Something I've only recently discovered for myself is something that probably should have dawned on me a long time ago.  I suppose that I've always known this in some capacity, but only now am just applying it to my own life.  Real cooking - that is, everyday sustenance cooking - is not about the new.  It's about the tried and true.  That's not to say that it is necessarily boring, but in order to be a decent cook, you have to be way, way consistent.  Essentially, I think this means finding a couple recipes that you can easily master, and doing them again and again.  A good way to make chicken, a good way to grill vegetables, a good way to do stir fry ... pick a few things you can get good at and stick to them, pretty much day in, day out.  Gussy it up for guests, take risks on lavish feasts for the holidays, but for basic living, stick to the things you know you can pull off.

This may sound boring.  It kinda sounds like I'm advocating sucking all the excitement out of day-to-day cooking.  It's not that way at all.  All you have to do is think smaller scale.  This isa bout changing small things in familiar recipes to be interesting without risking dinner.  A good example of this is a recipe that Jerry Kelly taught me: corn salad.

The basic recipe is this.  Cut fresh corn from the cob, however many ears you need.  Dice some red and green peppers and some yellow onion.  Cook the onion in lots of butter until it starts to get nice and soft and translucent.  Throw in the peppers, cook until they start to get soft, then throw in the corn for a quick cook.  Season with hot sauce, salt, pepper, thyme, and it's a bright, colorful, sweet and TASTY dish.  The fresher the corn, the less you have to cook it - the kernels should be al dente, with a lot of that sweet corny flavor.

This is a good side dish recipe, and it also makes good leftovers.  The ratios of corn to onions to peppers are up to you; I like a lot of corn.  But the real beauty of this recipe is how many ways you can alter it to make it different enough to sustain interest.  Throw spinach in when you add the corn, which will wilt while the corn cooks up.  Or chop up chorizo and throw it in with the peppers to give the dish a really nice meaty, spicy heft (I love chorizo since it's already cooked and it's just ... oh god it's just so darn good).  Add a lot of fresh basil instead of the hot sauce to take it in a slightly different flavor direction, or maybe put in some cumin and make it Tex-Mex-y.  I'd imagine that taco seasoning would also accomplish this. 

It doesn't really matter what you do with this corn salad - the broader point is that you can take something very simple and delicious and make it interesting.  Instead of searching for a new, intense, complicated recipe that you think will demonstrate your masterful skill, turn inwards. 

This is advice I really need to give myself, actually ... so don't think I'm lecturing.  More like self-reprimanding.  It's easy to get swept away by the idea of creating something new that I've never done before.  I was thinking of making duck breasts recently, which I've never quite had the guts to try (I know it sounds simple, but because of my love and near-reverence for it, duck is a very scary protein for me!).  I'll probably still try them, but on a more regular basis, I should probably direct that desire towards something with a higher likelihood for success. 

In my efforts to keep up with work, friends, and family, I often find myself neglecting what I profess to be my big love, so to speak.  That is to say, food: the eating of it and the writing about it.  It occurs to me that I have been to a number of decent, good, even great restaurants in the past few months, none of which I've bothered to note down in this journal.  Since this journal serves as the only real outlet for my writing, it means I haven't pursued this professed passion very passionately.  Of that I am a little ashamed.  I was lazing around this Saturday, bored and sleepy, and I remarked to my boyfriend that I needed a hobby.  "How about food writing," he said.  I sort of meant a NEW hobby, or a hobby where I actually get a tangible result (knitting, jewelry-making, etc) instead of a journal entry that's going to be read by 3 people, but I got the point.  This is nothing but what I put into it, and I could say that about anything that I truly enjoy doing.  The effort alone is worth the effort.


Ramen Setagaya is in the East Village in New York City.  It's on 1st Avenue, just down the street from Momofuku, the famous ramen shop owned by David Chang.  Currently, the most difficult reservation to procure in the City is at Mr. Chang's most recent venture, "Ko," which is so popular that, one week in advance, all the seats are reserved in between 9AM to 9:15AM.  Momofuku is not so exclusive because it is much more low-key.  You wait a while for a table, but you eat within the hour.  It's fast, but not cheap.  Ramen easily costs $15 a bowl, and it's ok.  Nothing special. 

Ramen Setagaya, on the other hand, is very special.  It's much less popular, which is really, really nice.  I haven't been there when it's crowded, so who knows how bad it gets, but they have a larger area for waiting if you can't get a table right away (Momofuku's entryway is the size of a NYC closet).  Ramen is less expensive.  The real difference, however, lies in the soup base.  Momofuku uses a stock made from chicken and pork.  It's fatty, unctuous, and undeniably good.  But Setagaya has what they term a salt-based broth.  It's clearer - you feel less like you're slurping down a tasty but unhealthful slurry, and more like you're sipping something clear and flavorful.  Momofuku's soup is the greasy diner bacon; Setagaya is the juicy but lean pork tenderloin.  Both are good in their own way, but even though I love bacon, I'd live a lot longer and feel a LOT less ill if I made the pork my meat of choice.  The noodles are firm and plentiful, and if, like me, you prefer a higher noodle-to-soup ratio, you can order more noodles.  The pork might not be from Berkshire pigs, but it's very tender and laced with good, flavorful, soft fat (hey, it may taste healthier, but it IS still roast pig).  Momofuku's pork was a little dry. 

So for the money, the time, and the soup, Ramen Setagaya is the best choice. 

There is, however, one caveat.  Momofuku happens to have the best pork buns in the entire world.  It's really hard for me to say this, since it means that I'm not free to write off Momofuku for Setagaya entirely.  It's a very bad idea to order one serving to share.  The buns are those steamed white buns that you often see served with Peking Duck, soft and doughy.  There are a few strips of barbequed pork, some slivered scallions, and some sweet meaty sauce.  They're ludicrously delicious, and are entirely unfair - David Chang's trump card on the whole of the New York ramen bar scene.

I'll return to both places, when I have the gumption to hump it downtown for ramen again. I don't like that I can't cross one of those two places off my list, but there it is.  Life isn't perfect.

But those buns are.

So, it may seem cheesy to title a post "easy" anything.  That's like what Sandra Lee puts together, then adds a handle of vanilla vodka to.  But I really actually was craving lemonade, so I figured that it shouldn't be too hard to make. 

The first step was to make simple syrup.  Now, I've always shied away from simple syrup, probably because it contains the word "syrup," and I had a really scarring first experience with melting sugar.  But there is no need for reaching a "hard crack stage" or the "soft ball stage."  It isn't even necessary to boil the water.  Just heat equal parts sugar and water together until all the sugar dissolves.  It's really ... simple, which sounds so goddamn stupid, but, well, they did name it that.  I guess they weren't lying.

So, the rest of it is also easy.  Like I said before, one part sugar, one part water, one part lemon juice.  Only, I didn't have lemon juice, I had lime juice.  Which is awesome.  Maybe even awesomer than lemonade.  That makes the base, then just add enough water to make it tasty.  I did one cup water, one cup sugar, one cup lime juice, and 3 cups water. 

It took like, 7 minutes.  That was it, and now I have a little pitcher of limeade sitting in the fridge.  I really sort of like that idea, that image.  It's so tasty, and it's so pretty ... a little glowing green jar in my fridge.  Ok, kinda scary, but damn delicious.  I'm getting another glass.

Paley’s Place

We arrived early.  Like, only 15 minutes early, but early enough that the waitress suggested that we sit at the bar and wait for our table to be ready, despite that when we were summoned, there were two tables to choose from.  Odd.  At the bar, we sat, waited for a few minutes for service while looking at the liquor selection.  By the time one of the two women behind the bar deigned to notice us, we had decided what we wanted: gin and tonic for Tyler, Pimm’s for me.  “Here is the menu,” we were informed, as the younger of the two women unceremoniously slid laminated sheets in our direction.  Actually, we know what we want, we told her.  We were ignored.  Totally.  She went back to chatting with her fellow barkeep and a few other sippers at the bar.  We were sort of stunned – not an auspicious start to an expensive meal.

