watch this space...

my friend Nelson has decided to take his work into a very different direction and is considering going into the food industry. last night he had a group of his friends and family over to his place for a taste testing, which is the first in a series he and his chef partner, Francisco, will be conducting to survey public opinion of some dishes they are considering. when Nelson was first speculating about this Francisco, who is from italy, suggested a sort of "fast-food pasta" style of place which he mentioned are popular where he is from and which they both agreed might be a niche which they could market here. Francisco is a pretty amazing guy who worked in commodities in italy and also when he first came to the united states; but then decided to satisfy his personal drive to be an artist and has been making his living partly from art and partly from house painting for a while now. somewhere along the way he also became a really good cook. anyway last nite it was the vegetarian pasta dishes which were featured and we sampled and critiqued five; a penne with asparagus, ham and calamata olives; a rigatoni with zucchini and a rigatoni with roasted peppers; a thin spaghetti with a puttanesca sauce and a spaghetti with gorgonzola and walnuts. Nelson and Francisco are still working out many of the basics but decided to start on the menu a little at a time. i told him i would be more than happy to lend my palate to his cause, and i will be following their progress and documenting it via this blog so watch this space for new developments and wish them alot of luck.

SOME OF THE TASTE TESTERS, JOHN AND MARITA


THE PENNE WITH ASPARAGUS, HAM AND CALAMATA OLIVES


THE RIGATONI WITH ROASTED PEPPERS


THE TEST KITCHEN

the eyes of the beholder

the most recent exercise assigned by my professor, Dr. Surprenant, in my technology of information class has to do with color blindness; and it is designed to acquaint the student with the problems created when you consider colorblind people in the design of a web page. apparently about 1 in 20 people may be colorblind (the statistics for men are much higher than women), and when you consider them as a potential audience the numbers can therefore be very large. the assignment included taking a colorblind test as well as using a simulation to see how colorblind people view the world and to experience how palettes change from normal vision through the various ranges of color deficiencies. yes, color blind people DO see color; but their deficiencies are generally grouped around the red/green and yellow/blue spectrums as well as some form of monochromatism. anyway, some of the comparisons i did of course had to do with food and drink. we all pretty much know that food and drink are experienced with many of our senses and the first one that comes into play is usually sight (although me may, of course, become aware of food smells before we even see them). we even speak of "our eyes being bigger than our stomachs" when we refer to overeating because everything looks so appetizing. with this in mind, how appetizing can foods look when viewed through the eyes of someone with color deficiencies? to my eyes, not very. with the vibrancy of reds/greens/yellows and blues gone or muted food will look bland and flat. of course, these are the associations that we have made to food as "normal" color sighted people. we can tell when certain fruits are perfectly ripe by their color, we know that certain meats are done the way we like them because of their color, and our appetites are stimulated by the wide array of colors at a buffet. people with color deficiencies do not have these same frames of reference and it cannot be expected that we can even describe to them the "vibrancy" of the red on a pepper or the "richness" of the purple on a plum. they anticipate their eating experiences from a very different palette perspective, and perhaps more from the associations of smells, and previous experiences with textures. i included the links to a couple of websites over there on the side for you to visit and experience yourself. one of them allows you to choose pictures and web pages to compare in "normal" and color deficient views. if beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder then in this case more than any other it is not just based on a de-facto observation but on objective preference.

