Sunday: Other Than the 2 Tbls. of Butter …

Other than the 2 Tbls. of butter that I used over the course of cooking, well, this scramble is pretty damn healthy. Which isn’t to say it couldn’t be improved with cheese. And which also isn’t to say that it surpasses in quality the lox and eggs I had the other weekend. 

Nonetheless, a protein-rich and delicious start to a beautiful Sunday. I had a couple of things going on at once: I quick-poached a salmon fillet (Whole Foods does a good all-purpose, Wild King Salmon 2-pack) while I sautéed all these fresh veggies (zucchini, red bell pepper, tomato). 

                                          I pulled out the salmon before it was entirely done, deskinned, and added to the vegetables. The last step was to add the eggs, which I just cracked on top of everything. For a brief moment, I entertained the idea of keeping the yolks in tact … that is, until I broke one. At which point I went for glory and mixed everything as well as possible. And then ate it all.

Saturday: The “This Is Why Summer Is My Favorite” Post

Reason no. 1 of what is going to be a fairly long, running list: impromptu barbecues! 

After about an hour browsing the (amazing) cookbook section at the (also amazing) Strand bookstore, I was really hungry. I called a friend, who, as it turned out, was hungry too and happened to be at our friend’s apartment in Brooklyn that has a backyard BBQ area (this is where we barbecued last weekend, too). 

A short 10-minute subway ride later, we all rendez-voused at Sunac Natural Foods,  just off the Lorimer stop on the L Train if you take the exit where you pop up by Union Street. We picked up some curry chicken salad, potato salad, a package of hot sausages, requisite buns, and two of the most perfect avocados I’ve ever purchased in my life. Really, they were absolutely perfect: Soft and ripe without being bruised, mid-to-large sized, smooth like butter. Just beautiful. I would pay $1.99 for an avocado every single time and have no qualms about it if avocados were always like these ones. 

The rest, as they say, is history. Since I’ve been raving about the avocados, which were turned into my picnic table (play on tableside) guacamole, here’s the recipe:

Picnic Table Guacamole 

1 ripe avocado
2 Tbls. salsa
1/2 lemon
garlic powder
salt and pepper

Scoop out avocado into a bowl; add two spoonfuls (or more, to taste) of salsa. Squeeze juice from half lemon; add healthy shakes of garlic powder, salt and pepper. (estimate 1/2 teaspoon?) Mash, mash, mash, with a fork. Eat. Savor.

Dinner: The $5.50 Italian Combo Latenight Hero – Hero

I just couldn’t do pizza again; it wasn’t that sort of day. So I was more than delighted to discover that Fat Sal’s, which has no less than four signs proclaiming ”Pizza,” sells a whole lot more. 

Stopping at Fat Sal’s was a strategic move: I was heading out to a bar on a mostly-empty stomach, so bringing food with me was a preemptive move. The chalkboard menu includes full-on plates of pasta, baked pasta dishes, chicken and veal options, pizza (of course), all written in this meticulous block-print handwriting.

I gravitated toward the sandwiches: portable, delicious and good now or in three hours (proven!). I was intrigued by the veal hero (only $7.25!, note to self for later), I opted for that classic cold-cut combo: The Italian. Ham, salami, mortadella, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion.

This thing was enormous! I carried it around tucked into my arm like a football for a while, and when I finally broke it out, it satisfactorily fed three of us.

It also came with a small container of red wine vinegar, laced with herbs, that would have made an excellent drizzle on the whole thing, had I not assumed it was a sample of coleslaw or something and not opened it until there were just a few bites left. Next time …

Lunch: Not Sure What I Just Ate, But Don’t Think I’d Call It “Pizza”

When you get right down to it, New York is really so weird about pizza. There’s a certain pride about it; “the pie” is one of those iconic food symbols of the city. There’s also the egalitarian bent: The slice as common ground. We all stop in for a slice, at some point or another; in a city this diverse, that is something to take pride in.

All this pride and emotion leads to a certain protectiveness of pizza’s merits, as if the acknowledgment of the existence of bad pizza, or un-pizza would somehow make these principles less glorious. (Entirely untrue!) So what to make of this? 

