La Caprese

fig. a: torta alla caprese

Recently we started working through Josée di Stasio's à la di Stasio: Les Saveurs de l'Italie DVD collection. We watch a great deal of our television programming not when it actually airs, but later on DVD, and à la di Stasio, the local cooking show sensation, is no exception. Occasionally we happen upon an episode of à la di Stasio as it's airing, but for the most part we've watched them commercial-free on DVD. We were particularly excited, particularly eager about the Italian series, though. We'd heard all kinds of promising tidbits about the series' production from Elena Faita, who was part of the consulting team--we had a feeling we could expect good things and, as you might have gathered over the last three years, we're crazy about Italian cuisine.

The set consists of six shows, four on specific Italian cities and their environs (Rome, Modena, Naples, and Palermo), one on a crucial geographic region (Chianti), and a final episode dedicated entirely to the famous Don Alfonso 1890 restaurant. Naturally, given our ongoing obsession with pizza napoletana, we started with Naples. We had a feeling that at least one of Napoli's famous pizzerias would get highlighted, and we were right--an early section of the episode consists of an interview with an octogenarian pizzaiolo at Da Michele, the camera simultaneously giving us a sense of the lively atmosphere there, as well as glimpses of Da Michele's transcendent pies.

The remainder of the Naples episode features quite a few utterly tantalizing recipes, including two by Irene Mucilli of the rustic La Pignata à Pontelandolfo that really knocked us for a loop: Polpette con cacio e uova (egg and cheese croquettes), which looked particuarly good when served with a tomato sauce, and Cavatelli with Rapini and Pancetta. Funnily enough, though, it was the episode's last recipe, its only dessert--Torta alla Caprese, the torte of the island of Capri--that we ended up making first, and it wasn't Michelle who led the charge on this cake, as you might have expected, it was me. I say this not to brag about having made the torta, a cake known simply and affectionately as La Caprese in the region, but only to emphasize that if I can make it, you can make it.

The recipe is presented by one Edda Bini Mastropasqua--of Ischia and Montreal--and she stresses that although she gets many requests from family and friends to make her Torta alla Caprese, all the glory must go to this fabulously simple and rewarding recipe because otherwise her talents in the kitchen lie almost completely with savory foods and not with sweets. I'm more or less the same--I've got a strong sweet tooth (very strong, in fact), but when it comes to cooking, 99% of the time I lean towards the savory side of things. But having made the recipe four times since first discovering it, I, like Edda Bini Mastropasqua, am tempted to call this La Caprese recipe foolproof. The cake that results is a moist, luxurious chocolate-almond torte that only needs a light dusting of confectioner's sugar (patterned or not) to complete the scene, although I highly recommend accompanying it with vanilla ice cream or, even better, a delicate milk gelato.

Torta alla Caprese

1 cup sugar
5 large eggs
9 oz almonds with skins, ground*
1 tbsp baking powder
7 oz 70% cacao chocolate
7 oz unsalted butter
1/4 cup espresso coffee, brewed
confectioner's sugar

Preheat the oven to 350º. Butter the interior of a 12" circular baking dish.

In a mixer, beat the eggs and the sugar for 5 minutes at medium speed. Fold in the almonds and the baking powder.

In a bain-marie, melt the butter and the chocolate together over medium-low heat. Add the coffee and mix well. Add this mixture to the almond mixture and mix well.

Pour the batter into the baking dish and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. Turn the cake out onto a plate and let it cool fully. When it is no longer warm, dust it with confectioner's sugar.

fig. b: giving the torta a right dusting

Serve, cutting the cake into long, thin wedges.

* Use a nut grinder, a spice or coffee grinder, or a food processor. Make sure they are very well ground. We prefer a hand-cranked nut grinder because it gives the almonds a lighter, fluffier texture that we feel produces a better Caprese.

aj

Dedicated to JK.

7 is my lucky number

Yesterday, we received a message from Joanna at Nylon Diner informing us that we'd been tagged for a meme. I promptly made my way to Nylon Diner to find out what the details were and I found the following list of instructions:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I decided to go the "random" route, and though the rules don't specify, I kept things food-related. I also made a point of including a recipe. (You know how we do here at AEB.)

