KP: Beer-Roasted Chicken & Veggies (aka the “Finally, We’re Cooking With Gas!” Post)

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that for the majority of the life of The BLD Project I haven’t had a properly working oven to call my own.

The imperative word here is almost. Given the circumstances, over the past year I’ve done quite well borrowing ovens here, making do with toaster ovens there and plenty of basic stovetop cooking in between.

But damn, now that we’re cooking with gas… ::pausing to rub palms together in a furtive motion::… now drawing a blank except for bad cooking puns…

Eh, fuck it. Let’s just cook.

Beer-Roasted Chicken & Veggies
Serves 4

roasting vegetables:
4 ribs celery, chopped
3 parsnips,
peeled & chopped
3 carrots,
peeled & chopped
3 small potatoes, chopped
1 head garlic, cloves peeled
1/2 onion, chopped
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
4 Tlbs. olive oil
(a healthy pour)
salt & pepper to taste

chicken:
1 large broiling chicken — (We purchased one of these fat boys (3.75 lbs.!) from The Meat Hook in Williamsburg, a fantastic new butcher shop focusing on local and sustainable products.)
1 lemon, sliced
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
salt & pepper to taste
(1) 12 oz. beer … says the chef. One for the clucker, the rest for the homies

1.) Prep celery, parsnips, carrots, potatoes, onion and garlic. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.) Place roasting pan across two stovetop burners set to medium heat; add olive oil and all roasting vegetables, including leaves from rosemary sprigs.

3.) Roast vegetables until they begin to soften and start browning, or about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally to evenly distribute heat. Salt and pepper to taste.

4.) Fun alert: As the olive oil dissipates, pour beer over the vegetables.

5.) To prep the chicken, tuck several slices of lemon underneath the skin and line chicken cavity with sprigs of rosemary. Salt and pepper generously.

6.) Once the vegetables have begun to soften — but are still mostly firm — turn off heat. Stuff chicken cavity with vegetable mixture and sliced lemon.

7.) Nest chicken in the center of the vegetables in the roasting pan and bake at 350 degrees for roughly 1 1/2 hours. (Smaller chickens will likely cook quicker.)

9.) At least twice during the cooking time, baste chicken with the broth utilizing a deep spoon or a baster.

10.) For the final 10 minutes, flip the chicken over so the reverse side has a chance to brown.

Let the chicken rest a few minutes, then dive in! We suggest plating the chicken and vegetables with a small side salad, and paring with the same beer you used to cook.

Enjoy!

It’s 10 P.M. — Do You Know Where Your $1 Blue Point Oysters Are? (aka the “City Crab Weekend Happy Hour Win” Post)

Half-priced appetizers, $1 Blue Point oysters, $3 beers.

If a better Friday or Saturday night deal exists in downtown Manhattan, bring it. For now, City Crab‘s late-night happy hour, which is available at the stately restaurant bar between 10p and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, is the golden ticket.

(City Crab also runs its happy hour from 4p-7p daily.)

When four of us stopped in on a recent Friday night, we started with a round of Coronas and a dozen Blue Points. Squeeze, sauce, slurp, repeat — these oysters, meaty and lightly briny, are some of the best specimens I’ve had yet, although it should be noted that oysters are still new to me.

(After years of “trying” oysters — e.g. swallowing the slippery thing as fast as possible and hoping I wouldn’t feel it too much or taste too much — lately, I’m slurping them down with the best. This epic night of all-you-can-eat oysters at Bondi Road in LES was the turning point.)

Onto the hot foods — and mas cerveza s’il vous plait.

First impression: Whoa there, these portions are not for the faint of appetite. The crab, spinach and artichoke dip ($6.50/hh) comes out bubbling in a metal cauldron, a basket of thick pita chips ($6.50/hh); both the dip, and the basket of Southern fried popcorn shrimp ($6/hh), went on and on — even among four of us.

The lightest option, a pound of steamed PEI mussels ($6/hh), comes in a beautiful tomato broth laced with garlic and fresh herbs.

For next time, I have my eye on the lobster mac n’ cheese and crab cake bites and … of course, more oysters. (The chef at the raw bar said he shucks 1,000+ oysters a night!)

