Accidentally ate pizza twice today

AM SNACK: 5:30am, 1 tiny dark chocolate cornflake cluster

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, cheese grits, 2 pork sausages, 1 piece of french toast, hashbrowns, pakora, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Out of the buffet bar at Wholefoods.

BIKE SNACK: 1pm, 1 slice streetza, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
On today's bike ride, I stopped by the slice joint I've hit up every time I come off the Triboro Bridge in Astoria -- John's. It's pretty generic looking, except for the fact that there is a Papa John's 1 door down. I haven't been through here in a while, and at first I thought, eesh, this is going to be the only day this week I'm not going to eat pizza....but I want a slice!

The slice was surprisingly good, but then I remembered it was always pretty good. Crisp snap, nice chew, sauce pleasantly tangy. The cheese is inferior but they don't try to make up for crappy cheese by adding a ton of it, therefore making it nastier and strictly for tourists. Good balance. Looking around behind the counter, I recognized the different pieces of equipment essential for operating a pizzeria.Near the cash register, they had taped up an old article out of the NY Post about Sal DeMarco and his DiFara restaurant, about how his $4 slices are the most expensive in the city (outside of ballparks and airports, where the artificial setting allows for gouging.) DiFara is the best slice joint in the entire city, and John's of Astoria, you ain't no DiFara!

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, baby carrots, piece of soft stinky cheese, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, 2 pancakes, glass of cider, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Damn, amazing pancakes from last week outta the freezer. I gotta make a large batch and sell them on the corner, they're addictive.

PM SNORT: 6:15pm, glass of prosecco
B and miniB had a sip, too.

DINNER: 7:30pm, bread, "focaccia," Cesar salad, Rustica pizza, piece of Vegetariana, piece of Diavola, water, bite of octopus, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Escorted B to see her friend and friend's family out on south Court Street in Gowanas. First a drink at a bar, then next door to Luna Rossa, a Neapolitan pizza joint in a similar style to the Prospect Heights restaurant I toil in. Wouldn't be my first choice, but when in Rome...

Hands down, their oven and their crust is some of the best in the city, second only to maybe Franny's. They're running wood-burning brick oven, the pizzas were getting cooked in under 2 minutes, beautifully pillowy and charred and smokey and chewy and crisp and brrrrr...everything a pizza skin should be. The waiter dropped a basket of "focaccia" on the table, but it wasn't, it was a pizza dressed with only olive oil, salt and pepper, cut into rectangular strips, and it was fantastic.

Unfortunately, the rest of the pizza simply pulled the pizza down. I ordered a white pie with mushrooms and sausage. He laid raw sliced white mushrooms under the moz, which caused them to steam in their own moisture and turn the majority of the inside of the pie to flibbidy flobbidyness. The sausage looked like industrial pellets and didn't taste much better, and it was over-cheesed with aged moz, not fresh. The other two pies I sampled suffered from bland tomato sauce and crappy cheese. Too bad, it's a good oven and a deft crust, marred by skimping on the quality of topping and the technique of topping.

Heavy Eatin' Day

BREAKFAST: 5:30am, 2 pancakes, orange Boylan's soda, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Pancakes out of the freezer, the ones I made last weekend. Deee-amn, they're good. Never had a pancake out of the freezer this good. I think I just did the rare/dangerously self-satisfied act of impressing myself.

AM SNACK: 10am, handful of mini apple muffins, .25 bowl, hunger 4.5/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, white Swiss chard Sicilian, minted Sicilian, Pecorino-only Sicilian, glass of white wine, small Sprite, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Oh jeez, L was just playin' with the square doughs, we had to cook 'em or toss 'em, as we're not open for biz and still have our weekends to our selves. I brought in toppings for dessert pies, but we didn't get to it today. But a lady came in, potentially hiring us for another catering gig, and we banged out three mini pies for her to taste. We did the mini apple, which is a slice of apple on dough with oil and a sprinkle of salt, and topped with a florette of smooth ricotta. I brought in honey for my dessert pies, and when I had L squirt a few drops on top of the ricotta, it went from being your cute best friend to just wanting to rip it's clothes off and have your way with it. Sexxxy dessert pizza!

PM SNACK: 4pm, 4 dark-chocolate covered graham crackers, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8:45pm, spinach dumplings, scallion pancake, piece of bread, singapore mai fun, small bit of chocolate cake, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Vegan dinner with the HVS and the B. Nice to see a lot of restaurants packed out on a Friday night despite the economy, but annoying because we were hungry!

Hors D'Oeuvres 3 (Gallery Style)

After a long unstimulating class in the morning all about food service health and safety practices, had a fun afternoon with L and the kitchen crew banging out a few hundred mini-pizzas. This was essentially the same item I made for the grand buffet of my culinary arts program, only this time they were....good. Done right.

