eat drink one woman

La Doug has an article on HuffPo.  It's a really thoughtful piece on responsible reporting of the recent finance-related suicides.  It's on the HuffPo homepage in the left rail at this very moment.  Go read it. 

If you can't find it on the home page, here's the direct link.

Damn!  I'm running out of See's Peppermint Puffs.  I stole some from my cousin's house when I was in L.A.  Apparently I didn't sneak enough back with me -- I'm almost out.  They're like those butter mints -- crumbly and chalky, with just enough mint to cool the tongue.  What am I going to do when I run out?  Are they just a Christmas thing?  I don't even see them on See's website.  WHY, GOD, WHY?

---

Also, after a few weeks of being intimidated by inclement weather and padding my ass with Peppermint Puffs over vacay, I got back on the bicycle again this morning.  It was a bit rough.  I found myself huffing well before the bridge, which is really a disgrace. 

However, I did discover that they've finished paving the upper half of the East River Greenway.  Take your bike (or skates or skateboard) for a spin up there.  Riding on the fresh, flat pavement is such smooth pleasure -- like digging a hot spoon into a bowl of cold lard.  The lower half of the Greenway, though, is still a craggy, bumpy mess.  Beware the pot-abysses!

Do y'all have an opinion on which bridge is toughest to cross?  I've never crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, which I believe is the longest. And I've never gone up that super long approach to the Brooklyn Bridge from the Brooklyn side.  

I'm terrible with recipes.  TERRIBLE.  I always miss a step, or put the wrong ingredient in.  To me, it's like following dancing instructions from a book.  I get impatient and want to freestyle. 

Freestyling is fine when it comes to stir-fries or the sort of everyday brown and green food I make for myself.  But baking's a little more complicated.

The last time I was in Chicago, my cousin's sister-in-law gave me the recipe for her mom's lemon bars (as given to her by her friend Mrs. Gibson).  I've been sitting on the recipe for ages -- I don't want to make a whole batch of lemon bars if I'm going to be the only person eating them.  But I decided to give them a go for Christmas.  I figured I'd just type up the recipe and e-mail it to my cousin.  Here's what I typed:

From Ganda to Lynda:

Should we make Steve's mom's lemon bars?  Here's the recipe:
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. baking powder
Rind of one lemon
2 Tbsp. flour
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. melted butter
milk

1. Mix together butter, sugar, 1 cup flour, bake 15 min. 350 degrees
2. Mix together lemon juice, rind, baking pdr, flour, eggs, sugar.  Pour on crust, bake 25 minutes at 350.
3. Frost while warm with powdered sugar, butter, and enough milk to spread.

When I got to my cousin Lynda's, she had some Meyer lemons from the farmer's market ready.  I threw together the shortbread crust but...something wasn't right.  Why was it so floury?  Why wasn't it coming together like a proper dough?

And then a cup of sugar for the lemon layer?  On top of the 1 1/4 cups of powdered sugar in the dough?

And oh shit...how much powdered sugar goes into the icing? 

And what size pan are we supposed to use?  At this point, I appealed to Steve to try and recall the pan size.  "Big.  Glass.  I think."  We went with the 13 x 9 -- theirs was metal, but I figured it wouldn't matter.

About halfway through cooking the crust, I realized -- shit, the editor in me had combined the powdered sugar total but didn't denote the correct separate amounts in the directions.  The proper ratio was 1/4 cup powdered sugar in the crust, 1 cup for the icing.  By the time I figured that out, though, the sugary crust was burning and looked hard as a rock.  Because I am a vain cook, I decided to chuck the whole batch and start fresh.

For round 2, the dough came together nicely.  I turned the heat down because the crust seemed to be cooking too quickly on the first go -- maybe because of the metal pan vs. glass pan?  I also thought the Meyer lemons weren't strong enough -- I missed the zing of standard lemons.  Steve said the results were "right on", and since he was really the only one present who had any sense memory for it, I was satisfied.



I e-mailed the recipe revision to my cousin:

From Ganda to Lynda:

Revised recipe for lemon bars.  I reduced the temp because the edges were too brown on the first batch, and I think your oven is a little hot.  This one has clearer instructions.

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour

2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. baking powder
Rind of one lemon
2 Tbsp. flour
2 eggs
1 cup sugar

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. melted butter
1-3 tsp. milk

1. Mix together butter, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 cup flour, bake 15 min. 310 degrees
2. Mix together lemon juice, rind, baking pdr, 2 tbsp. flour, eggs, 1 cup sugar.  Pour on crust, bake 25 minutes at 310 degrees.
3. Frost while warm with 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tsp. butter, and enough milk to spread. 