Here goes:

1. Many years ago now I spent about a month in Turkey, a trip that culminated in a 1-week stay in Istanbul. I found Istanbul completely enchanting, but the strangest, most fascinating night that I spent there culminated with dinner at a taverna on a bustling little street--not much more than an alleyway, really--known as the Nevizade Sokak. Back then the street was lined on both sides with restaurant after restaurant--all of them open to the elements on this particular night and all of them with seating spilling out onto the street, leaving only a very narrow passageway through which to walk by and pick your particular taverna. I guess we got there early in the evening, as things go along the Nevizade Sokak, because the scene was fairly quiet when we arrived, but as the evening rolled on things changed dramatically and pretty soon we were witness to the greatest floor show I've ever witnessed. You see, not only were the restaurants now full, filling the night air with the roar of true festivity, but the passageway cutting through the middle of the Nevizade Sokak had been transformed into an absolutely ungodly procession of vendors, hawkers, hustlers, confidence men, prostitutes, and, yes, tourists--utterly bewildered tourists.* They seemed to be selling just about everything--from iced almonds to bus tickets to shoeshines--but stranger still, the food vendors seemed to be operating in symbiosis with the restaurants. In other words, the restaurant management didn't appear to have any problems with their patrons ordering food from passing vendors, it seemed to be understood that you might want to round out your meal with a kebab from one passer-by, a piece of loukoum from another.

Anyway, towards the end of our meal I ordered a bottle of mineral water--not from a passing mineral water vendor but from our waiter--and the mineral water that was brought to me, quite by coincidence, was a bottle of Kinik brand mineral water. I kept the bottle cap and this is what it looks like today.

fig. a: Kinik sodasi

2. I once had a collection of t-shirts from restaurants that carried either the name "Anthony's" or "Tony's." Most of them came from the Mid-Atlantic, where I lived at the time and where there happened to be quite a number of "Anthony's" and "Tony's" restaurants, many of which sold t-shirts, for some reason. After a while my friends started helping me out with this quest, and occasionally I'd receive a t-shirt from well outside the Mid-Atlantic. This is the only t-shirt that remains from my namesake collection.**

fig. b: Tony's of Hialeah

3. Back in 1994, I was winding my way along Highway 61, en route from Memphis to New Orleans, when just outside of Vicksburg, MS I came across Margaret's Gro. & Mkt., the most fantastic piece of vernacular architecture I've ever encountered. Margaret's was still a grocery store underneath, and Margaret was still helming the operation, but her friend the Rev. H.D. Dennis had spent the better part of the last 10-15 years transforming her humble roadside store into The House of Prayer, using only salvaged materials. I got a full tour of The House of Prayer and its surrounding campus (including the 50-ft Tower of Prayer) from the Reverend himself.

fig. c: Margaret's Gro. & Mkt. and Bible Class, the Rev. H.D. Dennis, architect

Inside, the shelves at Margaret's were a little bare and the interior wasn't as elaborately festooned as the outside (the House of Prayer was still very much a work in progress), but that was more than made up for by the New Ark of the Covenant the Reverend had built (again, out of recycled materials) in full anticipation of the Second Coming.

4. I have a small collection of 1930s Chinese posters. Most of them have nothing to do with food or drink, but there are exceptions.

fig. d: Gande, Price & Co., Ltd.: Wines, Spirits & Cigars: nice punt!

5. In August 2005 Michelle and I spent a couple of weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area. One day, while rummaging through the loot at a 20th century collectibles store in the Mission District, we came upon a bag of vintage 1960s pins bearing all kinds of vintage Flower Power sentiments that had recently been unearthed in a local warehouse. I figured this was about as good a souvenir as I was likely to find in San Francisco, so I bought a few of these pins for myself and for friends, including "SAVE WATER SHOWER WITH A FRIEND" and "STAMP OUT REALITY," but my favorite one was this beauty.

fig. e: or else!

I'm especially fond of wearing it when I take Michelle out for lunch.

6. Recently I rediscovered my very first venture in food publishing. It appeared in Sunnyvale United Soccer Club Presents Our Favorite Recipes, eds. Wilcox, Ledford, Shaha, and McLaughlin, and today, a little worse for wear, it looks like this.

fig. f: chocolate mousse recipe

You gotta start somewhere, right? Anyway, I tried it again recently and it works. Thing is, there's an important ingredient missing. I'm sure it was part of the recipe I submitted to the printers (I swear!), but somehow it didn't make it into the published edition. If you can't read my Mom's handwritten annotation, it reads: "1 package of chocolate chips." You don't have to use chocolate chips, of course. Use 12 oz. of any good, dark chocolate. God knows how many people in Sunnyvale attempted to make this chocolate mousse according to the recipe as it appeared. I shudder to think.

Actually, the other thing that's missing is the source (or did the printers leave that out too?) Gourmet? Bon Appétit? Sunset? Nope. If memory serves, the recipe came from that other font of gastronomic expertise, National Geographic World.

