The Day After the Sno’reastercane, Frankenstorm, or NYC Apocalypse 2012 (Update)

22 Comments


Just a quick update from higher ground:

In the middle of a night of drinking, communal eating, and smoking with the neighbors, I looked out the window to see a giant flash of blue light followed shortly by darkness.

It was lights out in the East Village! Still not the worst thing. We all thought the power would be back by midnight, or the morning at the latest. How wrong we were. Alphabet City, only a few blocks away, had cars floating up and down the streets. We woke up to downed trees, no traffic lights, no power, no hot water, no cell phone service, no internet, nothing.

There were long lines for every pay phone and every open pizza parlor (because apparently disaster-readiness is not in the HipsterHandbook). No subways, no buses, taxis taking multiple fares — well, the taxi drivers who were nice, that is.

It felt strange to be unconnected and completely cut off from the rest of the city. Before cellular service winked out, I managed to see that power was out from 39th Street down. That giant flash of light? A transformer explosion — which ConEdison now disputes, but what the heck else could it be? Aliens?!

Once I found out that power might not be restored till the weekend, I did what any good little BaconBiscuit would do: I packed up my bacon and all of my frozen meats and sent them to a safe freezer in Brooklyn (Thank you, Niki and Dave!).

Then I packed up and decamped to a friend’s luxury apartment on the Upper East Side. She has power, internet, hot water, cable television, and a dishwasher! Ooooh! Fancy!

Seriously, it’s like the hurricane didn’t happen up here. I saw people at Gymboree and eating sushi! I bought brook trout at Fairway!

Downtown? It’s like the great NYC Blackout all over again.

I feel like a refugee in my own town, but am safe and sound. Thank you all for checking in!

More photos of the downed trees behind my building below. I took them before my cell died!

* Above, a photo of a corner one block away from home. Taken from the New York Times.

Sno’reastercane, Frankenstorm, or NYC Apocalypse 2012

18 Comments


As all here on the East Coast are probably aware from the wall-to-wall news coverage, we are currently headed for a bumpy ride tonight as a freak mish-mash of once-in-a-lifetime atmospheric events will create a giant Nor’easter/Hurricane, with snow slated for those further up north and west.

Friends of mine living along the Williamsburg waterfront have been evacuated. Friends around Wall Street barely made it into Evacuation Zone B, thus avoiding having to leave their homes for a few days.

For those of you who are curious, you can see from the blue arrow above that I am safe and sound, being just outside Evacuation Zone C. During Hurricane Irene, I was in Evacuation Zone B — and since this is scheduled to be an even worse storm, it just makes me wonder why I was more in danger last time than this time . . . Hmmmm . . . !

The wind has been gusting at 20-40 mph all day, heading up to 70-90 mph tonight. Yikes! A crane just collapsed in Midtown, and ConEd just robo-called me to say that Lower Manhattan may lose power as a “precautionary measure.”

New Yorkers are such a stubborn bunch. The news keeps reporting on people who refuse to leave their beach homes or their Hudson River-facing high-rises — which is just stupid in my opinion. Always better to be safe than sorry!

In the case that I do lose power, I am all set for the storm. I have stocked up on bottled water, batteries, Bourbon, and cigarettes!

Because you can’t smoke ’em if you don’t got ’em 😉

All joking aside, everyone please stay safe the next couple of days!

For more updates, the New York Times has comprehensive coverage of Hurricane Sandy here.

And for a little bit of dark humor, check out the fake twitterfeed of Miguel Bloombito, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “Spanish-speaking” doppelganger. For those of you who have been cringing at the Mayor’s attempts to give out storm updates in Spanish himself, this will be hilarious.

Brooklyn Bacon Takedown Update: I Will Win Next Year!!!!!

53 Comments


Yes, dear Friends and Readers: I made an Maple-Candied Bacon and Ancho Chili-Spiced Roasted Pecans in Bourbon-Maple Nougat with a touch of Sea Salt and I lost!

But I had a great time and met tons of people. Here’s to next year’s Bacon Takedown, and to beating the pants off my new friends!

(not in an inappropriate way)

Recipe and more forthcoming!

Countdown to the Brooklyn Bacon Takedown!

21 Comments

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Just picked up all my bacon for the Brooklyn Bacon Takedown at the Bellhouse this Sunday.

The event is sold out, but I will keep you all updated with what I do with my bacon! For those of you lucky souls who have tickets, I look forward to seeing you and catching up at the event.

Vote for me! The newbie!