But I just got home and looked at the recipe again:



Damn!  Did you catch that?  It says 8" pan!  That's why it was cooking too fast!  And the bad cook blames it on the oven!  Oh well, I'll get it right someday.

In case the picture is too hard to read, here's the revised revised e-version of the recipe (I think I got it right this time, but I make no guarantees.  Apparently, I am a terrible recipe transcriptionist.)


  
Mrs. Gibson's Lemon Bars

My cousin Lynda's husband Steve's favorite lemon bars, as xeroxed for me by his sister, Susie.  Technically, it was xeroxed by Steve's brother-in-law, Carl.  This is the recipe Steve and Susie's mom followed, which was given to her by her friend Mrs. Gibson.  But the recipe card says Sheila Mueller 1968 at the top.  So maybe it's Sheila Mueller's recipe?  The optional extra lemon juice tweak is mine, so if you add the tweak, maybe you can write Ganda Suthivarakom 2009 at the top of your recipe card.  With apologies to Steve, Susie, their mom, her friend Mrs. Gibson, and Sheila Mueller, whoever you are.

As you can see from close-up, this is less of a lemon curd-y lemon bar and more of a iced lemon rind shortbread bar.  Though maybe yours will look slightly different if you use the correct size pan.
 
1/2 cup butter (I used salted butter, because it seemed right to add a little salt to the crust)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour

2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. baking powder
Rind of one lemon
2 Tbsp. flour
2 eggs
1 cup sugar

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. melted butter
1-3 tsp. milk (traditional recipe)
OR
1-3 tsp. lemon juice (Ganda tweak)

1. For the crust: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix together butter, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 cup flour.  Press into the bottom of an 8" glass pan.  Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

2. For the lemon layer: Mix together 2 Tbsp. lemon juice, rind, baking powder, 2 Tbsp. flour, eggs, 1 cup sugar.  Pour on crust, bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

3. For the icing: Mix 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tsp. butter, and enough milk (or lemon juice) to spread. Frost lemon bars while warm.  Cut into smallish squares, maybe 2" x 2".  Makes 16 lemon bars.

 

I am ready to be home in Brooklyn.  All this sunshine and sitting in the car is making me soft.  I have gotten to eat a few truly spectacular things during this trip, though:

1. The Boiling Crab is:

• A Louisiana seafood boil joint
• Run by an Asian family from Texas
• In a Vietnamese strip mall in Long Beach
• Serving a mostly Asian clientele
  

Does that blow your mind?  It should. 

The waiter lays a fresh sheet of waxed butcher paper on the table and ties plastic bibs around everyone's neck.  The basic concept: you buy seafood by the pound, they boil it and toss it in a big plastic bag with your choice of sauce ("Rajun Cajun", garlic, lemon pepper, or "The Whole Sha-bang", which is all of the above).  Then they dump the bags onto your butcher paper with a few wedges of lime. 

Next: Time to get ugly.  (Hopefully you and your compadres have already shed the shackles of modesty and decency, because if you haven't, that hymen's about to be broken.)  We ripped into those sea creatures like a bunch of ravenous sharks.  Peel, suck, dip, crack, munch.  No utensils or manners required, though before they leave you to your carnage, the waiters are kind enough to place a roll of paper towels at every table.

Huge head-on shrimp are incredibly fresh, super sweet and meaty ("The most meat for the least work," as my cousin said).  I find crawfish a little too cockroach-like to really enjoy tearing away their leggy armor, but everyone else seemed to love them.  We preferred the Dungeness crab to the Alaskan King crab legs for the sweeter, more flavorful meat.  But be careful with those sharper shell bits -- a cut on the hand or near the mouth means spicy, stinging pain for the rest of the meal.  That said, don't resist double-dipping into that garlicky, spicy sauce -- after all, you and your dining companions are family now. 

I even loved the sides.  The sweet potato fries are the best I've ever had -- crunchy, sweet, not burnt, and totally addictive.  And the corn cobbettes they drop in with the seafood soak up all that buttery, spicy juice.  (What's in that stuff?  My best guess: many sticks of butter, a chopped up head of garlic, a bottle of sriracha, a canister of Old Bay, and a liberal dose of magical oxycontin THC crack dust.)

After seven pounds of crustacean devastation, the carcass mountains get piled high. If you've done the job right, the sauce gets under your fingernails and into your eyebrows, staining the creases of your wrists.  At the end of the meal, I had to soap up all the way to my elbows.  A lunch there rides the razor's edge between totally awesome and totally disgusting.  Which, of course, makes it totally awesome.