7. My maternal grandfather, Freddy--the eldest of 15--was a chef who got his start as a lumberjack camp cook back when he was still a teenager. He eventually moved to Quebec City and there he began to work in the hotel business. He also met my grandmother, Amabilis, there. My grandmother wasn't a cook by trade, but she came from a line of cooks from Havre St-Pierre who'd worked on ships, and she did have a good mind for business. They met in the hotel trade and that's where they remained. They got married, started a family, and in the early '40s when a business opportunity presented itself in Edmundston, NB--then an important regional center at the junction of Quebec, New Brunswick, and Maine, and the so-called "Gateway to the Maritimes"--they relocated. My grandparents owned and operated the New Royal Hotel for roughly 30 years, during which time it was famous across the region for its banquets. This is what it looked like back in its 1960s glory days.

fig. g: New Royal Hotel, Edmundston, NB

One of my favorite photographs of my grandparents is this one, taken not long after they met in Quebec City.

fig. h: Bilis & Freddy

My grandfather is the one in the middle. Not sure who the woman on the right is, but the doll on the left is my grandmother.

My grandfather being a chef, he tended to do most of the cooking in their household. My grandmother didn't make the widest range of dishes, but what she made she made well. For reasons that I've never fully understood, she never used an oven. She made everything on the stovetop. Even her roasted chicken. It took her a while, but she was patient. My Mom swears it's the best chicken she's ever had.

Today, Epiphany, is my grandmother's birthday. She would have been 100.

And now, passing the torch:

1. My Favourite Things
2. Tiny Banquet Committee
3. You Can't Make Everything From Scratch...
4. Bits and Bytes From Elsewhere
5. Saint Sustenance
6. Word Things
7. The Good Stuff

aj

* This scene apparently originated in the nearby Çiçek Pasaji--the famed Flower Passage--which, by the 1960s, had become a vision worthy of Aragon's Le paysan de Paris.

** Truth be told, my favorite of these was a baby blue "Anthony's Chicken & Ribs" t-shirt that I wore for about a decade. For a while I also owned a matching "NO PARKING Anthony's Chicken & Ribs VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED" sign that someone, um, acquired on my behalf. I didn't keep the sign nearly as long as I kept the t-shirt.

Goodbye, 2007!

Print

Fit for a King: the Merle Armitage Book of Food

Grant Arnold and Michael Turner, Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs

Dirk Bogarde, A Postillion Struck By Lightning

Bill Buford, "Extreme Chocolate," The New Yorker, October 29, 2007 and "The Taming of the Chef", The New Yorker, April 2, 2007

Rose Carrarini, Breakfast Lunch Tea

Bruce Chatwin, Songlines + Anatomy of restlessness : selected writings, 1969-1989

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

Ethné et Philippe de Vienne, La Cuisine et le Goût des Épices

Stefano Faita, Entre Cuisine et Quincaillerie

Theodor Fontane, Effi Briest

E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, Italian Two Easy

Graham Greene, Ways of Escape

Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked

Werner Herzog, Of Walking in Ice: Munich-Paris, 23 November-14 December 1974

Judith Herman and Marguerite Shalett Herman, The Cornucopia, Being a Kitchen Entertainment and Cookbook Containing Good Reading and Good Cookery From More Than 500 Years of Recipes, Food Lore &c. as Conceived and Expounded by the Great Chefs & Gourmets of the Old and New Worlds Between the Years 1390 and 1899 Now Compiled and Presented to the Public in a Single Handsome and Convenient Volume

fig. a: the Lee Bros.

Matt Lee and Ted Lee, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook

fig. b: McPhee's Oranges

John McPhee, Oranges

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities, vol. 1

The Picayune’s Creole Cook Book, Sesquicentennial Edition

Michael Pollan, "Unhappy Meals," The New York Times, January 28, 2007

Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons

Nick Tosches, "If You Knew Sushi," Vanity Fair, June 2007

Calvin Trillin, "Three Chopsticks," The New Yorker, September 3, 2007

Mary Webb, Precious Bane

Song

Black Mountain & friends @ Le National

Blonde Redhead, 23

Sandy Bull, Inventions

fig. c: Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue

Bob Dylan, Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue

Electrelane, No Shouts, No Calls

Grinderman, s/t

Tsegué Maryam Guèbrou, Éthiopiques 21

P.J. Harvey, White Chalk

Bert Jansch, Birthday Blues

The Kinks, Arthur, Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire

Metal Mountain + Yo La Tengo @ Williamsburg Hall

Pentangle, Reflection

Patti Smith + a silver mt. Zion @ the Ukrainian Federation Hall

Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté, In the Heart of the Moon

V/A, Golden Afrique, vol. 1

V/A, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore

fig. d: Mississippi Record's Life is a Problem...

