoint you.) Tomato haters: don't worry. the tomato paste is not for flavor. And roaster beware: if you burn your bones you might as well just stop there. Burned bones make a ridiculously bitter stock. Don't bother. I found this out the hard way and expensive way while making demi-glace.

9. Herbs. To add bouquet garnis, or not add bouquet garnis. That is the question. Well sort of. It really depends what you are using your stock for. I tend to add it. Plus it is a great way to use the stalks (as opposed to the leaves) of your parsley. So I throw in some parsley stocks and a few sprigs of thyme.

10. A 10th rule would have been nice. Lots of good things come in 10's. But my rules for stocks do not. Sorry.