you are what you eat

it was bound to come to this and you all knew it. a post about the, um, well, let's just say, "interesting" things we've all eaten. that snail posting got me in the frame of mind to talk about foods (and here i use the term loosely) that seem, and sometimes actually are, less than appetizing.
first let me just say that i love asian cuisine. vietnamese, thai, chinese, japanese, korean, whatever, i love them all. i know where all of you are going with this and the whole "you never know what they really put into chinese food" thing, and all those jokes about missing cats and such; and sometimes asian cuisine can come up with some pretty unusual things. the one that really put the brakes on me happened one day during dim sum. my friend Joan lives in an area of bensonhurst brooklyn that is sometimes corner to corner traditional italian and asian. but just down the block from her is a dim sum place that on the weekends is jam-packed with asians, line out the door, waiting list type of crowd. the food there is really great but every time we go we are the only caucasians there and have to order by basically pointing at things and hoping for the best. one time, during a particularly frenetic saturday dim sum someone at our table pointed to what turned out to be, get ready for this...chicken feet. it is actually kind of shocking to see those little clawed things all sticking up at you from a bowl. we all looked at each other and basically i was the only one even remotely interested in trying them. all i can tell you from the experience is that there really isn't much there, and i hoped that they washed all the chicken shit off their feet before they served them up. i really couldn't figure what to do with them and the idea of sucking on chicken feet, well, you get the picture. i tried chewing gingerly and i could see that all the servers were just looking at me and probably thinking god knows what. i finally gave up, and i can't expect that i missed much. i invite your comments on this one in particular, as i am curious about others experiences on this aspect of food and drink. for those of you interested i have included a link over there on the side to a site that will give you "tips" on cooking chicken feet. bon appetit and as they say, "one man's meat is another man's poison"

ME, JOHN AND JOAN :^*

let them eat...snails?!

the quote, "let them eat cake" has long been attributed as a response by marie antoinette when she was told that the french people had no bread to eat. in all fairness, the quote may be grossly misrepresented. during the great famine of the early 1300s the french wheat crops suffered greatly at the hands of mother nature and flour became almost non-existent; thus bread, the staff of life, could not be made or bought. at the time french law required bakers to sell loaves of bread at fixed prices and fancy loaves, or brioche, to be sold at the same prices to prevent the bakers from selling just the more profitable expensive products. so the the king's consort's suggestion "qu'ils mangent de la brioche" or "let them eat cake/pastry", as the quote is reported, would not have seemed as cynical as history would make us believe, since it would have been sensible, at least to marie antoinette, that in the face of a flour shortage the poor might have been able to afford to eat what would otherwise have been unaffordable. unfortunately, the sensitivity of the situation and its trivializing by the queen was not lost on the angry populace. it cannot all be blamed on the monarchy, however. it is also recorded that the french king tried to persuade his starving people to make do with the crops of potatoes available at the time. the mobs believed that potatoes were poisonous, however, and preferred to starve and guillotine the royals for treason. i speculated that perhaps it was at this time that the french may have turned to eating snails, or escargot; but it seems that the little creatures are more particular to their environment than one might imagine and the inclement weather that was destroying the wheat crops would not have been to their liking either. who knew?! anyway, history reports many famines in europe and i suppose learning to eat whatever was available is a smart survival instinct; but really people! snails?! and why would THAT particular practice survive after the pantries became full? i admit that pretty much anything covered in garlic and butter would taste great, but leave it to the french to make a flavor of the month out of a common variety garden pest that leaves a trail of slime! or is it maybe just a french attempt at humor? they are a bit twisted those french. regardless, i HAVE eaten snails, i have even cooked snails, and let me just say that, yes, it is probably an acquired taste (but WHY? i mean REALLY!), and no, i don't particularly care for them. i do believe in trying most things even once though so chalk one up for me!

SQUAT

Squat is a parking angel. if you live in manhattan and you own a car that you park on the streets you know how important it is to keep on Squat's good side. angels and gods/goddesses can be bribed for their blessing and good graces, and its a well known fact that Squat has a penchant for chocolate. many times the bribes are in the form of offerings of food and drink. for instance Oshun, an afro-caribbean goddess is known to prefer, among many things, liquor, specifically rum. anyway, when you want to stay on Squat's good side you must always leave her a piece of chocolate when you ask for her help in finding a parking space. its also important to remember that before you leave her the chocolate by the curb next to your parked car, you must take a bite of the chocolate as well. the legend has it that Squat was almost murdered once by an irate person who left a piece of poisoned chocolate, so now she demands a show of good intention with the offering of chocolate. tonite i invoked Squat's help in finding a place to park as i was coming home late from a long day out and hoped to be able to park quickly. sometimes as i am driving home i begin my little meditation to Squat and promise of chocolate as i am getting close to home, and there are times, like tonite, that i swear i am being specifically directed where to go. i literally drove into my neighborhood and right into the only open spot on the block (which if you know street parking in manhattan you can appreciate that it was not an easy thing).
rituals of many kinds involve food and drink, among other things. it allows us to share in the divine in a way that is familiar to us, and which makes us feel more a part of the cosmic in a relevant way. afro-caribbean religions in particular have a way of bringing us closer to the angels, gods/goddesses and saints which we invoke for help in our daily lives, through the ways that we interact with them via rituals and on a daily basis. sharing food and drink is not specifically typical of only the afro-caribbeans; but it seems to have kept us much more in touch with the divine in a way that makes the pantheon more a part of our family, and therefore more apt to offer them the fruits of our larder in a show of hospitality and in a spirit of grace and reverence.