V/A, Life is a Problem… But Where There is Life, There is Hope

V/A, Lipa Kodi Ya City Council

Moving Images

Black Narcissus, dir. Powell

Children of Men, dir. Cuaron

Little Dieter Needs to Fly, dir. Herzog

The Lives of Others, dir. von Donnersmarck

No Country for Old Men, dir. Coen

fig. e: Marker's Sans Soleil

Sans Soleil, dir. Marker

The Sopranos, seasons 1-4 (again)

Up the Yangtze, dir. Chang

The Wind that Shakes the Barley, dir. Loach

The Wire, seasons 2 and 3

Zodiac, dir. Fincher

Restauration

Abu Elias, Montreal

Barney Greengrass: the Sturgeon King, NYC

Clare & Carl's, Plattsburgh, NY

Di Fara, NYC

Egg, NYC

Franny’s, NYC

The Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant, NYC

Green Lettuce, Vancouver

fig. f: Vancouver's Japa Dog

Japa Dog, Vancouver

Kintaro, Vancouver

Mister Spicee, Montreal

fig. g: NYC's Momofuku Ssäm Bar

Momofuku Ssäm Bar, NYC

Paul Patates, Montreal

Saigon Bakery, NYC

Toshi, Vancouver

Una Pizza Napoletana, NYC

Miscellaneous

Black Maple Hill Special Edition Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Van Winkle Special Reserve 12-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Jeffrey Steingarten's high-temperature turkey

Shrimp & oyster gumbo

"Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle," Grey Art Gallery, N.Y.U.

fig. h: the CCA's "Sorry, Out of Gas": "Strike it rich in oil!"

"Sorry, Out of Gas," Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal

Smoked mozzarella, Joe's Dairy, NYC

Smoked ricotta, La Grotta del Formaggio, Vancouver

Jens Quistgaard pepper mills

Peter Hvidt tables

Ormstown Strawberry Social, Ormstown, QC

fig. i: NY's Upper Saranac Lake

Upper Saranac Lake, NY


Happy New Year!--a.j. & m.

The Raw and the Baked

fig. a: before

I'd always assumed that the origins Oysters Rockefeller had some kind of direct association with ole John D. himself--something to the effect of Mr. Rockefeller having requested a special oyster dish from a favorite chef, or some chef having created a special oyster dish in Rockefeller's honor for some high society dinner. Apparently I was wrong. As James Beard and others have pointed out, there are numerous, if not countless, variations on Oysters Rockefeller, but most trace the dish's origins back to New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century and Mr. Jules Alciatore. Mr. Alciatore was the owner of the legendary Antoine's restaurant and the son of its founder, and around 1899 he began to serve his patrons a baked oyster dish with a tantalizingly buttery herb topping. The dish was a sensation and it was quickly added to Antoine's Pantheon, alongside such classics as Tomato Frappée Julius Caesar, Terrapin St. Anthony, and Toast Rothschild. It too needed a dignified name, something that would fully capture its majesty--who better to name one's rich new oyster hors d'oeuvre after than America's reigning oil magnate? Duly named, Alciatore's dish was reintroduced to Antoine's menu: "Huîtres en Coquille Rockefellow." [I guess it could have been worse--he could have named it "Huîtres en Coquille Roc-A-Fella."]

Its name corrected, Oysters Rockefeller soon traveled far beyond New Orleans, becoming a nationwide hit, but with the original recipe a closely guarded "sacred family secret," it didn't take long for the dish to morph into countless variations. For the most part Alciatore kept mum about the impostors, wisely believing that keeping silent on the matter would actually amplify his dish's already considerable aura. Occasionally, however, Alciatore found himself so appalled by what his competitor's were passing off as Oysters Rockefeller that he'd sound off, and it was the inclusion of spinach that seems to have infuriated him the most.

Now, those of you with a sharp eye might have noticed that the photograph above has some spinach leaves--horror of horrors!--lurking in the background. That's because when we were hunting down a recipe for Oysters Rockefeller, we settled on one from The Picayune's Creole Cook Book: Sesquicentennial Edition, one of our favorite cookbooks of the year and an immensely lively and informative reference for all things pertaining to Louisiana Creole cuisine. The recipe comes accompanied with a note that reads, "Not in the first edition [1901], this recipe was added to later editions because of its widespread appeal," and spinach figures prominently. It was only after having chosen The Picayune's recipe and made it a couple of times that I rediscovered John Thorne's "A Note on Oysters Rockefeller" in his chapter "Oysters & Herbs: A Creole Medley" from Serious Pig, the source for much of the lore you see above. Purely coincidentally, Thorne too mentions The Picayune's Creole Cook Book, but he must be referring to the first edition because he does so only to make a point about Oysters Rockefeller's progeny:

Did Jules Alciatore actually create [Oysters Rockefeller]? Some claim that his stroke of genius was in transferring a garnish from snails that no one wanted to the oysters that everyone did. Theories such as this spring from writers who are not familiar with Creole cooking. It takes only a look at The Picayune's Creole Cook Book to see that Oysters Rockefeller is an elaborated (i.e., restaurant) version of "Oysters Broiled in Their Shells." There's no need to drag beurre à la bourgignonne into it.