Post-Dissertation Life: Come Watch Me at the 4th Annual Brooklyn Bacon Takedown

32 Comments


I think that there is a little bit of confusion among most people as to when life after the dissertation starts to look “normal” again. I only say this because I have found my friends to be genuinely befuddled:

“What?! You’re still not done?!”

Well, I respond, it’s kind of a long process. Yes, you have to write your dissertation — and that can take forever and a day. When it is done, you submit it to your committee members as early as you can before your defense. Then you defend it in front of them. You take their suggestions during the defense and you revise your dissertation to address — as best as you can in the time that you have allotted yourself to revise — their feedback. Then you submit the whole thing again and wait to see if there is anything else that needs to be done (formatting, paperwork, etc.). If everything looks okay, then you can start breathing again.

For myself, as of Monday, all revisions are finished, the dissertation is uploaded and sent to Proquest, and all my library fines are paid. So I can finally officially say that I am done!

I am only now slowly beginning to ease back into life: tidying up my apartment after almost half a year of neglect, doing laundry, seeing friends again, dealing with the crush of emails and electronic whatnot that have been accumulating since June.

And after so many months of being out of the kitchen, what is the first thing I do?

I sign up to compete in the 4th Annual Bacon Takedown in Brooklyn and cook for 200 people.

That’s right. And what kind of baconbiscuit212 would I be if I didn’t?

For those of you who are in the NY Metro Area, please do come out and cheer me on at my first Takedown!

October 14 at 2:00pm at The Bell House.

I will have 15 pounds of bacon to play with.

15 pounds, people!

There are just a few tickets left. $15 nabs you the chance to taste the 20 competitors’ dishes, including my own. For tickets, click here.

It’s gonna’ be greasy 😉

I passed my doctoral defense!

65 Comments

Dear Friends and Readers,

I just wanted to let you all know that I passed my dissertation defense Wednesday.

I am now a completely useless kind of doctor 🙂

I cannot help you if you’re in cardiac arrest, but I can textually analyze you 🙂

After months of exhaustive work, I am very much looking forward to getting back to two things in life that give me pleasure: cooking and being in regular touch with you all.

I want to thank you all for all of your support during this long process. I couldn’t have made it this far without you!

More updates to come,
Daisy

PS. The day after the defense, I got an hour-long massage at a fancy spa, ate a giant plate of fried food, and did not open MSWord once 🙂

PPS. And big thank you to Kelly for my very own “Not that kind of doctor” T-shirt from ThinkGeek.com. I am wearing it with pride! You’re the greatest!

The Daring Kitchen July Cooks’ Challenge: Papillotes de pêches et framboises à la vanille (Peaches and Raspberries Cooked in Parchment Paper with Vanilla Bean)

55 Comments


The dissertation has been pretty overwhelming lately. This is the big push before the defense so I haven’t had much time for all the things that I love like spending time with my friends, cooking, blogging, eating out and drinking.

I miss the drinking. I ran an errand the other day and saw some nice people drinking wine in the shade. I remember jealousy thinking, “I bet they don’t even appreciate that wine!” Suddenly, I was overcome with the desire to grab their glasses out of their hot little hands and go sprinting down the street.

I didn’t do it, but I sure wanted to.

No way did I think that I was going to be able to participate in the Daring Kitchen challenge this month either until I saw the challenge: cooking en papillote.

En papillote is a fancy schmancy way of saying that you cook something in a paper envelope. We’re not talking about any old paper here; we’re talking about parchment paper, also known as bakery release paper or greaseproof paper. Cooking in parchment is a terrific way to cook delicate things quickly without fear of them drying out. You can also roast food en papillote as the paper allows just enough steam to release so that potato skin, for example, gets nice and crispy while the insides gently steam to perfection.

You could use aluminum foil instead of parchment paper — also known as a hobo pack — but I find that the results lack the finesse and elegance of cooking in paper. I might also be too negatively affected by the word “hobo,” and too seduced by the phrase “en papillote“!

It’s true that this month’s Daring Kitchen assignment wasn’t really a challenge for me since cooking en papillote is one of my favorite cooking methods. On this blog, I have posted a recipe for roasted tiny potatoes en papillote and roasted salmon with mango and Bird’s Eye chiles. However, it was completely new for me to use this cooking method to make a something sweet instead of something savory.