It didn’t matter, in the end, since we were seated about five minutes later.  I chose the cozy booth table.  Undeterred by the bartender and committed to getting our cocktails, Tyler ordered his G&T and I asked for Pimm’s.  “We have our own version of the Pimm’s cup, which we call the ‘Pimm’s cup and saucer’” the maitre ‘d told us; “we don’t serve it with cucumber, but with a twist, and we float gin on top.”  Sounds all right to me, I said.  We saw the table next to us receive a pretty amuse bouche before their appetizers came out. A young man with a self-congratulatory air and black-rimmed glasses came and brought our drinks.  “We’re out of cucumber,” he said, by way of apologizing that there was a twist in my drink instead of the usual slice.  “Is this ok?”  Of course it was, since it was what I was told to order.  Were they out of cucumber, or was it their own deliberate take on a classic?  We’ll never know.  Tyler ordered a nice Oregon pinot noir.  We picked out a few menu items featuring favorite ingredients.  Artichoke.  Quail.  Suckling pig.  Polenta. Our appetizers came out.  No amuse bouche.  I thought of asking after it, but didn’t want to appear greedy.  Shame on me, really.  It came out later, after our mouths had been underwhelmed by asparagus, prosciutto, and an egg cooked at 142 degrees for 45 minutes.  The egg was pretty impressive – not for taste or texture, since it most closely resembled something hawked up after a long night of smoking and boozing (sorry), but for its existence, and the fact that someone must have thought that it was a good enough idea, not only to try, but to serve in a fancy restaurant.  I had this dish before, at Mercat – a New York Catalonian tapas restaurant – with much more success (the egg was soft-boiled and really very delicious, and the thinly slivered jamon Serrano was divine over the tender, chopped asparagus), and a much smaller yuck factor.  Where was I?  The amuse bouche … I thought it was actually very good.  Poorly timed, but good.  I just can’t remember what it was.  Ok, good, but forgettable.

Our entrees came out, served not by our gay Buddy Holly waiter, but by an older woman who was the other gal behind that bar.  She was carrying both large plates in one hand, and the jus from my quail was in immediate danger of slopping over onto the tablecloth.  “Oh dear,” she exclaimed, as she managed to set both dishes down without incident, “I didn’t want to spill that jus, it is SO terrific.  I’ll bring you some bread so that you can soak it up.”  She did.  I didn’t use it.  Don’t get me wrong, the jus wasn’t bad, and the dish wasn’t bad either.  It was tasty quail over tasty spaetzle.  But was it worth the bread to savor every last drop?  Hardly.  I finished it, but really felt like I should have ordered the half order, and saved a few bucks.  The dish just wasn’t worth feeling full over.  Tyler didn’t even finish his suckling pig.  The polenta was a bit gummy and looked a bit … old, and the pig was just not that good.  It’s hard to describe what taking a totally unimpressive bite of suckling pig is like.  It’s like … having your manicurist paint your nails – and cuticles – bright red … or driving an Aston Martin with a huge dent in the side.  It’s a luxury, for sure, but one so annoyingly and unnecessarily ruined as to take all the fun out of it.  

I went to take a walk outside after our entrees were cleared away, as for whatever reason I was feeling out of it.  I was sick to my stomach, and although I am not exactly inclined to give this place the benefit of any doubt, I think that perhaps the week’s diet of potato chips, martinelli’s apple juice, and elk jerky had caught up to me.  I returned to the table, feeling shaky but better, and we decided on dessert.  Why not.  

Dessert, as it happened, was wildly successful.  Tyler had this rose-essence panna cotta that was really just divine.  It had a little rhubarb compote, and we both contributed to its rapid disappearance.  I had a little plate of confections, which were numerous and fun.  White chocolate and strawberry chocolate truffle, mini key lime tart, dense dark chocolate bonbons, etc.  Really nice, actually.  But just as I was feeling a little more cheerful about the meal, Mr. Holly flounced over and announced, imperiously, “mocha wafers!” as he flung a saucer onto our table.  These Snackwell’s wannabes were the least mocha, least wafer little antichrists ever.  They tasted like shitty chalky diet sugar-free chocolate dog biscuits.  I hated them.  I hated Buddy for throwing them at us like a big-time favor.  I hated the bill that I didn’t even really get to see.  I hated the tables that were so close together that I had to shove my butt into my neighbor’s food to get out to use the restroom.  I hated this place, I really did.  Those mocha wafers brought out the worst in me by bringing out the worst thing this restaurant could have done: namely trying to run with the big boys with simultaneously pretentious and obsequious service, backed up with a thoroughly mediocre product.  I will never go back to Paley’s Place, no matter how chummy Eric Asimov is with the owners.  

When cooking relatively elaborate meals, one can forget how easy very good food can be.  This chicken was done so quickly, I actually struggled to make the pasta fast enough to eat with it.

Delicious broiled chicken:

6 drumsticks, 4 thighs
Teriyaki sauce (Very Teri, by Soy Vey, is my favorite)
disposable broiling pan

Put chicken in pan.  Pour sauce on chicken, mix it around to coat.  Broil 10 minutes on one side, flip chicken, 10 minutes on the other.  Take chicken out, let rest for 5.  Toss pan.


Because of all the sugar in the teriyaki sauce, the disposable pan is key -- under the broiler, the sugar in the sauce caramelizes, then burns, foaming up into big lava-like formations of black crust that is both flaky and sticky.  It's utterly gross.  But it won't affect the chicken, so it's best to ignore it and flush it down the toilet if you lack a garbage disposal.  However, be warned: the carbon will float, so it takes a few flushes to really get that alarming black gunk down the drain. 

Tao is a fake Chinese restaurant in Midtown East.

More specifically, it's a trendy, tacky meat market in Midtown East where folks like Britney Spears get photographed falling over themselves.  It's the kind of place where, if you're not wearing a slinky top barely covering pneumatic cleavage, i-banker types will push past you for a solid five minutes while you try in vain to cross the crowded, unpleasant and probably overpriced bar.  It's the kind of place that makes mediocre food, slaps an Eastern-sounding name on it (like "Noble treasures from the sea" - give me a fucking break) and tries to serve everything "family style" to weasel their way out of being responsible for bringing the right dishes out at the right times.  FYI, Tao, families don't like eating their fried rice 15 minutes after everyone else is done with dinner.  It even has giant seated Buddhas in the cavernous dining rooms, and "yin" and "yang" instead of gender markings on the door, in case you didn't get their concept.  We get it, Tao: you're very oriental, don't make me reach back to sixth grade social studies to remember that "yin" is woman. 

Tao, as you might have guessed, is not my kind of place.

Sea bass looked over-decorated and over-priced.  Fried rice looked like boiled, glutenous rice.  Lacquered pork tenderloin was neither lacquered, nor tender, but dry and only moderately tasty.  The Peking duck was comparatively yummy and substantial, but they didn't give us nearly enough sauce, and the spring onions were woody and sharp (like eating deck splinters, with negligible flavor).  Also, they served it with pancakes (that stuck together) rather than soft buns, which I think is cheap.  Those buns are so tasty. 

I went there with a handful of Tyler's NYC counterparts.  Everyone was truly nice.  When I think to myself "these might be my friends next year," I don't cringe or twitch with anxiety.  The guy who chose the restaurant had never been there before, so I don't even have that to hold against any of them.  I just hope, very much, that they thought that the place was as atrocious as I thought it was.  I hope they never, ever want to return, and will be simply too polite to ever mention the place again. 