City Crab, 235 Park Ave. S., near 19th Street, 212-529-3800.

Notes to a Young Taco Apprentice (aka the “Amazing Korean Tacos!” Post)

[Overheard at the bar at Duck's Eatery @SPiN — while contemplating my own Korean tacos, which are built of tender, braised short ribs, housemade oyster kimchi and piled high with crunchy bean sprouts and fresh cilantro.]

Q: Damn, these tacos are good.

A: Yes.

Q:  So at what point should one be concerned when one encounters a taco that results in meaty, taco-y, drips-running-down-chin flavor?

A. My  young taco apprentice, you have much yet to learn. It is best to accept your fate.

Q: And then?

A: Well, if you are experiencing this condition and suede boots are involved — it’s time to reposition your bar stance.

Q: And then?

A: Take a moment to collect ones thoughts with a sip of Sam Adams’ seasonal Nobel Pils. (Ed. note: which pairs beautifully with these tacos.) Take in the soundtrack: the pleasant “ping-pong, ping-pong” sound of the many balls volleying across tables, overlaid by the Pogues, the Velvet Underground, Nirvana, Radiohead. Your next bite will come to you when you are ready.

Q: I am beginning to understand. And how do I convey my appreciation?

A: My young taco apprentice, you may have heard of the expression, “licking the fingers.” This will appropriately convey your feelings.

Duck’s Eatery at SPiN, 48 E. 23rd St., at Park Avenue South, 212-980-1404. If you exit the Downtown-bound 6 Train at 23rd Street you can get a preview via a large, underground picture window.

Saturday: Ugghhh … (aka the “Tour de Bar Food” Post)

Potato skins, followed by an appetizer sampler, followed by late night pizza, all washed down with copious amounts of beer. This just might be the blog post I submit to ThisIsWhyYou’reFat.

Let’s chalk it up to the fact that Saturday was a double special occasion, an out-of-town visitor and a local friend’s birthday. Here’s what went down:

Fully aware of the endurance it would take to get through the evening — we were starting early, about 6 o’clock — we needed to eat something early to hold down the fort. Enter, potato skins at Murphy’s Pub in Midtown East. They were chosen purely for the fact that they were the cheapest, least fried and easiest shareable appetizers on the menu.

When we showed up at the birthday party at Rattle n’ Hum, the excellent craft beer bar in Murray Hill (just a little further south), my friends had apparently had the same idea and voila, chicken quesadilla and sampler platter arrived. We were now satisfactorily fortified for the copious amounts of beer that came next.

And as for the slices from La Mia Pizza … well, anyone who’s ever been out for a big night in New York City knows that there’s just something magical about the glow emanating from a pizza shop open late night. And, if you actually have to cross in front of it while walking home, it’s a lost cause — even if you don’t finish it until the AM.

Tuesday: This Is the Last Supper (aka the “Last Delivery Order from Best Wingers” Post)

The question that has launched millions, maybe even billions, of meals in New York City: “Where should we order from?”

What happens next is that the person at which that question was addressed answers one of four ways:

a.) A very specific suggestion, meaning they are in the mood for food from one specific place.
b.) A counter question, which is intended to help focus the decision-making process.
c.) A category proposal, i.e., “How about Thai?”
d.) A shrug, an “I don’t know, you pick,” or something else suggesting total ambivalence. Meaning: You decide.

Tonight, being that it was my friend’s last delivery meal in the old apartment — the entire place was empty except for some Internet-type cables and some random dried leaves, remnants from the mover’s blankets — I posed a counter question. “What do you want for your last delivery meal in your old place? What’s a place you’re going to miss ordering from?”

…Which is how we wound up with three giant craft beers (from the corner store) and four square, styrofoam containers of delivery from Best Wingers:

(front to back) plain, all white meat chicken tenders; potato wedges tossed in a fiery, Tobasco-style “exterminator” sauce and drenched in cheese sauce; chicken tenders tossed in a sweet barbecue sauce; chicken tenders tossed in the “911″ hot sauce that starts off deceptively spice-forward — I couldn’t put my finger on what that front flavor was, exactly, but it reminded me of something Asian (Chinese? Malaysian?) I’ve had before — and by the end was utterly kicking your ass.

