a lady walking by stopped to ask if the dog was lost, and when i explained that i had just found a phone number she expressed her regret that she didn’t have a cell phone. as she was talking i brought out my phone, and started trying to decipher the number. my canine friend got bored of me examining his collar, and wanted to play with the woman. i clucked at him and kept him in place long enough to get the whole number into the phone, and then resumed petting as i called. after three rings someone answered. i explained where i was and told him the situation, and the guy freaked out. apparently the movers i had seen were installing a new dryer in the guy’s apartment, and the dog slipped out while the door was open. the owner came out and called to the dog (either riley or wiley, i’m not sure which). the dog froze in place. i tried to urge him back to the owner, but he didn’t want to go. the owner kept coming closer and calling, but the dog wouldn’t go. “he knows he’s in trouble,” joked the owner. as he reached us he scooped up the dog, turned him upside down and started rubbing the dog’s belly. it was awfully cute.

the guy was very grateful, and we parted ways. it was a pretty good way to end the day.

eattoblog.com

i plan to continue putting the food related stuff up there, and the continue the other stuff here.

what other stuff? not really sure…

anyway, check out eattoblog.com.

after eating at bocca, i wrote that the restaurant needed to embrace the rustic side of italian food and not try so hard to be “cutting edge.” mezzogiorno has fully realized this idea, serving simple and hearty italian food. unfortunately they don’t seem to realize it, and they price their food as if it was much higher-end than it is.

the polpette di melanzane, or eggplant croquettes, are great idea. italian tradition is big on stretching vegetables to take the place of meat, and eggplant “meatballs” are a perfect example of this. the croquettes offered up at mezzogiorno, unfortunately, tasted as if they were frozen and then re-heated for service. their texture was far to homogenous to be handmade, which would have been the right touch for the appetizer. and at $12 it seems ridiculous to get a mere three of them on a plate with a pile of bland salad greens. the goat cheese was not so much a garnish as a necessity to up the richness of the dish.

much more successful was the fazzoletti, which may be pasta at its most basic. wide, flat sheets of pasta shared the dish with beans, rosemary, and a touch of tomato. the dish seems to be the essence of rusticity, and it’s easy to imagine the dish being served to italian diners centuries ago. the pasta made the perfect bed for the creamy beans, which matched well with the rosemary. there is nothing refined or elaborate about the dish, it’s merely a simple pasta dish. at $14 it certainly justifies the price.

the wine list, however, reflects the poor pricing. the cheapest bottle was somewhere in the neighborhood of $30, and they had wines that range as high as $200. none of the food that i ate or saw listed on the menu would justify accompaniment by a $200 bottle of wine. we opted for a $40 bottle of chianti, a wine that always matches well with food, but it tipped our bill (for two people) over the $100 mark.

italian food has certainly gone through a sort of renaissance in the past few years (since the opening of babbo?). mezzogiorno serves the right kind of food in a town that too often tries to make italian food too fancy. all they need to do is to adjust their prices accordingly.

michael pollan throws down a serious gauntlet in his newest book, “in defense of food.” he argues, pretty convincingly, that most of the “food” that american eat is not food at all, but rather a convincing imitation. he also rails against the rise of “nutritionism,” in which food scientists continue to tell us which individual elements of food are good for us and isolating them, rather than looking at food as a whole. it all culminates in what nutritionists call a paradox — that despite their fat-rich diet, many other cultures have a much lower incidence of food-health related illnesses. pollan says that there is no paradox, the nutritionists are just wrong about what is good for us. it’s an audacious claim, considering our current culture, but i’ll be damned if it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

the biggest revelation to me was the fact that the selective breeding of farm animals and crops, not to mention the increased processing of all food, actually reduces the nutrition of the food we eat. as crops are bred for higher yields and resistance to drought they are losing their nutritional properties. thus it takes more of the food to provide us with less of the benefits, leaving millions of americans overfed and yet undernourished. this is a truly frightening state of affairs.

pollan also points out how little these food scientists actually know. when beta carotene, for example, is isolated and added into other foods, it may not give the same benefits it does when consumed in a whole carrot. scientists aren’t really sure why this is, but they continue to find and isolate these compounds and tout their benefits to an unsuspecting and gullible public. i know someone who jumps on every one of these nutritional bandwagons, taking supplements like there’s no tomorrow. pollan points out that while there’s “probably” no downside to taking supplements, they don’t really give you the same health benefits that consuming them as part of a whole food would.

pollan himself falls prey to this occasionally. the recent rise of omega-3 fatty acids is championed by pollan here, but as he points out about other isolated compounds, how do we really know for sure. he also seems to skip right over the more recent trend of combining vitamins for better health, such as the strange “vitamin c recharging e” commercials we see on television every day. is it for real or is it bunk? then again, this also reveals how easily manipulated i am by food science.

