step by step

Lets see how to begin. Since I have been a fan of Julia Child since the 70's this puts me in a different slot. Now how do I, with only my rustic approach, appease the palletes? I do it with taste. If it tastes good then it is good. Today we are making Indian food. Lamb vindaloo or whatever with potatos and okra and peas. I also made jasmin rice Rice cooker with cardamon beans.
Tasty. Then we made flat bread. whatever is your normal way.dough then a hot surface and some bread,.Pile up the bread and then make more..After you make a few you are ready, so you make a plate with a yoghurt sauce with mint and sweet onions and then eat.good luck.

Ugly Bear

Well, he gets a bad rap.

So Heres a look inside.

Juicy sandwich

And pot pie

Then apples and avocados and we are done.

Full uh flay vuh

Thats all I got. I cant make a plate look pretty for nuttin'. I make my feeble attempts but they always fall way short of the mini installations I crave, but the flavor sticks with you like a bad date, well maybe thats not the best way to say it. I have always known that the eyes eat first but I guess I expect blindness to kick in while the aroma takes over. Red rover, red rover send aroma right over. My other weakness is the titilation, see I cant write to create a tickle I want to kick your ass quick and get it over with. So the dog will be working on two things: one better looking plates and two teasing you with my words, lets see if it ever happens.

Trade

Sent some hats and got some soap = this is how i ROCK the soap.

I've never been cleaner than Sh%4T until now.

The soap comes from Levis Lathers in Indiana...

further edit: I guess I could have cleaned the tiles a bit

Soup Sunday

Cracked out the crock pot and stewed like 5 pounds of turkey wings. The most glorious broth and the most tender turkey ensued, so what do you do - make soup. Did I ever mention how much I love soup. I think my most favorite soup is miso with each and every perfectly cut piece floating around so existentially, but not today. Today it is roasted garlic, potato and cheese with thyme, a hardy soup that is strong on flavor but not heavy. You can eat this with a turkey panini or good crusty bread, I used a very nice camembert and it added enough cheesy creaminess without becoming milky.

Fresh Fish

I love chinatown. Nothing excites my afternoons more than making a trip to chinatown. I get so happy with all the noise and smells and hustle that it makes me feel like a tourist even after 20 years of living here. Today it was to get tilapia which I crusted with herbs and tortilla chips with a gratin of potatoes with shredded beet greens. The fish is so light and tasty and the crunchiness of the tortilla chips and corn flavor give it a nice and subtle boost, and its hard to mess up taters so these were a little creamy and a lot tasty.

Someone had the brilliant idea to paint some of the mail boxes to look like R2D2's and I love it. My only complaint would be that they are the same, it would be so cool if they were different D2 units each unique.

Oh and the Empire State building was awesome with these fairy tale clouds.

Last night I had a snack of fried plantains with sour cream, and refried black bean tacos on blue corn tortillas with a salsa made with tomatillos and serano chiles with pork rinds (the really good ones from the cuchifrito stores). The pork rinds get really soft and really delicious soaking in the salsa and even though this looks gooey and kind of gross the flavor made up for the lack of positive visuals.

I guess I should try to explain what a cuchifrito is - NYC has these little food stores that sell hispanic foods like pasteles and bacalao and pork rinds to name just a few and the slang name for these kinds of stores is "cuchifrito" pronounced - coo-chi-frito, and thats about all I know besides the fact that I enjoy their offerings.

Nice Buns

I had firsts and then seconds since the greasy first one was so good.

Professional Crastinator

I can put off doing just about anything and I frequently do but my boy on the other hand does not. Today was a half day of school due to parent teacher conferences which translates into getting up and doing the normal school thing but then he gets dismissed at 11:30. I see no point in all the hurry only to have to go back and get him in 3 hours so on these days we dont go. The guy gets up and the very first thing he asks is if he can do his homework. Now keep in mind this is a kid that asks to do everything, such a good kid and I wonder how he is mine we are total opposites. Now not only does he want to do his homework for today but he also wants to do tomorrows as well, what do I say "no, go play gamecube and watch cartoons instead?" Blows my mind to have such a great boy.

Irish For A Day

Not too much Irish going on over here but we boil up the fixins' anyway. Tradition, well our tradition, since we dont have one, I just get the biggest pot I can find and fill it with water and load it with meat and seasonings. I use the little sprinkle that comes with the meat and then tons of my own like chile flakes and garlic and onions I leave the skins on to give more color, I even throw in some pickling spice just for the clove flavor. This year I did two large packages of corned beef adding up to around 8 pounds of future sandwich heaven. After it has boiled a while I throw in cabbage and potatoes. When it is ready it gets to either pile on a plate and eaten with bread on the side (rarely an option) or slapped between two pieces of rye bread slathered with mustard. I like the sandwich the best because I dont feel bad eating two in a row, plus I dont like cabbage and plus the potatoes seem gross and then to spoon it all up with a fork seems all the wierder so I opt for mixing cultures. Jewish Rye all the way.