We were hired to deliver a few hundred mini-pizza to a gallery opening on 29th St on the far west side, whatever that neighborhood is called. We rolled 1 oz dough balls last night, and today they were rolled out to about 3 inch disks. Some were red, some were white, and as we cooked off batches of 20, L started rolling, artichokes on here, anchovies there, pepperoni on those, parsley on the whites, a twist of mint on the red.

It was fun just making it up as we went along, and for the final iteration, L chopped up an apple. He asked for input, and I suggested a dead simple treatment: dough, 1 slice of apple, olive oil, light sprinkle of sea salt. We spoke of ricotta earlier in the day, and we both vibed that a squirt of the creamy ricotta out of a star-tipped pastry bag as a finish would be niiiice. Small mint leaf for sparkle and color, viola! What it really needed was a quirt of honey (me) or a sweet desert wine mixed in with the ricotta (L).

As it turns out, it was the apple dessert pie that got the biggest reaction from the crowd, and a few people even asked L if he'd have a dessert pie like that on the menu! Haaa! I've been lightly jabbing him to have a dessert pie or two on the menu for weeks now. So tomorrow when I go in, I'm bringing ingredients and we're going sample some of my recipes. My simple stuff with L's Sicilian funk gonna be cool, even if it doesn't get on the menu!

I've refrained from describing L on this blog, other than that he's the restaurateur/owner/chef I've been toiling with & under lately. Well, a picture is worth a 1000 words, so here he is from this evening with a random gallery goer. Why yes, he is wearing a kilt!



BREAKFAST: 7am, toasted onion bagel with the good butter, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 9:45am, cart chocolate croissant, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
It was sad eating this pastry, as I remember making these in school and they were sooooo good. This was not.

LUNCH: 1pm, 2.5 slices of Sicilian, 2 small bottles sprite, 1.4 bowl, hunger 4/5
L's Sicilian is over the top. The mint version could be a signature dish of the restaurant.

RICOTTA TASTING: 2:30pm, a few spoonfuls of 3 different kinds of American ricotta, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Salesman in the shop, showing off his ricotta. We're leaning towards an Italian sheep's milk ricotta, but one of these American were pretty pleasing (and a whole lot cheaper!)

DINNER: 7pm, one and half little pork loin sandwiches from Porchetta, 2 glasses white wine, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING WATERING: 9:30pm, quart

Neither high or low

Class in the morning, at the resto under the Brooklyn Bridge all afternoon. Not high stress, but not low stress...so much swirling around, who knows when we'll really get open? L has done this 7 times before, but I'm very much the virgin when it comes to opening a shop. Well, I helped open a tiny record store/label office years ago, but the scale and expectation was SO different.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good granola with good milk, apple cider, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10am, cart pound cake, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, 2 slices, small sprite, 1 bowl, hunger 4/6

PM SNACK: 7:15pm, baby carrots and a piece of soft cheese, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, soy nuggets and veg in peanut curry over wild rice, fried gluten with bbq sauce, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Got home hungry. Ordered in from Tien Garden, vegan, HVS-approved.

Tasty Tastings

Toured the LES with L from the restaurant in the afternoon, tasting product, then volunteered at Astor Wine Center for a cool intro to sake class in the evening. They seem to like me there, they held a volunteer spot for the pizza class & walking tour for me at the end of the month.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, good yogurt with honey, raw cashews, vanilla, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I've missed this breakfast. It's good!

SOLO SNICKLE: 1pm, vegan Cesar salad, bowl of dahl, vegan chocolate chip cookie, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Made a noon yoga class, after spending the morning working on collateral for the restaurant. About half way through the class, found myself skipping positions I usually don't have an issue with -- my energy was tapering off quickly. I really enjoy the particular teacher, and I did not feel anxious to leave, but when my mind kind of wandered a bit, the first thing it said was, "DAMN, I'd love me some lunch right now! Me hungry!" So rather than fight it, I ditched class half way through and wen to the cafe there. It was the right move.

CHAMPAGNE & WINE TASTING: 2pm, equivalent of 2 glasses, small buffet plate, .75 bowl, hunger 2/5
Met L and a few restaurant peeps at Shang on Orchard Street, where a distributor was having a tasting of their full line, from fancy-ass french champagne Dom Perigon and Veuve Cliquot to a tasty organic Napa called Newton -- I would happily have a case of their chardonnay to have in my house as the only wine I drink until it's gone. I didn't enjoy the hard-sell elements of the event, and other than me and L's big ol' beard, the majority of the crowd were in suits and ties, high heels and a bit douchey. However, after, we walked down the street to....

