I love Edie like pizza, only more so

This is from People in Pizza Slice Costumes Becoming Pizzas. Do I really need to say anything more?

Spent the morning and afternoon with B, pops-in-law and bro-in-law. We went to the High Line park for the first time, was pretty amazing, though full of tourists. Any politician who poo-pooed this project should be immediately voted out of office. There is not much commerce up there, but in the space under one of the buildings that the park pierces, there was an artisanal pastry-and-coffee vendor, and a an artisanal ice cream cone vendor, both making money hand over fist. At the base of the park at Gansevort, there were two ice cream trucks parked right next to each other. A standard Mr. Softee and an indie artisanal ice cream truck. The later had a line, the former did no business, despite a large price differential.

Spent the evening out. Went to a backyard party in Cobble Hill with some nice food. Right behind the yard was the backyard for a restaurant, of which the chef is friends with the party-hosting tenant and the person whose party it was for. The chef was constantly coming to the fence and contributing stuff to the party, a couple of bottle of wine here, a plate of sushi there. Now that's hospitality, and keeping your customer base happy! Now I want to visit that restaurant to see how they are!

BREAKFAST: 9am, watermelon, 3 apple muffins, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Holy crap, those muffins are good. Like Drake's coffee cakes, but better. As Chef M said in C-school, they're magically delicious.

PM SNACK: 12, 9 pork-chive dumplings, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
From the hole-in-the wall dumpling house I like, which is next to the hotel my dad-in-law is staying.

LUNCH: 2pm, 4 beef tamales, chips and salsa, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Not very good compared to the tamale I had a week ago at the more authentic place in Williamsburg.

PM SNACKINGS 6:30-8pm, various crostini, a few cookies, pigs in blankets, fancy cheeses, a few glasses of sangria, bottle of water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
At a back yard party in Cobble Hill.

EVENING SNORT: 9pm, 1 beer, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
Visited a friend who just bought a place in Clinton Hill, really nice.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, watermelon, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Mousse Fail

In preparation of B's poppa and bro coming over for brunch, we were a whirl of bouncing Edie, doing the laundry, cleaning the house, running out to get groceries. At one point, B was in the bathroom and Edie was howling in the swing while I made the bed. So I turned on the stereo with whatever disc was in the player, and blasted at full volume "One Fine Day" from Byrne & Eno's new record. Edie immediately calmed down in my arms while I sang to her, and she remained calm after. I think that was the first piece of music I played for her, and she liked it!

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, small amount of sesame noodles, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10am, 2 wholefoods cookies, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:15am, a pickle, a snippet of smoked sable

AM SNACK: 11:45am, apple cinnamon muffin, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Made this recipe with the following changes: doubled salt, exchanged milk for cream, doubled eggs. Baked for 20 minutes. Came out super rich and moist. The recipe says serves 6, but I got a yield of 12. The diced apples make up about 50% of the batter, which is kinda neat.

BRUNCH: 1pm, bagel with cream cheese, smoked sable, onion and tomato, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4pm, spoonful of chocolate mousse
B's dad brought me about 8 LARGE boxes of cook and food-related books (don't ask, long story). While browsing, saw a recipe for chocolate mousse that looked horrible, but realized I had left over ingredients from the morning muffins that needed to be put use. So I versioned this recipe while hanging with the inlaws. Had 2/3 of a cup of cream, and only baking chocolate, so I sugared the chocolate/butter/Kahlua mix with caster sugar. Funny, I have a bottle of Kahlua in my liquor cabinet which I inherited from my parents....they never opened it, and neither did I. Coffee cough syrup, yick, but added an interesting depth to the mousse. The spoonful I had was still warm, tasted sweet enough, but too much of an alchy kick.

(I tried a spoonful later, after dinner, it set up nicely but caster sugar left lump -- I should of sifted it -- and still tasted way too boozy. Gonna trash it and try a mousse later.)