2. Flan King -- What, you don't like flan?  Yes you do. You just haven't met the right flan yet.  And Flan King's flan is the most righteous flan in all of God's creation.  Super creamy, but not too eggy, it's heaven from the tip of the wedge all the way to the back.  There's no velvety mouthfeel like it in the world, and yet it's so thick, you can stand a fork upright in it.  It's kind of like the silkiest handmade tofu you've ever had, only denser and more resistant to the tongue, but luxuriant and creamy once it does give way. 

What's the secret?  Some sneaky gelatin?  Letting the custard settle so there are no air bubbles?  Extra condensed milk?  No egg white?  A certain type of egg?  I have a feeling I'll never know.  But I know I have a new request for my yearly visits to L.A.

If I had any complaint, like a teeny-tiny-please-forgive-me-for-my-treason-great-Flan-King complaint, it's that it's too sweet.  But if the Flan King made a half-sweet flan, heaven would be here on earth and I would have no reason to resist sin.

You can buy Flan King flan at farmer's markets around L.A.

3. Lax-C Supermarket -- By the way, I hear that the cooks have changed at my former fave restaurant Ruen Pair, and it's no good anymore.  This breaks my heart.  Happily, the papaya salad (som tam) made in the parking lot at Lax-C supermarket is pretty good.  The woman who makes it takes forever, and she's a little heavy-handed with the sugar for my taste, but she offers little preview cups of the sauce and she'll gladly adjust the flavor until you're satisfied. 



Wash your som tam down with the other vendor's excellent coconut rice cakes (kanom krok), which are better than the ones in Thai Town, according to my Mae.  Mae Ting's kanom krok are little hot, glutinous cups of coconut batter, cooked in a special cast iron implement til crisp around the edges.  They're lovely, a tiny bit salty and not too sweet, and they're stacked to look like a tray full of bivalves.  They must be eaten while hot or you will not understand why I told you to eat them.  (Actually had these over Thanksgiving, but I think the review still holds.)

I'm about 8 years late, but I love this song so much.  It's from Yo Gabba Gabba, which my friends' kids all go crazy for.  My cousin thinks the host looks like the fourth member of Deee-lite.  I am totally putting this shit on my iPod.

Name: Francis Lam

Occupation:  Writer, though that's not much of an occupation, is it?

Borough: Reppin' the QB, baby.

Relationship status: I'm in love with a girl.  Happily, she tolerates me.  

What did you eat today? Noodly things made by Thai people.     

What do you never eat?  Mid-grade fake food.  How do I explain?  Take macaroni and cheese:  Macaroni with real cheese?  Delicious.  Macaroni with orange powder made into a buttery slurry?  Delicious.  Velveeta?  Fucking atrocious. 

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

mayonnaise; eggs; apple cider reduction; very fine jams; a chunk of Parmigiano; butter; cooking oils because I'm terrified of rancidity...oh, who am I kidding?  I never cook at home anymore.    

What is your favorite kitchen item? 

Cutting board and towels.  I know knives are sexier and pans more satisfying to hold and stoves and ovens more hearth-like and gadgets more clever, but tell me: what would you be doing without a cutting board and towels?   

Where do you eat out most frequently? 

Lately, a fantastic little new Thai place I can see from my bedroom window (see above).  The food is really excellent, and I've been going so often since it opened that I have actually stopped myself from going more than once because I didn't want them to think I was a loser or just homeless.

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal? 

Organ meats harvested from George W. Bush.

See whose organ meats Francis is currently eating at Gourmet.com.  

<spoiler!!>

Number of times I cried during the 30 Rock Christmas Special: 3

1. When Liz Lemon explains how Colleen must have put out to get presents under the tree.
2. When Jack and Colleen sing together at the end.
3. During the NY Lotto commercial when the guitar comes in and the lady hands the scratcher tickets back to her vaguely ethnic kiosk guy.

</spoiler>

Good god, why does Christmas make me feel so emotional?  Seriously, it's like PMS jacked up on performance enhancers up in here.

Thanks to all who came to the gig last night!  Our gig at Spike Hill was preceded by a Christmas office party for a bunch of burly, middle-aged men drinking steins of lager and Jameson's. (Sample conversation: "Gimme a Stella Ar-twah." "Don't call the bartender a twat!  Ar-twat!")  They had just exchanged Christmas gifts and one guy was excitedly swinging his double-ended Penthouse dildo around on stage.

