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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Berry, berry refreshing!
Summer has officially arrived here in New York, which means sweltering heat mixed with the unrelenting humidity. Basically we’ll do anything to keep cool (a LOT of Mister Softies, Italian Ices, People’s Pops). So when we spotted some fresh strawberries and a bushel of mint at the Farmer’s Market this weekend we knew Strawberry Mint Lemonade was in our near future. This drink will quench your thirst and cool you down, at least just for a little bit. Enjoy!
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Gardening progress
Another photo update of my garden in bloom. My tomato plant is massive! and to think it all started with 2 seeds… The Wonders of NATURE!
(from this itty bitty thing!)
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Speakeasy Speak
After our trip down to Philly and our stop at Franklin Mortgage and Investment Co, we were inspired. Not only because the cocktails completely intoxicated us but because we love the history of it all, the period of Prohibition, Speakeasies, special cocktails. So we did some research and came up with this gift idea, Honeyed-Ginger Syrup and Candied Ginger to mix and garnish cocktails hidden away inside a book. I (Caroline, that is) am a firm believer in presentation, so when giving a homemade gift like honeyed-ginger syrup and candied ginger is fun in itself but how much more fun is it to get it in great packaging?
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Special Guest Food Adventure: Joel Speasmaker at Good Fork
By now, you all know our honorary NumNum’er Joel Speasmaker of Forest Design. He has been on many of our food adventures in addition to taste testing several of our at home eats. So it was only fitting that we ask Joel to his own food adventure, and he chose The Good Fork in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We took Bryn along for the ride, being that its one of her favorite restaurants.
The Good Fork serves high quality, seasonal foods without the snooty attitude. Its actually all about comfort, from the staff, to the atmosphere, and most importantly, to the food.
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Book Nook: Kim Severson’s Spoon Fed
The only thing I love more than making and/or eating food is reading about it, and luckily, there is plenty of well-written material out there to satiate my mind’s appetite. It seems like everyone and her mother has penned a food memoir, and I will happily read every one, though some are obviously better than others (Orangette’s A Homemade Life is one of my recent faves and right now I’m plowing through Ruth Reichl’s Comfort Me With Apples). Kim Severson’s Spoon Fed, however, takes the food memoir down a different route. Yes, it’s still about The New York Times’ food writer’s life and how food played a part in it, but it’s just as much about the eight women who have made a huge impression on her, in life as well as in the kitchen. She takes you into Marion Cunningham’s home, out to lunch with Ruth Reichl, and to the Farmer’s Market with Alice Waters. She writes about becoming friends with Rachael Ray, breaking into New York’s food scene, and visiting a well-known New Orleans restaurant post-Katrina, all while navigating her family, her love life, and her alcoholism (the book’s subhead is How Eight Cooks Saved My Life and she means it literally). Of course it’s stacked with a few recipes as well (I reeeeally want to make the Meyer Lemon Meringue Pie with Marion Cunningham’s No Fear Pie Crust), but it’s Severson’s honest, straightforward writing style that’s the real draw, particularly her insider’s peek into the lives of these culinary icons. There’s no food snobbery here (she quotes James Beard early on: “A hot dog or a truffle. Good is good.”), just inspiring women leading interesting (and delicious!) lives.
nacho, nacho man
Seeing as we’re from California and have an innate love of Mexican food, when we found out about NachosNY, a site dedicated to the quest for the best in our very own NYC, well, we knew we’d stumbled across some kindred spirits. So we joined forces with Lee and Rachel, the team behind NachosNY, and hit up Elote in Williamsburg, to see how their ‘chos fared. Bottom line? They sure are pretty but we’ve had better (cough, Nachos Chulos! cough, cough). The experts agreed. The best part of the dish was probably the guac. And speaking of guac, NachosNY is the mastermind behind this Wednesday’s GUACTACULAR at the Bell House!!! A tastier “cook-off” has never existed and the fact that we’re lucky enough to judge all the entries will probably make this the best Cinco de Mayo ever. Hope you locals got your tix cause the party’s sold out! But back to Elote. The other items on the menu were pretty damn good. Their namesake corn is a must and the ceviche was fresh and tart and tasty. Did we mention the pitchers of margaritas? Two thumbs up. Pair that with their patio and it’s the perfect summer hangout.
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love, philly
A couple weeks ago, we decided to have an impromptu trip down to Philly. We’ve been hearing great things about the food and drinks, and boy did we eat and drink. This trip was one big ole’ food adventure. We ended up coming back to New York with the biggest raw oyster obsession AND a new love for Philly.
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and so it grows…
Its been far longer than it should have been since we’ve posted anything. Even beyond that, its been more than unforgivable that we haven’t updated you with the progress of our garden! For SHAME!
Continue reading and so it grows……
it’s cookie time!
It’s true, Girl Scout cookie time is officially over. Major sad face! Even when Girl Scout Season (i know, i know, its Girl Scout Cookie season but its like hunting those girls down just to get those cookies) comes around, I’ve got my eagle eye out for the khaki and green but alas they were hard to find here in New York City. Luckily, there are some highly innovative bakers out there that have created homemade recipes of delightful thin mints, do-si-dos, and the melt in your mouth samoas! Thanks to Baking Bites, we can enjoy the pleasures of Girl Scout Cookies whenever we want!
Some tips before you venture into making these delicious Samoas, these little suckers are time consuming so plan on spending a couple hours making these cookies. It may be key to get good quality caramels like the recipe calls for, instead we used cheap-os which we think might have made them less stickier. Its important to have sticky caramel-y, coconut toppings so that it sticks to the butter cookies.