This dessert recipe was inspired by one that I saw months ago on Elle à table, the companion cooking site of French Elle Magazine. I kept the primary components — parchment, peaches and raspberries — and changed the rest. The original recipe has you peel the peaches. However, if the peaches are nice and ripe, this step seems fussy. It also seems like it would be a big waste of precious juice. The Elle à table recipe also calls for lime zest and juice, whereas I only used the zest for fear that the extra juice would have made the dessert too watery. Instead of a lime, I used a lemon. I also swapped out the cinnamon for vanilla bean, and shortened the cooking time so that the fruit would stay more intact.

Just like there is more than one way to roast a chicken, there is more than one way to make a parchment paper packet. Traditionally, you take a large piece of parchment paper, fold it in half, and cut out a heart — just like how you did as a child. After you position your food on the paper, you seal up the packet by folding or crimping the edges shut. To give you an example of how to seal up a parchment paper packet, here is a video with Chef Paul Prudhomme — who can pronounce papillote any dang ol’ way he pleases in Cajun country.

Alternatively, you can arrange your food in the center of a square of parchment paper, pull two of the sides up, fold them down, and then tie off the ends with cooking string. For some more examples of parchment paper packets, I direct you to this month’s Daring Cooks’ Challenge PDF.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter how you seal up the parchment paper as long as you make sure that your packets are snug, but not too tight around your food.

I made two different kinds of packets for this challenge. You can see them both in the photo gallery below. This challenge didn’t take up too much of my time since I had the fruit already (it’s high peach season here). Most importantly, it reminded me of how valuable it is to not give up those things in life that give you pleasure at those moments in life when you feel most stressed out.

A big thank you to Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie for the terrific challenge 🙂 In terms of mandatory items, you only asked that we cook in parchment. As suggestions, you gave us some amazing savory ones like beef, lamb or rabbit. I chose a gourmand take on cooking en papillote, which I hope still keeps with the spirit of the challenge even though it might not have been as challenging!

Mandatory blog checking lines: Our July 2012 Daring Cooks’ host was Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie! Sarah challenges us to learn a new cooking technique called “Cooking En Papillote” which is French and translates to “cooking in parchment”.

* The reveal date for this month’s French cooking challenge happens to fall on Bastille Day: le 14 juillet 🙂 Bonne fête, tout le monde!

Ingredients:

4 beautifully ripe yellow peaches

1 vanilla bean pod, split into four pieces

1 punnet of raspberries*

Cane sugar

The zest of 1 lemon

Cold butter

How to prepare:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400° F.

2. Defuzz the peaches by very gently rubbing as much of the peach fuzz off as you can under cold running water. Cut the peaches into slices that are a little more than a quarter-inch thick.

3. Evenly divide the peach slices between 4 parchment paper sheets. You will use about one peach’s worth of slices per packet. Tuck one split vanilla bean pod in-between the peach slices. The vanilla should perfume the fruit, but not overwhelm it. Arrange a small handful of raspberries over the peaches. Sprinkle the fruit with cane sugar. Grate a little lemon zest over the top. Dot the fruit with about a 1/2 tablespoon of cold butter cut into small pieces

4. Crimp or tie off your parchment paper parcels and arrange them on a large baking sheet. Bake them between 8-10 minutes. Remove them from the oven and carefully open them (they will be steamy). Find and discard the vanilla bean pods.

You can serve the peaches and raspberries straight from the paper, or you can transfer the fruit to a small bowl to top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or gelato.

* Although punnet is a Britishism, but it’s a pretty useful word for those little plastic or molded paper baskets intended for berries. We don’t seem to have any equivalent in American English (the closest approximation is a pint basket). Furthermore, punnets for raspberries are generally smaller than the containers used for pints of strawberries . . .

Mission Chinese Food New York

82 Comments


I have to admit to having something of a double standard when it comes to snapping pics of restaurant food and posting them on my blog.

On vacation, I will happily — nay, gleefully — take pictures of food. I will obnoxiously angle for the perfect shot, shoo away the anxious fingers of my dining companions, and blatantly ignore the wide-eyed stares of other patrons. The staff is generally stoic about my behavior. I find that they tolerate it even though I wonder if, when they talk among themselves, they wish that I wouldn’t do it.

I don’t care. I’m on vacation, gosh darn it!

However, I do care when it is in my own backyard. Taking photos of food in NYC turns shameless vacation-me into sheepish, overly apologetic local-me. When I take pictures of what I eat in New York, I always cringe a little inside.

Oh the hypocrisy!

Maybe the double standard comes from the fact that I will probably return to these restaurants. Or that wait staff seem to appear at one restaurant, and then they magically pop up at other ones, so that you end up seeing the same faces again and again. Or maybe it is because New York City is a mecca for photo-snapping foodies and like every other snooty local, I don’t want to be associated with a bunch of Yelpers.

