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A Foodies Day Without Food

Ok so I’m STILL playing catch up, but I’m determined to be all caught up by the end of this week, especially since I plan to make both my Q and R recipes this weekend.

Two weeks ago Jews all around the world observed Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. As you probably know on Yom Kippur we refrain from eating or drinking anything (yes, even water) from sundown to sundown. It’s a time for personal reflection and repentance. As we are starting a new year we look back at wrongs we’ve done in the past year and pledge to do our best to be better in the new year.

Fasting sucks. Really really sucks. But guess what, 364 days of the year I am privileged to have access to safe and nourishing food and clean drinking water.  So on Yom Kippur I choose not only to reflect inwardly, but also globally. I say prayers of gratitude that I always have enough food to eat and water to drink and I pray for the same for every other human being I share this earth with. I do believe though, that prayer is nothing without action so on Yom Kippur I also recommit myself to the fight against food insecurity, GMO’s, climate change, and the fight for labor rights and access to clean water and so much more.

If you’d like to join the fight, I feel that I can speak for all of us who are committed to sustainable food systems and access to clean water when I say, “We’d love to have you!” A few easy things that you can do; stop drinking bottled water, try to reduce your food waste by buying only what you will consume, bring reusable bags with you when you go shopping, commit to incorporating vegetarian meals in to your diet a couple of times a week and of course use your consumer dollars and your votes to send a message to companies and law makers.

As for the observance of Yom Kippur itself, like all Jewish holy days, it starts at night so before heading off to synagogue we eat a big meal since it’s all we’ll eat for the next full day.

Challah, a traditional Jewish bread, is usually braided, but for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur it’s baked in to a spiral to symbolize the circle of life as one year flows in to another.

This one had raisins in it so it was extra delicious.

My mom made brisket with egg noodles and roasted brussel sprouts. Yum! To paraphrase Anthony Bourdain, the only people who really know how to cook brisket are Jews and Texans.

A hearty meal before the fast.

Obviously the best part of the day is when you actually get to break the fast. Since no one is cooking while they’re fasting, most people break the fast with bagels and what Jews call, “appetizing” aka all the fixin’s that go with bagels like cream cheeses, smoked fish, lox, side salads, etc or what my mom calls, “Jewish Soul Food.”

Setting out the appetizing

Sadly today what often passes as a bagel is really just a roll with a whole in the middle. Luckily there are still a few places, like my personal favorite, Absolute Bagels, that still make authentic bagels.

Egg bagels are my favorite. Do they have egg bagels outside of New York?

If I had to choose the meal I’d want on my death-bed it would be a tie between some form of gooey cheesy baked pasta or a toasted egg bagel with cream cheese (plain or scallion), whitefish salad (which is smokey, but not fishy btw) and a thick slice of tomato.

Pretty much my perfect meal

And so, refueled after my fast I’m ready to return to the fight!

Brooklyn Local

Yes yes, I’m a proud Manhattanite, but I really love Brooklyn too. Maybe it’s because both of my parents grew up there and growing up all of my grandparents lived there. Maybe it’s because Brooklyn, despite being part of New York City, proudly functions in many ways as its very own city. Or maybe it’s because all of the incredible food that can be found there these days.

A couple of weeks ago my friend JulieAnne and I attended, Brooklyn Local, a fundraiser for City Harvest.

For this event I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
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My take home purchase of the day. So good!

Of course there was also plenty of wine and beer to be had.
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Great Friends and Yogurt Bombs

I still have so many posts to catch up on from the last couple of weeks, but today I’d like to talk about my experience this weekend while it’s fresh in my find.

I flew to St. Louis this weekend to meet up with my amazing friends Lisa and Mandy. I can’t tell you how much I love these ladies and I can’t tell you how good it was for my soul to get to spend time with them. As an added bonus I also got to make some new friends and share laughs with Becky from Love Every Day Life and her husband Ben and Nilsa from SoMi Speaks and her husband Sweets and their ridiculously adorable son Gavin. You know how sometimes a group of people meets and it just clicks. This was one of those times.

All in all it was a great weekend, however there was a truly crappy food related incident at the end.