cuando hay hambre, no hay pan duro

basically it means, "when you're hungry, there's no such thing as stale bread" its a cuban saying and it gained more relevance with the castro regime and the imposition of food ration cards. i was born in cuba, and my family and i lived through that for many years before we were able to come to the united states, and one of my memories of that day we arrived in miami was all of us at the hotel we were staying at with our family and my mom needing some milk and all we had to do was go into the hotel corridor and there was a vending machine with milk in it. we were not so used to being able to get food so easily and readily. i remember the first BK Whopper i ever had; it seemed so huge to me at the time. because i was born before the revolution, i remember how it used to be and what it became. i also know what it was like for my family. because of all these things i probably became the food obsessive-compulsive that i am today. nothing in my home ever goes to waste.
today i made a batch of vegetable stock. i like to make my own stocks (vegetable as well as chicken or seafood) because i like the freshness and the fact that i can control what i cook with. with the vegetable stock i make use of the parts of all those vegetables that ordinarily would get thrown away. i just keep a freezer bag where i put the broccoli stalks, the ends of onions, carrots, celery, and any other raw veggies that i happen to have cooked with as i go along and would ordinarily wind up in the trash, and then make my own stock when the bag is full.
i often wonder what my life would have been like if my family had not left cuba. i think of what people are going through there now, and food is just one part of their problems. i "feel" my heritage when i cook, i associate my family with the foods and gathering in the kitchen. i'm reminded of where i came from, and what we've done to get to where we are.

VIVA CUBA LIBRE!

home is where the tart is

as long as i'm talking about tarts i'll mention a sweet one. John really loves this tart book called "tarts, sweet and savory" and another of the last ones he made was a lemon cheese tart. Maxine Clark is the author of this book and she has a long history as a leading food writer and teacher. the hardest thing about this recipe is the "blind baking" of the crust, which is not really all that difficult. it basically entails first cooking the crust without the filling in it, or "blind", so that it stays crisp after the whole tart is cooked WITH the filling. all you do is cover the tart shell with beans or rice or these special marbles, and cook it before pouring in the filling and baking it again. you fill the shell with these beans or whatever so that the tart shell does not bubble up as it is being baked "blind". this usually has to be done with tarts and its an essential step. one of the first tarts he ever made from this book is an apple one and it is absolutely delish; but the book says its a "french" apple tart and i'm like, what the fuck?! the only thing french about it is the fact that the book author called it "tarte aux pommes" which basically means "apple tart" in french but SO WHAT?! i mean, if i called it "tartaleta de manzanas" (which is just "apple tart" in spanish) would i say it was a spanish apple tart?! fuck no! it's still just a damn apple fucking tart!!! when you're in china they don't call the food there "chinese food" it's just FOOD! WHATEVER! anyway, as i said this is a really easy tart recipe so i'm including it below, plus a picture of how ours came out.