DINNER: 6:30pm, lame pizza, 1 beer, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
We went to San Marzano in my hood, hoping for something better than the last time we ate there, was disappointed. Individual Neapolitan pies, wood burning oven. They still have retarded buffalo chicken pizza on the menu. I ordered a new entry, which was basically a marg with sausage, onion and mushroom. The onion was raw diced white which brought nothing to the party -- B's vegetable pizza had caramelized onions, which were sweet & packed a big flavor, why couldn't they have used those onions on my pie? The mushrooms were shitake, which gave a discordant woody flavor against the sauce and cheese -- I like shitakes, but not on pizza. And finally, the sausage -- what the hell? At first I thought they goofed and put prosciutto on my pie, but after close looking seems they thinly sliced some sort of very mild sausage, which ended up tasting like barely anything. On top of all that (or more correctly, beneath it), the pie was flibbidyflobbidy in the middle, too much sauce and DEFINITELY too much cheese. I don't care if the cheese is a fresh moz, if you add too much, it's still gross. On the (only) positive side, the crust had a nice char and I could really taste the wood in it.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, watermelon, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Ridden

Woke up a 6, the time I usually woke up for school and got out of the door by 6:45pm. Took a train up to the Bronx, and road my mountain bike up the Old Croton Aqueduct trail to the reservoir about 25 miles north of the city. Beautiful ride, not many people other than dog walkers on the trail, saw some deer close up, a hedge hog too.

Contemplated the last year of school, c-arts and c-management, it occurred to me that the thing that was getting me down were a few regrets I have, but once I realized that, I also realized that I didn't make foolish choices, some choices had to be made for the good of other things. I won't babble here, but a good 50 mile bike ride that covers you in mud is good for perspective.

And dare I say, coming home to B and a little E is a great end to any trip!

BREAKAST: 7am, two donuts, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM WATERING: 8-11am, water, gatorade

LUNCH: 11am, turkey and gravy, cheese tortellini in a cream sauce, fresca, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
In Ossening, at the same crappy deli I always stop at when I do this ride on a non-Farmer's Market day. Rather than get my usually salty turkey-cold cut sandwich, risked the hot bar for a less-processed turkey. Not bad, not good. It's one of those meals that can be made at home so much better for so much cheaper...but not in the middle of a 50 mile mountain bike ride!

I tried Fresca because I heard an interview with some chefs discussing their dirty little secrets -- several of them copped to loving this stuff. The first ingredient after water is citric acid, and the stuff just burns. I guess it's just grapefruit soda thickened with wood rosin and bromated vegetable oil, I really did not find it appealing.

DINNER: 5pm, homemade salad, fried seitan, soy nugget and veg with peanut sauce and mixed rice, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, watermelon, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Holy crap, when waking up from a nap hungry for something sweet and a little dehydrated, perhaps nothing hits the spot more perfectly than a piece of in-season watermelon.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 2 homemade blueberry muffins, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Need to ride

Gave my final presentation in class this morning and attended graduation this evening, from Culinary Management. Feel weird about it, a little down and a little regretful, going to spend the day on the bike and try to clear my head. Edie came and was the belle of the ball, of course!

BREAKFAST: 7am, watermelon, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 10am, 2 street donuts, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, assorted bits of BBQ, 2 beers, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Went to RUB on 23rd with a few school comrades. We ordered some huge platter of many different meats, and was surprised by how overwhelming mediocre it was. Since it took a short 5 minutes from ordering to coming to the table, it was unsurprising that a lot of the meat was at room temperature, not particularly moist or fresh. The brisket and pulled port was good, but everything else was a bit embarrassing -- especially their "pastrami", WTF selling this midwestern watered down version in NYC!

PM SNACK: 5:30-6:30pm, a few fried finger food things, some shrimp, half glass of wine, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

PM SNACK: 8pm, watermelon, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

Whatever comes next

Spent most of the day working on my final project for culinary management school, a business plan for a neighborhood pizza restaurant. Really, the majority of the work got done in the last 5 days, today was just knocking off the rough edges and making an entertaining PowerPoint presentation to get a chuckle out of the class.

Still, I'm a bit sad that school is coming to an end, which means I need to do whatever comes next...