I don’t really talk much about how incredibly awful it is to have potentially fatal food allergies. The reason I don’t talk about it is simple; I don’t want to think about it myself. Make no mistake though, it is awful, but I still need to live my life so most of the time I need shut those thoughts off and just push through.

Traveling with food allergies is not easy. I’m sure that if you think about it for about 30 seconds you can think of the many ways in which it would be difficult for food allergic people away from home and you’d likely be right about all of them. What you may not think about though the actual travel itself, the getting there and getting back on planes trains and automobiles.

Getting there is usually not so bad as I can just pack a cheese sandwich and some snacks from home in my carryon. My return trip is another story. Often I don’t have access to a supermarket or refrigerator before my return trip which means buying food at the transportation hub. Sometimes I can find cheese or yogurt in a refrigerated section. Usually though I’m not that lucky. Most often the only things I can find that are safe for me are processed packaged crap. You know, the kind of stuff that I never eat.

After a day of travel that involves nothing than chips and pretzels I always come home feeling sick so imagine my excitement that the breakfast buffet at our hotel had 4oz containers of yogurt that I could grab. It wasn’t my favorite kind of yogurt as I prefer to buy plain Greek yogurt and mix in my own fruit, but still those 4oz of Yoplait strawberry was a God send compared to what I knew would be available at the airport.

Lisa’s flight was leaving from a different terminal so after saying our goodbyes to her, Mandy and I made our way through the security line. We both put our luggage on the conveyer belt and walked through the metal detector. At the other side of the detector though, we heard the TSA agent who was screening our luggage call for a rescreen. Another agent came over and picked up my carryon and brought it over. “Is this yours?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied and instantly I knew, it must be because I hadn’t taken out my iPad!

The agent unzipped my bag and reached inside as I prepared my apology. The words were just about to form on my lips when he said in a stern voice, “This is not allowed!” as he held up his hand to reveal … yup you’ve probably guessed it by now… my yogurt!

I was literally stunned. All I could do was stammer, “But it’s not liquid!” because, uh, it isn’t! I was rewarded with a sharp look and was informed that my yogurt would be thrown out and my carryon rescreened. I. Was. Pissed. But as all travelers know that the TSA and their arbitrary rules have you by the balls. I am not the type to keep quiet when I know I’m right, but in this case there was no point. If you argue with a TSA agent all that will happen is they’ll go all SEAL Team 6 on you, take you in to a room meant for dangerous yogurt wielding criminals and then hold up everyone else on the security line in order to prove a totally useless point so instead I just sat there and watched him throw my  yogurt away.

Mandy’s flight left before mine so after saying goodbye to her I wandered the terminal looking for something to eat. As expected there was no yogurt, no cheese, nothing remotely resembling real food that was actually safe for me. My lunch consisted of a bag of cheezits and a bag of pretzels. I felt like crap. Awesome.

So here’s a big ol’ thank you from this allergic traveller to the TSA for keeping the world safe from potential yogurt bombs. I’m sure everyone reading this will feel a little more confident next time they fly.

Treating Myself To Dinner

So I’m still playing catch up.

The Friday after Rosh Hashanah I had an errand to run at Chelsea Market (and by errand I mean picking up done cookies at Eleni’s, my favorite nut free bakery!). Since Colicchio and Sons is just across the street I decided to buy myself a drink at the bar.

When I sat down I was delighted to find that they had my favorite beer in the world, Tröegs Dreamweaver, on tap.

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After a few sips, I realized that I was hungry. Luckily Colicchio and Sons offers pizzas that are affordable and filling. The bartender recommended the pizza with Taleggio, lardo, honey and figs, but I informed him that I was allergic to figs and went over my other allergies with him. He suggested I still get the pizza and he’d have the kitchen leave off the figs so I went with it.

While I was waiting for my pizza I talked to the bartenders about what a huge fan I am of Colicchio and Sons. I guess hearing that I’m a loyal customer prompted the always awesome staff to go the extra mile for me because a waiter came over and rewarded me with a tea cup of chilled corn soup with cucumber. OMG yum!

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And fresh baked Parker House rolls!

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And then it was time for this amazingly decadent pizza.

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Thank you Colicchio and sons for your fantastic food and impeccable service. You never fail me!

P is for… Peru. Feliz Año Nuevo!