What is it that they say about not peeing in the pool you swim in? Or not pooping where you eat? Something like that feeling.

However, I do make two exceptions. Like when friends are in town. “Take a picture!!!!” I will squeal. “I’ll take one for you!!!!! Let’s get the server to take a picture of us!!!!!!”

I just get so excited about their visit that I want to immortalize the moment in digital form, food included.

And sometimes, I just can’t resist taking pictures of what I eat when the food is exceptional. Really, truly exceptional.

Like it was at the newly opened Mission Chinese Food New York. This eagerly anticipated restaurant took over the cursed space left by Bia Garden, Michael “Bao” Huyn’s ill-conceived Vietnamese beer garden (note to prospective restaurant investors: don’t open a beer garden dedicated to a country that has no craft beer).

Mission Chinese New York is the first branch of Danny Bowien‘s famed and acclaimed San Francisco food destination Mission Chinese Food.

He was also in the house the day that I had lunch with my friend Kelly.

That lunch? Phenomenal. Just wow. Wow. It was . . . oh, man. It was good. Really, really good.

It was so good that I broke my no-photos-in-NYC rule.

In the words of the Mouse over at the blog, Live2EatEat2Live, the socks came off 😉

And for Mike over at testerfoodblog, this post is for you!

What we ate:

Szechuan pepper corn Micheladas

Fresh tofu poached in soy milk with broad bean paste, soy beans and sesame leaves

Thrice-cooked bacon with Shanghainese rice cakes, tofu skin, bitter melon and chili oil

Kung-Pao pastrami with peanuts, celery, potato and explosive chili

Wild pepper leaves with pressed tofu and pumpkin in salted chili broth

Where we ate:

Mission Chinese Food New York, 154 Orchard Street (between Rivington and Stanton), New York, NY 10002

* Mission Chinese Food also donates $0.75 of every main course to the Food Bank of New York City. So not only is Mission Chinese super good for getting your om noms on, but it’s good for the community too!

** Just a quick note to my dear readers, the dissertation has been a little overwhelming lately, so I might not be posting or commenting as frequently! Many apologies!

Sugar Snap Peas with Sesame, Soy Sauce and Mirin

83 Comments


Sugar snap peas are here! When snap peas are in season, I like to prepare them as simply as possible so that their wonderful sweetness can shine.

I like my sugar snaps barely blanched so that the pods retain their crunch, but lose their rawness. This mixture of sesame oil, soy sauce and mirin is barely a dressing; it’s more like a very thin glaze or wash. Even though the dressing is thin, it is remarkably flavorful — but not so flavorful as to overpower the peas.

It goes without saying that if you shun cooking wine (that awful shelf-stable, salty, sugary stuff that you see in the supermarket) and avoid cooking sherry (equally as salty, sugary and awful), you should probably avoid the “mirin” that is typically found in the Asian section at most grocery stores. Tomoko calls it “fake mirin” and it is certainly as gross as cooking wine and cooking sherry: salty, sugary, harsh, unpleasant and full of MSG.

If you can, try to get your hands on some real mirin. Just like how you buy wine and sherry at the wine store, you should find mirin where sake is sold.

Tomoko says that she finds hers at the liquor store, but it seems like the liquor stores downtown aren’t nearly as Asian-conversant as the ones uptown (“Mirin? You mean Wild Turkey?”).

Following a recommendation from the New York Times, I placed an order at a Sakaya, a store that sells almost exclusively sake.

“It’s not so easy to find here,” the woman at the store explained when I told her that I had a little bit of a hard time. “Oh, if I can’t get real mirin, I don’t even bother!”

So what should you do if you can’t get real mirin? As a substitution, you can dissolve a pinch of sugar in sake. Ideally, you’re looking for about a 3-to-1 ratio of sake to sugar, but you can adjust the sweetness to your taste.

The woman at Sakaya agreed, ” Yeah, yeah. Sake and some sugar.”

“Mirin,” she said, “After you open it, they say to put it somewhere cool and dark, but you should put it in the refrigerator. It lasts a long time. I use one bottle of mirin, maybe every one or two years.”

Since I have never held onto a bottle of mirin for one to two years, I don’t know if I can vouch for that. However, I will definitely say that having a bottle around the house is an incentive to use it more often!