THE RECIPE

1 shortcrust pastry and 9 inch false bottom tart pan
1 lemon
1/3 cup sugar
12oz or 1 and 1/2 cup of cream cheese of cottage cheese
1 large egg plus 3 egg yolks
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

bring the dough to room temperature, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees

roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface and use to line the tart pan. prick the base, then chill or freeze for 15 minutes and bake blind (about 10-12 minutes).
peel the zest from the lemon leaving behind any white pith, and squeeze the juice. put the zest and sugar into a food processor or small blender, and blend until the sugar and zest mixture looks damp.
add the lemon juice and blend again-the lemon zest should be completely dissolved into the sugar. add the cheese, egg yolks, whole egg, and vanilla extract. blend until smooth and pour into the baked crust.
bake for about 25 minutes until just set and lightly browned on top. remove from the oven and let cool.

...and the queen said "off with his head"

John made a really great tart yesterday, mushrooms with stilton cheese. the apartment had that really pungent smell of the stilton while he was making it and it tasted delish. tart making can be very different depending on whether you're doing sweet or savory. and even among the sweet there are very different methods. the biggest difference between baking and other types of cooking is that with some forms of baking it's all about measuring. sometimes its an exact science, just the right amount of wet to dry ingredients or you could wind up with an inedible mess. with cooking other things it really can be a pinch of this or a dash of that, or leave in one thing or substitute for something else you might prefer; but not with certain forms of baking. people who always follow recipes will argue about my cooking methods but i understand that some people like to follow a recipe every single time so that the dish always comes out the same. they've even quantified the "pinch" and "dash" method! no really, you can find actual measurements in cookbooks that will specify what a "pinch" or a "dash" should actually be! that's a little too OCD even for me. you can check out the measurement conversions over there if your're interested. it is actually a valuable tool for some of those old recipes that someone wrote down for you and will at least give you a starting point from which you can create your own preferences.
ok, so the title, tarts always remind me of alice in wonderland and the part where the jack of hearts steals the tarts and the queen of hearts says "off with his head" which she seemed to say alot. and the recipe, well, it belongs to michael chiarello so the link to his web site is over there under "mushroom tart" and the recipe is below too if you want to try it. i think you should, or it's OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!






HERE'S THE RECIPE

2 lb cleaned, mixedmushrooms, (sliced or quartered depending on variety)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 shallots, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons freshly chopped thyme
2 tablespoons minced parsley
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1 egg-well beaten
8 oz crumbled blue cheese
1 sheet frozen puff pastry-thawed
Flour for dusting work surface

1 lb dry beans for baking crostata shell


Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Heat two large saute pans over high heat. Working in batches divide the olive oilbetween the two pans. When the oil is hot but not quite smoking, add themushrooms, season with gray salt and pepper, add the butter to each pan andallow to caramelize. Once mushrooms havecooked down to half their volume, transfer all mushrroms to one pan. Add the shallots and garlic and cook untilthe light brown and fragrant. Add thethyme until it crackles. Add the cream and bring up to a simmer. Reduce thecream by about half and stir in the grated parmesan, and the lemon juice. Shutoff the flame and quickly stir in the beaten egg. Remove from the stove and letcool to room temperature. Add parsleyand stir.

While mushroom mixture is cooling, roll out the pastry doughon a floured surface. Roll the dough out so that it will line a 10ý removablebottom tart pan. Line the dough with parchment paper and fill with the drybeans. Bake for 10-12 minutes, remove from the oven and let cool to roomtemperature.

Lower oven temperature to 400 degrees F.

When both the filling and shell have cooled to roomtemperature fill the shell with the mushroom mixture and top with the crumbledblue cheese. Arrange the tart mold on a cookie sheet and bake for 20-30minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature beforeserving. Slice in wedges and serve.