¡Hola

Flag of Peru

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve blogged. It’s been an incredibly busy couple of weeks and every time I sit down to write I’m just too tired to even think.

One of the things that have kept me so busy is the Jewish High Holidays.  Two weeks ago we  celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and last week we celebrated Yom Kippur.

During Rosh Hashanah it’s traditional to eat sweet things to represent our wishes for a good and sweet year to come so this seemed like a perfect time to make Encanelado, Peruvian cinnamon cake filled with dulce de leche.

Making this cake presented quite a challenge, not because it was all that difficult to make, but because recipes were so hard to find and not very specific. I could only find two recipes in English. The majority of recipes were in Spanish so I translated a few more using Google Translate. As I said though, none of these recipes were very specific saying things like, “pour batter in to a rectangular or square pan” so there was a lot of finger crossing and educated guesses involved in making this cake.

First off was the making of the dulce de leche which I had heard could be sort of dangerous. Truthfully, it’s incredibly simple using the boil in can method and as long as you ALWAYS make sure the can is covered with water you’ll be fine. The most dangerous part for me was reminding myself that I needed the dulce de leche for the cake  and couldn’t just eat it right out of the can with a spoon.

You know you want me!

The next day, pre-made dulce de leche in hand, I arrived at my parents house ready to make the rest of my cake. It’s so nice to cook in a real kitchen… sigh… I digress…

All of the recipes I found were very similar and I was surprised by the high egg to flour ratio, but in my quest to keep these recipes fairly authentic I went with it. My one adjustment to the cake was that where the recipe called for a shot of Pisco, a Peruvian brandy, I replaced it with White Tequila. The Pisco is used to make a syrup that you drizzle on the cake, but the Tequila worked just as well and it made no sense to go buy an entire bottle of Pisco.

The role of Pisco is now being played by White Tequila.

After you make the cake and cool it you’re supposed to slice it in half lengthwise and fill it with the dulce de leche. I have no idea if the “rectangular pan” I chose, a 13×9 was too big or if I should’ve changed that strange egg to flour ratio, but the cake never grew higher that an inch so I made an adjustment and sliced the cake in half vertically.

Despite all this the cake still turned out to be a great way to ring in a good and sweet new year.

Are you there God? It’s me, Encanelado. How come I’m so flat? Why can’t I be like all the other cakes at school?

Encanelado

For the cake:

  • 6 eggs
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • Large pinch of salt
  • plenty of cinnamon for dusting

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a 13x9in pan or line with parchment paper.

Beat eggs until fluffy, add sugar.

In separate bowl sift together the flour and baking powder then add salt. Add the dry ingredients to the eggs and gently stir to incorporate.

Pour into greased pan and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let cool completely

For the syrup:

  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 shot Pisco (or other strong clear alcohol such as White Tequila or Grappa)

In small sauce pan mix together sugar in water. Bring to a boil making sure sugar is dissolved. Add Pisco and simmer for 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely.

For the filling:

  • 1 can dulce de leche

Use boil in can method mentioned above or another method if you prefer. I believe you can also buy this premade.

To assemble:

Once cake has cooled completely slice in half lengthwise or, if your cake is flat like mine was, vertically.

Soak bottom layer with half the syrup then cover with all of the dulce de leche. Cover with the top layer.

Pour the remaining syrup over the top layer than dust completely with cinnamon.

Serves 10-12

Yea, I’m flat, but I know how to work it.

FINAL VERDICT: B

This was a tough grade to come up with as my family all agreed that this cake had some textural issues, but the flavor was great.

The flat as a board cake wasn’t bad, but it was coarse and a bit dense. The bites where the syrup really soaked in where the best as they softened up the cake. The flavor however saved this cake. Dulce de leche and cinnamon are just natural partners, kind of like Luke and Lorelai (woot woot, Gilmore Girls reference there!). So the flavor was great and the dulce de leche just gave everything a decadent quality.

I will definitely be making this cake again because I’m determined to get it right. A taste that good deserves an equal partner in texture. I think I’ll just make a basic white cake next time or even experiment with cupcakes… cinnamon whipped cream topping anyone?

¡Buen provecho!

