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The Freelance Diet: How to Splurge.

February 9, 2012

When I started coming up with a list of topics for my Freelance Diet series, I never imagined that lobster would qualify for inclusion: That crustacean hasn’t screamed “budget cuisine” since the days when it was known as poverty food and only deemed suitable for prisoners and indentured servants.

To say things have changed would be an understatement, but fortunately for the modern-day lobster-lover, deals are still there if you know where to look—or even if you don’t. It’s not just $29 rolls (or even $14 rolls, for that matter) in this town.

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Best Supporting Player.

January 26, 2012

As soon as I publicly announced my New Year’s blogolutions, it was only a matter of time before I just as publicly failed to execute any of them. If you had your money on week one in the When Does Maya Follow Through pool, you wouldn’t have been throwing it away—I do like to procrastinate.

I’d say it’s better late than never, but even this first installment in my cookbook chronicles is kind of a cheat—I made this dish in 2011.

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Friday Five: Things I’ve Eaten Lately.

January 6, 2012

I may not have written much during the past few months, but I have had plenty of good food—and become completely obsessed with posting snapshots of said food on Instagram. To the photographic evidence!

1. Bronx pork-a-palooza.

In October, I capped off a wholesome trip to the Bronx Zoo with the amazing — and decidedly unwholesome — lechón at El Nuevo Bohío. The crackling skin alone made the train ride uptown worthwhile.

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Starting Fresh.

January 4, 2012

I can’t say I’m sad to see the back of 2011. It was a year of upheaval and major life change—for the most part, the events of the past twelve months are not ones I hope to have repeated anytime soon. There were positives, too, of course, but my personal drama (and, to be honest, my tendency to wallow in the negative) obscured much of that: The bust-up of a nine-year relationship isn’t easy, no matter how you cut it. It was tough to think straight through the fallout, let alone write through it. Jill picked up the slack admirably, but our little blog here still suffered for my lack of focus.

But a new year, a new start, and all that nonsense.

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Friday Five: NYC Food Apps.

December 2, 2011

Shortly after Jill got her first iPhone, we traveled to Vermont together, and I’ll admit—I just didn’t get it. In lieu of providing her with street names when I was in charge of navigation, Jill urged me to follow the blue dot on the Maps app; “iPhone says” became a commonly heard phrase in our Mustang rental. And then, a year later, I got my own and became an instant convert. While I might not refer to mine in the third person, I am similarly addicted. Today’s Friday Five pays tribute to the New York-centric food apps that keep me (even more) glued to my touchscreen.

1. The Scoop.

While categories devoted to bars, coffee shops, events, and day trips out of the city make this New York Times app the most well-rounded of the bunch, I particularly love the Sifty Fifty section—ex-restaurant-critic Sam Sifton’s top fifty dining destinations in the city, complete with a checklist and sharing options. (No word yet on whether or not his replacement will be renaming the column, but with “Wells” as a surname, the possibilities are endless.)

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Pre-Damage Control.

December 1, 2011

When Jill and I are in each other’s company, the tiny bit of restraint we possess individually goes right out the window. (I shudder to think of the damage that would’ve been done had we known each other for more than a single semester in college.) Jill is joining me in New York tomorrow evening, so in preparation for her visit—and the reemergence of our not-so-hidden debaucherous tendencies—I decided that packing my lunches for the rest of the week might not be the worst idea in the world.

And considering the weekend’s eating agenda, making something cheap and healthy-ish seemed to be the way to go—it’s pretty much a given that nothing from either category will make an appearance on our plates once her plane lands.

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On Imperfection.

November 24, 2011

I had noble intentions for my pie-making endeavors this year. I’d make the dough ahead of time, bake the night before, transport my perfect pastries in newly purchased bamboo steamers, and arrive, pulled together and on time—for once—for turkey dinner. Of course, in reality, I did none of these things.

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I did wake up at 5:30 this morning, make the dough (poorly), put the pie in the oven only to realize, ten minutes later, that I’d forgotten to add lemon juice to the filling, and put the still-hot pie in a too-flimsy bag to transport it to Penn Station.

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A Procrastinator’s Guide to Thanksgiving.

November 23, 2011

Every year, in the build-up to Thanksgiving, I swear that this is the year I’m going to host my own dinner. I love meals like this—the planning, the prep, the table loaded with so much food there’s hardly room for plates. The complete overkill. Plus, I’ve been in New York for a decade now, and I’ve never seen the Macy’s parade in person. (Though I have gone to watch them blow up the balloons the night before, and that should count for something.)

But as the holiday gets closer, the thought of spending it without my family becomes less and less appealing, and every year, without fail, I wind up at my aunt’s table with twenty other lunatics, stuffing ourselves silly. It’s probably for the best, anyway—if I were in charge, I’d still be menu-planning and shopping the day before, and we probably wouldn’t eat until midnight. And so, to aid my fellow time-management-challenged home cooks, here’s a little bit of last-minute inspiration from our archives.

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Housewarming.

November 22, 2011

I moved into my new apartment at the beginning of October. Except for the all-too-brief summer between my junior and senior years of college and, pre-New York, a few months spent in Bucharest, this is the first time I’ve lived on my own.

I kind of love it.

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Sandwich Spotlight: Margon.

November 3, 2011

The Subject: Cubano, from Midtown lunch counter Margon.

My first job in New York, as many have been since, was in Midtown, on the periphery of Times Square—a neighborhood I quickly learned to loathe. It’s a toss-up which grated more: The slow-moving groups of tourists, meandering four-abreast down the street, gawking at the sights, or the overpriced-yet-mediocre cookie-cutter midday-meal options, which, no matter the ingredients, all manage to taste pretty much the same. As this was before there was an entire website devoted to avoiding just such establishments, I’d almost resigned myself to a spate of uninspired ten-dollar lunches when a coworker (and Miami transplant) introduced me to blink-and-you-miss-it Margon. Happiness—and weight gain—ensued.

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