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"my mother was a terrible cook!"
I promised you a full, detailed exposition of our outrageous anniversary dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns last Sunday night, but frankly, I'm not sure it's an interesting read. Thus, below here you will find a set of pictures I'm pretty fond of from our brief wanderings before the meal, and if you wish to go further, a description of 5 courses, 2 amouse-bouches, 1 ohmygodicantbelieveiatefoiegras and a flight of wine that flat-out bested me. (Yes, I didn't know it could happen, either.)
There's no award for making it to the end, but if you do, I bet you'll wish there had been.
[Whole set of Blue Hill photos.]
We'd taken the train and then a short cab to the restaurant nice and early so we could wander around the farm, but the rain precluded us from introducing ourselves to the actual chickens we might later feast upon. At the bar, where all time is better spent, Alex had a dirty martini with a splash of hot sauce (blargh), and I had a cosmopolitan they make with a puree of black currants and a lot of lime juice. It was really good and very tart. When Alex went to the loo, the bartender explained to me that they make almost everything themselves at Blue Hill from ingredients on their farm, and of course I had to be a smart-ass and ask if that included the cornichon speared with olives in Alex's drink, and he said, no, not that, those were imported from Italy and cured in a brine with olive oil. (Alex later admitted the olive oil in his drink was pretty gross, and I was all, you don't say!)
As we'd been instructed to do by friends who have eaten there before, we ordered the Farmer's Feast - a five-course meal the chef prepares in accommodation to whatever food grievances you have. Alex has zero (well, unagi and octopus, actually, but we safely assumed they weren't raising them in the puddles outside), and I had my confessional: no to the red meat, seafood and pleasenobeetsew and then, trying to compensate for appearing like I was raised under an epicurean rock, I said I really liked quail and duck. Feeling especially fancy, but mostly because Alex didn't let me peer at the price of this extravagance, we opted not to choose our own wines, but to allow the sommelier pair one with each course.
The meal was one of the best he or I have ever had, but there were small instances of food trendiness that made my inner Yiddishemama* groan. The first was an "iced tomato water" - basically, tomato juice that was completely clear and so cold it was practically slush, and then an amuse-bouche of, I kid you not, "vegetables on a fence," two carrot sticks and two pieces of yellow squash coated in vinaigrette and impaled on nails on a piece of wood. [*Inside me, I truly believe there is a little Jewish grandmother from the old country, and this little woman who has cooked simply, honestly and inexpensively her whole life would simply roll over in her grave to know that her great, great grandchild sat in a restaurant and in a meal expensive enough to feed her village for months, ate a carrot stick off a nail.] Now that I have exorcized my guilt, I can admit that it was a damned good carrot stick. One of the best I've had.
From there, the real fun began: an heirloom tomato salad with purple basil slivers (dolloped with a "tomato cloud" and a spritz of "Austrian tomato vinegar" and thankfully, the last instance of, IMHO, food ridiculousness that night), a sweet corn soup with an 80-minute poached egg (laid that morning) and cubes house-cured pancetta, and then, well, remember how I mentioned I like duck? They brought us foie gras. I had a bite or two and was done. [I could spend years opining on Chicago's ban and how disturbingly unsettled my stomach felt from that point forward, but I'll spare us all of that.] Course four was four small ravioli stuffed with gnocchi in a roasted tomato and shitake sauce and course five the most delicious chicken breast atop a sauce of artichoke hearts. Dessert came in two parts: mixed berries with "honey milk granita" and then a roasted peach with crème anglaise, and the wine flowed, well, past me the whole time.
That's the really embarrassing part, by the way, that I got bested by the sommelier. Prosecco and then three different whites and two reds and then an iced desert wine… the glasses kept coming and stacked up and my husband snickered and everything was pretty much foggy from the foie gras on. We were drunk enough when the cab arrived that we allowed ourselves to be talked into letting him drive us all the way back to the city ("I could have you home before that train arrives," I believe was the offer we couldn't refuse.)
