Check out what I got in the mail this week!
My friend work in publishing and sent me all these free and advance copies of food books, including an illustrated knife skill book (for both right and left handed people).
I’m a happy kid.
You can get your days worth of vegetables just from this one dish. For me, this is one of those recipes that I make when I haven’t been to the market in over a week and pull together things that are just sitting in my fridge. Spaghetti squashes will keep on your counter for about three weeks. If you have never eaten spaghetti squash or have never cooked one yourself before, pick one up the next time you do your grocery shopping and use this simple recipe. It’s like totally healthful and yumm-o in thirty minutes, you guys!
Matt and I attended Split Thy Skull VIII at Mug’s Ale House in Williamburg this past Saturday. From 11am until close on Saturday and Sunday, they offered samplings of high alcohol beers (the lowest being 7% abv and the highest being 13.25%) for $3.50, 5 oz servings in little snifter glasses. We had attended their Belgium 2 Brooklyn beer fest in December, which I found more enjoyable because they had sour beers and I could drink a gallon of that stuff. At three pm, the bar was already three people deep. The good thing about it was that it was 90% beer nerds and beer nerds are very patient and there was not cutting or cursing or shoving that you get from regular booze hounds. There Matt’s coworker, Andy, met up with us.
We then sauntered over to Barcade, which is a green bar (solar powered). They have a nice selection of craft beers, a full bar and olde tyme video games. I suggested going there because I’ve been wanting to try the Dogfish Head vodka. Dogfish Head is an extreme American craft brewery that does crazy, delicious stuff like brew beers with a 20% abv or copy the recipe of the elixir found in King Midas’ tomb. And, apparently, they also distill their own liquor. Unfortunately, Barcade was out of it their vodka, so I decided to try their Jin, which was very herbally (pineapple mint, rosemary). It made an odd martini, but not unpleasant. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t drink gin. Now I’d like to ask a question for any bartender that may be reading: I’ve bartended before, but I find it odd how more often then not, when I order martini on the rocks the bartender mixes it in a shaker. Is this because of James Bond?
Friday night some Chew Food contributors attended happy hour at The Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. Matt is a huge beer nerd, so he was excited because it was the unveiling of Brooklyn Brewery’s new Brooklyn Local 1 (a bottle conditioned Belgian inspired beer).
At the Brewery, you buy beer tokens for $3 each or 7 for $20. The Brooklyn Local 1 was available with take-home glass (as pictured) for three tokens. Continue reading…
The Braun Multiquick has been my favorite kitchen gadget since I got it three years ago. For $28 (now priced at $35) it’s been my mixer, mini food chopper and submersion blender: A tri-tasker! 
Some of the things you can do with it:
Things I wish you could do with it:
The image above is the 400 series model
I own. In the future, I hope to upgrade to the spiffy chrome 5000 series, 5-speed one for $63.
Pros:
Cons of the 400 series:
I say it’s the best appliance that you aren’t going to buy because I’ve been raving about it for years to anyone who will listen, but no one else I know has gotten it. It’s only $35 and that’s not even the amount of money it costs to go out drinking for a night. I guess it’s not worth $35 to make your life easier and cut down on kitchen clutter. Suckers. Go back to your Wish-Bone Zesty Italian dressing and get out of my face.
Finding a place in the East Village to partake in a little post-work imbibing is not a problem. Finding a place that is reasonably priced, relatively quiet during happy hour, and not obnoxiously tres chic usually ends in resignation with $3 wells at random pub standby number one or a desperate scramble on CitySearch.com. So after a friend recently suggested Lil’ Frankie’s, I gave it a shot.
When I heard it was a popular destination for celebrities in the neighborhood, I shuddered with flashbacks from a night waiting in line at B-Bar, but I was surprised to find the space both quaint and adorable. It proved to be an ideal go-to spot to start the night off with friends for drinks and even tasty eats. Sitting at the small 8-stool bar was a good choice; there’s a great breeze from the street (the front of the restaurant opens up al fresco style), and it’s close to the bartenders. The front dining area was nearly empty when we arrived, and I was relieved to see the absence of bar room televisions. The bedazzled, low-lit chandeliers, cheeky family photos, and rows of old medicine bottles lining the interior walls are all great for decoration and conversation starters, but the real gem is the specialty brew found right on the tap; Lil’ Frankie’s Six Point Ale, which the bartender claimed to have helped brew with the Six Point master himself. The 12-inch brick-oven Margherita pizza was a gooey, filling complement and only $10. We enjoyed a few pints before a sizable crowd wandered in for dinner, which included a mammoth 26 oz. t-bone steak for two special. The sweet scent of fresh basil quickly permeated the room, and it wasn’t until the bartender revealed a tray of mojitos (made here with basil instead of mint) that I realized we might just stay at Lil’ Frankie’s all night long.
Lil’ Frankie’s Pizza is located at 19 1st Avenue between First and Second Streets in Manhattan.
(212) 420-4900
A little over five years ago, a close friend of mine introduced me to a Louisiana-based culinary innovation called the turducken. For those not in the know, the turducken is born when an evil genius debones one duck, one chicken, and one turkey. Said evil genius then proceeds to layer the birds: Turkey, duck, chicken, interspersing layers of stuffing, and reconstructing them so that the finished product somewhat resembles the original turkey.
