Get in my belly

Just when the sine wave of my relationship with this city starts to dip into a trough (it’s been a long time coming, I have to say — 2007 has been a good year in so many ways), I’m buoyed again: by the eye-opening, cheek-pinking chill in the air (Fall has always been my favorite); by good music seen from the right vantage point; by a Greenmarket morning overrun with the city’s schoolchildren (and a happy encounter with my ebullient friend MHT at the Wheelhouse stand); and by two NYC-centric books, The Bronx Is Burning and The Contract with God Trilogy (the former, according to the subtitle, is about “1977, baseball, politics, and the battle for the soul of a city,” while the latter is about a Bronx tenement neighborhood during the Depression) which remind me that, all else aside, what New York is really about is change. Which is really why I ever came here in the first place.

(Also buoying: last night, I had one of the best white wines I’ve ever had the good fortune to put in my mouth: Trebbiano d’Abruzzo by Valentini, vintage unknown. It wrapped itself around my tongue and both amplified and smoothed over the spicy raucous flavors of everything I ate at Momofuku Ssam. I could still taste it when I descended the subway stairs, 15 minutes and six blocks later.)

(Also: this and this.)

that well-made, homemade pizza is a glorious thing:

(Once again, Marisa reminds me that it’s time for me to get on the no-knead bandwagon. Will you take a look at the amazing crumb structure in this guy? I’m going to start making Lahey’s bread tonight.)

And that I really do still love going to shows:

I thought I was sick of concerts, too old to stand and wait for so long in crowds just to get stuck behind the tallest guy in the venue (what are they feeding kids these days?), too cynical to handle the faux-earnest posturing of so many indie rock bands, and just too bored to sit through another one. But Jens Lekman, you proved me wrong. You may have some silly-ass lyrics, but you bring totally infectious, unadulterated joy to the stage. You love us, you love playing for us, and it shows. I haven’t had a shit-eating grin plastered across my face like that for god knows how long.

Joyce confirms:
“Whoah. This is amazing.”

I’m not really a fan of Organic as a panacea for our eating ills, and the complexities of agriculture and our food system are grossly oversimplified and generally not served well by the co-opted use of the term, but this post is pretty interesting. I’m baffled by #4, but Wikipedia says ketchup’s got about 6.5 times the amount of lycopene per gram that a straight-up tomato does, so I can go along with that (since Wikipedia is a reliable source for facts and everything).

Tangentially: Maybe it’s because I’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated by my work and the food-activist circles I’m surrounded by, but I get sort of anxious if I have to resort to buying from the supermarket. I feel guilty. But if I’m stuck shopping at Whole Foods or Key Food, I’ll more likely than not choose an organic product over a conventional product. To me, it makes sense to put my money where my mouth is (and while it tends to be wrapped around a morsel of pork, I also speak often of local, seasonal, family farms, etc.). I can spare the extra dollar or whatever to at least support the idea of and an industry geared toward a more responsibly produced food. But only when it comes to the processed stuff, and none of that is usually local, seasonal, etc. I buy produce from near by (except for lemons, limes, and the occasional banana), even if it’s not organic. This is my way of voting with my dollar, I guess, though I’m ambivalent about whether it means or does anything ultimately. On the other hand, because organic labeling is so fuzzy (and nearly meaningless) in this country, I go out of my way to shop at the Greenmarket or to pick up a share from my CSA. I would guess that I get 80-90% of my food that way. And many of those guys aren’t certified organic (because their methods already go beyond organic standards, because certification is expensive, because they don’t think it means anything either).

I’ve beaten this dead horse before, and you know this dead horse if we’ve ever talked about buying food or this country’s fucked-up food system, but I felt like it had to be put out there again since people still ask me, “Slow Food? That means you eat organic, right?”

No, not really.