as a vegetarian who visits my local farmer’s market every week, i’m definitely on the right path (the path according to pollan). which is not to say that i am without food fault — i love my frappucinos, my processed cheese, and my imitation meat products. and the biggest fault i found with pollan’s book was a realistic alternative to our industrialized food culture. he cites the change from stone-ground to machine-ground wheat as a benchmark in the decline of food culture, but how are we supposed to counter that? grind our own wheat?

he does offer some basic solutions, in addition to eating “mostly” plants and visiting local farms and markets. we should eat less, and eat more slowly. for those of us who can afford to, pollan implores us to spend more money on better quality food. after all, he says, we’ve all made room in the budget for high-speed internet and cable television. surely we can spare a few dollars for better food. but what about the vast majority of americans who cannot? how can we combat a problem that is so ingrained in our culture?

the other problem i had with the book is its academic tone. pollan throws out statistics (and citations for those statistics) like a grad student on a rampage, making my eyes glaze over more than a couple of times. and how many americans will understand the reference to “brobdingnagian” portion sizes?

pollan succeeds in making a case for major overhauls in the food industry, as well as the politics of food and the way individuals eat. certainly something must be done. “in defense of food” is a step in the right direction, but seems unlikely to be the big breakthrough that we need. until that breakthrough comes, “in defense of food” will have to tide us over.

as the wave of culinary science known as molecular gastronomy crashes and recedes from the restaurant scene, many restaurants have begun incorporating the techniques into traditional menus. bocca, in the flatiron district, has tried to meld traditional italian with the cutting edge, and has ended up mastering neither.

the interior of bocca suggests its modernity; the space is clean and long, running the length of the bar which dominates the front of the restaurant and then opening up at the back with a handful of tables. everythingthing seems minimalist and almost sterile, almost the opposite of the traditional image of the italian restaurant.

when it came time to order, the servers showed a good knowledge of their wine selection and how they would interact with the flavors of the food. i decided to forgo the wine, as i had to work later in the day. someone recommended the eggplant terrine to me, but i can’t resist an artichoke, here presented three ways: fried, foamed, and souped.

the foam, actually the first culinary foam i’ve eaten, was a bit of a disappointment. cold and salty, it tasted nothing like artichoke. the fried artichoke was nice, but the real winner was the artichoke soup. somehow they managed to capture the entire essence of the artichoke in the rich broth.

for my main i got a fettucine with porcini, a dish i had gotten a mediocre version of while in italy. at bocca it was actually pretty good; the pasta itself was underseasoned, but the procinis were juicy and flavorful, bursting to life in the mouth.

other entrees reflected the confusion in the menu; a ragout of quail and blueberries, listed next to a traditional cacio e pepe (served, like at its namesake restaurant, tableside in a wheel of cheese). in bocca’s defense, both were well received by diners. the pork loin, though delicious, came out looking “awfully brown” on a plate of browned potatoes and brown sauce. why not apply some of the adventure to the plating?

for dessert i was eager to try the pear strudel with gorgonzola ice cream, but the waiters dropped off the menus and disappeared, never to return. to be fair, i was there as part of a large group, but there was never any explanation given.

from everything i saw and ate at bocca, i think they would be better off forgoing the modern, flashy touches and embracing the traditional. they do some things extremely well, but they end up getting bogged down trying to be too “modern.” i would have gladly eaten an entire bowl of that artichoke soup, especially without that miserable foam. doing “duos” and “trios” with food can be an exciting way to eat, but all of the elements have to be good. bocca has a long way to go before making the modern dishes successful.

i finally broke out the mandoline slicer my folks gave me for hannukah. i made a passable sweet potato gratin before, using only my chef’s knife, but i wanted to be able to do more. i also like the idea of the different blades giving me the option of different cuts.

so how did it work? i primarily used the regular slicing blade, which gave me not-quite-paper-thin slices of potato. it worked very well for the most part, but you have to be careful not to put too big a chunk of potato onto the device or it will be top-heavy. also, because the blade is an a “well” of sorts, about a half-inch deep, there is a bit of waste when the guard hits the side of the well. these are minor problems though, as the slicer worked extremely well.

the other blades that came with the mandoline are a julienne blade and a shredding blade. i found the julienne blade hard to use, and the result, though uniform, unimpressive. i think i get better results with my knife. the shredder, on the other hand, worked like a charm, and i will definitely be using it in the future.

the whole contraption is light-weight and easy to clean. i can’t wait to try out different vegetables and different recipes.

see here for photos of the mandoline and the potato gratin i made with it.

so is it a kitchen essential? not really, more of a fun toy for an amateur such as myself. it definitely opens the door for more complex dishes, and hopefully will become an integral part of my kitchen.

favorite tv

“the soup,” e! — no show was more consistently funny. the soup is my weekend anchor. plus, they gave the world this.