AND HERE'S WHAT OURS LOOKS LIKE

notes from a wineaholic/albarino

i'm a big fan of wine. my family being mostly from spain (ole') and somewhat from france (choke) i don't suppose i'd be otherwise. while i was born in cuba, (second generation) my grandparents and prior come from the iberian peninsula, more specifically from the north and northwestern parts of spain, where the gallegos produce spain's best white wines. typically i prefer reds and only was introduced to this type of wine by a client. i have since sampled several bottles to find that my ancestral roots do run deep. according to the Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil, the whites that come from the Rias Baixas stirred a veritable revolution in the 1990s due to the introduction of modern wine making techniques. she describes the flavors as "ranging from zingy citrus-peach to almond-honeysuckle...supple and lightly creamy...and light as gossamer on the palate" don't she talk pretty? it usually has a beautiful golden color when it's poured out, and many people speak of a hint of kiwi in the flavor due to the fact that kiwis are a major agricultural crop in this area, and years ago many kiwi orchards were pulled out in order to plant more albarino. i'm not a wine snob by any means and i have a very open palate, so i like to try different wines and, of course, some things i like and some things not so much. i try to be "appreciative" of the wine for what it offers and where it came from and i love reading her book for the descriptions of the regions which produce the grapes, the countries and their cultures and food pairing suggestions. this area of spain, unlike all others, is known exclusively for white wines and the major grape produced is the albarino, the name which appears on every bottle regardless of the vintner who produced it. to further accentuate the importance of this grape, by comparison most other spanish wines are referred to by their geographic region. i put a fun link on the side there called the "budometer" where you can take a brief questionnaire and see what they have to say about your palate and wine choices. i found it interesting and somewhat accurate. in any case, enjoy your wine. salud, amor y dinero!

my two favorite drunks



THE RIAS BAIXAS

happy year of the rat

yeah, i know the chinese new year was like over a month ago; but it's all about how you celebrate it not necessarily when. and this year was really great. for the past several years i've been going to a chinese food banquet to celebrate the new year with a group from the chinese kung-fu wu-su association that is totally cool. the founder, Master Alan Lee, is a qi-cong and martial arts master who i've known for about 10 years or so now because he and i work out of the same place on fifth avenue between 20th and 21st street called fitness results (check out both links on the side there). anyway, master lee gets this huge group of people together to celebrate the chinese new year at this place down on elizabeth street right next to Lin Sisters and, do i have to say it?, there's some awesome food to be had. it's all about the ritual of celebrating together and good fortune, and this year John and i sat with a really cool bunch of people...here's a shout out to Cat, Blake, Maia, Ken and "the Turk". (btw Cat i didn't notice the cougar on your business card when you gave it to me, very cool!) there's like eight different courses of food from pork, to beef, chicken and duck, fried rice and lo-mein. some of the seafood is a little quirky (jellyfish, seaweed, and these tiny fish fried whole) but also shrimp prepared a few different ways, octopus, shark fin soup, and veggies like bok-choi, a couple different kinds of schrooms, and a dish served in a bowl of fried noodles that looks like a big nest. oh yeah, and there's plenty of wine to wash it all down with. of course the meal ends with the requisite fortune cookies and slices of orange. how do they get such good oranges this time of the year is what i want to know. there was so much food left over that it all gets put into these take-out containers for everybody and john and i took a couple of bags and gave some away to a homeless guy that usually camps out on the steps of St. Joseph's church in our hood. he was asleep so we just left it for him. the banquet is in this HUGE place that gets partitioned off and there's such a great feeling to show up and sit with people you never met before and share a meal in celebration of the new year! this year the group i sat with was great fun, that's usually Cat's chopsticks you see in the food shots below. they were all having fun with my photo-taking for the blog and i'm going to send the link out so maybe SOMEBODY will leave a comment here and there. (i mean, c'mon people, i know you're all out there, i see you in class and i can hear you all breathing!) except for you Sandy, thanks for your comment! anyway, i know i said i was going to wait 'till tomorrow to post this but i let my OCD get the best of me when i got home so here it is. enjoy and happy new year everyone!
the banquet hall, there's Lin Sisters on the side there

the group, phoenix and dragon on the rear wall (prosperity and good fortune)

some mushrooms and bok choi

chicken and beef in "the nest"

lemon fish, fried rice and lo mein

camping with "catheno"