The vendors were MOBBED this weekend — their last for 2007 — at the ballfields. I don’t know if the wait in lines 20-deep was behind it, but all the eaters were more social this time too. (Usually the whiteys and I eye each other warily, trying not to acknowledge that yeah, I read about this on Chowhound/Gothamist/Grub Street and I’m not really here for the fútbol, but if I pretend I don’t relate to you other gringos, maybe no one else will notice that I’m one too.) This time, we had all kinds of people (gringos and not gringos) approaching, asking where we got the plantains (the hipsters sharing our table were really excited about this one: “Man, they ran out of those at this stand!” And when I was like “What the hell is this sauce they put on my plantains?” They explained helpfully that that was crema and made it extra good. And you know what, hipsters? You wuz right.) and the tamales. Some guy in line insisted that we HAD to get pupusas from a particular stand (the one where they ran out of platanos), and the ebullient grandmother and her hungry grandchild taught us, respectively, that we wanted the pork-and-cheese, or revuelta pupusa and that that shit is good. We ate our fill. We drank horchata till we could drink no more. And then we went to LeNell’s to pick up some bourbon. Because it ain’t a proper trip to Red Hook otherwise.

Meanwhile, over at Ganda’s crib, an important question is being asked: are your favorite restaurants led by women or men? I’ve thought a great deal lately about how gender plays out when it comes to cooking, and it’s been especially interesting to note that all the scene-iest, most written-up places in town are helmed by men, and yet all my favorites, my go-tos, are run by women (Marlow & Sons, Prune). (Except for Momofuku Ssam. But that’s because he cooks from a special place. A porky place.) Their food may not make great television (witness Top Chef and The Next Iron Chef) because they’re not about gimmickry or flashiness or the latest chemical additive that will turn the purée into a new textural sensation — no, they’re cooking from the gut. They’re cooking FOR the gut. And they satisfy on some deeper level. (I think there’s another interesting question within this one: what is it that makes San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston more hospitable to women chefs than New York and Chicago? Is there some inherent genderedness to the restaurant scenes in these towns? Don’t even get me started on Vegas. Gack.)

With such mellifluous prompting, how could I not post?

I’ve been thinking about how taken I was with the apple kimchi and how many of the people I’ve told about it have all had the same reaction: “ewww.” (So far, 3 out of 4. Koreans, even!) Served with bacon, a few microgreens, and labne, the apple kimchi at Momofuku Ssam wasn’t fermented, so it retained the fresh crispness of the apple while still delivering the nice kimchi nudge of low, fleeting heat. (Compared to the slow, pleasantly painful burn that was much of Poodam.) The bacon and labne were perfectly complementary because of their meaty greasiness and subtle creaminess; both were tastes I wouldn’t have expected to be paired so well with the kimchi, particularly the latter.

There’s something really compelling about being taken unaware from a new perspective by a food you’ve grown up with all your life, especially by a dish as humble as kimchi. I’m not saying that I had a total Anton Ego flashback because that’s not exactly it. However, the best of fusion can make you discover anew what it was about that particular preparation or technique that’s so enjoyable. And that repetition with a difference is what I think Ego was semi-channeling as well. The apple kimchi made gustatorially apparent to me that I’ve always loved the crisp crunchiness of kimchi, even going as far to prefer kkakdugi (radish cube kimchi) or to pick out the nonleafy shiningly white parts of the cabbage (hey, I never said I was a good Korean either). And using the apple, with its sweet crunchy twist, was brilliant. While I found much of the rest of Momofuku Ssam to be clever but not captivating, this is one food memory that I’m going to relish.

Bosnian burger (pljeskavica, I believe) at Djerdan. I’ve been meaning to hit this place for years to try the bureks (delightfully sour in that Eastern European kind of way and very tasty), and we just happened upon it after being thwarted by a Jewish-holiday closing of Olympic Pita and the very-hard-to-find Pick-a-Pita. But we were happy to be thwarted after eating this.

