Author Archive
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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Tags:apps, Friday Five, iPhone
Posted in Friday Five, In The Neighborhood, New York City | Leave a Comment »
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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Tags:cheap, salads, vegetarian
Posted in Bargain Bin, Home Cooking | Leave a Comment »
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.
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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Tags:baking mishaps, pie, Thanksgiving
Posted in Home Cooking, Under The Table | 2 Comments »
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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Tags:recipes, Thanksgiving
Posted in Home Cooking | Leave a Comment »
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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Tags:Brooklyn, home, NYC
Posted in Home Cooking, Under The Table | 3 Comments »
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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Tags:Cuban, Midtown, sandwiches
Posted in Bargain Bin, In The Neighborhood, New York City, Sandwich Spotlight, Table Service | Leave a Comment »
October 20, 2011
Jill and I haven’t been shy about discussing our collective obsession with Spanish cuisine in these pages—our love affair with tapas and sangria has been going strong since our inaugural trip together, and it shows no signs of waning anytime soon. Fried chunks of potato doused with aioli, shrimp in sizzling garlic oil, served in a hot cazuela, blistered shishito peppers sprinkled with sea salt, croquetas de jamón (or blue cheese and dates, if we’re feeling fancy)—these are the things of which reveries are made.
But as much as I love those small-plate staples, I’ve always been less than impressed by what may as well be the country’s de facto national dish: paella. (Not that that’s stopped me from wanting to make a great version myself, mind.) After one too many encounters with an underwhelming, blandly seasoned pan of rice, I gave up, mentally categorizing this dish as one that’s great in theory—what’s not to love about seafood, sausage, and garlic?—but fails to live up to its billing in reality. Silly me. Turns out I just hadn’t met the right one yet.
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Tags:Nolita, NYC, paella, Spanish, tapas
Posted in In The Neighborhood, New York City, Table Service | Leave a Comment »
October 4, 2011
Our first few days in London involved several rounds of chain dining. I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, but for the most part, this was done deliberately—I have a nostalgic fondness for Wagamama, Belgo came recommended by a former local for a casual, inexpensive meal, and I fell for the foodie tourist-bait that is a Jamie Oliver restaurant—and with predictably average results. Wagamama could never hold up to my memory of it, especially after my love affair with Ippudo; at Jamie’s Italian, I had the only plate of food that’s ever been too salty for me to finish; and while Belgo’s beer was delicious, our bucket of mussels was underwhelming.
I hardly expected our luck to change in the tour-bus capital of Bath, but it was there that both our mediocre dining streak and our lack of success with seafood came to an end.
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Tags:Bath, England, mussels, wine
Posted in Bath, Destination: Appetite, England, Passport Required, Table Service | Leave a Comment »
September 30, 2011
I’ve been house-hunting on two different continents in the past two months, and although finding an apartment in Brooklyn has its own set of challenges, let me tell you: It’s not any easier overseas than it is on home turf. When my sister moved to London to start her program, she had accommodation lined up; a few weeks before classes were due to start, her house fell through, and we spent the majority of my remaining time there looking at places that would work for five mostly non-UK residents, short-term. Not an easy task.
Of course, this story has a happy ending, and, naturally, it’s one that involves a triumphal meal. After a few days of frantic searching, my sister inked her signature on a multipage housing contract, and we got down to the important business of celebrating her newfound digs.
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Tags:Ealing, London, pierogies, Polish
Posted in Bargain Bin, Destination: Appetite, London, Passport Required, Table Service | Leave a Comment »
September 13, 2011
In August, the stars were in alignment: My sister was getting ready to begin a course in makeup application for stage, film, fashion, and the like at Ealing Studios in southeast London, and our mother was heading over to help her get settled and to see a bit of the city. I had some downtime at work, and you don’t need to ask me twice about putting another stamp in my passport. I bit the bullet, charged the exorbitantly priced ticket to my credit card, and began counting down the days ’til I could flee the country.
I didn’t arrive in England expecting to find a decent pie. It would be somewhat counterintuitive to travel from New York, a well-established pizza Mecca, to the home of fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, and pub grub, with such a goal in mind—the thought never occurred to me, until the traditional Neapolitan-style pizza at Santa Maria sought me out, exceeding expectations I didn’t even know I had.
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Tags:calzone, London, pizza
Posted in Destination: Appetite, London, Passport Required, Table Service | 1 Comment »