Minutes later, we launched into this Christmas classic (script and all) and cleared out half the room.

 

Ah, Christmas!  Wring me out!  I'm not gonna lie, I see you -- yes, you! -- standing under the mistletoe and I am secretly fantasizing about making out with you.  I'll never have the guts to actually make it happen, though.

Here's to Christmas fantasies and unlikely pairings!

Man, I'm totally behind on blogging.  I spent September and October being obsessed with the election, which meant spending November and most of December catching up on everything I missed while I was stuck in the Obama K-hole. 

There's little to report, except that I have turned my Asperger's fixation over from food to Obama to cycling.  I love my bicycle.  It's nothing special -- a hybrid Fuji Crosstown 3.0, last year's model, on sale at my LBS.  Truth be told, it's pretty ugly.  It fits fine, but I think I will want to get a zippier road bike as soon as I can afford it.  Not that I need to be running people down, but it would be nice to have something a little more lightweight, especially for hauling my badonkadonk up the bridge.

I ride to work as weather permits.  As long as it's above 37 degrees and not precipitating, it's lovely, and the best part of my day.  The hairiest part is actually the Brooklyn leg, going down 3rd Ave. with all the cars and trucks headed for the city.  Once I cross the Manhattan Bridge, I flip a bitch and take the Greenway all the way up the east side.  Down around Chinatown, Chinese men and women do Mao exercises by the railing.  At the East River Park, I weave around iPod-deaf joggers.  (I once crossed paths here with a tiny, exuberant white Jack Russell puppy the size of my forearm.  About 20 yards later, a running woman yelled to me, "Did you pass a white dog?"  "Yes" was the only response I could manage before I zipped out of her earshot.)  Around 23rd St., homeless men with shopping carts sleep in little waterside cement gazebos whose sole purpose seems to be housing homeless men. At Stuyvesant Cove, dudes with multiple fishing poles dip their lines into the water (which looks quite clean, but I would never eat that fish).  Around the corner, the Midtown skyline begins like a line of thick-skulled bouncers, doing their sparkly best to intimidate the ruffled water of the East River.

Total commute time is about an hour and five minutes for 9.2 miles.  I am very slow.  But I enjoy the vast majority of it.  Besides, it's only 20 extra minutes each way, with a gain of 2 hours of exercise.  That means I can use my lunch hour to eat lunch.  Can't beat it.

I'm also learning to ride home in the dark.  I keep investing in safety gear because I love my Mae and I don't want her to have to identify my road splat at some city morgue.  I've got a helmet light, a front and back light for the bike, and a reflector on my Ortlieb pannier.  I'll probably buy a reflector strap for my ankle, but I don't think I can go the orange safety vest route.   

I've also spent a shitload of money on locks for the same reason that I am a cyberchondriac -- because I am crazy.  The Chinese spirit fear in me is reluctant to flaunt my locking technique, but I welcome any better ideas you've got.  I replaced the quick-releases with Pinhead locking skewers.  For standard lock-up, I use a mini-Kryptonite U-lock on the back wheel and bike rack, and a mid-weight Kryptonite cable lock around the wheels, frame and bike rack.  The idea is that a crook needs different tools for the different locks, making your bike a less likely target.  (I read it somewhere online -- maybe Bike Forums and Sheldon Brown.)  I also have one of those heavy Kryptonite chain locks, but they're a pain in the ass to carry around.  It's kind of unreasonable to have that much security on what is basically a pretty cheap bike, but it makes me worry less while I'm at work. 

My favorite accessory is the Ortlieb pannier I hang on one side of the back rack.  They can carry a ton of groceries, they're waterproof, and they're really easy to get on and off.  Your load has a low center of gravity, so you don't notice the extra weight much.  You have to buy them in pairs, but I only ride with one -- it isn't too weird to have a heavy load only on one side.  I don't notice it at all when in motion. 

I think the least useful accessory, at least in Manhattan, is the little bicycle bell.  Nobody can hear it.  Sometimes even I can't hear it.  I find it's much better to yell.  I've seen some commuters who keep loud whistles in their mouths the whole time.  My friend Francis tells me I should get into the habit of lightly tapping cars, which drivers really notice.  I don't have enough coordination for a move like that yet.  A couple of weeks ago, I attempted to make a phone call on a quiet side street and nearly fell off my bike. 

There's so much to learn!  And with the internet, it's a lot easier to become totally otaku about new passions.  The other day, I changed a blown tube with the help of a couple of websites, YouTube videos and a little trial and error.