God knows what Thorne would have to say about the Sesquicentennial Edition, which no longer features "Oysters Broiled in Their Shells" but does feature "Oysters Rockefeller"--complete with spinach. Thorne's own version of Oysters Rockefeller is a "fleshed out" version of a recipe that one Louis P. De Gouy claimed to have gotten from Jules Alciatore himself--it contains no spinach, no bacon, no garlic, and no Parmesan, but it does contain Herbsaint. This ain't it. Our recipe makes no claims with regards to an Antoine's pedigree--hell, it might even have poor Mr. Alciatore rolling in his grave--but it's got some legitimate Creole flair and it's a true showstopper. If you're not comfortable with "Oysters Rockefeller," just call it "Oysters Broiled in Their Shells."

fig. b: after

Oysters Rockefeller

2 dozen plump, briny oysters, shucked (bottom half-shells cleaned and reserved)
6 slices of bacon
1 cup homemade breadcrumbs
1/2 lb unsalted butter
4 green onion tops, minced
6 sprigs parsley, minced
1/2 bunch spinach, chopped
1/4 bunch chervil, minced
4 green celery leaves, minced
salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
1 oz Pernod
rock salt

Fill a large baking sheet with rock salt and place it in a 375º oven for 10 minutes. Fry the bacon in pan over medium-high heat until crispy. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and chop it finely. Add the butter to the bacon drippings and melt over medium heat. When the butter has melted add the green onion tops, the parsley, the chervil, the celery leaves, and the spinach. When the greens have wilted add the Pernod and cook for another minute. Remove from heat, add the lemon juice, stir and adjust the seasonings, keeping in mind that if your oysters are particularly briny you might want to take it easy on the salt. Then again, you might not. Transfer the greens to a bowl and then quickly toast the breadcrumbs in the same pan over medium heat, making use of the fat that remains--this should only take about one minute. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and arrange the half shells on the salt. Place one oyster in each half-shell. Top each oyster with one generous dollop of the greens mixture and then sprinkle some breadcrumbs on top. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for 2-5 minutes, and then serve.

[If you have any of the greens mixture left over after you've topped all your oysters, fear not--it won't go to waste. It doubles as a deluxe accompaniment to tomorrow's poached egg breakfast.]

I don't care how much of a raw oyster purist you are--these are absolutely irresistible. How irresistible? Take a look:

fig. b: afterer

Perfect for any and all New Year's celebrations.

Sources:
John and Matt Thorne, Serious Pig: An American Cook In Search Of His Roots
The Picayune's Creole Cook Book: Sesquicentennial Edition
James Beard's New Fish Cookery

aj

New York Odds & Ends 2

fig. a: what a dozen Peter Pan doughnuts look like

Peter Pan Bakery

Tucked inside a former soda fountain in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood, Peter Pan is something of a conundrum. It has a perfectly preserved arborite counter and a lovely turquoise interior, giving it an old-time Americana feel, but, like many of the businesses in Greenpoint, it’s Polish-owned and operated. That being the case, you might expect Peter Pan to a) have a name that's a little less Anglo-American and b) specialize in Polish-style plum, apricot, and cream-filled paczki, but instead their doughnut style is classically, unmistakably American, with at least two dozen flavors to choose from. None of this would matter in the least if Peter Pan’s doughnuts weren’t at the very least respectable. As it turns out, they’re much more than just respectable. They’re true works of art. Deep-fried works of art, but works of art nonetheless.

fig. b: what the take-out menu from Lomzynianka looks like

Lomzynianka

Not sure what that stag you see in the picture above has to do with anything, seeing as Lomzynianka translates as "girl from Lomza," but we took the fact that we actually know someone who has that exact same image tattooed on his arm as some kind of good omen--and it was. We're both big fans of Polish cuisine—yes, cuisine—and together we've sampled the goods at Polish restaurants and diners from the Plateau Mont-Royal to the East Village, from Chicago to Krakow, and Lomzynianka ranks at the very top of our ongoing survey of the world's Polish restaurants. So good, in fact, that Michelle devoted two trips to Lomzynianka, in spite of the fact that we were only in New York for slightly more than 48 hours and her lists of "New York musts" is nothing if not extensive. Fantastically good perogies. Amazingly festive interior, too.

Peter Pan Bakery, 727 Manhattan Ave., Greenpoint, Brooklyn, (718) 389-3676

Lomzynianka, 646 Manhattan Ave., Greenpoint, Brooklyn, (718) 389-9439

aj

Masala for Hope 3: the final tally

fig. a: some lucky winner will soon be receiving...