And Monday I had my first food hangover. The mere thought of foie gras or granitas or softly poached eggs sent me into A Very Bad Place, but now several days later, I remember it all more fondly. Meals this spectacular might only come once or twice in your lifetime, but I'm hoping with a little jewelry-hocking and bank-robbing, we can go again next year. I can only imagine what they'll impale on fence posts next!
Re: the title. No, my mother is not a terrible cook, and neither is Alex's. In fact, it's quite the opposite, but you probably already know that. But, this is one our favorite lines from the movie Big Night, and after each course, we found ourselves reciting it. Basically, these two struggling Italian brothers with a restaurant cook this feast, this bacchanal of monstrous proportions. Course after course, wine flows, music is played, people dance, and at the end of the night, there is a haze of inebriated food coma across the room. The camera pans from patron to patron; a large, voluptuous woman lays across the table like a centerpiece, smoking a long cigarette, others nap, and at the end of the table, a woman sobs to her male companion, "my mother was a terrible cook!" The food was so good that it broke her heart to think she'd gone this long in her life without it.
August 31, 2006 | Comments (14)
a sunday kind of love
A year ago, my husband of six hours and I met our friends for drinks at a bar in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. You have no idea how I looked forward to that drink, oh wait you probably do. When we arrived, our friends, who were well into their dozenth cocktails, stood up and applauded which was cute and also embarrassing, but mostly awesome. Alex's best man procured for us two bourbons on the rocks and I was about halfway into my first sip when the tired hit me harder than a ten-ton truck. We didn't make it very long down there. Upstairs, I pulled SIXTY-SEVEN BOBBY PINS out of my updo, which was cemented in place with so much hairspray, it pretty much held its coif without the assistance. I decided a shower was in order, the only problem is my notorious klutziness combined with my excruciating fatigue had not taken the night off and I SLIPPED IN THE SHOWER, like the very old lady I am, tearing down half the curtain in my descent.
"Are you okay in there?" Alex called from the bedroom.
Shoot, he heard that, didn't he? I thought. I mean, the entire Upper East Side could have heard my indelicate crash, and yet somehow I'd convinced myself I could be something other than my clumsy, awkward, typical self on my wedding night.
"I'm fine, no worries!" I lied.
Clean, dry and two aspirins-down-the-gullet later, I hobbled back into the bedroom, saw this man I had married reading in bed, and hurried back into the bathroom again, panicked. Oh, my, god - do I have to, ohmygod, now? I mean, I do, don't I? It would be a terrible omen if I had a "headache." But I do! Why is he still awake?... On and on and on. Wracked with nerves, I tip-toed back into the room and there he was, The Love of My Life, nodded off. I have never felt so relieved. We slept like babies.
***
Sometime late the next afternoon, we arrived in Acapulco. As we waited for our suitcases to be brought up to our room, my husband did what he always does: turn on the television. This is when I learned for the very first time that while I had been busy frolicking down the aisle, sipping bourbon, plucking hairpins, wiping out in the shower and fretting over whether or not it was a terrible start to the rest of your lives together to fall asleep when you desperately needed to, New Orleans had become submerged. I'm pretty sure it was hours before we tore ourselves away from CNN, both humbled and enraged. How did this happen? Why aren't these people safe yet? How can we go have margaritas on the beach at sunset when grandmothers are clinging to roofs, hoping someone will pluck them to safety?
***
I once said that my favorite part of The Graduate is when they flee the wedding and jump on a bus out of town, winded and ecstatic. As they slowly catch their breath, you can practically hear the dust settle around them, and you just know that things are never going to be the way you thought they were when they were chasing them, but good in other, quieter ways. A year after our wedding, it's not the big, obvious things I remember — big chunks of the reception, exactly what my second cousin said when he hugged me, what I ate for dinner, if anything — it's these small details of the first 24 hours. Even if they're not as upbeat or exciting as smashing glasses or face-smooshing cake, for better or for worse, they're my favorite.
More importantly, so is he. Happy Anniversary, baby.
August 29, 2006 | Comments (23)
objects large and looming
I'd like to introduce the newest member of our family: La Cocotte.