This morning, my mom called the house at 8:30.  She and my father are in Connecticut, staying for the week in a nice beach house with my brother, sister-in-law, and the baby.  Steve and Millie are vegetarians, which occasionally causes problems of a culinary nature, hence the painfully early call.  My mom asked me to leave my warm bed and look up a recipe for white bean and tomato salad.  She had clipped the recipe from Sunset Magazine, and had put it (she thinks) in her binder entitled "Savory."  I pulled out the binder and looked for the recipe, but to no avail - either she had misplaced it, or i just was looking through bleary 8am eyes.  At the end of my search, my mom, bemoaning the fact that I can't find it, says "all I need to know is the ratio of balsamic vinegar to olive oil!"

At this, my initial reaction was to slam the binder closed and stomp back to bed (moves that would have been lost on my mom, being 3000 miles away), because come on, how hard is it to make a vinegarette for a salad?  If that's really all she needed to know, she could have winged it.  No biggie.  I was irritated, but not for more than a brief moment.  I understood how it felt, you see - cooking for people, especially people whose judgment you either value or fear, is an extremely difficult task.  When someone describes me as a good cook, I'm immediately intimidated: instantly, your cooking is held to a higher than average standard, and if for some reason you mess up, God help you, you will be doubly condemned, even if you did not solicit the praise to begin with.

Cooking for people that are not practically my family is very hard.  The other week, I was at the Jersey Shore with some friends.  All very nice people, all relatively hungry and beachy and laid back.  I wouldn't even offer to cook.  Bless the people who did - and they did it very well - but to subject myself to that much perceived pressure (never mind that kids smoking a lot of marijuana will eat pretty much anything) would have taken much of the joy away from the vacation.  I managed to make a couple batches of guacamole and some nachos, but who doesn't like guac and nachos?  I took the safe road, and while maybe I was selling myself short, giving up an oportunity for praise and appreciation, that was fine by me.  That being said, it meant that when I made a tasty grilled cheese sandwich and Tyler didn't want any, I flipped out.  Poor guy.

So as much as I was peeved at my mom for dragging me out of bed in the wee hours to go on a wild goose chase for a recipe for simple vinegarette, I understood where she was coming from.  She wanted some authority to tell her the right proportion so that she wouldn't mess up, wouldn't subject herself to the subtle disgrace of an unfinished dish, wouldn't be cut by bland profferings of insincere praise.  See, the fear is not that someone will spit white beans and tomatoes in your face and yell at you for giving them food poisoning, the fear is for your diners to be underwhelmed.  Polite servings without gusto kill the ego of a chef. 

So, to sum up, if someone offers you a bite of grilled cheese sandwich or butter-fried toast on a beachy day on the shore, take a bite, give them a big hug and say it's the best damn thing you've tasted all morning.  Hint.

Bellavitae is a small restaurant in the trendy West Village.  After hearing glowing reviews from two trusted foodies, I decided to go.  I'm going to cut right to the chase here because it's late and I'm tired.  Maybe I'll come back in and add some verbiage about how nice and understated the decor was, or how I loved that Rafael, our server, had a little chest hair and some gold chains while still managing to look classy under the circumstances.  But later.

Overall I'm giving Bellavitae a thumbs down.  Two stars, or brownie bites, or whatever.  What I want to say is that while it serves okay food, it preys upon hapless folk who are going to be intimidated enough by "pared down" ingredients not to kick up a fuss when an octupus is placed in front of them. 

Yeah.  A whole octopus.  It was my appetizer and it camed highly recommended from said Rafael.  Tyler pointed out to me that he probably recommended it to help the chef move a particularly large shipment of octopi (actually that's the first time I've ever gotten to use the plural of octopus.  nice.) out of the kitchen.  I ordered it because I had in mind a nice bit of octopus that my brother had recently consumed at Babbo.  It was a salad sort of affair, a layer of grilled octopus amidst some leaves and dressing and maybe some lobster, I forget exactly what it had, but it was delicious.  My own octopus incident, unfortunately, was a lot more blatant.  I mean, when I say an entire octopus, I'm obviously not referring to a Monterey Aquarium-sized behemoth, tentacles sprawling off the table and into my lap.  I was afraid of octopi (there I go again) when I was little - I thought that one was going to crawl out of the Pacific Ocean and all the way to Bywood Drive, Oakland, to slide up the house wall and into my second-story bedroom to slowly suffocate me with its giant suckers.  Seriously.  This appetizer was nowhere near the size of one of those monsters from my nightmares, but it was certainly bigger than those little squid tentacles you get when you order calamari.  Those are cute.  THIS was an octopus that was bigger than my hand, fingers curled.  It was as big as Andre the Giant's hand, and it wasn't deep fried in tasty tempura either.

There are many things wrong with this dish, but the first was the presentation.  They were obviously going on shock value - seeing this come out on a plate is intimidating, and to show fear would have been to invite laughter from Rafael, not an appealing prospect.  I should have looked Rafael straight in the eyes and said "this is atrocious, take it back immediately and bring me the zucchini and mint crostinis, which will probably not look like they will eat me."  I didn't.  Shame on me, I smiled and took it. 

The presentation was obviously what they were counting on, which is a real pity, because it absolutely damns the dish from the get-go.  Had the octopus been sliced up, dressed, matched with a little mache or crispy potato or even deep fried (love deep fried), it would have been nice.  I like octopus, but I like it along with other ... things.  Things to eat with it so that I'm not just consuming a giant octopus alone.  I have to say that it was well-cooked, not rubbery, nice and salty, the ends of the tentacles were crunchy and tasty.  But it would have been nice to have a little something to cut all the octopussness, wouldn't it?

Finally, there was just ... too much.  I went through weird expectations upon first seeing the dish.  The first was, as I said before, shock and awe.  I couldn't believe they were serving me the whole thing!  but then, once I tucked in, I figured that it wasn't that big a deal, okay so I'm eating an octopus.  Whatever.  After about half, and pawning some of it off on Tyler in exchange for a lovely-looking salad with pancetta, I realzed that my first instinct was right.  How could they expect you to eat an entire fucking octopus, as an APPETIZER?  I gave up.  I left half the head (yes, think about that for a second now.  The head.) and a quarter of the tentacles.  I can't tell if Rafael smirked or grimaced as he cleared my plate.  What an asshole.


After the appetizer, it seems a sin to complain about the rest of the meal - anything is better by comparison.  But, I do have one beef - where's the beef?  Or more accurately, where's the lamb?  I had the pasta with lamb ragu, a nice choice (Rafael thought it was a good decision too, but we now know better than to trust his judgement), which came out on one of those little bowl/plates that holds much less than it appears to hold.  The pasta was tasty tasty - nice and al dente.  The sauce was good too, but the six little chunks of ragu-ed lamb didn't exactly fill me up.  I was left with a bowl full of sauce, a nice sauce, but one that might have come out of a jar - no real lamb-y flavor or depth.  The pasta, although delicious, was gone in no time. 

Now, I must digress for an instant here and say why sometimes I avoid ordering pasta at a restaurant.  It's that I know that it will simply be too much for me to eat.  It's filling, and I'd usually order something that I might not make at home.  NOW my thoughts on this subject have changed and I've begun ordering pasta at restaurants because I truly believe that really good restaurants do things with pasta that I couldn't accomplish in my wildest dreams. 

But this wasn't one of those dishes.  I could have made this one, and made it better.

Tyler's dish sort of was - it was simply spaghetti, parmesean cheese, and pepper, which sounds brainless, but was insanely good.  Just the right amount of cheesy.  Of course, Tyler was full by the end, I was not.  Could I also have made this?  Sure, but you gotta admire the balls of a restaurant to serve cheesy pasta to someone not ordering off of a kid's menu.  It's balls that are different than the octopus balls - this one is tapping into the fact that people want to love what they eat, not the one tapping into the idea that you can serve people shit at a restaurant and get away with it as long as your name is something like Bellavitae.

Dessert was the final frontier here.  We almost didn't get it, as we were pressed for time, but we were intrigued by the "dark chocolate clouds with Sicillian Pistachios" that topped the list.  Clouds?  Chocolate?  Pistachios?  Sign me up.