Jeez! This year's Menu for Hope managed to clear $90,000!! Congratulations to Pim and the entire Menu for Hope team, and thank you to everyone who participated--we can't wait to see who walked away with our Masala for Hope prize package...

aj

last-minute last-minute shopping guide

fig. a: Monna & Filles Cassis "Le Capiteux"
Monna & Filles has been wowing the crowds at this year's Salon des métiers d'art with their smooth, supple Le Capiteux cassis port from Île d'Orléans. The Salon ends today. You can also find Monna & Filles' l'Isle Ensorceleuse, their crème de cassis, at the Atwater Market SAQ.

fig. b: just 2 parts of a set of cocktail tools from Couleurs
Why bother getting retro knock-offs for your kitchen, dining room, or bar when you can get the real things at places like Couleurs?

fig. c: Guimauve Maison from les Chocolats de Chloé
Les Chocolats de Chloé is known for their exotic filled chocolates, but their chocolate bars and chocolate-covered homemade marshmallows are a little less precious, a little more down-to-earth, and just as fantastic.

fig. d: Moleskine Berlin City Notebook
Moleskine does it again. 2007 saw the release of their new series of City Notebooks, complete with maps, pouches, appendixes on "Measures and Conversions" and "International Sizes," and sections for "Notes and Thoughts," "Places, Legends, and Recipes," itineraries, restaurant tips, and other urban ephemera. You could get the brand-new Montreal City Notebook, but with dozens of European and North American cities to choose from, let yourself wander. Why not Berlin? What better place to keep that closely guarded list of currywurst stands you've been compiling? Available at Nota Bene on Parc Ave.

Salon des métiers d'art, Place Bonaventure, through December 22.

Couleurs, 3901 St-Denis, 282-4141

Les Chocolats de Chloé, 375 Roy E., 849-5550

Nota Bene, 3416 ave. du Parc, 485-6587

More Masala for Hope

fig. a: l - r: Mélange du Monde: Caris et Masala, ext.; Mélange du Monde: Caris et Masala, int.; La Cuisine et le Goût des Épices, int.

Yes, friends, Menu for Hope IV has entered the final stretch, so if you've been tempted by one or more of this year's tantalizing gifts but you've yet to place a bid, remember, you only have until December 21st to participate.

Our "Spice Lovers of the World, Unite!" prize package has been steadily racking up the bids, but some of you more discerning bidders have been wanting to know the exact contents of the two Philippe de Vienne épices de cru spice kits before committing. So without any further ado...

Mélange du Monde Curries and Masalas:
1. Vindaloo masala
2. Grilling masala
3. Sri Lankan red curry
4. South Indian curry for duck
5. Tandoori masala
6. South Indian curry for chicken
7. South Indian masala for fish
8. Panch Phoran
9. Madras curry
10. South Indian green curry
11. Chaat masala
12. Sri Lankan black curry

Spice Islands Curries and Masalas:
1. Trinidadian curry
2. Jamaican curry
3. Mauritian masala
4. Martinican colombo
5. Singaporean curry
6. Sri Lankan black curry

Just think of the possibilities... 17 different spice blends (plus a second dose of that extraordinarily deep Sri Lankan black curry), the De Viennes' wonderfully comprehensive La Cuisine et le Goût des Épices, and a sultry limited edition musical compilation to set the mood...

Some of you have also written to us wanting to know more about DJ TV DiSKO's "Eat to the Bollywood Beat: Music to Eat Curry By"--come now, we can't reveal all our secrets.

Don't know how to participate? You'll find all the instructions below.

Happy bidding!

aj

No, this is hardcore*

Faced with the term "hardcore," I'd venture to bet that very few of you out there in cyberland would conjure up the phrase "cookie swap" in turn, but then that's probably because most of you have never braved a -12º C blizzard complete with gusting winds (50-80 km/h), a wind chill of -24º C, and a stray lightning bolt (I kid you not) in order to deliver 6-dozen freshly baked praline cookies on foot and swap them for more freshly baked booty, before trudging back home through even more snow (and then, truth be told, continuing on to work [!]).

fig. a: special delivery

Okay, maybe "hardcore" is a bit of a stretch, but those conditions definitely made this year's holiday cookie swap more hardcore than any other cookie swap Michelle had ever attended. Good thing she's got a goose down parka and a trusty pair of Wookiee boots and she knows how to use them.

The praline cookies are a new fave recipe, perfect for those who like sugar cookies, nut cookies, pralines, or, better yet, all three. We found the recipe in Annie Somerville's Fields of Greens (a long-time fave), and it was only after Michelle had given the recipe the final OK that she noticed that Somerville had adapted it from Paula Peck's The Art of Fine Baking, a book we'd discovered just a few days earlier when our friend C. (who quite coincidentally was hosting today's cookie swap) brought her well-worn copy (a hand-me-down from her grandmother) over to help teach Michelle how to make real apple strudel.

fig. b: apple strudel by Paula Peck

Anyway, the recipe's a keeper, it has two parts, and it goes something like this...

Praline

2 cups sugar
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 cups pecans**

Butter a baking sheet.

