More Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Jill and Jesse were big fans of launching kamikaze paper airplanes out the window during the parade. (You can't see it because of the glare, but Jesse is in the middle of folding one in the photo.) I was in charge of checking off floats and balloons as the parade progressed (which is what my coffee mug-full of mimosa's is anchoring down in the photo).

Thanks to my coworker, Priscilla, who took the photo and provided the bagels- and mimosa- makings!

Butter baby

Just in the nick of time, they turned our gas back on this week!

I have never been so excited to boil water on a stove (It's a miracle!) as I was Tuesday night. Jill, Jesse, and I had been on tenterhooks for the last couple weeks because we really wanted to cook Thanksgiving dinner together at home, but we weren't sure whether or not we'd have gas.

We had already hedged our bets: Jill had ordered a turkey from a farmer at the Union Square Green Market, and Jesse and I had already gone out and bought all our Thanksgiving groceries last Sunday at Whole Foods. (Perfect timing: the next day The New York Times blog, Well, posted this article about getting ripped off on organic Thanksgiving groceries. Oh well.) My friend Matt graciously offered to let us use his kitchen to cook while he was out of town for the holiday, but I was reluctant to commit because it just wouldn't be the same as cooking at home. (Not to mention that the kitchen in his fabulous Soho apartment is about the size of a postage stamp.)

But we lucked out, and I came home Wednesday night after work to the happy sight of Jill rolling out pie dough for the pecan pie.

Thursday morning the three of us braved midtown to watch the Thanksgiving Day Macy's Parade from my office (our windows look out over Broadway). I had seen the parade once before (from another office window on Broadway), but it was Jill's and Jesse's first time. So we toasted the occasion with mimosas and gorged ourselves on bagels and smear.

After the parade, we headed home to make the meal. Jill is in charge of the pie and the turkey. I'm in charge of the stuffing and mashed potatoes. Jesse is in charge of the green beans. (And the cranberry sauce in the can pretty much takes care of itself.) This year we used a cheese cloth stuffing bag to stuff the turkey. It made for interesting, but quick'n'easy, removal.


Once we'd eaten, and slept off the tryptophan, it was time for pie and coffee. Jesse put the kettle on to boil (Hallelujah!) for the french press while I started whipping heavy cream. My mom has yet to hand-me-down on a mixer from the 1970's (unlike the crock pot and electric skillet), so all I have is an old fashioned egg beater that a former roommate (who was a student at the Culinary Institute of America) left behind when she moved out. Jesse had never used an egg beater before, and wanted a turn at the crank. But he was a little vigorous, and almost turned our whipped cream into butter. Luckily, like the gas, we caught it in the nick of team. Our whipped cream is still whipped cream, but it is remarkably spreadable.

Gimme Jimmy

Blue cheese: Ranson Blue, aged cow's milk with streaks of blue
Frozen yogurt: Creme Caramel

More Jimmy's No. 43! (I swear to you, I'm not obsessed; just a creature of habit who likes really good food.) Natalia and I had a girl's night out last night as both of our boyfriends were out of town. We split the cheese plate of Ranson Blue from Cato Corner Farm, the tang of which nicely balanced my delightfully unexpectedly spicy goulash (which I really ordered just for the buttered spaeztle).

While we nibbled cheese and sipped our beers, we also blew off some steam about our boyfriends (naturally).

No 1. gripe: our skinny boyfriends won't eat ice cream.

Jesse and I have actually had a minor tiff about this (if you can image fighting over ice cream). I eat fairly healthy, but I love ice cream. And I also don't believe in denying yourself the good things in life, like ice cream. Jesse, on the other hand, is obsessively healthy. Goes to the gym. Does martial arts. Vegetarian. And most nights, when I'm raiding the freezer for a dish of the good stuff, he begs off because he'd rather eat cottage cheese.

Non-fat cottage cheese.

With protein powder.

Which, of course, makes me feel like a great, big, fat pig.

So I was relieved to hear that Natalia has the same problem with her boyfriend. Clearly, we're not crazy, but obviously our boyfriends are. Equally obvious, is that they should man up when we open the freezer and eat the damn ice cream with us, and thereby spare us the guilt.