i got to thinking of the great times camping and that led me to go through some old photos. (by now you should be used to these digressions) there was, of course, always food and drink, and dancing. some of the pictures below are from the site at bass river and some are from #31 in newburgh. you can tell we were having a good time. yep, that's me with hugely long hair, and braces too i think. god that sucked so badly! i had those braces on for 25 months, 1 week and 2 days; and it was hell! i can't begin to tell you how many times in the beginning i would sit outside the orthodontist's office and cry after an adjustment it was so painful. there was alot of drinking going on in those days, whiskey usually, rubbed on the gums and then just guzzled. it never helped but it gave me something to do until i could pass out. anyway, those are not such good food and drink memories. the food was awkward and the drinking was excessive. obviously it didn't stop me from having a good time. the girls don't camp anymore now that they have the cabin, i mean, what the fuck they're always in the woods now! we usually try to go once in spring and once in fall. oh yeah, the "catheno" thing. before i met catherine and odalys john would say "you have to meet my friend(s) catheno" well that's what it sounded like to me when he said it, you know, "catheno". i used to think "who the fuck is this person, and what's with the weird name?" anyway, it turned out to be "cath and o (short for odalys)" aka "the girls". well, enjoy the photos.

shrimp on "the barbie"

and the cocktails, of course

bacon really gets you out of your tent in the morning

the girls... :^*

and the boys

thank you for seeing you

no, that's not a mistake. it's something Odalys says. she said it once at a Halloween party we all went to when she saw this guy there dressed like Elvis, and it's the sort of stupid thing that just never goes away. now we always say it when we are saying good-bye to each other. we visited "the girls" this past weekend up in Bethel, NY and had a great time. as i mentioned we hadn't seen them since last august so there was alot to catch up on, and we had alot of down time by the fireplace (we made alot of trips out to the cord). they've done a little more work in the cabin. the bathroom looks great with a new floor, sink(with cabinet), toilet, mirror and lights; some painting in the master bedroom, and new arrangement of furniture in the guest bedroom and living room. it was hugely cold up there but it didn't keep us from firing up the bbq for our surf and turf dinner. the girls like to cook too and there's always food and drink when we get together. they made some caprese salad and mini pizzas with arugula, prosciutto and fresh parmigiano for appetizers. and we did filet mignons and lobster tails after and it was delish. we used to do alot of camping together and we probably had the only gourmet food on the camping ground. we would bring these pre-marinated pork tenderloins, or shrimp on skewers, or fish steaks, and cook rice or pasta and have appetizers spread out while we were cooking. we'd have some music going and of course that led to dancing. one time at this campground at bass river state park in new jersey the rangers kept passing by our site and they finally came over to us to tell us that while they didn't want to put a damper on our party we were obviously having way too much fun and to make sure that we didn't let it get out of control. that was actually a "dry" campground and the rangers were totally cool. another one of our favorite places to camp is the KAO campground in newburgh, our favorite site there is #31. there's some beautiful hiking around there.
here's some photos of the weekend, bon apetit!
us and them, 8^* love ya!!

the surf...

and the turf.

appetizer anyone?

oh yes, and the drinks! lotsa drinks %^D

one of those days

you ever have one of those days that you think, "jesus fucking christ! that's it, i've had it" and no amount of food can help, it' just all about the drinks. i like to start out with a vodka gimlet, or as my friend Odalys calls them "airplane fuel". yum! it's actually a somewhat old-fashioned cocktail that i'm doing my best to help make a comeback. or maybe a gin and tonic, and make sure you have limes around for this or you can just forget it. my friend Marita and i are totally into G&Ts. she prefers to call them T&Ts because she also prefers the tangueray gin but i'm not so much of a liquor snob. it's Mari's birthday today and she's picking me up around 7 to do some celebrating. i'm actually taking a little time off this weekend and it's starting tonite. yesterday was John's birthday and we're leaving tomorrow morning to visit our friends Catherine and Odalys. they live in the mountains in Bethel NY and we haven't seen them since august. they used to live just a few blocks from us here in the city and then they bought the cabin a few years ago and winterized it right away. we helped with some of that and man was that alot of work. about a year later Odalys decides that she wants to move up there full time and then Catherine went some months later. it took them some time 'cause they had to find jobs up there and Catherine is a nurse practitioner with and HIV care specialty so that was tough. they finally made it and we miss them alot. i'm bringing some of my schoolwork as a token of sincerity; but you know how that goes. whenever we get together there's always food and drink involved...i think that's mari now, later...ok, so it's now much later and of course there's been food and drink. it was sushi and beers at Dominick and Grant's. my favorite sushi is a place called Yuka on the upper east side, 2nd ave and 81st st. their fish is so fresh and their portions are huge compared to many places. we also got to listen to the debut of their awesome debut recording as Faux Furnishings, "Lydia, Look!". visit them at www.myspace.com/fauxfurnishingsofficial, or just use the link on the side over there. so much luck to them! it was a good time, shout out to Guitar Heroes Lauren, Jacob, Dominick and Guitar "Super"Hero Grant, also Scott, Steven, Izzie, Jennifer, and my BFFF Mari, happy fucking b-day you brick house!