Stir the sugar, water, and lemon juice together in a medium-size saucepan, off the heat, until well blended. Cook the mixture over medium-low heat until the sugar has dissolved. When the liquid is clear, turn the heat up to medium-high. As the liquid bubbles, wash down the sides of the pan with a brush dipped in water. (This, along with the lemon juice, will help prevent the sugar from crystallizing.) Do not stir the mixture. After about 15 to 20 minutes it will begin to turn golden. At this point the liquid will darken quickly--in about 3 to 5 minutes--so watch it very carefully.

When it is golden brown, remove from the heat and stir in the nuts with a wooden spoon. Return to the heat and cook just until the caramel liquifies again, then pour onto the baking sheet and spread to a thin layer. When cool, chop by hand.

Makes 4 cups.

fig. c: freshly chopped freshly made praline

Praline Cookies

1/2 pound unsalted butter, softened
7 tbsp light brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups unbleached white flour
3/4 cup chopped praline (see recipe above)

Preheat the oven to 325º F. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and salt and mix again until they're fully incorporated. Add the flour and praline and mix until just combined.

Chill the dough until it is easy to work with, about 30 minutes. Roll the dough out to 1/4" thickness and cut it into shapes, or shape the dough into cylinders about 2 inches in diameter and slice into 1/4"-thick rounds.

Place the slices about 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet (or a Silpat) and bake for 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned. The cookies keep well stored in a sealed container.

Makes 4 to 6 dozen cookies.

And the cookie swap? All eight of the other hardened cookie swappers also braved the elements, they all brought seriously choice cookies, and the event was a smash hit. The haul: rum balls, lemon-almond balls, chestnut thumbprints, chocolate macarons, chocolate chip, spoon cookies, oatcakes, macadamia nut, and peanut butter.

fig. d: the remains of the haul

* Apologies to Adam Kuban and Slice.

** You can substitute almonds or walnuts, if you prefer.

aj

New York Odds & Ends 1

fig. a: Egg

Egg

Ever since I was taken to a restaurant in Reykjavik that operated as several different restaurants during the course of the week (there was a rotation at work, so it'd be a hippy vegetarian restaurant every Friday, a Pakistani restaurant every Saturday, and so on), I've liked the idea of restaurants sharing a space as a way of minimizing overhead costs. Of course, the fact that both visits to that Reykjavik resto were successful certainly helped. In theory, rock bands sharing a rehearsal space can be a pretty cool thing too, but in practice the results aren't always all that, well, noteworthy. Anyway, when we heard about the breakfasts at Egg, which started off by sharing its space on N. 15th St. in Williamsburg with a nouveau hot dog and hamburger joint named Sparky's--Egg by morning, Sparky's by afternoon and evening--we were intrigued. When we heard the folks at Egg were serving Col. Bill Newsom's legendary Kentucky country ham, we were more than intrigued: we got downright excited. We'd been dreaming of Newsom's hams for some time, and we even looked into getting a Newsom's country ham shipped to AEB headquarters in Montreal at one point, but we're sorry to say free trade ain't what it's cracked up to be.

It was a little too blustery to dine seated at the outdoor table for two you see pictured above, so we stepped inside and joined the short queue waiting inside the door of this slender, minimal restaurant with the short, minimal name. Ten minutes later we had our table and our menus and it took about 2 seconds to make up our minds about our order: country ham biscuit with fig jam and aged Grafton Village cheddar for her, eggs over easy, cheese grits, and artisanal bacon for him. The grits, from South Carolina's Anson Mills, were quite possibly the best I'd ever had. They weren't really cheese grits, they were more along the lines of "grits with cheese," but I couldn't have cared less because the grits themselves were truly awesome. The bacon was ridiculously good too, and cooked to tender perfection--such a rarity. But that country ham biscuit was simply out of control. What it lacked in volume--it's fairly compact and is easily dwarfed by its plate--it more than made up for in complexity of flavor. That ham, that cheese, that jam--we're talking a veritable symphony. I can't say I'm a connoisseur when it comes to Southern hams (sadly, I might add), but it's hard for me to imagine a better-tasting ham. Dark and smoky, with an almost crumbly texture that reminded me of a fine Parmigiano Reggiano, this was a ham with character to spare. Michelle enjoyed every last morsel. And when she'd made it disappear we ordered a generous side order of Newsom's ham for the road. Pretty much the best $4 we've ever spent.

From there we crossed the bridge

fig. b: Brooklyn as seen from the Williamsburg Bridge

and made our way into the Lower East Side.