We got three little chunky pools of chocolate on a plate.  It reminded me of a time when I mixed a little NesQuik with milk and froze it, trying to make chocolate candy.  This was a bit more successful, but aesthetically we're talking deja vu.  We tried to cut into them which proved embarassing because the knife and spoon that they gave us kept clattering on the plate.  We ended up picking them up and chomping.  Granted, they were tasty.  Very tasty.  But giving us knives and spoons?  Calling them CLOUDS?  Fuck me, that's stupid. 

So there you have it.  If it weren't for Tyler's delicious spaghetti with cheese and pepper, this would have been a total failure.  And come on, how hard is it to do fucking cheesy pasta? 

There's a terrible feeling I get when I walk into a new and exciting eatery in California.  It's a feeling of terror and intense pressure.  I had better order the right thing, and in enough quantity to absolutely satisfy me, because I'm not going to be able to go back, to try again, in a week or two.  I'll be back in the cold grip of New Jersey, without means of repeating any sort of culinary experience like the one I had today.

I was on a search for some pink satin ribbon (forget why), and I drove to the only fabric store I knew of on the east side of the tunnel: Jo-Ann Fabrics in Concord.  Of course, it had been years since I had been there, and for all I could tell, it was gone.  As I drove around the area aimlessly, a bright yellow sign caught my attention.  It said "Ohana Hawaiian BBQ," and since I was hungry, I decided to give it a shot.

I ordered the Lau Lau Combo, which was the kalua pork over cabbage, pork in taro leaf, rice, and macaroni salad.  As an afterthought I threw in an order of Spam musubi.  It sounds so casual when I just state what I ordered, but you have to understand, I stood there for five minutes panicking with the onslaught of memory that the menu brought on.  I hadn't heard ramen called "saimin" for a decade.  Kona brand cookies stood in stacks like they used to in our pantry.  I felt my heart overflowing with love for the Hawaiian Sun non-carbonated juices in the mini-fridge, and almost said "aloha" back to the woman who greeted me from the counter.  I called my mom, once on her cell, once at work, then again on her cell.  No answer - she was out of luck, punished for having to work on such a miraculous day.  I wanted to try everything, but the reason that I chose the Lau Lau platter was simple: I had consumed this kind of meal relatively recently (within the past two years), and would at least have some modicum of basis for comparison. 

They packed up my food quickly, and I got it into the car, trembling with desire.  The drive home was torture, made even more unbearable by the detour I had to make to look once again for pink satin ribbon.  Again no luck (how can a quilting store not stock ribbon?), but as I was leaving the car to go into the store, I found myself insanely whispering to my lunch.  "Don't worry baby, I'll be right back.  I'm going to lock the doors so that you'll be safe, don't open them for anyone, ok?"  The smells of the earthy taro leaf, the salty pork, and sweetish seaweed greeted me with a warm, breathy kiss as I got back into the car. 

I shouldn't have worried about underordering.  In fact, that pretty much never, ever happens - I suffer from having eyes that are always bigger than my considerable stomach.  The only thing that I consumed completely was the macaroni salad, so soaked in mayonnaise that I had to eat it with some of the rice to cut the sauce.  It was heavenly.  The taro leaf was undesireable, as well I remembered it - and the pork inside was perfect and tender and shreddable.  The shredded kalua pork over cabbage was as tasty and free of fat globs and gristle as I could possibly want.  Two generous scoops of rice went a long way with the meal, which pleased me; it always seems like restaurants, whether Japanese, Thai, or Indian, try and skimp on the rice, which just doesn't make any sense.  But this place got the proportions just right.  The musubi was another masterpiece.  The Spam sat, not too thick, on the rectangle of rice, completely shrouded by a layer of nori (seaweed - that's right, my middle name, depending on characters used, could mean "seaweed child").  There was some delicately thin layer of sauce between the Spam and rice that I couldn't discern; maybe it was just the essence of the Spam melting onto its throne, and the nori was in such a perfect state of affairs, not gummy, gluey, or too toasted or crisp.  Essentially, except for its massive size, it was the most perfect conception of Spam musubi I had ever seen. 

After that totally satisfying and totally unhealthy meal, you can see why I might have these feelings of depression, desperation even.  I can't Hawaiian BBQ in Princeton.  Until today, I couldn't even get Hawaiin BBQ at will in California.  So you'll forgive me if I whimper a little at having to leave these shores for a colder place out east.






Oh, and while slicing radishes for a crab salad (see prev. entry) I cut my finger on the ceramic blade.  Hurt like a bitch.

Friday I went to Bouchon, in the Time Warner Center in New York. 

Let me preface this post with a little background.  This summer, in August, I went with my friend's family and my parents to Bouchon in Yountville, near Napa.  Bouchon is, shall we say, the little sister of French Laundry, both owned, operated, whatever, by Thomas Keller, one of the most respected chefs in the world, and one of the few Americans to win three Michelin stars.  Bouchon was a lovely restaurant proper with a bakery next door.  I had a delightfully flavored pork belly with lentils (talk about low fat) and moules frites, which were delightful.  I was, shall we say, getting my Thomas Keller legs.

I found out about Keller's New York restaurant "Per Se" in a rather roundabout way.  While reading "A Cook's Tour" by Anthony Bourdain, he devoted a chapter to his meal at French Laundry, and mentioned that Keller was going to be starting a New York restaurant soon.  As the book was published in 2001, I figured that this restaurant had probably already opened by 2006 (but you never know).  Concluding that it was somewhere in the SoHo or the trendy Village, I sort of let it go.  I'd like to go to French Laundry before Per Se, mostly because I like California more than I like New York.  Anyway. 

As it turns out, Per Se is housed in the magnificently modern, glassy Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle, two blocks away from where I work every Friday.  But alongside Masa (the most expensive restaurant in New York) and Per Se is Bouchon Bakery, and it was to there where I directed my steps on Friday.

The Bouchon Bakery cafe sits open in the center of the third floor, under a giant Samsung sign, which really threw me off at first.  The "totally Napa" sounds of wine glasses clinking, beverages pouring, and people chatting over delicacies was ... altered by the mall-y sounds of the rest of the building: the escalators, the shoppers, the echoes from the open floors.  I took my time at the take-out counter conveniently located to the left of the cafe, and ended up ordering a tuna nicoise sandwich, an endive and roquefort salad, and a selection of macarons.  And a "bouchon," a cork-shaped chocolate cake which is the specialty.  Duh.

I have to confess, I was really excited to eat these.  Thomas Keller is more myth than man in my experience, and having only been able to eat at one of his restaurants once, I was dizzy with the possibility of grabbing lunch there every frickin day.  Too bad the bill was $40.  Anyway, I got the treats back to my office and dug in. 

For what it was (basically a take-out salad and sandwich and some cookies), it was great.  Like, really great.  The sandwich was a nice balance of everything.  Some bites were eggy and smooth, some were olive-pungent, and there were paper-thin slices of radish, which I love love love as a texture thing in pretty much any ____-salad (tuna, chicken, potato, what have you).  The rustic roll was crunchy and soft, and not too difficult to wrap your maw around, nor too tough to break through with your teeth.  The endive salad was fine, although the pre-portioned dressing was too much (trusting Tom completely, I put the whole serving on my salad, with disappointingly soggy results).  Tiny dill pickles were cute but superfluous, and the sweet walnuts were lovely.  Apple chunks in the salad were a good addition too, though I was sort of expecting grapes (call me a traditionalist).  Tom also really skimped on the roquefort, but had a nice balance of small and large endive leaves and mache to complete the salad. 

Macarons were a let-down.  Having had the various flavors of Miette macarons, these were big, clunky, and heavy by comparison.  Filling them with lemon curd instead of buttercream was a stroke of genius, but this was the highlight of the cookie.  Not that they were bad, they just didn't impress.  And they cost a fortune.  I saved the bouchon to give to my boyfriend, and he let me have a bite and it was delicious.