What is this funny-sounding object, you ask? Does it have anything to do with cocoa? Cotton? A hen? No, no and no. La Cocotte, or specifically this one, is a 19-lb 7.25 quart oval-shaped eggplant-colored enameled cast iron pot manufactured by the Alsatian brand Staub, and, not that this should surprise you in any way, I have coveted it for years.
Why? Well, let me bore you to pieces and tell you! For one, the adorable little button handle doesn't get hot nearly as easily as that of its Creuset-ian counterpart. Two, it boasts "self-basting" spikes/picots under the lid, which encourage evaporating juices to trickle back down and throughout whatever dish you are cooking. Three, a lot of chefs prefer it because it's heavy as hell and therefore superior for all things slow-cooked, roasted, broiled and browned. Four, being oval-shaped and g'normous, a whole bird or roast could be browned in it without requiring disassembly first. And finally and most-pertinently: it's STUNNING.
However, all of this fawning has occluded our view of the larger and more looming issue: weighing in heavier than a pile of laptops and measuring in almost as large in diameter as an empty cabinet (which does not exist), no object this colossal, even one as lusted after as this, gets to reside in a petite NYC apartment without finding other ways to make itself useful; double-duty is more than a requirement, it's the law. Thus, we have spent an embarrassing part of this weekend trying to find other, less noted-on-the-accompanying brochure, uses for it.
- Baby cradle. We'd line it with soft blankets first, we swear! To confess, I had brought this possible usage for the pot up months ago, when trying to justify the price to my husband. I guess that did the trick!
- Doorstop.
- Something to bang your head against so your hangover feels, in comparison, less menacing.
- Something to drop on this tiny dog that has been yip-yip-yipping downstairs for at least 20 minutes now. I kid! I kid!
- Free weights. We tried some curls and presses with it yesterday, and must say, I think there's a promise of more toned arms in our future. New York Sports Club be damned! La Cocotte est arrive.
… More to come, but feel free to add your own.
August 27, 2006 | Comments (15)
love me, love me, say that you love me
Man, that first week back at work blows, and they're actually nice to me at my job. Yet, they still require me to work, thus, our goals may never align… Right, so where were we: I promised you news. But, it's not time yet to share all the news (I repeat: NOT BABIES), but I can give you bits and pieces and hope you won't resent me for being such a brassy tease.
- Remember that dark, ominous period last year when my husband's job was being relocated to Syracuse and we went to Syracuse for a weekend to check it out and found it not even remotely to our liking? And then he found a new job so we got to stay in this great metropolis? Well, ain't life funny like that because he's leaving that job to go back to Company A, and happiness abounds, as he missed his old workplace and you just know this is one of those "boomerang" jobs he probably wouldn't have gotten if he'd worked straight through for it. He resigned at 5 p.m. the last day before our vacation. Cocktails ensued.
- It was also, coincidentally, the day after his birthday. Alex finally got to take part in the awesomeness that is Blue Smoke (The next morning: "Your hair still smells like barbeque. Sweeet.") and I revisited the cake that killed one-hundred teddy bears, this time with a proper wafer cookie. Confession: I think the teddy bears tasted better.
- A year ago today, in the very last of my chronicles of unraveling mental health as I approached that well-catalogued walk down the aisle, I moaned that there were almost no positive associations in popular culture with the word "wife." I snickered this morning re-reading it, because I can't tell you that in the last year I've gotten past the issues behind this, but I wouldn't change my status for all the positive connotations in the world. I also haven't had any luck getting Alex to call me his "ho," but, hey, there's always hope for year two!
- We're going to Blue Hill at Stone Barns this weekend for dinner, and I have been looking forward to this for eons and promise a full report. Earlier this month, I read a story about the chef, Dan Barber, walking in from the farm to the restaurant two years ago cradling the carcass of the lamb that diners over subsequent days would dine on the chops and shoulder from, butchered in his very own kitchen. Will I still have the stomach to eat if this happens Sunday night? Oh, the anticipation! Does this relate to my downright obsession with The Omnivore's Dilemma? Of course it does!