Anyway, I was feeling righteously absolved after dinner with Natalia, so I went home and finished off the pint of Stonyfield Low Fat Creme Caramel Frozen Yogurt.

So there.

Gelato postscript

Gelato: Fresh Mint, Cinnamon, Rum Raisin, and Buttermilk

I forgot to mention in my last post that we ended Erin's visit on a high note with gelato at Il Laboratorio del Gelato. I had talked a big game about their basil gelato, but they didn't have it on hand that day. So instead Erin had the Fresh Mint, Jesse had the Cinnamon and Rum Raisin, and I had two scoops of the Buttermilk.

I've also had their Guiness and their Black Mission Fig flavors (I think the latter is my favorite).

If you can't make it down the Lower East Side to visit the lab, you can also find their gelato:

Manhattan

• Dean and Deluca (SoHo and Uptown stores)
• Murray's Cheese
• Whole Foods (Union Square)

Brooklyn: Bierkraft

They also ship.

P.S. Not far away from Il Laboratorio del Gelato, you can find the best green tea ice cream at Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.

Il Laboratorio del Gelato

95 Orchard St.
(between Broome & Delancey Sts)
New York, NY 10002

(212) 343-9922
Map

Kaffeeklatsch

Espresso: Cappuccino
Espresso: Cortado
Espresso: Caffe Tinto

An old friend, Erin, came to visit me in New York this past weekend. Erin and I have many shared loves, not the least of which are shoes, opera, reading, wine, cheese, chocolate, and coffee. Not only do we love each other--and love coffee--but we also love girl talk with each other over coffee. So it was important to me to give Erin a little taste of the east coast coffee scene to take home with her to the left coast, and get in lots of girl talk while we were at it.

When I moved to New York, I quickly discovered that the coffee culture was severely lacking in comparison to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, where Erin and I met and went to college together. In New York, more often that not, your espresso beverage is burned, too sweet, and with too much milk.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't so much as drink milk with my coffee, as I drink coffee with my milk. When Jesse and I go to brunch and get drip coffee with our breakfast, he has to cream his coffee first because he knows that I will dump all of the remaining cream in my coffee. The waitstaff at our favorite brunch spot knows me as the girl who asks for extra cream two or three times in one meal. But even with that said, I still want my latte to taste like espresso, and not like something that Nestle might bottle and sell next to the chocolate and strawberry milk in the dairy case.

Lucky for me, and other coffee and espresso aficionados in New York, there is a small but growing community of coffee shops taking root around the city and I wanted to show Erin a few of my favorites.

First stop, was Red Horse, where we warmed up after a walk in Prospect Park to see the fall foliage on Friday. Hands down, Red Horse is my favorite coffee shop in New York. It has fabulous coffee and a terrific atmosphere. I don't know how they do it, but the foamed milk in the cappuccinos seems as if it's on the verge on caramelizing into dulce de leche.

The next stop on our New York coffee tour, Abraco, is the complete opposite of Red Horse. Located in the East Village, it's more of a coffee stall than a coffee shop. In the Italian tradition of espresso, people stop by the tiny store front, order their espresso, drink it standing up at the bar, and then, zoom, they're on the way. When we stopped by after a matinee show of Avenue Q on gray Saturday afternoon we were feeling a little sleeply and in need of a little zoom. We ordered cortados, which are kind of like machiato-sized lattes. A latte has a lot more steamed milk than espresso, and a machiato has only a little bit of steamed milk with espresso, but a cortado has 1:1 ratio of steamed milk to espresso. It's a lot like a cafe au lait, but a cortado is made with espresso and steamed milk, where a cafe au lait is made with drip coffe and steamed milk. Whatever the semantics, the cortados at Abraco are amazing.

On Sunday, Erin's last morning in New York, we met up at Mercury Dime before heading out for brunch at Back Forty and browsing at The Strand. Mercury Dime is quiet spot with a beautiful picture window; every time I stop by I fantasize about spending an afternoon sitting in front of the window people watching and drinking bottomless mugs of excellent coffee. But we didn't have too much time that Sunday morning, so I needed my caffiene quick in the form of a cafe tinto. A cafe tinto is in the Cuban tradition of espresso, where espresso is sweetened with sugar while it is brewing, usually called a cafe cubano. However, a cafe cubano is made by adding sugar to the espresso grounds in the basket before brewing. Whereas a cafe tinto is made by whipping sugar into a small amount of brewed espresso, and then adding it to the rest of the espresso shot. Brewing the sugar with the espresso brings out a fruitiness in the coffee that makes a straight espresso shot palatable even for milk-lover like me.