GELATO TASTING: 3:45pm, equivalent of small serving, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
Il Laboratrio del Gelato! Yaaay! We're carrying their line in the restaurant, so we went over to meet them, had a tour of their tiny factory space, reviewed flavors and tasted just about everything they had on hand. Unbelievable, all pure simple but non-boring flavors, the opposite of Ben & Jerry's. B & J's seems a bit consumer driven -- I could see a shmo on the street suggest, "Hey! I'd love chunks of brownie in my chocolate ice cream!" but at il Lab, you ain't gone find chewy chunks of ginger candy in their pristine ginger gelato. I have a price list for the 2.5 litre tubs, part of me wants to buy a case of them and store them in the locked fridge I got to tame B's lack of control....

SAKE TASTING: 6:30pm, equivalent of 1 glass of sake, small bowl of spicy crunchy rice thingies, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

DINNER: 10pm, falafel sandwich on whole wheat pita, glass of apple cider, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Too Much Bad Pizza

I rode my mountain bike this morning to the Jacob Javitz center to attend the International Food Show, and realized maybe I should have trained it when I saw people on 23rd point at me and shout, "Look at that!" The show itself was kinda underwhelming, with a lot of equipment and random things, but I paid keen attention to anything pizza related. There was an area just for pizza, but due to the weather, all the speakers and demos were squashed. I wandered around, ate a lot of bad but relatively tasty food.

I went straight to the restaurant under the Brooklyn Bridge and we ended up making pizzas from start to finish, meaning there was a lot of pizza to eat. Oy! When I got home, needed something relatively nutritious, so I banged out a momma-style salad (big hunks of carrot, cucumber, red onion, grape tomatoes, and a wedge of creamy raw milk cheese I picked up at Brooklyn Flea yesterday) and poached some shrimp in the chicken stock I made a few days ago. A thoughtless dish, made of just stock, shrimp and salt. In c-school, I remember we were to poach for 5 minutes then shock, but ate it soup style and the shrimp were smaller. So, I only poached for 90 seconds and ate it in the hot stock; it ended up getting a little rubbery anyway. Hmmmm...

Looks like I have a gap in my schedule tomorrow to get some yoga in. Looking forward to it.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple cider, .5 bowl, hunger 2/5

AM SNACKING: 10am-11:45am, various bad slices of 'pizza', bits of pork product, mini burgers, cookies, chocolate, cheese sticks, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM PIZZAING: 12:30pm-3pm, various wedges of practice pizza, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5

WINE TASTING: 4pm, equivalent of half glass of wine

DINNER: 6:45pm, momma style salad, fresh shrimp poached in chicken stock, piece of halava, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

When Lunch Meat Attacks

In front of my building, a parked car inexplicably has a round piece of semi-dried lunch meat smooshed into its driver-side window, as well as a piece under the windshield wiper. A message from an enemy? Random drive-by meating? When good meat goes bad? An affront to vegan drivers everywhere? Hell, an affront to all health-conscious drivers and passerbys everywhere?

On a less fanciful note, me and B went to the hospital around 9:30 pm, as she was feeling unusual abdominal pain and pressure. After spending 3.5 hours of being poked, prodded, tested and all sorts of labs done, we found that everything is fine, the baby looks great, and it's either indigestion and/or natural pains of a baby growing bigger inside da belly. While B napped I went across the street and had a truly mediocre veggie burger and fries, not so much out of hunger, but out of anxiety.

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, good granola with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:30am, handful of freshly baked apple cinnamon mini muffins, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Made another attempt, after last week's muffins came out burnt and dense and all-around not very good. This time, I went back to using whole milk instead of cream, lowered the temp of the oven from 400 to 350, pulled them when some still looked slightly wet in the middle and held off depanning them until cooled. I also scraped a couple of vanilla beans into the liquid before combining with the dry.

The muffins came out soft, tender, very appley, as I think the vanilla softened the cinnamon spiciness and allowed the apple to sing loud -- a good thing, since they were fresh mutsus bought from the farmer's market yesterday, and had no problem holding it's own. Got a bunch into the freezer before B was able to gobble them all up, for later reverie.

NOON SNACK: noon, more muffins, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, pad thai, a little bit of scone with lemon curd, water, half a chocolate cookie, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Went to Brooklyn Flea in Dumbo with B&D, picked up a fantastic piece of aged raw milk rind-washed soft cheese. We ate at Rice, then went around the corner to Jaques Torres.

DINNER: 7:15pm, momma style salad with edamer cheese, dark chocolate covered cornflakes, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER 2: 11pm, veggie burger, fries, 1.5 bowl, hunger 3/5