My New Favorite Sandwich

Instead of using mayo in my tuna, I’ve started using avocado instead and it’s awesome. I mash up the avocado with just a tiny bit of olive oil until it’s creamy then mix it with the tuna, a little bit of salt, pepper and garlic and a lot of dill.

For lunch today I toasted some whole wheat bread, slathered on the tuna, a slice of swiss, sliced yellow tomatoes and spinach and it was crazy delish.

A New York Story

Back when I had a personal blog I always did something to mark September 11th. Now of course I have a food blog and so I thought I just wouldn’t post today, but then I started thinking about what I love most about this country and this amazing city that I get to call home. Without a doubt, one of the things that I love most about this country and most especially about New York City is our spirit of resilience.

Here’s my Facebook status today:

Eleven years ago our hearts didn’t just break, they shredded, but we’re still here. We mourn the loss of lives and we never forget, but we forge on.

Eleven years later Americans still feel the grief, but in that time we’ve also laughed and loved. There have been breakups and makeups and weddings and babies. We’ve cheered and danced and sulked and cried. New jobs, trips abroad, sillyness and seriousness; they’ve all gone on in the past eleven years. Of course we’ve had some great eats too.

Soon after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 I was in the car with my dad. He was listening to the sports radio and they were discussing the fate of the New Orleans Saints. Soon in to the conversation one of the sportscasters interrupted and said something to the effect of, “I just want to remind everyone listening that we are devastated by wha’s happened in New Orleans. Please don’t think for one minute that we’re not taking that seriously. we very much understand that there are many more important things going on in New Orleans right now, but we’re talking about sports because that’s what we do here.”

Life goes on. It has to.

On sports radio they talk about sports and on food blogs we talk about food. With that in mind and with faith that my readers are smart enough to know that I am not trying to make light of the sanctity of this day, I present to you one of my favorite New York stories.

If you ask most New Yorkers what love most about this city the answer is almost always, “The people.” Diversity is something we almost take for granted here because it’s not just that we have so much of it, it’s that we see it all day every day all around us and we celebrate it, especially when it comes to food. Every non-Jew in this city has an opionion on the best deli and orders their bagel with a “shmear.” We expect our pastas to have only the best “mozzarel” and “rigut” and fragrant Halal carts which are all over the city are considered to be a treasure for giving New Yorkers access to a quick delicious and affordable lunch.

Two years ago, on Halloween day, I was running an errand. As I passed the kosher deli on my block I took notice of an African American women waiting outside because she had with her a stroller in which the most adorable toddler was dressed as a pea. Basically the baby was zipped in to a green pod with two large “peas” stuck to her and her face sticking out as the top pea. I thought that would be my big dose of cuteness for the day, but there was more.

The woman’s husband came out of the deli with their two sons, probably 5 and 7, dressed up in matching tuxedos like mini James Bonds. It’s not uncommon here for kids to go trick or treating in area stores and both boys were grinning from ear to ear. As they came running to meet their mother and baby sister, their mother asked, “What’d you get?” The older boy replied, “We got candy,” and then with a contagious amount of joy and excitement he held up a small plastic bag and enthusiastically added, “And kosher pickles!”

That my friends, is a New York story. I love this city. I love this country. Never forget.

O is for… Oman. Oh Man!

Flag of Oman

Fun fact: Oman is the only country in the world that starts with the letter “O.” That means that I only had one choice in what country to use for my letter “O” recipe, but surprisingly there are a number of Omani recipes online (seriously how much do we love that whole internet thing!).

So finding Omani recipes wasn’t hard at all, instead the challenges were this. First, as I’ve said many times, Middle Eastern food is a challenge for me because they use so many of the things that I’m allergic to. Second, Middle Eastern food is Middle Eastern food. Food from that area of the world is really delicious, I love the spices and the emphasis on fresh vegetables, but the food tends to not be country specific so you often find the same dishes in Armenia that you would in Yemen.

This recipe is an amalgamation of 3 recipes that you’ll find if you Google, “Omani Kofta,” so that’s Omani enough for me.

Lamb Kofta with Zucchini Sauce

Fo the Kofta:

  • 1 1/2 lbs ground lamb
  • 1 small red onion; finely diced
  • 2 Tablespoons fresh parley; finely chopped
  • 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons ground coriander
  • 1 Tablespoon cumin
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 egg; beaten

Combine everything in a bowl and mix well.