Basically, it was a great lunch, but one that I'll have more often when I become an i-banker.  It completely met expectations - didn't go above and beyond, but was great anyway.  It even left me a little hungry at the end, like all fancy-schmancy meals are supposed to.  Right?  Right?

Look on Amazon.com for books about food and sex, and you'll get a whole slew of erotic cookbooks, personal narratives, and nonfiction devoted to the subject.  It doesn't take a genius to relate food to sex.  It's so natural.  Forget that we do the whole chocolate-covered strawberries thing, or that foods that look like phalluses or vaginas (ok, I have to get this off my chest: oysters really do NOT look like vulvas) are supposed to make us horny.  Food is sexy and all that, I mean lord knows I'm not one to be prudish about artichokes or anything, but come on.  After a while, it becomes a stretch.  Taste for pleasure, sure, but when you start talking about how everything is somehow related to sex, it gets ... boring.  First your'e talking about how the kitchen is the womb of the home and feminine, and next your talking about how Hitler's vegetarianism ties in with his need to have a young woman defecate on his face.  Books like The Sex Life of Food, by Bunny Crumpacker (how's that for a name?) are fun, but after a while, you have to take a step back from all the sex and just, well, live life.  It's like imbuing every conversation with meaning after reading a 19th century novel.  Next time I'm eating an asparagus, I don't want to think PENIS, and next time I eat a kiwi, I don't want to think about how it's a neuter fruit.  Thanks, Bunny.

This is why I was reluctant to devote a chapter of my senior thesis to food and sex.  Pick a book, any modern book, and you can talk about how the two main characters eating together is a metaphor for intercourse.  Or how a child's consumption of an apple is symbolic of their loss of innocence.  There are tons of texts that use food as a stand-in for sensuality.  But let's be honest: it's easy.  Like Water for Chocolate is a fine novel, but it's too obvious.  Food in books like The Joy Luck Club is better.  Food isn't sensual, it's about family.  There's a great scene where one of the daughters (it's a novel about four Chinese mothers, four Chinese-American daughters) is engaged to a white guy, though she hasn't told her mother.  The daughter convinces her mother to cook a big Chinese meal, including her signature Sichuan pork dish.  The mother, in typical Asian style, has this false modesty as she presents the dish, saying derrogatory things like "oh I didn't make it well this time," and before the daughter can tell her fiance the proper protocol, he says "no it's great, it just needs some soy sauce," and procedes to liberally apply shoyu to the immaculately seasoned food, to his future mother-in-law's horror.  The daughter is just as horrified, but there's a wonderful conversation after her fiance leaves.  She approaches her mother, really ready to confront her mother and tell her that she's marrying this guy, preparing for a big scene.  And the mom just says "of course you are, I know that."  It's a funny scene in the book, and I guess I'm going to have to figure out what it means in my thesis, but you know, it's totally non-sexual, it's maternal.  Bunny tries to make maternal sexual, and sometimes it works, sometimes it absolutely fails. 

I've been doing a lot of cooking since I've been home this vacation.  Lots of cookies, lots of baking, the occasional dinner.  I have to say, I've never felt sexy as I've cooked.  Food has never been foreplay.  I've cooked for boyfriends, boys I wished were boyfriends, boy friends, etc., but it's all about the final product.  I remember one night two summers ago, I was living in a studio apartment with a guy in Boston.  He had been a little sick, and so I made him chook, a sort of rice porridge with chicken broth that my mother used to make me when I was ill.  I spent a long time making it, defrosting cutting and boiling the chicken, cooking the rice down with the broth, etc.  I wanted it to be good, delicious, restorative.  I wanted it to be an edible demonstration of my love for him, and I feel no awkwardness in saying that it was a very maternal moment; what's more maternal than serving chicken soup to a sick kid?  I didn't want food to be sexual at all at that moment, but as Bunny might suggest, what's more sexual than eating together in a big fluffy white bed?  You gotta draw lines, man.  Sure food is sexy.  Eating mandarin oranges in bed, or biting into a really ripe peach, or (and this could be just me) feeding someone raw tuna, it's sensual, tactile, and fun.  But if I want to turn my boyfriend on to the pleasures of beets, it's not because beets are round and pretty and deeply colored and therefore female.  Nor is it because they are root vegetables, thick-skinned and bulbous and therefore inherently masculine.  You see where I'm going with this?  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes a really good meal is just a really good meal.  Nothing else. 

I'm coming back and editing this, I'm not sure it's coherent.  I'm really stuffed right now.

I looked at the two long-empty wine glasses, with stains at the bottom - red areolas of residue from a malbec, I think, or maybe that cab/sauv blend.  One of them was smaller than the other and I thought, which one of us drank the most from our cup?  Who tipped the skull back to get that last taste?  Which one of us was most likely, had there been a fireplace, to fling our glass into it?

That was one thought that flashed across my mind when I saw them today.  The other was, is there any more wine?

“Nature’s taken over my one-track mind,” sings Lou Christie.  He can’t stop, no he can’t stop.  This passion is a force to be reckoned with.  What’s it like, you might ask?  It’s like lightning.  Striking.  Again.  I must love this song.  There can be no other rational explanation for my absolute ecstasy when it comes on the radio.  I turn it up loud.  Shivers of what can only be delight go through me and right into the car seat as my fingers grip the wheel.  If there’s someone in the car with me, I’ll lift my voice above Lou’s Valli-esque keening to make myself heard.  It doesn’t happen very often; it’s not one of the frequently-played tunes on the radio.  But when it does happen, it takes center stage. 

But I don’t love this song, far from it.  You don’t have to be well-versed in feminist dogma to understand why a girl might be physically repulsed by this song.  Lou, it seems, can’t stop himself from cheating on his girlfriend with any chick who might be “put together fine,” or who “wants to make time.”  Live by my rules, he suggests to this hapless female, and if you can forgive and forget, we’ll totally get hitched.  Eventually.  You know, once all the pretty girls are gone.  I turn up the volume because I want to listen to exactly why I loathe it.  I shout because I want to talk about what’s wrong with it.  I want to look over at whoever is in the passenger seat and see them nodding with a frightened look in their eyes as they are confronted with my enthusiastic rage. 

Think about the structure of this song.  Lou tells his sweet thing “you’re old enough to know the makings of a man.”  There’s something creepy about this statement (I’m reminded of “Young Girl,” by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap), but so far, so good – he Tarzan, she Jane.  She’s the one that he can trust “to the very end.”  But here, it gets a little tricky.  Lou will see a pair of lips “begging to be kissed,” and he will be unable to control himself, unable to be faithful to whom we can only see as a luckless young girl, bewildered at the absence of fidelity in her man, who’s sexual mania gets the better of him each time he sees a beauty.  He promises marriage, he promises love forever.  He could promise a house in Barbados and yearly trips to Paris – this guy is still not getting into my pants.  Although Lou shares the same register with Frankie Valli, this song is not like “December 1963,” although that also has its mildly objectionable bits.  I had to point out to my dad, who has been listening to this song for decades, that it’s probably about a guy losing it to a prostitute.  His reaction was a sort of embarrassed “oh,” although I can’t imagine that he needed a 21 year old to explain it to him.  After all, he’s been singing along to “you know, I didn’t even know her name” since 1975.  Maybe in this age of the pimps, bitches, and ho’s that populate misogynistic songs, it might seem quaint to gripe about Lou’s philandering.  But still, I can’t help feeling rankled by it.