“the sopranos,” hbo — this final half-season took a lot of lumps, but i loved it. i even loved the much-discussed ending, which left me literally trying to catch my breath. how the hell did they do that?

“30 rock,” nbc — in addition to being brilliantly funny, this show gave me the biggest laugh of the year. that would be tracy’s “inscrutable” license plate, ICU81MI. i’m still laughing about that one.

“life on mars,” bbc america — the perfect balance of police procedural and sci-fi weirdness. i wish more people were watching this show so i could talk with them about it. plus, it’s named for a kick-ass bowie song.

favorite movies

“rescue dawn,” werner herzog — though i didn’t see this movie in the theatre, this may be the best film i’ve seen all year. i’m officially in love with werner herzog, with a side-crush on christian bale.

“no country for old men,” joel & ethan coen — despite it’s deliberately frustrating end, i was captivated by every moment of this film.

“superbad,” greg mottola — painfully true to life in all the funniest ways. i can’t believe these guys got to make this movie.

“eastern promises,” david croenberg — almost as good as “history of violence,” this movie was a metaphorical knife to the gut. david croenberg is on a hell of a roll.

books

“bangkok haunts,” john burdett — the third in the bangkok series was the best so far, raising the bar yet again. i love the world that burdett has created.

“fieldwork,” mischa berlinski — so, so, so good, and i don’t think more than a dozen people read it. seek it out, you won’t be disappointed.

“soon i will be invincible,” austin grossman — the most fun i had with a book all year. it shouldn’t work as a novel, and yet it does. long live doctor impossible!

“harry potter and the deathly hallows,” jk rowling — i read it in one marathon session before leaving the country, and was on the edge of my seat the entire time. i could have done without the “happily-ever-after” coda, but i still enjoyed the ride.

“league of extraordinary gentlemen: the black dossier,” alan moore & kevin o’neill — fantastic, maddening, overwhelming, and completely awesome in every sense of the word. see below for my full review of this one.

what were your faves? did i omit something that makes me look like a boor? let me know.

getting reservations at high end restaurants can be hard for those of us not on the a-list. luckily there’s bouley upstairs, which accepts no reservations, and even a couple of nobodies can walk in on a busy friday night and be seated within a half hour. never mind that the maitre d’ told us it would be only 10-15 minutes. never mind that they had us wait in the bakery beneath the restaurant where they had only one chair to offer the two of us. it was worth the wait.

bouley upstairs is an odd duck of a restaurant, and not only because of the no-rez policy. the menu is a melange of french, japanese, italian, and… well, everything else. it’s the kind of kitchen sink approach that gordon ramsay rails against on just about every episode of kitchen nightmares (both the british and american versions), and yet it works. the tiny room, comprised of about 15 tables squeezed together between a sushi bar and a two-man open kitchen, was buzzing with energy when we were seated, and even though it took us about 10 minutes to get our menus, we were never bored. between watching the chefs toil behind the counter, admiring the large windows overlooking west broadway, and ogling the ancient asian woman brooding in the corner, bouley upstairs provided people watching opportunities that most other “real” restaurants can’t imagine.

the food was very good, though only the seasonal soup, a creamy mix of winter squash dotted with chestnuts, approached greatness. I should have known better than to order the asparagus in the middle of winter, but asparagus is hard for me to resist in restaurants. the asparagus at bouley upstairs was well cooked, though a little underseasoned. the balsamic dressing was not as aggressive as i had feared it would be, but the parmesan shavings on top added nothing to the dish.

i ordered the gnocchi, but was informed by the waitress that they had just run out. she offered to have the dish made with angel hair pasta instead, which i accepted. then i got to watch as she informed the table next to us of the same thing, even though they had ordered earlier than us. and yes, i’m aware that “we just ran out” is the industry standard line, i’m just pointing it out because the whole scenario was amusing to me.

the pasta that arrived was not angel hair, but that’s just a quibble. the tomato sauce with roasted cherry tomatoes was very delicate, and was completely overpowered by the pool of gorgonzola sauce on the side of the plate. still, i managed to eat it all.

fortunately, the dessert made up for it. the green tea and vanilla creme brulee was sweet and earthy; the green tea flavor balanced nicely with the burned sugar topping.

the service was a little spotty. while waiting in the bakery i ordered a glass of pinot noir; a waiter dropped off a glass of white wine and disappeared. the wine was actually quite good, as was the glass of pinot noir i finally got during the meal, but when i checked our bill to see what wine i had gotten we had been charged for two glasses of the pinot noir. still, it’s hard to argue with two excellent glasses of wine.

despite the seeming ambivalence of the above words, i have nothing but praise for the entire experience i had at bouley upstairs. it’s not often that a restaurant combines good food and good fun without being a theme-park ride or a chain. and in new york, it’s even more rare to find a good restaurant that you don’t have to put on speed-dial just in the hopes of maybe possibly getting in. bouley upstairs is not to be missed.