The Art of Eating In: DIY Food adventure with Souther Salazar
Well, our week of eating in is complete and we went out (only figuratively!) with a bang if we do say so ourselves (full recap to come). One thing we realized is that skipping restaurant meals is kinda hard, especially if you have guests in from out of town. Case in point: this past weekend our awesome friend and amazing artist Souther Salazar was visiting New York from L.A. with his super rad girlfriend Monica for the opening of his gallery’s five-year anniversary group exhibition and we couldn’t take them to a single one of our fave Brooklyn restos. No leisurely brunches, no dinners out on the town—it was then that we felt the pain of our pledge. But we’re nothing if not determined. Luckily, Souther was game for a DIY food adventure so instead of having him pick a place to eat, we picked the spot (our kitchen!) and let him choose the menu (we think Cathy Erway would be proud). His first request was a dish he’d discovered on Nate Cooks (Vanderbilt-inspired Sriracha Brussels sprouts), which we were happy to oblige. And when his love for pulled pork sandwiches came to light, we jumped at the chance to break out our long-neglected slow cooker and try out a recipe Kelly had just been raving about (chipotle orange barbecue pork). Topped with some homemade pickled cucumbers and red onions, it was a meal of epic tasty proportions and the most memorable way to wrap up our week of not eating out.
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The Art of Eating In: San Bei Ji with Green Beans
Since Cathy Erway is the gal who inspired our week of eating in, we decided this would be the perfect time to try one of the recipes from her book. We were having one of our favorite foodie friends over for dinner and a brainstorming sesh (more on that later!), so we wanted something that was relatively quick and easy (didn’t wanna be serving dinner at 10pm), and hearty enough to feed the three of us yet would still yield leftovers for the next day’s lunch (if nothing else, our week of not eating out has been a huge exercise in the art of planning). We decided on San Bei Ji, a Taiwanese dish known as three cup chicken, that Erway made for one of her first dinner parties. The ingredients are pretty simple and the outcome is pretty tasty, especially with a good dollop of Sriracha to top it off.
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The Art of Eating In: Espresso Banana Muffins
So far we’ve tackled two whole days of not eating out and these Espresso Banana Muffins have been a huge help. Caroline’s pretty good about eating breakfast at home, but since Joe’s 13th Street location is right on my way to the office, more often than not I’m tempted to pop in for a latte and a croissant (or on a really decadent day, one of the seasonal doughnuts they stock from Doughnut Plant!). Of course that doesn’t fly when you’re supposed to be making all of your meals at home so we decided to bake these muffins over the weekend so we’d have them on hand for a quick a.m. bite during the week. Heated up and served with this surprisingly tasty instant espresso (which is a cinch to make at work; Caroline would never stoop to instant, she is a Gorilla “Espresso-a-go-go” French press gal through and through) they are the perfect way to start the day.
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The Art of Eating In: Our week of not eating out
I’m sure you guys know all about Cathy Erway and her supercool blog Not Eating Out in New York. And you probably already know that her blog birthed a book, The Art of Eating In, which is hot off the presses. But did you know that Cathy’s teamed up with the Huffington Post for an awesome seven-day experiment called The Week of Eating In? Well, we’ve read the book and we’ve taken the pledge and we’re gonna tell you all about both right here. It may only be Day 1, but we have a feeling that eating in is WAY harder than Cathy makes it seem. However, we’re pretty sure that the money we’ll save, the waste we won’t be creating, and the delicious dishes we’ll be cooking up will make it worth our while. So, if you want a fascinating insider’s glimpse into the burgeoning DIY food scene, pick up The Art of Eating In, and if you want to save the world and your wallet one meal at a time, take the pledge yourself. Or if you just want to experience both vicariously, come along with us on this little culinary adventure. We’ll be posting ruminations and recipes all week, including one of Cathy’s own. (Curious how we got our week of eating in started? Last night we made 101 Cookbooks Giant Chipotle White Beans so we could eat the leftovers for lunch today and tonight we’ll be scarfing down Martha’s Perfect Macaroni and Cheese. Both keepers. And that’s just the beginning!)
Let them eat pancakes!
