Get in my belly

Beautiful New Hampshire is totally hard-core New England.
Went up to visit Connie at her newly adopted home, Nashua, and first things first, we had to go to Pahkuz Maple Bahn.

Where they don’t believe in small breakfasts:

(This would be the Parker Mini-special.) And this is also where the waitress’ll ask you whether you want your orange juice “small or LAHGE?”

Skyward in South End.



Barbara Lynch’s Plum Produce



Wellfleets, blue points, malpeques, quilcenes, duxburies and something else at B&G Oysters (the best oysters I’ve had in recent memory).


B&G lobster roll. Not quite as good as Pearl, but I wouldn’t kick it out of bed either.



Even better than the lobster roll: fried clams.
On the summer agenda: clam crawl through the northeast.

Once again, Michael Pollan has wrangled all the unwieldy, wayward, gone-to-seed elements of the issue, and corralled them into something close to digestible (if the state of the food system can indeed be called such) and puts forth some really cogent arguments about why we really ought to speak up about the farm bill.

More (and how to actually go about doing something).

Lucky me: I got to take part in one of the best Italian holiday traditions, ever: the all-day-long Easter dinner. Actually, I’m not sure if that’s a tradition, since my last Pasqua was less about sitting down with family around a loaded table, and more about the best focaccia in the world. The tradition I do know about, however, is that Pasquetta (”Little Easter,” or the Monday after Easter) is all about barbecues.

This year, Italian Easter took place in Garden City, Long Island, and hostess Rose outdid herself (with a little help):

primo: rigatoni in a ragù cooked down with milk

caponata (made by a real, live, actual factual sicilian nonna, no less)

piselli e carciofi

funghi farciti

piatto pieno, pancia piena. (In the rear there, flanked by roasted potato wedges, you’ll see a hunk of lamb, which is indeed an Italian Easter tradition.)

I was feeling pretty farcita myself by this point, so unfortunately, no photos of dessert.

And besides Taiwanese breakfast and K-town, we also hit up weekday brunch at Prune. Which remains one of my favorite restaurants in this town. (But even so, that’s not enough to get my ass out there on line for the scene/train wreck that is weekend brunch.)

Bacon marmalade sandwich.

Egg on a roll.

No young children at this seder, but plenty of hungry people.
I was lucky enough to be one of Jessica’s 13 guests, and we did our best to put away the massive quantities of very delicious

matzah ball soup;

spinach salad;

braised lamb shanks with coriander, fennel and star anise; shredded brussel sprouts with balsamic; and horseradish mashed potatoes.

That was nine pounds of lamb she braised. Not bad for a Manhattan oven. Jessica, you’re my hero.

And for dessert, strawberry rhubarb crumble, some kind of lemon cake with a basil syrup, and a flourless chocolate cake.

One of the best parts of Taiwanese food is breakfast (see here and here).

Luckily, I don’t have to wait for trips to Los Angeles or Taiwan to get my fix. I finally made it out to Nan Bei He in Flushing (40th Road between Main and Prince) last Saturday and got:

shen dou jiang

clockwise from 3 o’clock: cong you bing, you tiao, and sao bing

tofu skins with soy beans

homestyle pork intestines with pork blood jelly

and my favorite: chive and egg buns