- I also understand that this weekend we will also have to eat a slice from the frozen top tier of our wedding cake. I dread this, because I didn't like that cake one bit. It looked so pretty, but tasted of that foam-dry-cake and shortening-addled mass produced bakery-ness I rail against. I had very much wanted to make my own cake for the wedding, but was told by more than one person that it would have been an act of downright insanity to create a 4-tier cake in the days before my wedding (this is what I get for surrounding myself with rational people). I stumbled upon this photoset two days ago, and was revisited with waves of regret. Thus, I figure the only way to fix this is to offer to make a wedding cake for any friends (ahem!) with upcoming nuptials. Seriously! Let's talk.
- I know content has been very thin around here this summer, but the upcoming changes directly relate to this dearth. Consider the scantness acted upon, rather than felt guilty over (okay, well that has happened a bit, too, much as I tried not to let it). I'm telling you, it's going to be grand.
August 25, 2006 | Comments (13)
downright downeast charmed
It might be hard for me to see a lot of things in line with George and Barbara, but their choice to set up compound in coastal Maine will no longer be one of them. The place is so crammed with that Americana charm — flag-draped weathered barns, hand-painted mailboxes, canoes on bricks in yards, floppy-eared dogs hanging out the back of pickup trucks and wildflowers along gravel road — that it squeezed the ennui right out of our embarrassingly-jaded city sensibilities.
On our first bike ride in Kennebunkport, pedaling past rusted tractors and stone fences which I suspected had a single piece of black volcanic rock in it's proximity, I did what I suppose a lot of people who work off their Clam Shack lobster rolls with a four-mile stint from Cape-Able Bike Shop to Goose Rocks Beach must: I imagined a simpler life for us there. We'd rob a bank or four on our way out of Manhattan and never look back. We'd get two golden retrievers, one tan and one brown, and a little house and slap up some of those wood shingles and stay as long as it took for them to turn from beige to mud to Cape Cod weathered grey. I'd get us one of those porpoise-shaped things that point the direction of the wind and bake blueberry pies for all of my friends who came to visit. We'd know our neighbors by name and by their stance on butter vs. mayo lobster roll debate.
On Peak's Island (thanks Holly!), we rented bikes again, this time mine was no sleek mountain Trek, but a rusted maroon-framed three-speed with a tan leather seat I haven't seen in 20 years, so aged that every time I stepped on the pedal it let out a groan as if it resented being removed from the sidewalk outside the bike shop. (I felt its pain, but a day later.) I don't know how they do it — magic? — but the island's five mile circumference is downhill both ways yet still leaves you feeling fit enough to treat yourself to a cone of Whoopie Pie ice cream, which is about the best allegory I can think of for life post-vacation.
As a combined result of my OCD and your helpful suggestions (especially these guys), a list of stops on the tour, each better than the previous:
- Portland Head Light
- Royal River Grillhouse in Yarmouth
- Old Orchard Beach
- Vignola in downtown Portland
- Clam Shack for lobster rolls in Kennebunkport
- Cinque Terre in downtown Portland
- Goose Rocks Beach and Kennebunkport
- Peak's Island
- Fore Street in downtown Portland
August 20, 2006 | Comments (19)
mountains, molehills
I, I have this thing about sneezing, or rather, a thing about people who don't do it correctly. They're usually women, and it usually sounds like this: "choo," as if they were reading the onomatopoeia of the sound of a sneeze off a page, and not actually expressing "a convulsive expulsion of air from the nose and mouth, in speeds of up to 100-200 mph." (Mm, tasty, right?) It drives me up the freaking wall. It's as if they have determined actual, natural sneezes to be not ladylike or dainty, thus they feign to sneeze in a manner that assures them that they are still pretty and therefore redeemable creatures.
Every single time I overhear such a "choo," of all things, Langston Hughes — along with unmitigated rage — pops into my head, because what does happen to that sneeze deferred? Does it dry up, crust over, or sag like a heavy load, or does it explode?
My coworkers would argue the latter. Because you see, and I feel terrible calling out this otherwise pleasant individual, there's a girl who has moved into the next row of cubicles with a particularly fingernails-on-the-chalkboard way of expressing her sternutations: "chew. chew. chew-chew. chew. chew. chew." My indignant reactions to these are so well documented that whenever she sneezes, IMs will appear in my screen that implore, "Deb, don't freak out," and "Stay calm, Deb." I have gone from suspected to notoriously crazy in record time. She sneezed now over fifteen minutes ago and I'm not sure the world will right itself again until someone evens up the bad sneezing karma in this place by releasing a proper one.