Last week, I was treated to a food technology demonstration at the French Culinary Institute : The two chefs put together their own version of a turducken, prepared using a technique called low temperature cooking (or if you have a vacuum bag, sous vide). During this presentation the chefs showed off industrial products - one in specific that I’m focusing on - that restaurants, food manufacturers and other large scale operations who aren’t me can seem to get their hands on. These hydrocolloids (fancy name for food chemicals), as our presenters at the FCI explained, are basically all the polysyllabic words on the back of food packaging.
With that in mind, the one specific ingredient that stood out that I now need to get my hands on, was transglutaminase, sometimes referred to as “meat glue”. One of the challengers on Iron Chef (the NASCAR of culinary TV) made noodles out of shrimp using this stuff. And I could make carpaccio ravioli, if I could only get my hands on it. What transglutaminase does, chemically, is bond proteins together, like this:
Protein bonding.
In my searches for transglutaminase, I have found that “Ajinomoto Co of Japan was the first to develop and market transglutaminase for food applications under the trade name Activa™ TG.” And that, “Ajinomoto is a global food company that had the knowledge, experience and ability to create and market a consistent and high quality product that others try to imitate.” What I didn’t find is where I can easily obtain a bag of Activa™ TG or any other transglutaminase product that will allow me to combine meats without the hassle of butcher’s twine, and more effectively at that. Apparently the food science sector doesn’t want us “normals” to have access to naturally existing enzymes that can do things to dead animals that would make bestiality loving necrophiliacs blush.
If anybody out there can point me in the direction of a store that carries kitchen chemistry sets, I would be eternally grateful.
I figured my first recipe posting should be a good, simple standby. Soups are one of my favorite things to cook since they are hard to mess up, generally easy to make and super nutritious and delicious.
This chicken soup recipe is actually really simple. If you prep everything in the morning, it should only take you about twenty minutes once the stock is done. So if you aren’t afraid to leave your stove on while you are work, I suggest you try it out. If you are scared and/or lack insurance, it’s a good weekend recipe for the cold weather. So you better make this before Springs comes, because then I’ll be posting about salads and short skirts.
Kuma’s Corner is a Chicago restaurant with an interesting menu. The burger-heavy selection is notable for the titles of its dishes. All but two of the burgers along with the pulled pork and chicken sandwiches are named after metal bands. From the classic (Iron Maiden) to the questionable (Hate Beak), nearly the entire spectrum of metal is represented. Even stoned upstarts Mastodon get in on the act as a Cheddar-Bacon Burger smothered with BBQ sauce.
Now, I am having a difficult time deciding whether or not I like this idea. Now, I enjoy my metal (actually, I am listening to Obituary on my headphones) and I love burgers, so it’s not like I feel either of the two is sullying the other’s name. And in theory it should work and just be the raddest thing ever. But it isn’t. In fact, I don’t like the idea at all. I just feel like I should. I don’t really know why the names bother me, but they do. It’s as if I woke up one day and everything in my room was shifted 20 degrees to the left. On one hand, it might really open up the room and make it seem bigger, but on the other… well, it’s just plain weird. I want to sit and pound my fist on my table when i listen to Reign in Blood; I don’t want to eat a slayer. That would just be too bizarre for me.
I think that it also just reminds me too much of Planet Hollywood. And anything that reminds me of that place is gonna give me some bad vibes. Sorry, Kuma and your corner; no offense intended. I just had a rather bad experience at PH one time, involving a spilled fajita platter and my lap. I’m sure your burgers are extremely tasty—I just couldn’t order one by its name!
Am I crazy? Is this actually a marriage made in meatily metallic heaven? Quite possibly. But I am sticking to my guns, dammit!
Oh yeah, big ups to Grant for the link.
A hundred bones is almost a weeks worth of groceries for Matt and myself. It’s the bill of a decent restaurant for the two of us. It’s the cost of a good new chef’s knife. It’s the cost (including tip) of a night of drinking and charcuterie plate eating for the two of us at Brooklyn’s Spuyten Duyvil (best bar for beer connoisseurs in New York - it’s not arguable, it’s a fact).
My friend Joe, who will contribute to this blog, is also an avid cook. But he only owns one cookbook, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman, which his parents gave to him and I don’t think he’s used it yet. He pretty much uses the internet for everything. (He prefers the member based recipes of AllRecipes whereas I prefer the celebrichefs of Food Network and more recently, as I’ve outgrown the Food Network, Epicurious and Cooking Light). But this brings up a good question: Are cookbooks now obsolete? Are they frivilous? Is it just a waste of money since you can find almost anything on the internet? I guess it all comes down to what you are willing to spend your money on - be it cookbooks or weed or a designer handbag or an Insane Clown Posse tattoo. I am a visual person and love looking at the photos in cookbooks. The food chapters of my French textbooks were always my favorite when I was younger and I even went as far as ripping out a food photo from one before returning at the end of seventh grade. I love going through a cookbook and tagging what dishes I would like to make. Hopefully I have chosen good cookbooks that won’t become passé. Like this beauty.
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