GASTRONORMOUS

There is a must-read, hilarious, story on Epi-log about “ghetto lattes,” which I had never heard of before. Basically, it consists of ordering espresso and adding free milk to it. A latte, but half the price! Devious, morally dubious, not sayin’ I’d do it, but sort of brilliant. Anyway, coffee purveyors are beginning to fight back.

If you are searching for chocolate chip cookie baking perfection, you must check out this great NYT Dining Section article. It turns out the secret relies not so much on the basic ingredients, but technique. More specifically: letting the dough sit in the fridge for up to 36 (36!!) hours. Oh, and a dash of fleur du sle on top apparently doesn’t hurt either.

[photo: NY Times Dining Section]

Do try at home: check out this list of some fantastic-looking herbaceous cocktail recipes from restaurants and bars around town. The “323” by Tony Abou-Ganim at Bar Milano especially intrigues. [from Shecky's]

Midtown lunch hilariously analyzes the news story about a dude who finds a knife baked in to his Subway sandwich. Not that chomping down on a serrated blade is funny, but, well, something about this particular story sort of is…

Ruhlman has a great story on egg yolk ravioli, inspired by a recent Iron Chef episode. Though I am not sure I quite have the counter space to make pasta, after seeing this, I am severely tempted! (Oh, wait, I also don’t have a pasta roller. Sigh.)

I never thought a cucumber could be so freakin’ adorable! [from The Food Section]

And in case you are wondering what to do with that green garlic you’ve been seeing at the local farmer’s market, the Amateur Gourmet has a fantastic idea.

This arty (read: unintentionally underexposed) photo is attempting to capture the tawny Brooklyn dusk through the lens of a great glass of wine. When I went to Bonita a while back I consumed the pictured glass of wine, which totally knocked my socks off.

When the waitress was taking orders, I asked what sort of white wine they had, and she said they only had one, but that it was great. I assented to a glass and found she couldn’t have been more right. It was extraordinary. Pale in color, but bursting with flavor. Very dry, but with the most amazing nose of tropical fruits. Wine reviewers talk about tropical fruit flavors and aromas especially in white wines, and I usually roll my eyes as I read that because where they taste tropical fruit (or leather, or hay, or toe jam), I just taste wine that I happen to like or not like. But in this case, the wine truly smelled and tasted of guavas, papayas, and a touch of melon and pineapple, but was very dry (which kept it from tasting like a wine cooler). Never before have I had a glass of wine with such distinct and pronounced tropical fruit flavors.

When I was nearing the end of my glass, I asked the waitress what the name of it was, again? She disappeared and came back holding the bottle, saying, “It’s called Conclass. Here, there is just a bit left, I’ll empty the bottle for you.” And she did. And I was glad.

The wine is a 2007 Verdejo, hailing from the Rueda region of Spain. By the time the waitress brought the bottle out for me to see, it was too dark to photo, but this memorable a wine merited documentation. I highly recommend it. Amazingly, it retails for under $15, though I have not yet seen it in a New York wine store. If you see it in a local store, please do let me know.

This photo is of the 2005 vintage, but gives you an idea of what it looks like.

Postscript: I found the wine just this evening at Greene Grape in Fort Greene, Brooklyn [$13.00].

We are going through a little heat spell here in Brooklyn, with days on end of 90+ degree heat in our immediate past and future. Who wants to eat a big meal, let alone cook one, in the sweltering heat? Not me.

Last night I put some plump summer strawberries to work in a really delicious salad. Because it was a main course I added a little body in the form of cheese. But this is without question a light meal. If you have a big appetite, this of would work well as a side dish, or especially a post-main-course salad.

This is is a sort of a loose “recipe.” Please adjust proportions to your taste!

Summer Strawberry and Baby Arugula Salad

For the salad, wash and dry some baby arugula (it bruises easily, so be gentle); slice some strawberries (I used an egg slicer to make quick and beautifully uniform work of it); and slice some red onion as paper thin as you can possibly get it.