Form in to sausage shaped patties, approximately 2-3 inches long and an inch in diameter. This should yield about 12 kofta.

refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.

Heat some olive oil in a saute pan and, working in batches if necessary, cook kofta for 10 minutes, flipping each halfway through or until meat is fully cooked.

For Zucchini sauce:

  • Olive oil
  • 2 large (or 3-4 medium) zucchini; diced
  • 6 cloves of garlic; crushed
  • 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Crushed red chilis to taste
  • 2 Bay leaves
  • 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 Tablespoons fresh parsley; finely chopped
  • 2 Tablespoons fresh mint; finely chopped
Heat oil in large pot. Add zucchini and cook over medium high heat until zucchini begins to soften; about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 3 more minutes.
Stir in tomatoes, salt and pepper, chilis, vinegar and bay leaves. Turn heat down and allow to simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes stir in the parsley and mint and cook for one more minute.
Discard bay leaves.
Serve kofta and zucchini sauce over rice with warm Middle Eastern flat bread on the side.
Yields 4-6 servings
FINAL VERDICT: A-
What a great recipe! I love the spices and especially love how the aroma of those spices wafted off the dish. The mint in the sauce added a great punch of bright freshness to the sauce. I’d change some very minor things next time which I’m sure would launch this recipe from A- to A. Next time I make this I’ll add a bit more of the herbs to the sauce. Also, I was surprised that the recipes I found called for balsamic vinegar, though Oman is a pretty international place so balsamic has probably become as ubiquitous there as it is here, I think this would’ve been better with red wine vinegar or something with a bit more bite since the tomatoes are already sweet.
Speaking of the tomatoes I’d planned to use fresh since it’s the perfect time of year for that, but I forgot to buy extra at the farmer’s market. I ran to the organic section of my local market only to find that ALL of their tomatoes were imported from California or Mexico. Really!? At this time of year, in this area of the country we have more amazing local tomatoes than we know what to do with and this local loving gal could not in good conscience buy the tomatoes that were shipped in from afar so canned it was and it worked out great!
The sauce itself was so good and could definitely be used on a number of other things.

How To Feed the World

I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, it’s just been a crazy few days and I barely have time to think let alone write.

This is one of my favorite videos. It’s 9 minutes long, but well worth watching. The video takes a complex problem and breaks it down in a simple way. It doesn’t ask that you become a vegetarian (and obviously this omnivore ain’t asking that of you either), but does ask you to make some different choices in how you eat and what and how much you purchase.

A Little Bite of Finland

Remember that Finnish cheese I told you about, Juustoleipä? I snacked on it every day while I was there and I knew I’d miss it once I got back home. Of course, this is New York City, a place where you can find pretty much anything, and this is the age of Google.

I turns out there’s a company out of Wisconsin that makes Finnish style “Bread Cheese.” So last weekend I paid a visit to New York City’s Mecca of cheese, Murrays, to pick some up.

Tytti, my Finnish colleague, had mentioned the cheese to me before my trip, which was what prompted me to try it. It’s common in Finland to eat this cheese warmed with some kind of fruit preserve so Tytti had recently made my recipe for Strawberry Balsamic Sauce to pair with Juustoleipä. Of course now that I had the cheese in my own kitchen I had to try it!

The cheese itself was wonderful with that same great texture I’d come to love, but I’d say the flavor was slightly milder. This may be all in my head because nothing ever tastes as good as when you’re on vacation or it may be because in Finland Juustoleipä is often made with Reindeer milk and obviously it’s American counterpart is made with Cow’s milk. The Bread Cheese definitely sated my cravings thought and I’d definitely buy it again.

Once I heated it in a pan for a couple of minutes and paired it with the sauce though, it really elevated the whole thing. I loved home the tartness of the sauce cut through the creaminess of the cheese and the basil I’d torn on top added a certain freshness. Delish!

Apparently Bread Cheese is made by a few companies in the US, some of whom call it Juusto, and it’s not all that difficult to find. If you see some near you I’d highly recommend picking some up and giving it a taste.