February can get a little dreary what with the seemingly endless frigid days, but there is one wonderful silver lining that makes us appreciate these wintry weeks so much more: it’s national pancake month! Not that you needed an excuse to heat up the griddle and stock up on syrup, but now you have one so get to whisking. We decided to celebrate by trying out a recipe from one of our fave cookbook writers: Heidi Swanson. We usually make her lemon-poppy seed pancakes (which are absolutely delectable) but we decided to go with her berry-mascarpone version and they were just the ticket. The mascarpone gives them a wonderfully creamy texture and sure, blackberries are totally not in season, but a little bit of summer produce is like a party in your mouth when the snow is piled high outside so we decided they were worth it. Topped with vanilla bean maple syrup that Caroline picked up in Vermont a couple weeks ago and paired with slow-cooked scrambled eggs sprinkled with sea salt and pepper, well, it was a brunch match made in heaven.
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Au Revior Zucco
We need to take a moment to celebrate a life. A life that made some of our favorite N.Y.C. brunches possible and introduced us to the best French toast we’ve ever had the pleasure of enjoying. If you’ve ever been to Zucco, the sliver of an eatery on the Lower East Side, and enjoyed the sometimes surly, often en francais, always entertaining banter with the French café’s namesake owner and chef, then you’ll be just as sad as we were to hear that he passed away over the weekend.
If Zucco wasn’t outside taking deep drags off a cigarette while still wearing his apron, he was behind the counter, whipping up authentic dishes like cassoulet and baguette sammies, with his long, scraggly hair tucked under a baseball cap, effusing that Frenchie cool he carried in spades. A seat at one of the handful of barstools put you front row and center for his display of personality and culinary prowess; the excellent dishes he served just made the experience even better.
When we first discovered Le French Diner, we knew that we’d stumbled upon a rare gem of a spot, and somewhat selfishly kept it to ourselves. Though we constantly shuttled out of town guests there, often forcing them to order the aforementioned French toast, simply so we could watch their face reveal a state of bliss as the amazingness of the first bite set in. Without Zucco at the helm, the fate of the tiny diner is unknown, but we will always hold dear the many Saturday and Sunday mornings we spent there, sipping coffee and enjoying life well into the early afternoons. Au revoir Zucco, you will be missed.
via Grub Street
photo by Carina Salvi
Special Guest Food Adventure: Saelee Oh at Ippudo
Back in January, Saelee told us that she was coming out to install and open her solo show at Jonathan Levine Gallery. Saelee has spent most of her last 2 years traveling around the world to various places and in between trips she’s making amazing paintings and paper cut-outs. Whenver Saelee comes to New York for a visit she always has a list of places she wants to eat and so we had her take her pick and she chose Ippudo. We couldn’t have asked for anything more on that brisk, winter evening. A hot bowl of ramen was exactly what our tummies called for and not even a 2 hour wait was going to stop us from having it.
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Special Guest Food Adventure: Jenna & Jillian at One Girl Cookies
This post is going to include so many things we love (sweets, friends, beautiful window displays), it’s hard to know where to begin! I guess we should start with the window, cause that’s what inspired this special guest food adventure in the first place. Our dear friend Jenna Hein (amazing calligrapher) and our new friend and neighbor Jillian Clark (perhaps you know her from 100 Layer Cake?) teamed up to create a really lovely window treatment for One Girl Cookies in Carroll Gardens. We decided we should grab the two of them and head over to this cozy little bakery to admire their collaboration in person, eat some sweets, and catch up.
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Eat Your Heart Out: Heart Sandwich Cookies
Looking for a V-day treat? Look no further. We’d probably eat anything that was slapped together with Nutella, but these heart-shaped cookies have the added bonus of being especially tasty AND adorable. We put them on our “to-bake” list the minute we saw them in Everyday Food. As long as you have a heart-shaped cookie cutter, they’re pretty easy to make. Just don’t save ‘em till the last minute (we learned from experience!), the dough has to chill for two hours before you can roll it out. The cookies have a not-too-sweet taste (the 1/3 cup whole wheat flour is a nice touch) and the course salt in the dough makes that layer of chocolate-hazelnut spread taste even better (who knew that was possible?). As usual, Martha’s come through with a winner. These are way too good to be relegated to Valentine’s fare. Heart-shaped or not, we’re making these puppies are gonna perennial. Continue reading Eat Your Heart Out: Heart Sandwich Cookies…
Happy, Joy Part Deux: Food and Drinks
And so now we get to the good part: Happy Hour’s food and the drinks, what we made and how we made it. The key word was “easy” because we were having this little shindig on a work night and had about 2-3 hours to prep before our guests arrived. We chose three appetizers–Pancetta Crisps with Pear and Goat Cheese, Portable Caprese, and Kors d’Oeuvres Spinach and Artichoke dip with crackers. All very delicious and deceptively simple. Our three drink options included Cherry-Lime Rickeys, Root ‘n Gingers, and Ginger, Cranberry, Apple Punch.