A couple of findings so far:

Toe clips -- like 'em.  They took a little getting used to, but they help going uphill.  .  
Cycle wear -- I'm starting to only buy pants with skinny ankle openings. I also need to invest in more knee-high socks. Layering is important, because you can really heat up on the bike, even in this weather.  Gloves are also key, and it's nice to have pockets to stick your hands in when you're at a stoplight.  I'm still trying to work out my cycling wardrobe.  I find it's best to pack a dress in my pannier and change when I get to work.  It's too easy to get dirty on my commute. 
Helmet -- I do like my helmet.  My friend Jewlia was in an intense bicycle accident in S.F. and she's convinced me that I should ride with helmet.  It's not cute, but again, neither is road splat.
Women's vs. standard bike frames -- The cross tube (I'm sure that's not the official name for the thing) on my unisex bike does make skirt-wearing a little harder, but "women's" stepover bikes are heavier, and I don't want any more weight than necessary.  I have to carry that thing up and down a flight of stairs at home.  For the same reason, I wouldn't go cruiser bike. 

Also, don't buy the Blackburn Air Tower 4 floor pump.  I got one and it sprung a leak just a month after I bought it.  The nozzle is also kind of hard to get on and off the valve.  It has a lifetime warranty, but I just spent $40 to have it shipped back for repair.  Lame. Or if you do get one, see if your LBS can trade it out with a new one and send the broken one back for you if you buy from them. 

Bike web reading I'm totally obsessed with, as a cycling initiate:

Bike Snob NYC -- Maybe funniest blogger ever.  Seriously.  I'm obsessed.  And I'm not alone. 
Copenhagen Cycle Chic -- Okay, the writing is terrible and twee in the worst way, but the pictures of pretty ladies on bikes are great.  I study them for tips on how to dress for the cold weather without looking all L.L. Bean soccer mom. 
Sheldon Brown -- The website is bare bones and the advice is no-nonsense.  Sheldon Brown died a few years ago, but his legacy lives on the web.
Ride the City -- I've called 311 twice now to request a bike map, but I still haven't gotten one.  Every time I go into a bike shop, they've just run out.  Thank goodness for this site, which is like HopStop for bicycles.  I consult it all the time.  The time estimates are a little fast, but the route suggestions are pretty great.     

My bicycle is my new Barack Obama.  Get used to it.

Name: Jenny Miller

Occupation: Freelance food and lifestyle journalist

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: Single

What did you eat today?

I've had very graze-y eating schedule lately. Half a Trader Joe's muffin and some Total yogurt and half a grapefruit for breakfast; Dumplings (frozen ones I get from Vanessa's) as a mid-morning snack; Miso soup with veggie and an egg that I made for lunch; Seaweed and rice with Sriracha for a snack - basically a vehicle for spiciness - and now I'm hungry for dinner. I eat a lot of Asian food because I live near Chinatown and across the street from a great Chinese supermarket. 

What do you never eat?

I was a picky eater as a kid, but now I'm pretty omnivorous. I like most things if they're well prepared. That said, I don't care much for mayonnaise-y salads - potato salad, macaroni salad, etc. The slimy texture still gets me, I think.

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Eggs, butter, something to throw in an omelette, Alvarado Bakery sprouted bread, Sriracha, Amy's Goddess salad dressing, half and half for my coffee. 

What is your favorite kitchen item?

A big, sharp knife.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Mamoun's on St. Marks - I generally go there for a falafel after yoga class.

Also am lamentably addicted to the Vanessa's location on Eldridge (they bought Dumpling House), which is near my apartment. Though I fear for my sodium levels, I crave their boiled shrimp dumplings, fried pork dumplings, and hot and sour soup. Actually, the soup's not excellent - if I bring it home I usually add vinegar - but I love even mediocre hot and sour.

And when I get red-meat cravings, I head to Blue 9 Burger for a cheeseburger.

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

Can we do a last day?

Breakfast: Chips and Salsa and  the migas from Curra's in Austin. I used to live in Austin, so there'd have to be some Tex-Mex involved!

Lunch: Pho with everything from Pho Tu Do

Crispy spring rolls

Thai iced tea

A dozen West Coast oysters on the half shell [West side! --Ed.]

Sushi - a bunch of those specialty rolls made with spicy aiolis and tempura batter and such

Greenmarket salad with that miso-vinegar dressing from Whole Foods

A grilled medium-rare steak

Good red wine

Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream

Shortbread cookies

Jenny's online portfolio can be found at JennyMiller.org.