Essex Street Market

We paid a visit to the Essex Street Market for the first time since its make-over and while we were at Saxelby Cheesemongers sampling some cheeses and having a friendly chat with one of the cheesemongers (eventually we bought some artisanal butter), we both couldn't help but notice an odd-looking café just to the right of the cheese counter. A few tables, a short-order cook behind the counter composing his short orders, an informal, open setting--nothing too strange about that, right? Aside from the fact that there was a waitress, the format was pretty much the same as any other North American food court operation. Except that we found ourselves looking at the plates that were getting served, trying to figure out what kind of food they served, and, try as we might, we just couldn't pin it down. Some plates looked vaguely Mexican, others vague Southeast Asian, but none of the plates looked entirely like one thing or the other. Then we noticed their hot sauces. This place had a massive selection, and, again, they spanned the globe (Mexican, Caribbean, Southeast Asian, American, etc.). And then there was the grizzled beatnik manning the kitchen. After puzzling over things for a minute or so, we both came to the same tentative conclusion: "Shopsin's? Here?" And so it was.

We'd been having elaborate Shopsin's fantasies ever since we read Calvin Trillin's "Don't Mention It," his in-depth account of the Shopsin's mystique, in The New Yorker a few years back. We knew Kenny Shopsin had reopened his namesake restaurant in Greenwich Village sometime after his original "general store" was forced into retirement--we had no idea that he'd picked up and moved the operation yet again. Unfortunately, as brisk as our walk across the Williamsburg Bridge had been, it wasn't quite brisk enough to work off the country ham and grits we'd just finished wolfing down, so all we did was admire Shopsin's from the periphery. Correction: all we did was admire Shopsin's from the periphery and grab one of Shopsin's thoroughly unhinged menus,

fig. c: detail of Side 1 of Shopsin's menu

the better to prepare for our next trip to New York.

fig. d: one of #1 Dumpling House's #1 dumplings

#1 Dumpling House

Minutes later we had just enough room to run a little QC on #1 Dumpling House, and we're happy to report that their pork and chive dumplings and their sesame pancake with beef are both just as dazzling as ever.

fig. e: Saigon Bakery

Saigon Bakery

Post-#1 Dumpling, we were back to having no room, but that didn't stop us from following up on another lead and checking out Saigon Bakery in search of mind-blowing banh-mi, and as soon as we did it was clear to both of us that this was an opportunity that we couldn't possibly pass up on. Saigon Bakery is tucked away in the back of a jewelry store, but, make no mistake, this is a serious banh-mi joint. We ordered one of their massive--and I mean massive--meatball subs and promptly got our minds blown. These were luscious pork meatballs, they were hefty, they were packed into a big sub that was slathered with pork pâté and mayo and absolutely overstuffed with Saigon Bakery's fresh, flavorful (and spicy) fixins, and they forever changed our notion of what banh-mi means. You could have fed a family of four with that thing. You could have fed a family of four and made them very happy indeed. Definitely the best $3.75 we've ever spent.

Joanne Hendricks

A couple of hours later we were on the western extremity of Greenwich Village. We'd gone there in search of out of print, antiquarian, and unusual cookbooks and behind this handsome door

fig. f: Joanne Hendricks

that's exactly what we found. We knew from experience that New York's cookbook specialists could be very impressive, and Joanne Hendricks was just such a bookstore. We'd already had our minds blown by Saigon Bakery's meatball sub--now we found our minds getting majorly expanded by the curiosities at Joanne Hendricks. Like a good museum, or a sprawling flea market, a store like this exposes you to so many things you never even knew existed. We spent about an hour just browsing, each of us lost in our own little culinary world. Then we started talking to Joanne Hendricks herself--she was almost as excited about our impending pizza tour as we were--and the next thing we knew another hour had elapsed. In the end, I only picked up one book, but she's a beaut: Judith and Marguerite Herman's Cornucopia, a book I'd once pored over at my friend J.'s place some years ago (and had been coveting ever since). Here's a seasonally appropriate scan (complete with Mrs. Acton's Christmas Plum-Pudding receipt [courtesy of Tabitha Tickletooth]) to give you a small taste of Cornucopia's considerable charms and its striking two-tone printing:

fig. g: Cornucopia on plum pudding, holly, and mistletoe

The Strand

Our mandatory visit to The Strand only turned up one real gem and Michelle found it in their Rare Books department: The Merle Armitage Book of Food. I mean, what can you say about a book that combines some pithy food writing, a collection of recipes that includes everything from Lapin au vin blanc to 'Possum and Sweet 'Taters, celebrity recipes from the likes of Lewis Mumford, Edgar Varèse, and James M. Cain, and "Four Vegetables," a four-page portfolio by Edward Weston? Beautiful layout, too, including, some more fine two-tone printing:

fig. h: Merle Armitage on food as art

Egg, 135 N. 5th St., Brooklyn, (718) 302-5151

Essex Street Market, 120 Essex St. (at Delancey), Manhattan

#1 Dumpling House, 118 Eldridge St., Manhattan, (212) 625-8008

Saigon Bakery, 138 Mott St., Manhattan, (212) 941-1541

Joanne Hendricks, 488 Greenwich St., Manhattan, (212) 226- 5731

Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway (at 12th St.), Manhattan, (212) 473-1452

aj