Fried, messy, saucy, at times take-your-breath-away spicy, — all the better to be washed down with copious amounts of beer — this would be a terrible date meal, I told my friend. On the other hand, the two of us, standing around in the kitchen of an empty apartment, going to town on some of the ugliest food I’ve seen in a long time (but, really, so good) — that’s what friends are for. For the record, we only ended up getting about half-way through it all (the food, not the beers, those were handily polished off).

Editor’s Note: Thoughts on Labor on Labor Day Weekend (aka the “Serious Sausage Feast at Water Taxi Beach” Post)

Labor Day Weekend brings the conclusion of my grand experiment, I Heart August Month. Which means it’s time again to address that question: Where do I go from here?

For now, I am going to strive for a happy blogging medium of about 10x a week, which will consist of daily posts, plus the introduction of a few roving features:

— A weekly $7 (and under) lunch column
— outer borough excursions
— in the kitchen experiments
— and more

The continuing evolution of the BLD Project has been on my mind quite a bit lately in that “processing in the background” mode, but serious food trumps all, like this stunning sausage specimen I stumbled upon at the new Water Taxi Beach on Governor’s Island.

This grilled kielbasa from Polish foods purveyor Jubilat Provisions in Brooklyn (it’s called the “Wiejska” on the menu) is ridiculously good, and ridiculously cheap ($5). A crisp, snappy casing and smokey grill char only further complement what is a superior pork product, to begin with.

…just imagine how ecstatic I was to discover that Water Taxi Beach takes their condiment bar as seriously as their sausage. There were all the usual suspects, plus: spicy renditions of ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise; onion, relish, sauerkraut; potato chip crumbles; a pineapple chipotle salsa and a spicy tomatillo salsa; Sirracha; whole pickle spears.

Feet in the sand, beer in hand, views of the city, A+ kielbasa, all for $11?

I did not see this one coming. At best, I’d figured the food would be somewhere above stadium concessions, which means as good or better quality and definitely less of a rip-off. Instead, the Wiejska kielbasa is haunting me, taunting me, from afar.

… all the more reason to get back to Governor’s Island one more time before it closes for the season (end of October).

The Brocton, NY Edition: And These Are My Grandpa’s Chicken Wings.

In certain circles, my grandpa is known for a lot of things. Of the stories I hear, one of the things he’s most famous for are his chicken wings.

30 pounds of wings … 60 pounds of wings for that … do you remember when we did 100 pounds for such-and-such party? The man has single-handedly cooked tens of thousands of pounds of chicken wings.

To back it up just a bit: Buffalo, N.Y., purports to be the origin of the chicken-wing-as-bar-snack. Somewhere in those murky decades before my existence, my grandpa fine-tuned his own sauce recipe that even now remains a secret. It’s a damn good sauce: lip-smacking spicy in just the way you want it to be, without burning out your throat. Blue cheese dressing cuts the heat, if you need it. No wonder he’s a local legend.

On this visit, the wings were part of that classic American round robin, the pot luck (aka barbecue, or picnic). There is one rule: Bring yourselves, and bring a dish to share.

I just adore these events. You get the most incredible cornucopia of foods you might not ordinarily eat, or even imagine existed. Your plate becomes a veritable petri dish of American food culture.

Consider the specimen that is Plate no. 1, clockwise from the chicken wings: There’s a baked, cheesy, hashbrown dish; baby pickles; half a Johnsonville Beddar Cheddar brat (with spicy mustard); nacho salad made with lettuce, ground beef, Doritos nacho cheese chip crumbles, and more. (bacon?)

No one eats like this, normally, all the time. That’s why it’s such a treat.

Take, for example, my favorite item on Plate no. 2, the dessert plate, which is located at the top. Yes, that fluffy, very orange “7-Up salad” gets its glow from orange Jello, CoolWhip, canned fruit (I think), 7-Up (I’m assuming) and more.

I should know this because I watched my grandma make it this morning, and I pretty much ate a bowl of it for breakfast … Clockwise from the 7-Up salad is a banana creme pudding dish; a strudel bar and chocolate cherry cake. All homemade.