Glaser's Bakery

today my friend Lisa stopped by to drop off a fresh loaf of irish soda bread made at the local bakery where she works, Glaser's. this place has been a family owned business since 1902 and the current owner, and baker, Herb has already started making them in honor of the upcoming St. Pats. he makes great brownies, apple turnovers, all kinds of muffins and the absolute best cookies. mini linzer tarts, lemon meltaways, italian tricolors, and incredible chocolate and vanilla lace cookies. i'm not the kind of person, like my grandmother, who would rather eat dessert than a main course, but these cookies are like crack. no, seriously! if you're in the neighborhood you've got to stop by and try something. if Lisa, Terry or Rita are there tell them Tom sent you and they'll hook you up. it's amazing that in this day and age a family business like this can keep going. i like the idea of recipes being handed down that way. just like i've gotten from my family, especially my grandmother. although getting a recipe from my grandmother is really like flying by the seat of your pants. she'll tell you to add a "pinch" of this or "dash" of that, or "a few" or "some" or "a little" of whatever. you don't always get exact measurements and sometimes it's best just to watch how she makes something and walk away with a "feel" for the recipe. anyway, take a look at the Glaser's website from the link on this page, and OMG you have GOT to check out Terry's hair from like 10 years ago! Tell her you saw it if you stop by and watch her cringe.

John with Rita (in the middle) and Lisa


also, check out this JibJab video i made with John, Rita and Lisa in it, it's a hoot!

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The Incredible Edible Egg

i love eggs. they're one of my favourite foods and one thing i love to make with them is a spanish tortilla. the traditional recipe is just onions, potatoes and, of course, the eggs. this is what's usually called a "tortilla espanola" but like so many peasant foods, it just depends on what you have on hand, as long as there are eggs. my grandmother used to make them for dinner with sardines and that was delish! this is my mother's mother who is going to be 93 this year and going strong. she cooks and cleans and reads everything and curses like i sailor. i lived with her, and my grandfather, most of my young adult life. as i said before, i'm latin, and alot of us believe in living in the extended family system. i'm grateful that happened, it really helped me to get to know my mom's parents well. my grandfather, the maternal one, died about 11 years ago at the age of 92. he and my grandmother were inseperable, they couldn't even get dressed without each other. he used to cook too, but not so much. although he did have a specialty, chatinos, also known as tostones, and nobody could make them as crunchy and perfectly fried as he could. anyway, the tortilla can be eaten for breakfast, brunch, dinner whatever. alot of times i just make one so i can have something quick to nuke for breakfast for a couple of days. traditionally they are also supposed to be fried on the stove top, which entails having to flip it somewhere along the way. this step takes a steady hand 'cause you could easily lose the whole thing but it's do-able. you could also just cook it in the oven, especially if your ingredients are leftovers (or as my family calls them "recyclables"), and then avoid the flipping step. i just made one with leftover spinach and potatoes. the recipe and pictures are below.