I’ve thought about my antipathy towards this song, how my abhorrence takes on an almost gleeful incarnation.  This doesn’t happen with other forms of art.  I wouldn’t pay forty bucks to go see a play, again, after I already had first-hand knowledge that it was awful.  But I paid iTunes ninety-nine cents to have the privilege of listening to Lou promise that he’ll make up for all lost time.  Now, each time I listen to this song it will cost less and less per play.  While I’ve written this it’s played five times.  That’s about twenty cents per play-count.  Not comparable to a seat in the dress circle for a real bomb.  But I’ve listened to it five times, and now for the next five hours or so, Lou will be in my head chanting again and again and again and again.  Would you buy a book, say, the newest Danielle Steel monstrosity, simply to go over the bad passages?  Would you highlight them and share them with your friends?  When your significant other walks into the room, do you grab the book and start reading out loud, hoping to share the horror?  Probably not.

I tried hard to find a parallel in food.  Surely there was some food to which I was so diametrically opposed as to make me take actual pleasure in eating and loathing it.  Sure there are foods that I find completely unpalatable.  Plain, raw tomatoes, for example, make me gag.  But if I pass by a salad bar, I don’t pop a couple in my mouth to indulge in how horrible they are to me.  I don’t sit across the table from my friends, tomato juice sluicing down my chin, wild-eyed and passionately explaining why I hate what I’m eating.  I thought about this for a long time, naming to myself all the foods that I disliked.  Li hing mui was right at the top of the list, as was eggplant and sweet pickles.  There were lots of foods that I’d rather avoid, but none that I’d liken to “Lightning Strikes.” 

It took a trip to the convenience store to show me that I had approached my search the wrong way.  I was looking in the wrong place; it wasn’t about taste, it was about the entire message.  Break down “Lightning Strikes,” and you get a pretty good beat, a happy melody and an overall catchy tune.  Aside from the annoying background singers (opie-ahh-ooo?) and the random church bells, it’s the lyrics and their implications that really set me over the edge.  And as I was looking for an afternoon snack among the cookie aisle, I lighted upon what was ultimately my answer to Lou: the fat-free snack cookie. 

Cookies are meant to have sugar and butter and eggs.  Cretins at SnackWell’s™ decided to create a “Devil’s Food Cookie Cake” that they could bill as fat free and only fifty calories per serving.  Each cookie is a “moist rich chocolatey cake wrapped in luscious marshmallow and covered with irresistible chocolate icing.”  “Amazing,” SnackWell’s™ says in its own praise.  Obviously these little treats are a dieter’s dream.  Each cookie is considered a single serving.  Unfortunately, the first three ingredients are sugar, enriched flour, and corn syrup.  They may only have 50 calories per snackie, but in no way are they healthy, diet-conscious, or in any other way miraculous. 

I definitely bought a package of these.  I ripped open the plastic as soon as I got back home and wolfed down four right away.  They’re pretty gross.  The icing is more of a chocolate parody than an irresistible indulgence.  The luscious marshmallow is but a wimpy white line, more of a token marshmallow coloring.  The cookie overall is dry, depthless, flat.  But I’m eating a fifth one right now, however high I might roll my eyes at the concept.  The aftertaste is foul.  The promise is misleading – you can’t eat these cookies and lose weight.  But still, I’m looking toward the container for a sixth, and hoping to foist some off on my hallmate.  I can’t stop, no, I can’t stop myself.  I can’t honestly say that I enjoy these cookies, but I dislike them in the same way that I dislike “Lightning Strikes.”  It’s a dislike that stems from a principle.  I’m against diet foods, as I am against songs with decidedly stupid lyrics.  I’d back a political candidate that was anti-lite knockoffs that only serve to irk and repulse and make you crave something with more substance.  But it shouldn’t suggest that I don’t perversely enjoy partaking in both on occasion.  For all I tell myself that I’m only reinforcing my detestation, there’s an unavoidable amount of pleasure that I get from Lou and Snackwell’s that I’d rather deny. 

Stroop.  It's ingredient list is simply "suikerstroop."  Suggested uses are over "yoghurt, ijs, kwark, cornflakes, en up de boterham."  My mom and I spent five breathlessly giggly minutes over that last one.  We'd also like to try stroop over kwark, if we could find it.

I saw stroop last night, and got that old yearning,
and I knew the spark of love was still burning. 
There'll be no new romance for me, it's foolish to start,
for that old, old feeling is still in my heart. 

I promise my parents that if they let me go to Amsterdam, I will ship home some strooooop.  "It's pronounced StROPE," my dad corrects me, wiping drool off his chin.  "Pass the stroop," says my mom, pupils dilating with delight as she pulls another crepe onto her plate. 

On the floor of Tokyo
Or down in London town to go, go
With the record selection
With the mirror reflection
I'm dancing with my stroop.

My dad comes in to wake me up in the morning.  "WHY can't they sell stroop in the grocery store?  It's so much better than syrup" is the first thing I hear as I open my eyes.  "Speaking of which, you'd better come and get some waffles before Mom eats them all."

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with stroop.

We put it over our ice cream after dinner and watch in awe as it turns semi-solid.  There's nothing the stroop can't do.  Mom pours a little onto a spoon "to see what it tastes like in its pure form."  I roll blueberries around my empty bowl to pick up the last of the stroop and melted ice cream.  Stroop goes well with riesling.  We find notes of stroop in our cabernet. 

Stroop, you really got me goin
You got me so I dont know what I'm doin
Stroop, you really got me now
You got me so I cant sleep at night.

www.recchiuti.com

You know that Etta James song, "At Last"?

It's all that sensual yearning and almost smug satisfaction, that sexy, rich voice and that sweet, singing violin.  In chocolate.

They are the only truffles worth buying.  Green box to impress, black box to seduce, burgundy box to apologize for running over her dog.

Not cheap, but entirely worth it.

Or: Compulsory Eating
Or: The Bus Made My Butt Big

When I was in London, for the last two weeks, my shelf in the communal kitchen fridge held a lot of spoiled veggies, some fresh Greek yoghurt, and rhubarb compote.  And honey.  Ok, and some really good cheese.  But that was it - most of my eating was done in restaurants.  It started with the trip to Edinburgh with my parents and friend Air.  We had room service at the bar and a great hotel breakfast, not to mention one of the best Indian meals of my life in a very "we used to own this country" sort of restaurant.  The restaurant streak continued throughout Air's visit, into Bridget's stay, and finally I began all the "goodbye" meals with my coworkers, program friends, and miscellaneous natives we had come to know and love.  Whether it was dinner at a cheese-heavy Mexican place in Covent Garden or simply a bowl or three of chips at the Queen's Arms, I found myself reaching time and again for my credit card while gazing forlornly over emptied plates of tagine or tapas, sashimi or sandwiches.  Crispy duck at three in the morning became necessary to top off an evening in Soho.  Lunch after class more often than not involved rich curries or French onion soup.  Eating out had moved from an occasional pleasure, as it was in the beginning of my summer, to the only time when I might be able to see the people I liked (sober), due to our increasingly busy schedules.  Mealtimes became the time to gripe about work, discuss what cool projects we were working on, and tease eachother about attatchments.  Grilled mussels gratin seemed the best dish over which to chat about my friend Meghan's London paramour, and sushi was a perfect pre-theater nosh.  Post-theater food is an unquestionable necessity, of course.  This restaurant crush also unhappily coincided with my finally figuring out the bus system.  I am pathologically afraid of public transportation, a fear that I had to conquer in this un-drivable city, but buses were the worst of the worst.  I got to relying on one in particular, the number 9, which ran from Picadilly through Knightsbridge and to the corner of Queen's Gate and Kensington Gardens, my home.  So quick, so pleasant, and so much shorter of a walk than from 14 Queen's Gate to the Gloucester Road tube station, ten to fifteen minutes away, depending on how fast you were jogging.  In the intense and un-air conditioned heat of London July, the bus was as close to teleportation as I got.  The point being, the less you excercise and the more you eat, the bigger your rear will be at the end of a few weeks. 