… I was confronted with all these thoughts and more today when, in one of the most humble of all restaurant establishments, the stripmall pizza joint, I found one of the strangest pizzas I’ve ever seen in my life. I discovered the “Fresca Pie” ($30) , “fresh mozzarella, fresh diced tomatoes and fresh basil,” ready and waiting in all its diced tomato glory at Paradiso Restaurant & Pizzeria in Rockville Centre, a small town on Long Island that’s just a short, 40-minute LIRR ride from Penn Station.

How would this bruschetta-pizza love-child hold up against the sanctity of the slice? I like to consider myself fairly judicious, but even I don’t think I’d call it pizza.

More like: fresh mozzarella and tomato salad, that happens to be on top of a doughy, breadstick-like square. But what does this mean? I’m still not sure, but today turned out to be a much bigger day than I’d imagined.

Breakfast: The Hojicha Green Tea Mystery Train

Isn’t “light caffine” and “green tea” a bit of a paradox?

       I mean if we’re comparing apples to apples, green tea certainly is not the tea drinker’s half-caff. So why list “light caffine” as the third bullet point front-and-center on the packaging unless Mighty Leaf is advertising the fact that they’ve actually gone in and lightly decaffinated the tea? Therein lies they travesty, at least in my view, tired already before the day’s begun, chugging away on the Long Island Rail Road before the clock’s even struck 8 a.m.

Dinner: What Is a Ciabattine? (aka the Breakfast at Tiffany’s Sandwich Post)

Not exactly a sandwich bread — the ciabattine  turned out to be a little tough, would have made excellent olive oil dipping bread — I was so excited about the rosemary I could see caught in its crevices (the ciabattine) that I bought it anyway. 

I keep calling the bread a “ciabattine” because I called it a mini-baguette at the bread counter at Agata & Valentina and was promptly corrected, and of course I don’t want to intentionally mislead anyone. (Unintentionally is another matter.) Of course, I came home and immediately Googled “ciabattine” in search of illumination: There are plenty of Italian references, not many in English, and one very interesting use of “ciabattine” as a Flickr tag for photos that have nothing to do with bread (as far as I can discern).

… Back on track now. The ciabattine still served its purpose as the basis for my brie, basil and strawberry sandwich, which is a trifecta I would repeat any day, although maybe next time on a softer roll.

There’s just something special about brie and strawberries — a little bit of decadence on an otherwise ordinary day. Strikes me as very Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s … while relatively simple, it gives off the air of having grandiose plans. 

Lunch: The Surprising Success of the Salad that Was an Afterthought

I paused, passing the kitchen on my rush out the door this morning, remembered I had some salad greens in there that needed eating, grabbed them, along with a bit of chicken and some onion that needed eating, and ran to work.

At work, I remembered that I had the end of a container of Wakim’s Foods garbanzo salad (which I’ve blogged about before, here and here), and some couscous.

I sensed something Mediterranean-ish transpiring, so I picked up some cubes of feta, marinated artichoke pieces and red onion (forgetting I had onion) and a hot pepper at the corner deli salad bar.

Somehow, all these forgotten elements conspired to make a really excellent salad: chickpeas in a lemon-y, herbal, olive oil dressing, plus rotisserie chicken, feta cheese, sliced onion. I love when an afterthought leads to a revelation.

Breakfast: Liquid Infusion

I believe in eating when you’re hungry, which I’m apparently not this morning, so I’m easing into the day with some of the sweetest-tasting orange juice I’ve had in a long time — actually the flavor and bright orange-y color lead me to believe it is, in fact, not orange juice at all but tangerine juice.

I love periodically picking up these little bottles of fresh-squeezed juice from the corner deli (they’re sold everywhere in New York) because the bottle is a perfect 8 oz., exactly one serving size of fruit juice. I’ll wash and reuse the bottle a bunch of times before recycling. (This post will make my mother happy.)

Dinner: “This Is Where I Try To Write My First Recipe” Post (Green-Eyed Pasta Salad)

Let’s rock ‘n’ roll. If anyone tries this, let me know how it works: 

(For more on the genesis of the recipe, and the outdoor photo shoot, see my Tuesday, May 26, 2009 lunch post.)