Now make a very simple vinaigrette of about half very good quality extra virgin olive oil and half white balsamic (the higher proportion of vinegar than in your typical vinaigrette works with the bitter arugula and sweet strawberries here), plus some salt, pepper, and fresh or dried basil (basil and strawberries go swimmingly together). Whisk it well and toss it with the arugua, strawberries, and onion.

After plating, shave some ricotta salata and sprinkle some toasted walnuts over the top of each serving. Drizzle a little more olive oil and/or vinegar over top, if desired. You can’t get simpler than that!

Note: I picked ricotta salata cheese because I thought the creaminess of it would go well with strawberries, which it did. You might want to go an even creamier, milkier route and choose a cheese like manouri. I also considered using parmigiano reggiano, as it tastes great with with arugula. Any of these cheeses would be great options.

Gnarly Vines is a great wine store in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. They hold many events, belied by the “events” page on their website, which remains woefully empty.

This week they are sampling eggplant parmigiana made with CSA produce along with a couple wines from wine makers who use sustainable practices (who knew big-time Cline uses sustainable practices?). Eggplant parm sampling in a wine store sounds like a big mess, but a big, fun mess!

Here is the info from their press release:

Community Supported Agriculture Tasting Wednesday, July 16, 4 – 8 pm

Wine tasting with samples of eggplant parmigiana from this week’s vegetable selection. Fort Greene has a new CSA supplied by Nolasco farms in Andover, NJ! Come learn about the CSA and taste some delicious eggplant parmagiana fresh from from this week’s harvest while tasting four wines that represent the best of sustainable winemaking, from Cline Cellars in Sonoma County, CA and from Hermann J. Wiemer in New York’s Finger Lakes region.

GNARLY VINES
350 Myrtle Avenue (between Carlton & Adelphi)
718-797-3183
www.gnarlyvines.com

You can now make the fanciest cornbread in town (weren’t you just saying that is a goal you were set on achieving?) with this non-stick pan with scalloped, square cups. Some ingenious engineering ensures your schmancy apps and desserts turn out beautifully: each cup has plate covering a hole in the bottom, so after baking you can pop the treats out easily! I bet you could use this to make really neat frozen desserts too. [$19.95 from Kitchen etc.]

From afar, your eye might be fooled into thinking this gleaming metal cart in front of what is loftily referred to as the Target Plaza in Brooklyn is one of the several hot dog or Halal meat stands that populate the area. Indeed, on this particularly hot day, as I trudged closer, I wiped the sweat from my eyes, thinking it must be a mirage. But as I approached I saw that it was actually an oasis of semi-frozen beverages, and the effect on me upon seeing this was as if the heavens cracked open and the sounds of a choir of angels filled my ears. Such was the level of my anticipation.

I had never noticed the slushy cart here before. Its appearance at this location might be seen as a gutsy move, considering the ICEE-equipped Target just steps away; but honestly, the Target machines are more often than not on the fritz (yes, I check. regularly.), so maybe it was in fact the smartest move they could make.

The slushy flavors: Cherry, Blueberry, Piña Colada, Mango, Lemon-Lime. It doesn’t appear that there is flavor rotation, so don’t go there hoping they will have a lemon-basil slushy any time soon (though that would be tasty!). But these are good basic flavors, and the Target or 7-11 don’t normally offer more variety in any case. The guy working the slushy cart repeatedly called me “Ma’am,” which I was simultaneously charmed and insulted by (polite, yes, but I thought only old ladies were called Ma’am?). In any case, I can’t fault the dude. The service was swift and polite, and the cart seemed to be among the cleaner ones I have seen.

I opted for a small lemon-lime and mango combination, which looks awfully pretty with its tonal variegation, doesn’t it? The lemon-lime was very sweet and intensely lemony-limey, but the flavor was about as artificial as its neon green color. The mango, on the other hand was a winner. It tasted of fresh mango, bright and authentic. My guess is that it is made with real mango or mango juice, as opposed to artificial flavors, as the mango slushy costs a dollar more than the other flavors. But it was certainly worth the extra expense. I might try other flavors in the future, but the mango slushy is what will draw me back to this oasis on Atlantic Avenue.