BREAKFAST: 9am, organic chex with the good milk, a blueberry muffin, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:30pm, curry ramen, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2pm, dulce de leche ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4pm, pistachios, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:15pm, knish with mustard and pickled diakon, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER 2: 8:30pm, slice of pizza, small box of entemann's cc cookies, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Another Double Tasting Day

School slipped by like a hazy dream, did some baby shopping, then kicked it with B&Edie. Edie is definitely growing, and getting more aggressive with her crying, but I'm starting to get a handle on talking to her in a tone that seems to settle her (after the diaper check, the finger in the mouth check, the holding up-right check, etc)

E had a spare ticket to a screening of a beer documentary with a matching beer and cheese tasting in southern Park Slope, so I joined her. I like indie beer, but I don't think the tap system at this place was cared for properly, all the beer tasted soapy to me. And the cheese was at above room-temp for too long, it was all sweaty. The film was a nice recap of some of the history I learned in class, and seeing a person struggling to start her own new indie brand is kind of the backbone culinary management tried to instill in us, though really, no class can teach that kind of motivation -- you either got it or ya don't.

BREAKFAST: 7am, organic cheerios with good milk, minted lemonade, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Finished the lemonade, or it would of been funky by the end of the day.

AM SNACK: 11am, apple fritter, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Maybe my last am school snack from Starbucks in this lifetime. With McDonald's McCafe open right next door and Starbuck's business crumbling in the recession, maybe Edie will never know the crappiness known as Starblechs.

AM TASTING: 6 sparkling wines, goat cheese and french bread

LUNCH: 3pm, watermelon, left over pad thai, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 5:45pm, green salad topped with sauteed shrimp, water, blueberry muffin, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Wanted to get something in before going off to a tasting that might not be kind to an empty stomach...

EVENING TASTING: 8:30pm, a few mouthfuls of fneh beer, a few bites of fneh cheese, half a small chili pot pie, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

EVENING SNACK: 11:30pm, hotdog, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Muffins and Gravlax and Lemonade, Oh My!

Friends came over for brunch, include a couple with a 2 year old deep in the throes of the Terrible Twos. To prepare, woke up early, made some blueberry muffins from scratch using this recipe. I tweaked it -- doubled the salt, replaced milk with cream, scraped out 2 vanilla beans into the liquid side, and added about 25% more blueberries. Unlike the dumb recipe, I mixed it minimally, leaving in a lot of lumps, which almost ALWAYS bake out, but the minimal mixing allows for a much more tender crumb.

Rode up Grand Street to pick up bagels, buy up veg at the local farmer's market, makes it fun to be alive on a Sunday morning in a happy, functional neighborhood full of real people. Made lemonade, same as last week but in double the quantity.

On Friday, I brought home a 1.25 pound side of salmon. I packed it in a cup of salt, a cup of brown sugar and a chopped up head of dill, along with a few spoonfuls of vodka. I wrapped the whole mess in plastic wrap, placed it in a pan, and placed another pan on top with some weight on it.


Thirty six hours later, pulled it out, sharpened my big chef's knife, and got to the slicing. It was....good. Firmer and dryer than I thought it would be. Good flavor.A little too salty. A LOT of liquid expelled. Another 24 hours away from fish-jerky. Next time, gonna see what happens without pressure, less salt, more variety of herbs and spices. I used a wild caught American, next time use a fancier Norwegian or something. The side of salmon cost me $15 for the pound and a quarter...at Russ & Daughters, $15 will get you a quarter pound of the stuff. Hmmm.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, we spent the day after eating in the neighborhood playground, kibbitzing with the locals, good vibes with the good weather. Got a call from the restaurant asking for some info, made me twinge, miss the hubbub and the action. Still, damn nice to be out with the Edie!

BREAKFAST 1: 7:30am, big piece of watermelon, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

BREAKFAST 2: 9-11am, 2 blueberry muffins, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

BRUNCH: 12:30-4pm, bagel with cream cheese, tomato and onion and homemade gravlax, minted lemonade, another muffin, 2 glasses lambrusco, seltzer, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, pad thai, lemonade, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5