Katsu curry at Go!Go! Curry. A block east of Djerdan, I think (we somehow spent an unusual amount of time in the Times Square area — mostly because we were doing a xerox transfer class, but still, I’ve probably spent more time there in the past few months than I have in the six years previous). The Japanese really know how to do comfort food. Or food that goes great with beer (are these maybe equivalent?). Japanese curry always weirded me out by its incredibly viscous consistency and unidentifiable spicing (faint as it is — is that cumin? A little turmeric maybe? Wikipedia, you’re no help at all on this one), but it’s undeniably tasty in its sweet saltiness. And maybe I like that thick sauce for its similarity to old-school gravy (not unlike the Bisto of which the British are so fond). The katsu curry is extra good, of course, since it’s, you know, breaded, deep-fried pork.

Speaking of breaded, deep-fried pork, this is the pig’s head torchon we had at Momofuku Ssam the other day. Perhaps one of the few things on the menu that’s just a little too much. Extremely fatty (inside the crispy exterior, the puck seems to be bound together by a gooey band of pig fat) and unctuous, but very tasty. We split one puck and then I polished off the other a couple days later for lunch. And felt a little woozy for the 12 hours following. I’ll let Joyce tell you about the apple kimchi, since she loves it so, but she really would have to get off her lazy tochus to do that, wouldn’t she? Ha! Just kidding, Joyce.

Yeah, I know all this pork coverage is getting kind of tiresome (and really, though it’s my favorite protein, I really don’t go out of my way to eat it. I know you don’t believe me, but I’d much rather be eating vegetables. My clothing would much rather that I eat vegetables too, come to think of it.) We tagged along with Robert to Poodam’s in Astoria. I still haven’t been to Zabb, but this definitely ups the ante as far as Issan Thai in Queens is concerned. This is a supposed pork belly dish, but I have a feeling it involves a different pig part (just as tasty, less fatty). They’re not afraid of the scovilles here, and the extremely sticky rice doesn’t really do much to cut the heat. Check this out: they’ve thrown down the gauntlet with a (as-yet inoperable, but surprisingly attractive) website.

Wow, all this food is more or less the same color.

These guys were parked outside of Steven’s building a couple of weeks ago:

They explained about the garlic truck art installation (is it an installation if it’s mobile?) and gave me some garlic. I think this might be the farm the older dude runs, but I can’t be sure — the website’s a bit inscrutable.

Steven’s remarked many times since I’ve met him that he’s most surprised and impressed by how simply I cook for others, how little I try to impress. It never occurred to me that I wasn’t trying hard, but I guess I grew up watching my mom spend two days preparing stir-fried rice noodles, pork-bamboo shoot stew, and spareribs for 40 people. And that, to me, seemed like a pretty massive effort on her part.

I don’t know why it never occurs to me to make three kinds of pasta from scratch or to make foie gras en croûte. It’s not like the things I do make aren’t time-consuming or really that uncomplicated; it’s just that when I cook at home, I make things I want to eat at home, and that tends not to be multi-course extravaganzas requiring a PacoJet and alginate. I mean, that’s the kind of food I go out for (and even then, I’d much rather have a superlative char kway teow than gold-dusted lamb belly flan with mint “caviar” — not a real dish, but one can just imagine). When I’m at home, or even in someone else’s home, I want to eat the vegetables that I picked up last Saturday from my CSA. Or whatever I saw at the Greenmarket that day. Or bucatini all’amatriciana. Or rice porridge with roasted eel and fermented black beans. Or black bean soup.

I guess the point Steven’s making is close to this one. Maybe all this eating out and Iron Chef/Top Chef-ification has made expectations such that most people in my general demographic would rather be eating an 8-course tasting menu instead of chicken pot pie and green bean casserole. Even if it IS the biggest chicken pot pie ever (and required stock and roasted carcasses of two organic, free-range chickens, plus CSA carrots and onions, Greenmarket potatoes and celery, and a whole lot of standing around, poking, and stirring. Not to mention pastry crust taming.).

One of my favorite NYT Sunday magazine stories in recent memory. Perhaps ever.
The Squirrel Wars