Last week I was waiting for a train in Grand Central Terminal (fun fact few tourists know: it is not called Grand Central Station!) at noon, and after perusing the offerings, I decided on Cafe Spice Express for lunch as I remembered hearing good things about their University Place outpost when they opened years ago.

I had high hopes as the area around Cafe Spice is about the best smelling place in Grand Central (though perhaps this isn’t saying much), but I found it was a mistake to rely on a heady aroma and bygone raves of a full-restaurant cousin of a to-go joint.

I asked the server which dish was the spiciest and he pointed to the vegetable curry, so I chose that and the chana masala. Both dishes tasted vaguely spicy, but neither had the specific flavor I usually associate with chana masala or vegetable curry. Of course recipes for both dishes vary from place to place (my favorite samosa joint in the city–Pak Punjab on the corner or 3rd St. and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan–has very unusual chana masala that is richly spiced with cloves, for instance), but these tasted of everything and nothing, not to get too philosophical on you. The curry had some weird slimy thready bits in it, that I assumed was cabbage. But it was a strange addition and I was slightly suspicous of it.

Also, and this is the most unforgivable part: the rice was undercooked! Crunchy! I tried to capture this in the photo below, but not sure this is clear. The naked eye could clearly see the still-opaque white centers of the grains. I have been to many mediocre Indian restaurants, but never I have encountered the bedrock of the plate, the rice, severely undercooked. To round out the meal, inexplicably, was a big pile of oxidized iceberg. Yum.

All in all, not a meal I would care to repeat, especially as it was overpriced at a few coins under $10 (naan not included; they automatically put it on your tray as if it comes with the dish, but then they charge you for it! I love naan, but I thought that was a little shifty and so refused it on principle).

There are plenty of dining options in Grand Central, so next time I will resist the aromatic allure of Cafe Spice, and try my luck someplace else.

Cafe Spice
Grand Central Terminal
Lower Level

Lots of people have lots of complaints about dining out. There are many things that bug others that aren’t a bother to me at all. Water glass not refilled enough? I happily suck on ice cubes. Waiter refills empty wine glasses when your glass is still mostly full? Dude! Drink faster! Ha! And strongly scented soap in the bathroom? Puh-lease! I am just happy if they have soap!

No, my biggest complaint has less to do with waiter attentiveness and aromatics, and more to do with “am I going to land in the ER because of this meal?”

In addition to the Department of Health-regulated basic hand-washing rules, some restaurants require their workers to wear plastic gloves when they handle food. Which is great. Except. Except when workers don the gloves and don’t take them off as they go about doing other non-food related things.

For instance, earlier this week I was in Grand Central at lunch time and I noticed the crepe preparer at the Ciao Bella counter press his gloved hand to his mustachioed face and cough into the glove! gah! He didn’t think a thing of it.

A few weeks ago, I went to burger joint in Fort Greene. As we ate, I watched as one of guys from the kitchen come out, and, still wearing his rubber food-prep gloves, move tables and chairs around. He then went back behind the counter to continue preparing food. Then, a couple days ago, as I walked by the same restaurant and saw a different guy from the kitchen out in front, talking on a cell phone wearing his plastic gloves! (In fairness, he could have replaced the gloves after returning inside. But I would assume if new gloves were in the plan, he would have taken the old ones off before going outside on a hot day to make a call.) I only hope the workers here take their gloves off before using the restroom!

I have witnessed countless other similar incidents (running gloved hands through hair, handling cash with gloved hands, etc.). What are these people thinking? Are they under the mistaken impression that they are meant to wear gloves in order to protect their hands from the food? Honestly, I don’t get it.

I would rather have my food prepared by someone with meticulously clean un-gloved hands than by someone wearing gloves they never take off. Am I being unreasonable? If you have any observations that might enlighten us (or horror stories of your own), please let share them in the comments below!

Fresh Direct is now delivering, along with their produce, wines and liquors from Union Square Wine & Spirits! Woo hoo! Now there can be less fretting about when Trader Joes Wine will begin Brooklyn delivery.