Too much? What's too much?

This article in the New York Times Dining Section is causing a bit of fuss. Frank Bruni writes about finding nice meals for two at restaurants in Manhattan that come in under $100 (excluding drinks). Part of the challenge is to have a traditional three course meal, and have enough for a 20% tip.

The basic jist of the comments (so far there are over 200) is that this is an awful lot of money to spend on an ordinary dinner for two. I don't disagree; $100 is a lot of money to spend on one meal. One woman writes:

"I read the header for this and was astonished-- your favorite restaurants at a good price-- good price being $100 or so???? Do we really need this kind of thing while people are losing jobs, homes, retirement, life savings and kids are looking at a future with college unaffordable? Perhaps I live in a strange world, but I would not dream of spending $100 on a meal in a restaurant. "
— Stephanie Gilmore, Blacksburg, Virginia

But.

Almost all of the comments are from people living outside of New York City. And I feel like dining in New York is a different experience than it is anywhere else in the country.

Is it more expensive? Yes! But is the food better? Yes!

This isn't to say that every restaurant in NYC is the best you've ever been to (far from it). But in New York, you have access to more than 20,000 restaurants. That choice, that accessability, that variety -- it's part of what you're paying for each and every time you go out.

For us, on this blog, I consider a bill under $50 before tip to be a cheap date spot. I consider any bill higher than that to be a celebration stop. I know that those are high figures for some people, and believe me, it doesn't exactly feel cheap to us, either. But restaurants are important to us, and while we couldn't do it every day, we're willing to pay the price when we do go out.

Peter and I were talking about this article last night at dinner, and he said he wished Bruni spent more time searching for hole in the wall spots that serve a great meal for a low price, or that Bruni went to truly fantastic, very expensive restaurants and worked the menu to keep the cost down. I think both of those are great ideas, but that may be because they also happen to be the exact approaches we take when dining out!

Slow down

I love the idea of a slow cooker.  Do a little chopping and dropping in the morning; come home to a delicious meal at night.  But it can be hard to find things to cook in it that don't involve a can of cream soup.   

Last Christmas I got one of those slow cooker recipe magazines in my stocking (you know the ones lining the check out aisle in the grocery store?).  A lot of the recipes rely on that can of cream soup, but the one I tried today was delicious and easy to put together -- exactly what I want from my slow cooker.  The list of ingredients looks long, but it's all stuff I usually have on hand. 

African groundnut stew with chicken

You will need: 

4 chicken drumsticks

1 large shallot or medium onion, chopped

1 big glop of peanut butter (about 1/4 cup)

1 can diced or crushed tomatoes

1 cup chicken broth

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 teaspoons curry powder

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into cubes

2 medium red potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

Layer all the ingredients into the slow cooker, spread the peanut around in dollops.  Cover and cook on low heat for 8-10 hours.  Break up the chicken and discard the bones before serving.

I added about 1/2 cup of cooked rice, a scoop of Greek yogurt, and some chopped celery greens to ours before serving.  Amazing.  

It happened

I know these are the last things people want to see right now, but I have to document the success of our first Thanksgiving somewhere!

Oh my

The turkey's swimming in apple cider, all spice, and salt. There are plastic containers of homemade stock, curry butternut squash soup, and chestnut soup sitting in the fridge. Last night I made ice cream with maple syrup and toasted almond. And there are turnips, potatoes, green beans, corn bread, and pumpkin crunch ready to be made when I get home.

Oh my.

Happy, happy thanksgiving. So much to be thankful for.

Fresh, zesty

On Friday night, when it was painfully cold outside, Peter found a place a fantastic new Mexican spot to try. But it was a bus ride away.

Buses are the absolute worst way to travel when it's cold outside because you have to stand still outside. Peter's solution to this is to walk to the next stop instead of standing around and waiting until you and the bus finally cross paths. Not fun.

BUT! The Mexican place. That was fun.

A lot of people aren't too fond of Mexican food from New York, and I don't entirely disagree. It can be sticky and gooey and bland -- a far cry from the fresh, zesty stuff from Mexico.

Chavella's is much, much better than the other places we've tried around the city. It's on a very non-descript street with a giant nursing home across the way. But the inside is quite charming. Warm paint colors, a view into the tiny kitchen, and very sweet servers.

We started with some guacamole (good, but not great), then got an order of tamales with chicken. This was yummy -- a nice corn texture, a little bit of heat. I adore the corn that they sell at the Red Hook food stands covered with mayonnaise, cumin, chili powder, and Parmesan, and when I saw something like it on the menu, I had to have it. It was delicious, but would, of course, be better when corn is actually in season.

We shared a taco filled with potatoes and chorizo, which was the most memorable dish of the night. The chorizo/potato mixture had a very smooth texture, but a nice bite to it -- by far my favorite dish of the night. Then we had enchiladas with a mole sauce with just the right amount of muted chocolate in the background.

After we'd paid our bill ($30!), and were walking between bus stops trying to stay warm, Peter said, "I feel like we were missing that sort of place in our rotation." I'm so happy we have it now.

Occasionally delicious

I have butternut squash, brussel sprouts, spinach, acorn squash, beets, and broccoli.  What did I decide to do with this bounty?  

Eat hot dogs wrapped in croissants stuffed with cheddar cheese. 

It's a travesty, I know.  But my mom just gave me some fancy hot dogs from Omaha, and whenever I get hot dogs, I just can't seem to help myself.  I wrap them in pastry and stuff them with cheese.  It's delicious.  