Red Horse
Open Mon-Fri, 7 am - 10 pm
Open Sat-Sun, 8 am - 10 pm

497 6th Ave
(between 11th St & 12th St)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 499-4973
Map

Abraco
Open Tues-Sat, 8 am - 6 pm
Open Sunday, 9 am - 6 pm
Closed Monday

86 E. 7th st.
(Near 1st Avenue)
(212) 388-9731
Map

Mercury Dime
Open Mon-Fri, 8 am-12 am
Open Saturday, 10 am-12 am
Open Sunday, 10 am-10 pm

246 E. 5th St.
New York, NY 10003
(212) 533-3295
Map

Jimmy's No. 44

This week, Nov. 12 -15, is Fancy Dutch Beer Week at Jimmy's No. 43! Proost and Gezondheid!

Jimmy's No. 43 No. 1 fan

Sheep milk cheese: Frere Fumont, smoked firm cheese
Sixpoint Craft Ale: Hop Obama and Brownstone

Disclaimer: Despite the fact that I cried all the way through dinner there last Saturday (don't ask; it's a long, hormonal story), I am a big fan of Jimmy's No. 43.

So just in case you were also at Jimmy's No. 43 last Saturday night around 11 p.m., I would like to set the record straight: I wasn't crying about the food. And even though I was crying into my beer, I definitely wasn't crying about the beer.

In fact, Jesse and I headed out to Jimmy's No. 43 on Saturday because of a New York Times article on Brooklyn beers we read earlier in the week. We're both big fans of Sixpoint Craft Ales and the article whetted our appetite.

Jesse likes hoppy beers, so he ordered the Hop Obama. But we both like cask ales, so I took one for the team and had the Brownstone. The Hop Obama was very smooth; so smooth that I even liked it, which is impressive because I don't usually like beers with a lot of hops. The Brownstone was also really good and lacked the bitterness that's common to American brown ales.

For dinner, we both had the seared salmon with carrots and cider braised cabbage, which is the perfect autumnal comfort food. So often "comfort food" means "big and heavy," like meatloaf or macaroni and cheese. The salmon was unlike either, but it was comforting in that it seemed like the perfect meal to curl up with in front of a fire on a stormy afternoon or evening.

While we were waiting for our food we shared a cheese plate of Frere Fumont. The sheep's milk cheese was mellow and creamy, with the rind providing a rich, smoky flavor. Perfect for snacking on between sobbing and reassuring your boyfriend that you haven't lost your everlovin' mind.

Jimmy's No. 43
Open 7 days, 12 noon - 2am (till 4am on weekends)
Kitchen 5:30pm - 12 midnight

Downstairs at 43 East 7th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue)
(212) 982-3006
Map

Happy Halloween

Rock around the crockpot

Chevre: Sunlight, Semi-hard raw goat's milk cheese
Wine: Vale dos Vinhedos Pinot Noir (Brazil)

One of my coworkers likes to tell the story about when ConEdison (the public utility company in New York) called him to ask if his stove still worked. "Yeah, why?" Pete (my coworker) said. To which the ConEd person on the other end of the line replied, "Okay, we just wanted to check because you haven't used any gas in the last four months." Whether it's Pete--the serial take-out artist--or the fictional Sex and the City charactor Carrie Bradshaw--who kept her sweaters in her oven--the stereotype is that New Yorkers don't cook.

Which makes me, Jill, and Jesse anomalies as New Yorkers because we do cook, and we have been suffering mightily ever since the building management turned off the gas to our building three weeks ago in order to fix a gas leak. But thank god for my Mom and for hand-me down kitchen appliances, as they have saved our bacon (so to speak) over the last three weeks. A few years ago my Mom shipped us an old electric skillet and a crockpot she had received as a wedding gift in late 1970's. At the time, I questioned the logic of cleaning out her garage by shipping me stuff to keep in my tiny New York apartment kitchen, but I now question no more.