Green-Eyed Pasta Salad

8 oz. pasta of your choice; something curly works best. Fresh, even better. 
10-ish Brussels sprouts, washed, bottoms chopped off, each sliced into four lengthwise pieces
1/3 – 1/2 lb. English peas, shelled, rinsed
4 oz. summer sausage, casing peeled, diced into strips of thickness of your choice
2 Tbls. caper berries — heaping tablespoons, if you like ‘em (I used about 8 large Sicilian green olives, diced, but I think the salad would be improved with the capers. Plus, more “green eyes.”)
1/2 c. chopped fresh basil (rinse, pat dry with paper towel, pluck leaves, roll leaves into little bundle, slice lengthwise)
1 Tbls. lemon juice (start with this and taste, more can always be added)
1/3 c. (aka hefty circular drizzle) E.V.O.O. (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
Mixed lettuce greens (handful per serving; optional) 

Boil water for pasta; begin cooking pasta per directions. 

Meanwhile, prep Brussels sprouts, peas, summer sausage and basil. (It’ll make your life easier; pretend you’re the host of a cooking show).

Boil water (small saucepan) for peas. 

Microwave (aka cheating blanching) sliced Brussels sprouts 2 min with dash of water, loosely covered. 

Let cooked pasta drain in sink in colander; return pan to heat and sauté summer sausage over medium-high heat (should brown and smell damn good, but not burn, bottom of pan stickage is okay) until generally hot and visible browning. Turn out onto previous prep location. 

Add Brussles sprouts to pasta/sausage pan; cook on medium-high heat about five minutes, until fragrant and visible browning. Turn out onto previous prep location. 

Add peas to boiling water; cook until tender (about five minutes).

Return pasta to pan; drain peas.

To pasta, add: sausage, Brussels sprouts, drained peas, caper berries, hefty drizzle of E.V.O.O. and lemon juice. Mix. 

Add fresh basil. Mix.

Taste. Adjust for taste. Mix again. Serve over handful of lettuce greens (optional). 

Serves: 4

Lunch: Schnipper’s Surprises (Involves Burgers and Beer)

There’s no way a stand-alone restaurant could continue to operate in such prime real estate as the northwest corner of the New York Times building without turning out a fair bit of business, which means the food can’t be bad, or even mediocre really, because a fair bit of business, by definition, requires a fair number of repeat customers. Convenience and traffic from the adjacent Port Authority, be damned.

I had a Schnipper’s Quality Kitchen experience a few months back and it was — meh. A green chile cheeseburger ($8.99) that smacked of Tex-Mex and overwhelmed the patty that was way too well done. Needless to say, as this blog can attest, I’ve avoided their expensive burgers (six of eight fall in the $6.99 – $9.75 range) since.

Today, almost out of desperation (that’s another story), I decided to give it another go. I think I finally get it. I think I learned how to eat at Schnipper’s Quality Kitchen:

1. Don’t go. Stay. It might be counter-intuitive to the lunch “hour” most anyone I know doesn’t take, but a burger and fries are two foods that just do not transport, even if you’re carrying them yourself.

There is no re-solidifying cheese allowed. Let’s not even talk about the fries that got soggy from their own hotness inside the paper bag/takeout container. Stay. Eat. Schnipper’s does a good burger, and even better fries, but you’re wasting the experience if you wait to eat. (Plus, you miss out on the cute circular tray and Schnipper’s retro-styled paper lining.)

2. Stick with the basics. Their other burgers are probably improved from eating on site also, but there’s something about a classic cheeseburger, that I shelled out a *mere* $5.99 for, that tastes so much better than the $8.99 green chile burger. Hmm. Might have been the fries ($2.75).

3. Insist — as in repeat — your desired burger done-ness. Do I eat bad beef? Try not to. You say you have good (decent) beef? Okay I want it cooked medium-rare.

I look at my receipt and I do not see “medium rare” explicitly listed out, as in, after the toppings somewhere. So I reconfirmed that I want my burger medium rare, and the cashier smiles at me and says, “It doesn’t show up on your receipt, but it shows up on the one for the cooks.”

“Great, thanks,” I say. Guess what. Burger showed up medium rare.

4. Schnipper’s for happy hour? Yes! Hear me out. They have a half-dozen really decent beers priced at $5.50 / 16 oz.; 12 oz. PBR cans $3; suddenly after 5 o’clock Schnipper’s menu prices come within range, cheap even, compared to bar snacks or other like options, and there’s a gigantic outdoor seating area from which to watch the sun set over the Port Authority. … seriously, I think this guy’s got the right idea. (You can always move inside.)

*TIP: There are a bunch of other menu options, most of which are priced out of my lunchtime budget but might make an excellent early dinner: two fish tacos, $8.99; grilled four cheese with bacon, $8.99; chopped market salad with chicken, $11.99.