This is something we had occasionally growing up, but I'm not sure where my mom got the idea. But now it's one of my favorite (occasional) things to eat. 

Croissant dogs

You will need:

4 delicious hot dogs

1 package refrigerated croissants (I used a Pillsbury version with six extra large rolls and butter!)

4 slices of sharp cheddar cheese

Pop open up the package of croissants and place a sliver of cheese in the widest part of the triangle.  Wrap the croissant around the hot dog, and repeat three times!  Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.  

Food cultures of Italy

In college, I spent a semester in Italy.  Besides the weekend travel, the dozens of scarves I was able to buy for 3 euros each, and the copious amounts of pasta I consumed, the very best thing about my time there was going to class.

I should clarify.  I didn't love going to class in the general sense.  I loved going to my favorite class -- food cultures of Italy.  We did olive oil tastings, visited a chocolate factory, and celebrated the release of vino novella.  It was as amazing as it sounds.  One of the best days of the entire semester was when we went to a Tuscan farmhouse and got to cook with a few wonderful old Italian women. We made three kinds of brushetta, soup, hand-rolled pasta, meat sauce, and chocolate cake.  

They sent us home with all the recipes, and the soup we made that afternoon is one of my absolute favorite things to make.  Like so many great Italian dishes, it's casual and forgiving, and very adaptable. 

I wrote out what I used today in the soup, but you can make this a dozen different ways. Use whatever beans, greens, and starches you have on hand.  I've made this with white beans, spinach, beet greens, pasta, and rice, and it always come out beautifully.  

Italian vegetable soup

You will need: 

1 medium yellow onion

2 large cloves garlic

1 very large carrot, or three regular sized carrots

3 potatoes, peeled

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 can pink beans

1 teaspoon dried basil and oregano

2 cups chopped cabbage

Chop your onion and garlic.  Add to a large soup pot with a splash of olive oil.  Add a sprinkle of salt and let the onions sweat. Add peeled rounds of carrot, cut about 1/4 inch thick.  Add in bite sized chunks of potato, and stir everything around in the oil to coat.  Fill pot with enough water to just cover everything.  

When carrots and potatoes have started to soften, add in tomatoes with all the juice, the beans, and the herbs.  Stir in the cabbage in handfuls. Add salt and pepper to taste, and a bit of parmesan if you have it (the rind works particularly well!).  

Almost there

I love the holiday season. Peter made fun of me last night because I started whining about it being over soon, to which he replied -- quite correctly -- that it hasn't even officially started.

It's just so short. I want the food and the decorating and the parties to last a lot longer than five weeks. Am I alone here?!

Anyways. I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year, and I'm feeling very grown up about it. To be fair, though, I'm only cooking for six people, and three of them are in my immediate family. Not so high stress.

This weekend, my mom and I spent some time putting the menu together, taking lots of inspiration from Good Housekeeping. Is it embarassing for a person under the age of 25 to declare their love for this magazine? I hope not, because I totally fell in love with this issue of Good Housekeeping. All the recipes were simple and quick and a little bit fancy. My favorite combination.

We're still tweaking our menu a little bit, but this marmalade cranberry sauce is definitely going to make the cut. Doesn't it sound great?

And, for even more inspiration, the New York Times dining section is all about Thanksgiving this week! I particularly loved this article about the (mostly) ignored cranberry.

*Photo from the New York Times.

BXL

Before I lived in New York, I thought that Midtown was New York. Times Square, Rockefeller Center, shopping on Fifth Avenue, the Hard Rock Cafe. Sure, I knew other neighborhoods existed. But Soho? The Village? Little Italy? I thought these would all look and feel a lot like the parts I'd grown up visiting. That crowded, expensive, bright "neighborhood" smack in the middle of it all.

I try especially hard to avoid the chaos of Midtown now, mostly because I know how fantastic the other parts of the city are. But sometimes it just doesn't make sense to do so. When friends are travelling in town for business, when meeting co-workers for drinks after work, and when you need to kill some time and fill up before heading to show, you need Midtown to deliver. And if you're not the sort of person who likes to rendezvous in a massive Olive Garden for these fun occasions, let me introduce you to my favorite go-to Midtown spot.



BXL is a Belgian restaurant and bar with mussels and pom frittes and delicious light and fruity beers. It has a near perfect central location at 43rd St. between 6th and 7th. The staff and bartenders and nice and attentive, and while it isn't wildly cheap, it isn't wildly expensive, either. For Midtown, it's just about perfect.

TC: S5

Peter and I are so excited for Top Chef to return next week. New York magazine loves the show way more than we do though, so its always a great spot for Top Chef news. Sometimes the magazine will ask a food-ish person to keep a diary of all the amazing things they eat for a week (Like this fun one with Lidia! I just love her. And her grandmother.). And what do you know -- this week Top Chef judge Gail Simmons did it!


She's not my favorite person on the show (isn't she a little harsh sometimes?), but this is a fun article about all the fantastic places she visits. This is my favorite thing she wrote:

"At the end of the day I went over to Nikki Cascone’s restaurant, 24 Prince, and we had pizza night together. I came up with three special pizzas for the night. The first was a sweet-potato purée base with roasted cauliflower, mushrooms, ricotta salata, and fresh sage. The next was basic tomato with Pecorino and Comte cheese with sweet sausage topped with fresh arugula, and the third had a jalapeño-and-caramelized-onion relish with pulled roasted chicken, roasted fennel, and garlic. That’s really what I ate for dinner, I had a few bites of each."

Don't those pizzas sound great? Especially the sweet potato. Maybe the perfect thing to make for the night of the premiere!