I found, upon my return to California, that all this eating out had a more lasting impact than the pleasure of a good meal.  One only has to have difficulty buttoning up one pair of expensive jeans to realize the annoyance that restaurant-living can cause.  I set out to get back into shape before school resumed.  As much as I abhor dieting and the girls who make a big deal out of it, I didn't think I was equal to the task of explaining to my parents why I needed to shell out a few more bucks for clothes.  I could cut back, and besides, home cooking (at least in my household) is inevitably more low-cal than restaurant food.  And not as tasty.  Things were looking good for slimming down.

What I didn't realize was that the dining didn't stop once I was back in the colonies. 

The first afternoon of my return, some of my friends picked me up to go to Chows, a great restaurant near my house.  They have fantastic pork chops, served with grilled chard that makes me see colors.  The also do a great pot roast, as well as delicious sides like fried mozzerella in sauce.  Happy to be home, I ate lots.  My friend Julia came for a visit that evening.  We headed to Napa in the morning, and while my parents attended a wedding ceremony, Julia and I had nachos and quesadillas as room service by the pool while we sunned.  The evening saw a filling bbq and lots of wine tasting.  An ample bacon and eggs and bagels with smoked salmon breakfast started the next day, and the following few days were to see us at a Greek restaurant, an ice cream parlor, a Pimm's party, and a huge dim sum lunch.  Julia left, and I was still full.  I began taking jogs around the resevoir near our home.  The next weekend followed - Napa again, this time with Air and her family, for more wine tasting and a particularly gourmet lunch at La Bouchon in Yountville, a block away from the French Laundry.  Last night my friend Cecca called me to ask me to drive her to the airport at 5 the next morning.  She thanked me as I dropped her off, and promised to buy me lunch when she got back.  It is impossible to stop the eating.  Today I had chicken udon in Japantown.  Tomorrow I head to my relations to have a very Japanese feast at the restaurant of a lovely Japanese woman who will bully us into ordering dessert.  And Japanese food, no matter how slim those lovely Asians might seem, is anything but healthy when you're eating it in American-sized portions.  Deep-fried pork chop?  yes, please.  Mounds of rice with fatty tuna?  duh.

And it is impossible for me not to order big when I order out.  A shared meal is surprisingly intimate.  Sitting at a table with another person, or three, or four, eating family-style, has a particular effect on me, making me at ease enough to reach across a table and wipe sauce off of a face which I may have just met.  Eating is so convivial, and what good is it if all you're doing is picking at a salad while eyeing others' glistening fatty cuts of meat with insatiable envy?  How insulting to leave your dining companions feeling gluttonous as you sip sparkling water hoping that the bubbles will fill you up.  How cold you must seem, how lacking any sort of joi de vivre.  Give me appetizers, desserts, extra bread, and duck preserved in its own fat.  Open your heart and let butter in.  Accept the love of pork fat and achieve eternal salvation. 

Can the occasional run around the Lafayette resevoir save me from a fate of elastic-waisted skorts?  Can one of two trips to the gym keep me in leggings and tank tops?  I doubt it.  But my hope is that the dining out will finally stop when my choices are Thai Village and Kalluri Corner.

As long as there is art, there will be critics, and anyone who has ever dined at one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants or eaten at the Fat Duck will tell you that food is, indeed, art. Restaurants are a form of performance art; the delicate pas-de-deux between the server and the patron, the blood, sweat and tears behind a good meal, and the often delightful, sometimes disastrous appearance of the final product, to say nothing of flavor, all come together to make a two-hour experience that should stand out in the patron's mind as pleasurable, not painful. Much like other forms of art, its appreciation depends on the taste of those who take it in. The problem with food criticism is that restaurants change from year to year, month to month, even day to day. A book critic does not face the problem of giving a book a positive review one day, and then hearing a week later that the book has closed due to health code violations. A film critic does not have to worry about the film changing its cast of characters. Theatre critics probably share the most simpatico with food critics, as actors on stage can shine one night and bomb the next; however, shows only last a certain amount of time before they close, and while the same can be said for many restaurants, for the food world, the closing of a restaurant has less to do with time and more to do with failure and financial ruin. Publications like Square Meal Guide, Time Out, and TopTable do their best to plunge into this world and sort out the good, the bad, and the tasteless.

The niche is crowded here in the UK. Good Food Magazine is owned and run by the BBC. The content of its monthly magazine is less about restaurants and more about food and recipes, much like Gourmet and Bon Appetite in the US. Time Out is a well-read monthly that covers restaurants and does reviews, as well as putting out a restaurant guide each year. However, they also focus on theater, movies, television, music, travel, etc. They have incredible resources, but they are much less focused on food as other publications. There are multiple websites that write reviews of restaurants, clubs, bars, and the like. Websites like beerintheevening.co.uk, thepubfinder,net, and viewlondon.co.uk all offer various reviews of the London food and drink scene. Square Meal offers its readers a very specific kind of information. There are thousands of restaurants in London alone; Square Meal magazine and website attempt to encapsulate the best of those venues while keeping the reading public interested and engaged.

Square Meal does well in this business. With tens of thousands of subscribers and hundreds of thousands of visitors to the website, Square meal is a trusted source of information for people desiring short, concise snapshots of London restaurants and information on what's going on in the food world. All of the public can use the website (www.squaremeal.co.uk) as well as purchase the guide (it's listed on Amazon). Residents of London can subscribe, for free, to the quarterly magazine.

My personal objectives for this internship were simple. I wanted to gain a basic knowledge of how the company is put together, how they establish themselves as a credible publication, and how this team of so few people manages to publish a really massive amount of work in a year. I also wanted to gain experience in writing and editing, and if possible, come out with some samples of my own work that have been published either on the website or in one of the magazine.

In my time at Square Meal, it has become apparent that the ways in which the company reviews restaurants is a bit disorganized and haphazard (ironically, words I used to describe service at a Covent Garden restaurant called Le Palais du Jardin). Reviews, while meticulously edited to fit the style and tone of the guide, are often bewilderingly inconsistent in their methods. While writing the reviews, the writers are either given a review meal at the restaurant which is arranged through the restaurant's PR, or they go to the restaurant on company expenses, or they go, look at the interior, pick up a menu, and ask if there have been any major changes. All reviewers reference reader comments to see how the public is being treated at the restaurant. Many of these comments are virulently negative (as it is usually after a very bad experience that a reader is inspired to take the time to write in) and some are glowingly positive, but some restaurants don't have any reader comments at all. Consistency is a problem, a big problem. Eleanor, my boss, told me that I should strive to provide a snapshot of the restaurant for the readers. I wonder if this is fair.

Raymond Snoddy (what a great name), in his book The Good, The Bad, and The Unacceptable remarks that "enormous personal suffering can be caused by individual newspaper stories that are inaccurate ... for no good reason." And while he is referring to more serious issues in journalism (AIDS, in particular) the same certainly applies, or should apply, across the board. The truth should be something towards which the writer should strive. Harold Evans, in Editing and Design, states that "at every stage of communication there is a risk of distortion and error. The deskman has to reverse this natural tendency." I'd like to highlight "distortion." I think that it is hard to get a truthful look at a restaurant if the PR has arranged the reservation and the waiters and chefs all know that the reviewer is there. Unfortunately, Square Meal does not have the funds to review all of its restaurants anonymously, and unfortunately it's true that when a reviewer is given special treatment, the review is likely to be more positive than what would have normally been the case. Such has been the case with my reviews where I had a free meal. A greater degree of equalization is necessary for the readers to get the full picture.

