Luscious Life
A couple of weeks ago, we decided to go on a detox to cleanse our bodies of, well, toxins. We ended up eating a mainly vegan, gluten-free, no caffeine, no alcohol diet for about 2 weeks. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad and we really did feel better. In fact, we’re still following some of the same rules! Of course we added alcohol back into our diets, c’mon guys, it’s summer…
Even though we were cutting out a lot of our normal foods, we still wanted to be able to eat tasty dishes while sticking to our diet so we did quite a bit of research. While recipe-searching, we remembered Lagusta of Lagusta’s Luscious and Bluestocking BonBons. Lagusta recently approached me (Caroline) to create a banner for her vegan chocolate company and that’s when we also discovered her amazing New Paltz, NY-based vegetarian home meal delivery company (everything looked soooo yummy). When we started the detox, we turned to Lagusta for some recipes and a little get-to-know-you.
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OLÉ to Molé!
This is the last of our Oaxacan posts, I (Caroline, here) wanted to share with you my experience at a cooking class I took while in Oaxaca. I met 2 wonderful people, Australians nomadically living in Oaxaca who are currently working on a cookbook about Mexican food. I know, it sounds strange but after taking the class, meeting the people, and tasting the food, its not so weird. Travis Harvey and Kerin Ferguson have done their fair share of research, visiting the local farms to learn about the agriculture, getting to know the Mexican people and their food. The class was really fun and we learned everything from the basic tools necessary to a little bit about food chemistry! Continue reading OLÉ to Molé!…
Food Adventure: Oaxaca
This is a special food adventure because I (Caroline, speaking) got to travel all the way to Oaxaca, Mexico to go adventuring. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but, we, numnum girls, LOVE mexican food. Moving to New York from California was hard on our burrito/taco lovin’ mouths because it was so hard to come by, thankfully times have changed.
Oaxaca is known for their chocolates, coffee, and MOLÉ. Oaxaca is an amazing place for food, everything was super tasty and crazy cheap. We had street food most of the time but it ended up being way better than fancy restaurant meals.
Our first meal was at the local, organic market which sets up every Sunday at the ferrocarrîl museo, an old railroad yard. Dining al fresco, underneath the trees with fresh corn, squash, squash blossoms underneath the trees was the perfect welcome. All the tortillas were being freshly made in front of us, blue corn tortillas were soft and slightly crisp. There’s also a vendor from Italy, whose wife is from Korea (after having met in India, then moving to Oaxaca) so they had some pastries, pizzas, a couple of korean items, and a wonderful chai.
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Special Requests
Last week was Heather’s birthday and her only special requests were that we do a low-key, intimate dinner and for it to be gluten and meat-free. We were happy to oblige, being that she is one of our nearest and dearest friends. So we had a bit of a challenge on our hands since we love our bread and gluten, but we’ve been meaning to try a vegan/gluten-free week soon so this was a good test. The dinner was successful and very grown-up, a small dinner party in our make-shift dining room.
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The Ultimate Craving
We are really excited to be a part of Issue 2 of Remedy Quarterly, not only is it a great magazine but created by really amazing people. Half of the creators are one of our favorite couples ever, Aaron and Kelly Carambula. This new issue is all about cravings, with contributions by David Lebovitz and Ashley English to name a few. And for us, what more would we crave than sweets and fried food, FRIED CHICKEN and WAFFLES. Yes, together and yes, it’s delicious!
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Special Guest Food Adventure: Lana Kim
Summer here in New York is hot and humid, and to any West Coaster like Lana Kim it could feel like hell. The famed Lana from The Lana Show, a funny online videocast where she interviews different musicians from Blonde Redhead to Fat Lip to Girl Talk about their favorite music videos. She’s also the head of music videos at The Directors Bureau and not only that, she’s also in the rockin’ band J-Lep. But best of all, Lana is one of a kind and one of the most amazing people you’ll ever meet. Phew, that’s a whole lot. She came out for a short visit during one of the hottest and most humid days but of course that didn’t stop us from trekking out to Crown Heights for a Food Adventure! Why Crown Heights? Because we had to try Peaches for some good Southern cookin,’ and because we love their sister restaurant, the Smoke Joint.
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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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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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Rockin’ Bowl: African Chickpea and Spinach Soup
It’s true, we post an awful lot of soups here on NumNum. But I’ve got a confession to make: I’m kind of a lazy cook (fyi, this is Lisa writing. Caroline is far from lazy, and not just when it comes to cooking!). I also tend to be lacking in the cash flow department, especially the closer it gets to payday. So soup is often my go-to dinner, especially on these arctic winter days. Easy and cheap are pretty good selling points, and when you throw delicious on top of all that, well, you really can’t go wrong. For African chickpea and spinach soup, you can even add healthy and vegan to the list. In this case, the majority of the soup’s deliciousness comes from its secret weapon of an ingredient: peanut butter! Who knew?
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Butternut Squash Soup + Chubble Bread = Match made in Heaven
We are always a bit sad to say good-bye to summer, but saying hello to fall means welcoming the wonders of butternut squash soup and chubble bread back into our lives and THAT is something to get excited about. This is the dynamic duo of seasonal dinners, and once you make it, I promise it will become an autumn staple. I am a butternut squash soup connoisseur, if I do say so myself, and this version is my absolute fave: thick and smooth and oh-so-tasty with just the right hint of thyme and sage. It’s great on its own, but paired with the garlicy, oniony, cheesy goodness of chubble bread (I didn’t name it, but I love to say it!), it is outta this world. So do yourself a favor and invite this pair to dinner. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself wanting to lick the bowl. And who are we to stop you?!
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