… Which is pretty much the best example I can transcribe for you this afternoon of just how much I am ready for vacation to start. I'll be back in a week with pictures and more pictures, new foods, exciting news (I repeat: NOT BABIES), paper anniversaries and and lands where constipated sneezes won't draw my ire. It's going to be fantastic.
August 11, 2006 | Comments (24)
forgive me, but it's been four weeks since I talked about babies
Spawn-related topic the first:
I have a new favorite comment/commenter. (You knew this was coming, didn't you?)
Deb, I can aprreciate your love of cooking, but I seriously think you should think about a baby. Your devotion to detail needs a new outlet. This is coming from a mother of four. I used to cook all day long too before babies.
I've been scratching my head since I read it Saturday morning, trying to figure out why it was funny to me but I couldn't explain to you why you should find it funny, too. My humor has failed me, but thank god it hasn't failed my coworker Jenni.
"My mother said that I was the best thing she ever did in her whole life. But she never dressed me in petit fours!"
Update: Jenni actually said "she never dressed me in pinafores". My own warped brain put colored sprinkles on the children. But really! Is desiring to arrange tiny artichokes in a row and trying to convince them to put on skits (because I have to assume that this is what lured the comment in) show readiness to have children? I thought it made me ready for the funny farm. Perhaps the two are related...
Spawn-related topic the second:
I have learned what fear is and thy name is Bugaboo. Huh? What? This is what I figure: half of you are saying to yourselves, what the hell is a Bugaboo and the other half, why would she know about Bugaboos?
I had only heard about them once, to be honest, and their staggering price tags, but that's all it takes in Manhattan where nearly everyone inhabitant pushes their perfected bundles of related genetic material around in luxury prams. At times, I see three or four on a single block — $3600 worth of stroller! — and I'll admit, I can't avert my eyes. Who are these people and how can they afford rent, diapers and a $900 stroller plus accessories? I'm gawking, fascinated, intrigued and repelled.
My curiosity got the better of me Monday night, and frankly, on a list of things that could scare the child-bearing impulse right out of you, I'd put the Bugaboo website at the top. Frogs, Geckos, and if you really love your child and "refuse to compromise," Chameleons, these things not only cart your DNA bundle from Place A (Starbucks, obviously) to place B (baby yoga, right?), but boast "surprising functions," "flowing suspension," and suggested daytrips in cities from Copenhagen to Milan. (Sorry Peoria, you just don't make the list.)
Of course I totally want one. How else will I complete my cycle of self-loathing?
And finally! Non-spawn-related topic the singular:
Alex and I are going to Maine next week! We're so excited this entire segment will be marked with exclamations! We're staying at a B&B in some town called Scarborough but can drive anywhere within reason — where should we go?! What should we do?! Will I starve if I'm not sure that I like lobster and/or blueberries?! Will they send me home?!
August 09, 2006 | Comments (36)
in which martha hurts my feelings
Nearly seven years ago, my best friend bought me a subscription to Martha Stewart Living magazine as holiday present. Tearing open the wrapping paper, I caught a glimpse of a pyramid stack of rigidly squared off Rice Krispy Treat-style cereal bars on one of those ever-upbeat and brightly lit covers I recognized all too well and protested, "But I don't read Martha Stewart!"
"Of course you don't," she said. "Of course not."
Martha Stewart was fussy and domestic and a grueling perfectionist who doted on the most inane stuff and I… I… I was all of those things; I just hadn't come to terms with it yet. I would buy the rag for long train rides and chuck it when I got to my destination; nobody had to know but me. My dirty little magazine-stand secret had dewy, dimly lit pictures of ripe melons all over it, oh yeah, but the authentic kind.