I had a review meal at Sofra, a little Turkish restaurant in Covent Garden. I had a reservation for 7.30 for two, but we showed up a little early. The restaurant was not particularly busy, so we were seated right away, but by a man who spoke little English. We had a lovely meal; everything was well-cooked, the meats were tender and tasty, our mezze platter was very nicely presented, and the service was courteous and pleasant - the waitresses were sweet and helpful, and they smiled; a rarity in English service. At the end of the meal, I asked the waitress if everything was taken care of with our bill. She gave me a blank stare as she tried to present me with the bill, the bill which I wasn't supposed to pay. My stomach sank - I asked her if she knew that we were from Square Meal. After some confusion, the manager came sprinting up the stairs and started apologizing profusely, saying that the man who seated us did not realize that we were from Square Meal, that they had set out a lovely table for us, that he was going to serve us personally, and had come all the way over from his other restaurant in Regent Street to serve us. I reassured him that everything was fine, we had had a delightful meal, but he was so distraught that we assented to having a glass of dessert wine (he tried to force a bottle of Champagne on us). As we were leaving, he pressed his restaurant's cookbook into my hands, as a sort of last-ditch effort to impress. I thought to myself, although it would have been nice to have been fawned over, we really got the authentic experience. No special treatment, no extra goodies, but it was really quite nice. I would recommend the restaurant whole-heartedly, and shouldn't have to be pampered to do so.

Anthony Bourdain, in his memoir "Kitchen Confidential," mentions in an offhand sort of way that often someone in a new restaurant will be on constant, vigilant lookout to see if the New York Times food critic comes in. Food critics don disguises, try to be sneaky, but as Bourdain implies, they often fail. What does this say about the food criticism industry? What should, or can, be done? Again, theater critics share with food critics the same sort of challenge. Plays will have "press nights" so that the critics can review it before it comes out to the public. Theater critics have the opposite problem; these performances are often worse because of the pressure. However, at least the critic can look at the text of the play and asses whether the writing is any good; food critics don't get the chance to inspect the kitchen and the meat before or after they eat it.

I learned that the publication is percieved as being more credible than it actually is; my ethical disappointment in the way the reviews are done outweighted my personal delight in recieving free meals. However, I must say that for the employees, this is a huge benefit. This is not a high-paying job, but most people in London can't afford to eat at many of the restaurants that these workers review. Overall, I am satisfied with my placement at Square Meal, although there were certainly things that I wanted to accomplish that I didn't have the opportunity to do. While I'm not about to sign up to join their ranks, I've learned quite a lot this summer.

Women's magazines, guy friends, moms, and it seems like everyone else will tell you that when you're on a date, you shouldn't just order a salad. It's sexy to dive into the double bacon cheesburger or the chicken cacciatore instead of picking your way through a field of greens. Dressing on the side. The reason is that your date will perceive you as a finicky eater, and you don't have to be enrolled in "the Literature of Gastronomy" to know that food equals more than what you put into your stomach. Food can indicate your zest for life, your sense of adventure, and supposedly food can suggest how you'll be in the bedroom. For some reason, burger equals no holds barred equals great sex. But let's be honest for a second here. You sort of are what you eat, despite it all. A guy might ask a svelt girl on a date, to be pleasantly surprised that she orders not the ceaser salad sans croutons, but the prime rib with the lemon aioli. But a girl who constantly eats thick steaks is going to end up looking, sooner or later, like a thick steak, so chances are that sure, she wants the steak, but she's also following Cosmo's or Glamour's advice and trying to show her sexy side. I think that chowing down on a fatty dinner in order to show her fun side is just as much of a misrepresentation as nibbling on some celery while secretly craving the pasta alla puttanesca.

I admit, this is not universal. Lots of girls, myself included, view a dinner out as a way to indulge, purely for pleasure, in a rich meal that she would not normally have, so the choice of entree has less to do with trying to impress the guy than with the simple desire for a nice meal. But there's something about meat that seems to be particularly appealing. It shouldn't be - apparently "studies" have shown that women who smell meat cooking are less likely to be in the mood (of course i don't have the source for this). There are much better foods for said purpose. Oysters. Pears. Asparagus. Chocolate. Anything covered in honey. And artichokes.

The artichoke is the sexiest food. Eating one is a seduction. It’s a bodice-ripper, a striptease. There’s something erotic about even the preparation of the artichoke. You snip away its spikes, leaving it harmless, vulnerable. After a hot steam, it emerges, tender and luscious, but still fully clothed. One by one you peel off the outer layers, sucking and scraping the flesh off of the leaves as you anticipate the center. The discarded leaves pile up like clothes by a bed as one by one they are dipped in mayonnaise, stripped, and cast away. Finally, after peeling off the tender inner leaves (undergarments, if you will) and scraping away the choke, the last of the artichoke’s defenses, you reach the heart of the fruit, succulent and tender which leaves a sweet aftertaste in your mouth. Utterly satisfied, you first want a cigarette. Then you want to do it all over again.

See? Way hotter than a side of beef. If a girl's doing this in a restaurant, watch out.

Arguably the best part of visiting with my family is the food that we eat. I hate to admit it, but I love it when people pay for my meals. Eating a Qdoba burrito in the Copley Center food court is made that much better by seeing my mom reach into her wallet and plunk down the cash. Perhaps it's not an appreciation for politesse or chivalry that makes me happy when a guy treats me to dinner. Maybe it's a more basic, primitive instinct: it's a delightfully ugly pleasure in getting something for nothing.

When mammals evolved, they had to fill what niche was available. The early mammal ancestor was nocturnal, and survived off of insects for its dietary needs. This was a very viable source of protein and fat, but to capitalize on it these early mammal ancestors also had to change their method of digestion. Because these cold-blooded reptiles were nocturnal, they had to consume lots of food in order to get the energy they needed; the energy came not from the sun, but from the food that they ate. To speed the process of food-to-energy, the first stages of digestion moved to the mouth. Once bitten, the food is pushed to the back of the mouth where the molars are, and the molars grind the food, with the addition of saliva, into a pulpy mass, or bolus, which is then swallowed. This breakdown of the food was essential for the mastication of insects with their hard exoskeleton, and it lead to the ability to derive nutrition better from plants. Plants contain cellulose, which makes it difficult for the stomach to access the nutrients inside a kernel of corn, for example. In order to get at the nutrients inside the cell wall, teeth are responsible for breaking down the structure using brute force. Heterodonty was not only useful for insects, and as mammals moved into more dominant niches, their menu expanded as well. Human heterodonty allows for us to consume a variety of substances: grains, meats, fruits, nuts, insects. Burritos. All that evolution suggests that humans had to evolve to take what they could get out of the environment. We catch as catch can, so grabbing a free meal is like evolutionary success. And thanks to the invention of reliable birth control, it's the only sort of evolutionary success that I'll be having for quite some time.

Is it parasitic, for me to find guilty pleasure in watching my mom pay for my food? Yes. But I consider it semi-earned. After all, I did have to spend the weekend listening to how I should be getting better grades.

Alexis informs me that this summer they had tomato gelato.

So, here's the thing about tomatoes. Everyone knows that even though they're not sweet, they're actually fruit, not vegetables. You learn that in like, third grade when you go into a botany unit (I believe it's right after the electricity unit. That was fun, seeing if a popsicle stick would be a conductor for your mini-light bulb. Some disappointments last a lifetime). However, what a lot of people don't know, but is completely logical when you think about it, is that the tomato belongs to the berry family. Berries! Berry juice, berry pulp, whole berries, berry everything is good in ice cream. That being said, despite the tomato's berry-status, it does not belong in a gelateria. You could put a blueberry coulis on your shortcake, but you put tomato sauce on your lasagna. Strawberries garnish chocolate souffle, tomatoes garnish burgers. As creative as the crossover attempts to be, I have the same problems with tomato gelato as with the avocado gelato (although in the pretentious gelato hierarchy, tomato IS less annoying than avocado).

Oh, and this is cool: Avocado (which is also a fruit, by the way) is self-thinning. Desired clonal rootstocks can be be propagated by a method known as the etiolation technique. Who knew?
(courtesy of Avocado Fruit Facts, http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/avocado.html. Princeton has got me nervous about not citing my sources.)