Jill has made good use of the electric skillet (she's partial to fried eggs), while Jesse and I have monopolized the crockpot. The one good thing that's come out of the last three weeks is that I've discovered making squash in the crockpot. Two weeks ago we made spaghetti squash with jarred sauce. It turned okay, but not great, because we had to heat the sauce in the crockpot with the squash once it was done cooking, so the squash was actually a little overcooked by the time the sauce had warmed up. But the squash cooked beautifully on its own, pre-saucing. I was so pleased with how easy it was--and how nice it was to come home to cooked squash after work (no waiting for it to cook in the oven!)--that I tried a stuffed acorn squash recipe next.

The recipe recommends topping the squash and rice with chevre; normally I'd get the prepackaged goat cheese crumbles. But now that I have this blog, I thought I should probably take the cheese acquisition up a notch. So Jesse and I headed off to the creamery at Whole Foods to see what kinds of interesting goat cheeses were available.


I'm pretty sure that the author of the stuffed squash recipe intended for a fresh chevre to be used, but after tasting a couple of different kinds I asked the dairy attendant at Whole Foods if he had unusual goat cheeses. Which is when he got out the Sunlight goat cheese from Haystack Mountain Dairy in Longmont, Co. With a hint of Roquefort, the Sunlight goat cheese was unlike anything else we had tasted. So we took it right home and fired up the crockpot.


The recipe turned out well, but I think next time I will use a fresh chevre. The best pairing actually turned out to be the Sunlight cheese with a bottle of the Vale dos Vinhedos Pinot Noir (Brazil) Jesse had picked up at Astor Place Wines. Jim Schott, the founding cheesemaker at Haystack Mountain Dairy, reccomends pairing Sunlight with dried fruit like cherries. A similar effect also worked with the red berry notes of the Pinot Noir.

We've been told that we might have gas by this weekend, and I'm already planning which recipes to make first. Since I have goat cheese on the brain, and I might make Warm Potato Salad with Goat Cheese for my cooking comeback.

Dubbel word score

Cheddar: Cahill's Porter, Irish cheddar marbled with Cahill's farm-made Irish Porter
Istara: French semi-firm sheep's milk
Belgian beer: Affligem Dubbel & Affligem Tripel

Jesse (my boyfriend) and I headed out to Nate and Natalia's (friends of ours) place in Park Slope on Saturday for some adult board games. Nothing kinky, just Scrabble with beer instead of Kool-Aid. Jesse had actually never played Scrabble before and (in my opinion) was suffering from a small bout of vocabulary inadequacy beforehand. Thankfully we had picked up two bottles of Belgian beer, which quickly made us all feel very relaxed.

Jesse and I had spent the day hanging out at Red Horse Cafe (soon to be the subject of another post about the alchemy of espresso and foam) working on a case study about Google China (me) and studying for the LEED Accreditation (Jesse), so it was just a short walk over to Bierkraft. We fell in love with Bierkraft last year when Jesse was living in Park Slope. They're known mostly for their beer selection (900 kinds), but they also have an excellent selection of cheeses (250 kinds), chocolates, ice cream (particularly Shameless Ice Cream Sandwiches), and gourmet acctrouements. Browsing can be overwhelming (in a good way), so we often just flag down the nearest helpful employee and put ourselves into her capable hands. On Saturday, a helpful woman behind the cheese counter reccomened two excellent cheeses for snacking: a Cahill's Porter (photo above) and an Istara. I've been on a Belgian beer kick for the last year, so we also picked up a bottle of Affligem Dubbel and a bottle of Affligem Tripel - and a baguette - to go with the cheeses.

Natalia had also picked up a Port-Salut cheese, Manchego cheese, Serrano ham, and Carr's Crackers (the best), so we had quite the feast. The Cahill's Porter was the hit all around with a close-second tie between the Port-Salut and the Istara; my preference was for the Port-Salut.

We also drank two bottles of wine, so the by time Jesse and I left to catch the subway back to Manhattan we were full of cheese and booze.

And Jesse kicked ass at Scrabble, so a good time was had by all.

Bierkraft
Hours: Open 7 Days a Week
Mon - Thurs 11:30 am - 8:30 pm
Fri 11:30 am - 9 pm
Sun 11 am - 8 pm

191 Fifth Avenue
(718) 230-7600
Map