I don't know when I stopped subscribing (odds are, I haven't, I just move too damned much) but Martha don't come round no more, so when we were finally reunited on a New Jersey Transit bus last week, I nearly ate the pages, most pertinently the one with the roasted baby artichokes recipe as I will cook or eat anything in the whole world as long as it involved a single iota of artichoke ("even boogers?" my husband asks and I'll spare you my answer). I love them that much.
I brought home ten miniature artichokes Tuesday night, so adorable I wanted to line them up and create monologues and dance routines for them, but hunger won out. I got to work on them, so excited about the dish I hummed the whole time. Yet, all directions followed to the letter as would make Martha proud (oh, because I do want to make her proud, I really do), 40 minutes later they remained rubbery and undercooked - by quite a bit - and again 20 and then 40 minutes after that. Nearly two hours in a 400 degree oven was all the kitchen blasphemy I could take (if I remind you it was 100 degrees outside, I will be sent to hell, no doubt) and I tried to dig in. They were still bitter. The hearts were cooked but a full minute of chewing couldn't grind a single leaf in my eager maw.
Heartbroken, I threw the rest into the trash, but two days later, I still want to know where it all went wrong. But, I first have to confess this isn't the first time a New Exciting Recipe for baby artichokes failed me; the time I grilled them last year, it was ibid with the rubbery and undercooked, even while cooking them well beyond Mark Bittman's suggestion.
Mostly I'm crushed because I don't know where this leaves me, Martha and all the plans I had for us. I suspect the only way to move past this will be over Chocolate-Strawberry Thumbprints on page 176. It's for the relationship, you see.
August 04, 2006 | Comments (19)
he's ruined me
I was a dairy-eating vegetarian from the time I turned 13 until the age of 28, or approximately one year after I met my now-husband. I didn't like meat, the smell, the taste, the texture and the thought of all those unsavory slaughter-houses didn't make it any more appealing.
I never missed it. I also never griped about it; I refused to let friends change plans to go to sushi restaurants (yum: age tofu, edamame, avocado/cucumber rolls), or steak houses (Sparks Steakhouse makes the best mushrooms I have ever eaten in my whole life, and don't even get me started on their asparagus) on my behalf. I never crinkled my nose at their food or lectured anyone about the way hot dogs were made, because it bored me. Like everything I do, heh, this was all about me and what I wanted.
Nearly two years ago, I detailed a fateful day in which Alex and I went to Balthazar and I had a taste of something spectacular, something I never knew I was missing but proceeded to fundamentally and irreversibly changed the way I would eat from then forward: thick cut bacon lardons from Balthazar. I mean, if you're going to sell out your agrarian politic, it's hard to argue there's a tastier place to start.
From there it's been a downward spiral. I suspect that if I'd thrown down my refusal to accept my place in the food chain earlier in life, my tastes would have adapted differently; white meat, tuna fish, breaded cutlets, hamburgers and shrimp fried rice would have been the name of the game. But, by the age of 28 my taste preferences were largely developed and had a well-documented hankering for fussier foods, thus my carnivorous preferences have been more along the lines of thigh meat, short ribs, proscuitto, quail and homemade pork dumplings.
And barbeque. My god, the barbeque. The sauce, the beans the slaws the charred-anything-is-better religiosity in which its followers praise each grill mark and the color of smoke has gotten under my skin something fierce and I know that even in a world without a single slab of artisanally-cured bacon, I could never go back.
Which pretty much brings us to this 100-degree atrocity of a day, in which any sane person would be shoving ice cubes down their gullets, I was brought to tears over the menu of the BBQ joint my coworkers decided to trek to for lunch (but I lacked the free time to join in): Sloppy Tops, Barbequed Baked Beans, Sausage Samplers, Deep Fried Ribs, and something called the Empire which comes with a bottle of Dom Perignon. I listed each item off to my husband, who may have been born in Russia but whose soul resides in firmly in some Memphis pig-pickin' he has yet to attend.
Deb: They even have something called the Burnt End Dinner in which "the fatty party of the brisket is cooked twice until crispy and lightly sauced!"
Alex: WOW.
Deb: I'm actually whimpering that I can't go. Whimpering.
Alex: Aw.
Deb: You've ruined me! I used to eat tofu!
Alex: You might not want to tell them that. They'll send you home.