Ingredients:

1 pound of sugar snap peas, topped and tailed

2 tablespoons of mirin

2 tablespoons of Japanese soy sauce

1 tablespoon of sesame seed oil

Salt

Sesame seeds

Shichimi or Aleppo pepper

How to prepare:

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the sugar snap peas and cook them briefly for about two to three minutes, no more than four. You want them to be a little crunchy, but not raw.

2. While the snap peas are boiling, set out a large bowl of ice water. Scoop the peas out of the boiling water when they are done and plunge them into the ice water to stop the cooking and fix the color. Drain the sugar snap peas well.

3. In a small saucepan, heat together the mirin, the soy sauce and the sesame oil over low heat. Let the sauce simmer until it has reduced to a thin glaze. Adjust the seasoning if needed.

4. Toss the drained snap peas with the dressing in a large bowl. Sprinkle them with sesame seeds and shichimi to taste.

Kolpona Cuisine’s Muttar Paneer with Freshly-Shelled Peas

36 Comments


When Tahmina over at Kolpona Cuisine posted her recipe for muttar paneer, I knew that the minute shell peas came into season, I was going to make it. Before I started reading her blog, I always felt so intimidated by South Asian cooking. Long lists of spices — some ground, some whole — would freak me out so much that I would end up making something French or Italian-inspired instead.

But what I love about Tahmina is how accessible she makes Bengali, Indian and South Asian cooking. Don’t have a spice grinder for garam masala? No problem. Garam masala is better with whole spices anyway — just count how many of each thing you put in, and fish them out with your fingers while you eat. Don’t have paneer? Take that 2% milk you have lying around the house and make cheese!

This is the second recipe from Tahmina that I have cooked (the first being kale paneer), and I loved the results. The serrano peppers and chopped cilantro added near the end of cooking give the dish a wonderful freshness. The peas are also such a pretty contrast to the sunny yellow sauce. It’s really, really good.

I think that by the end of the summer, I will have succeeded in making everything that she posts!

I hardly changed Tahmina’s recipe with the exceptions of using freshly shelled peas, substituting ginger-garlic paste for actual ginger (I didn’t have any) and garlic, and using store-bought paneer. Tahmina recommends making your own paneer — something that I would totally do if I didn’t keep forgetting to watch the clock. I never seem to be able to factor in enough time to let the cheese drain! She also advocates making your own ghee, which is also on my cooking to-do list. I keep forgetting the fenugreek leaves too . . . I need to replace that Post-it pad in the kitchen!

I did have to French up this recipe a little bit by using some fancy crème fraîche in the place of heavy cream 🙂 Oh la la!

And the absolute best part about cooking from a friend’s blog? You feel like they are right in the kitchen with you, even when they are hundreds of miles away 🙂

For the her recipe, click here.

Ingredients:

For the tomato-onion base:

2 tablespoons of ghee or vegetable oil

1/4 cup of raw cashews

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon of ground turmeric

1/2 teaspoon of red chili powder

1 teaspoon of ground cumin

1 teaspoon of ground coriander

2 tablespoons of ginger-garlic paste

2 Roma tomatoes, chopped

Salt

For the Garam masala:

Ghee or vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds

5 green cardamom pods

5 whole cloves

2 bay leaves

1 cinnamon stick

For the final dish:

1 cup of freshly shelled peas

2 serrano peppers, chopped

8 ounces (about 1 1/2 cups) of paneer, cubed

1/2 cup of cilantro leaves, chopped

1/4 cup of crème fraîche

Salt

How to prepare:

1. In a large saucepan, toast the raw cashews in about two tablespoons of ghee or oil over medium heat. When the cashews begin to color, add the onion and sauté everything together until the onion begins to turn golden around the edges. Add the ground spices and fry them until they are nice and fragrant. Be sure to stir the onion mixture frequently so that the spices don’t burn. Add the ginger paste and the chopped tomatoes. Cook them until the tomatoes begin to break down. Adjust the seasoning.

2. Purée the tomato-onion mixture in a food processor or blender.

3. Using the same saucepan, heat the whole garam masala spices in about a tablespoon of ghee or vegetable oil over medium heat. When the spices are fragrant and the cumin seeds begin to pop, add the puréed tomato-onion base back to the pan. Let the it simmer for a few minutes so that the garam masala spices infuse the tomato-onion mixture. Add chili peppers and the peas and cook them until the peas are just start to become tender, about 4 minutes. Add the paneer, the chopped cilantro leaves and the crème fraîche. Continue to simmer everything together for 3-4 minutes more. Adjust the seasoning for a final time.

Serve with rice or, as Tahmina recommends, chapatis.