THE INGREDIENTS:
This was a small one, only 6 eggs; but with a 9 or 10 inch pan you can use 8 eggs.
there's also the wilted, fresh spinach (a leftover)
and the broiled potatoes (also leftover)
just scramble the eggs in a large bowl, add a little milk; but you don't have to (or cream or whatever dairy you like),
then just stir the leftovers into the eggs,
don't forget to salt the eggs, my grandfather used to say that anyone that ate eggs without salt would eat their own mother. nice, right?


put everything into an oiled/buttered/or non-stick pan and put into a pre-heated 350 degree oven. check it after 20 minutes if it's a small one like this, or it may take 30 minutes if it's larger. you can serve it just like this for the rustic feel or slide/flip it out onto a plate. just leave the pretty side up. enjoy!

St. Pats/Easter - Green Eggs and Ham?!

so i'm working like a slave on all my homework and really just getting batty and John's sister Karen emails me to say that this year she wants to do a joint St.Pats and Easter thing and what day can both John and I make it so the whole family can be together. i'm like, St.Pats AND Easter? i realize they're both really close this year and it would give us all a chance to celebrate both, and all together; but to me this just seems like somebody getting away with only feeding me once. also, i'm latin, and therefore only irish by injection; and easter, well, as i said, an opportunity for food and drink, not to mention chocolate. still, it's an opportunity to do the food and drink thing, you know; and get together with the family, which i love. and i love Karen and Wayne, not to mention that Karen's a good cook and she and Wayne keep a very well stocked wine fridge. and i do love good wine (Todd, Karen and Wayne's son, calls me a wine-aholic) kids say the darnest things don't they? ;-) so i'm down with the whole joint celebration thing and then i start thinking about are we going to have a leprechaun with bunny ears or a green easter rabbit for the egg hunt? and of course the food and drink, and naturally in my state of mind i think dr. seuss and start quoting green eggs and ham to Karen. everything has become blog fodder, what can i say? it's like those ink blot tests, it all looks like food or sex to me. last year John and i were going to miss the St.Pats get-together because we had a flight to Tulum on that day, and then, if any of you remember, we had that freak ice storm and the flight never got off the ground. of course, it wasn't bad enough to keep us from going out and eating and drinking to excess so we all met at a place in jersey called "the crow's nest" which was doing a full blown St.Pats thing complete with bagpipes and the requisite menu. i showed up with green hair and ate corned beef and cabbage like a true irishman. anyway, here's some pics of past St.Pats get-togethers.

Karen, Wayne, Mr. C, Shivann(see you DID make it to my blog) and Todd

Karen and Wayne :-*

Karen, John, Me and Shivann

with Hailey and James

with Kim, Myung and Tommy

LOVE YOU ALL, SEE YOU IN A FEW WEEKS!!!

And of course, Green Eggs and Ham...

(Fred and) Ginger...Rogers that is

ok, so you get the whole theme thing going on. i promise it won't always be like this but it's just one example of my train of thought getting out of control. it's the whole "joys of life" thing, you know. food and drink, and music and dancing goes right along with it. sometimes a little too much drinking will lead to the dancing, and where there's dancing there's floozies. that's another story completely but you begin to see how my mind works. it's actually a great line from a 1985 movie called Maxie, Ruth Gordon gets to deliver the line. but anyway, i digress, yet again. dancing, ginger rogers and fred astaire. wow, that was something! although he wasn't my favourite hoofer. that credit goes to Gene Kelly. but his name has nothing to do with ginger so the clip you get to see below is from the movie Swing Time. i love to dance and twice entered marathons. my high school friend Chris and i actually won a dance contest during one of those marathons, nothing like fred and ginger though. she was a great person, and actually a great cook too, Chris that is, not Ginger. she used to make food for the whole group of us when we would get together at her house. and we'd hang out and listen to music and dance. we used to have sleepovers at her house and spend the night trying to scare each other. one day she showed us a bunch of cookoo clocks she had put into the attic because she couldn't stand the ticking and while she wasn't looking i set the thing in motion. she cursed the heck out of me that night when she heard the thing going off in the dead quiet. anyway, here's fred and ginger. don't forget to turn the sound off on the music feed before you watch this.