I like this brand of rye since it is soft and subtle with the rye and you can either get seeded or un seeded, I go for no seeds. So its basically however you want with the sandwich, piled high or layerd thin with the cabbage with out the cabbage heck I dont know I'm not Irish.



It snowed so we made window box snowmen.



Then we got drunk, got in a fight and called it St. Paddy's day!



Later some characters visited and reeked havoc. Perhaps
channeling some latent and distant leprechaun relation.



They had potions and amulets and little wierd coins and spoke in a variety of accents and then just as suddenly they were gone.

Wow Wee

I find myself looking forward to the weekend in a different way and when a friend said today that she was glad it was Friday and I said why and she said she can look forward to uninterrupted sleep I instantly related. Weekends used to mean so much more, now they mean no early school day mornings with breakfast and hustle. More of a laid back, eat pankcakes and sip coffee and cocoa kind of mornings. It is different with the kid factor for sure but the endless joy that you reap from their amazement makes it all worth it. Toaster waffles with whipped cream is an eight year olds version of nirvana. Oh to be eight. I remember one time in 5th grade I borrowed one of my sisters long sleeve black unitards, the kind that uncomforably snap at the crotch - and I wore it under these skin tight hip huggers and these pointy shiny shoes I mustered up somehow and was hiding out in my sisters room with her so we could race out to the school bus before my dad saw me dressed this way. I wanted to be an english rocker in the 5th grade. Well I got to the bus before I was almost tackled by my dad. So as I grab the handle as someone is grabbin' me I am whisked away. Needless to say I didnt go to school like an english rocker - that day. I saw some PBS program with the Stones and the who and jethro tull and it reminded me. So here we go easing into the weekend with it pissing snow outside. Literally pissing snow. Its like a windy urination of something snow like raining down. Hard to figure.

"Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things"

Not For Everyone

Gorgonzola dolce is a cheese you have to love. Gorgonzola Naturale, well it loves you. It really isnt someting that you can learn to love you either do or you dont. It has a strong, pungent sweetness that is sometimes so seductive it leaves you feeling unfaithful after eating it. Many years ago one of my friends was trying to like it when he said "how will I explain this smell to my wife" and we laugh about that even now. I like it in pasta, dolloped over a steak, lamb or pork chop, spread on a cracker and even scooped up with a spoon, but my all time favorite is in a crepe drizzled with honey.

I eat like six of these and get such a euphoric feeling that makes me want to...well you know what.

I made a bread pudding out of this giant scone from Trader Joes. I had my little guy tear it into pieces and then I soaked it with egg custard liquid, you know eggs, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and a dash of salt, I even scattered a few extra raisins on top. Then it was popped in the oven until set. It is so good, like a dense french toast and we eat it with whipped cream.

And on an even lighter note here is the guy having soy milk and waffles all grumpy before school the other day.

Meat River

It's like the meat just wont stop flowin' I swear. We got meat comin' outta our meat. I guess you could could "prehistorically" say "life is good" that is until the "vegetarian" showed up. A more advanced human, a human that -didnt eat meat- and then the vegetarian spawned and we had vegans -those that eat hardly anything unless it looked like a cake...or some pile of lettuce. And the meat was just sitting there...aging...waiting for me the vegantairiocarnivor. ..the ve- gan-tary-o- carnivor. I eat all.

back to my last nerve

Visual DNA

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Stick a fork in me I am done

What is up with this "season" It was negative 2 this morning when I walked the little guy to school - ok it was like 12 or something but the wind chill dropped it down. I dont want to cook. I dont want to do anything but soak in the hot tub that I dont have and dream about warmer days and warm weather foods like sushi or oysters on the half shell. Foods you dont cook and you eat cold, foods that go good with ice cold beer, foods that I am craving now. Oh well. I do live in NYC and everything is available so I should be at least happy for that.

Punk'd

I just got punked by blogger. I am a first draft kind of guy so to type all of my most profound thoughts and then have them disappear is not my thing.

Any way these are a few of my favorite things. Things that I use often and then not at all but things I like to have around. Besides my knives, and I have several, these are my little helpers. One day I will post on my knives, some people may have more some may have better but mine are mine and sharp as hell. I even have a ghurka that i am trying to find a kitchen application for. My ghurka has a nice leather sheath and two cute little cheese knives that I guess you use to stab with if the beheading doesnt work out.

Coconut milk, both dried and liquid. The dry is nice to sprinkle on things to give them some exotic umpf. Braggs when soy and salt just isnt the right flavor.

Flax seed oil to give glisten and smoothness to shakes or dairy based soups. Acidopholus when I over indulge and I "lose" all my enzymes.

Molina vanilla because it is good and not too pricey and I can use it in everything from coffee to cologne. New Mexican saffron, also cheap but nice enough to use gobs of, and my coup de gras (sp)

Truffle Oil, I use it on pizza, eggs, mashed potatoes -anything that I want to give a special flavor blast to.

So thats about it...if I think of more-and there are- I will post.