Get in my belly

I can’t help but notice that restaurants everywhere in New York are all serving the same thing again. They’ve moved past the pork belly (though it’s not been phased out, thank god), but now it’s all about piquillo peppers and tortilla española, even if we’re not doing strictly tapas (or Spanish, for that matter). There was some talk about the resurgence of cauliflower this year, but I’ve yet to really see that take hold. (And really, why would I pay to eat roasted cauliflower out anyway?)

Also omnipresent (though ominous): freakin’ tomatoes, of all things.

And yet another glorious reason to live in NYC:

Oyster happy hour at Marlow & Sons.

But let’s not kid ourselves here. The oysters don’t hold a candle to the

lamb, three ways. With olive oil-poached potatoes. Best damn lamb I’ve had since who knows when.

Michael Pollan’s essay in the NYTimes Sunday magazine: Unhappy Meals. Nothing like nutritional science to take all the joy out of eating.

[Related story: At a Farm Bill workshop last week, a speaker (a nutritionist, it must be noted) was about to describe a point she was making as the "bread and butter" of her remarks, but then corrected herself, saying that she felt compelled to say instead "whole grains and olive oil". Something's wrong with our society when bread and butter have become the pariahs of the table. Which reminds me: I need to go pick up some Beurre d'Isigny and a loaf from Sullivan Street Bakery.]

But then Robert pointed up a profile of this guy, and I have to say, I’m pretty intrigued by his book.

It’s been a month of neglected sleep, living out of a suitcase and bouncing between subway lines and boroughs. My body feels 112 years old, but I’ve been having the New York Moment almost daily. That’s when you’re walking through Flatiron (or East Village or Williamsburg or Tribeca or Brooklyn Heights) and you look up and feel all the energy, expectation, hope, and insanity of the City converge in an exhilarating rush just above your head or in the five-foot radius around you. I missed that.

I’m also happy to be back here eating

momofuku’s veal headcheese

and pickles.

burmese tea leaf salad (jackson heights)

kefta and

bisteeya from marjana (astoria).

William Grimes’ paean to the borough he calls home. Makes me crave steamed buns and feta.

Linda and I trekked out to Flushing on Friday and waited patiently at the Flushing Food Court for the Chengdu eatery (all the way in the back, I think it’s called Chengdu Xiao Chi or something like that) people to get back behind the counter (they were out buying peanuts, it seems).

[I'll see about filling in the void I've left from the past few weeks. What with moving, family vacationing and living out of a suitcase, I've fallen dreadfully behind.]

Linda, as usual, came very prepared: she’d printed out the menus for 2 of the stands, along with some chowhounder’s translation of both. Between those (which impressed the proprietors considerably) and my extremely poor Mandarin, we managed to order these:

The best dan dan mian this side of Sichuan. They’ve got the ma la DOWN here. My mouth was numb for an hour. (This is a good thing.)

Dry-fried green beans.

Spicy cold tendon.

Delicious, delicious ma po tofu.

in a move that can quite fairly be described as “selling out”, the MFA is presenting a fashion exhibit through march 18th featuring pieces from the paris collections of 10 top designers from 2006. andy and i went to see it this past weekend, and overall i found it to be a bit disappointing. in theory i have nothing against fashion as art, but my main complaint was a matter of expectation: the pieces just weren’t anywhere near as daring as many that i’ve seen. i appreciated the clean, cool beauty of a lot of the works, such as viktor & rolf’s and lagerfeld’s collections, but i’m much more interested in more modern takes, such as hussein chalayan’s work which included chair armrests on shoulders, or even galliano’s playful collection inspired by, among other things, the french revolution. all in all it makes for a pleasant afternoon, although don’t expect anything earth-shattering. here’s a link to the mfa’s page on the exhibit and the nytimes article (not review) about it.

one other quickie: momofuku ando, the man who the world is forever indebted to for having invented ramen, died recently. the nytimes ran an oddly touching piece on him.

I’ll be back with something more substantial soon, now that I’m beginning to get my life in order back in the Big Apple. In the meantime, required reading:

Dan Barber’s op-ed on the Farm Bill.

i’m behind on everything these days, but i just wanted to post how nice it is to see this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/washington/12policy.long.html
Bush’s Plan for Iraq Runs Into Opposition in Congress
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID S. CLOUD
Democrats and moderate Republicans expressed profound
skepticism about President Bush’s call to increase the U.S.
military commitment in Iraq.