… And, to wash it all down, your pick of beers. There’s always a fully-stocked beer fridge, which, by definition, is a separate, secondary fridge, usually located in a garage, full of beer.

Oh, to have a beer fridge in New York City…

Where were we partying? There’s an interior shot of the shed, pre-party, after the jump:

The Portland, ME Edition: Eating, Drinking and Eating Some More (aka the “Ohh Duck Fat” Post)

There are hundreds of ways to eat and drink your way through Portland, ME, some probably better than others but few that are really terrible. This combination turned out pretty well:

No. 1: A beguiling “Sandwich of Sunshine” from Rosemont Market & Bakery, coupled with a large iced coffee and the excellent tattoo voyeurism at the coffee shop next door, makes for a quick and delicious breakfast … and only increases the urge to get a tattoo.

My two favorites that morning were the moon-cycle tattoo (was it from waxing to waning, or vice versus?) on the coffee shop clerk’s forearm, and the small flock of origami crane tattoos on a woman’s — what would you call that? Lower bicep? Really lovely and really unique.

No. 2. Keep an eye on the clock so as to time it to get to the Shipyard Brewery just before the top of the hour.

Put up with the screening of an energetic (and very short) “video tour,” and a much more interesting Q&A session inside the bottling plant after, to get to the sweet spot: Free beer.

Shipyard’s tap room has six beers on tap, including some unusual ones (a barley wine and their just-out fall seasonal brew, a pumpkin ale, were among the samples we tried). Six tastes at about 2 ounces per taste ads up to about a full beer, one that you downed in a few short minutes, so you’ll leave happy.

… And  in the perfect state of mind for no. 3, lunch at Duck Fat,  sandwich and fry shop from the husband and wife team that also owns Hugo’s, the 2009 Beard Award Winner for food in the Northeast. Given the hype, I wondered if Duck Fat might be more about the gimmick than substance.

I am happy to report that this is entirely not the case. In fact, in my opinion, Duck Fat has nailed it: delicious, affordable food; using really quality components that are often locally-sourced; a menu that’s both accessible and generally appealing, yet marked with little signals of the couple’s serious culinary credentials; all of the above not without a bit of humor, a bit of play.

We shared:

— Belgian fries, large ($5.75, fried in duck fat). The classic. For our dipping sauce, chose the truffle ketchup,, which is just decadent. The garlic aioli, the second sauce that I ordered just for fun, couldn’t even compare.

— Corned beef tongue reuben ($8), marinated cabbage, Swiss cheese and homemade 1,000 island dressing on bread from Standard Baking Co. Now this is one of the most unusual items on the menu, stuck up right up top on the list of paninis, underneath the roasted turkey breast and above the grilled him & cheese. My eyes kind of glazed over the word “tongue” and just read “corned beef … reuben” the first few times.

It has huge flavor, between the sweet-sour-ness of the cabbage, the dressing, the bread and the offal earthiness of the tongue, and the sweet-sour-ness of the cabbage, the dressing, the bread, yeah. I’d do it all over again.

TIP: I had to try the classic fries this time, but next time I’m in town I’ll be back for the Duckfat Poutine ($9) — “layers of our Belgian fries topped with Moon Creamery cheese curds and homemade duck gravy” — a meal unto itself.

There’s magnetic poetry after the jump:

The Portland, ME Edition: So Cheap, So Good (aka the “First Impressions” Post)

This is Portland: Home to just more than 60,000 residents, Maine’s largest city is the same size as the coastal San Diego County town where I grew up — when I left it 10 years ago. And we called that a suburb.

Salty and seafaring, and at the same time off-hand-ish bohemian, Portland is an amiable mix of “Mainers” who are in agreement about a few things: Tattoos (everyone’s got one). Excellent beer, at ridiculously low PPP (price per pint). Food that is impressively sustainable and local, without really trying (Earth happy and recession-friendly).

What a great food culture. When I left Portland I cried, just a little bit. Here’s just a few reasons why:

Gnocchi for breakfast? Yes, please! The lightly-browned, pillow-y potato packets are a brilliant alternative to the usual, often oily, previously-frozen-then-fried breakfast potatoes (e.g. hash browns or home fries).

At the Front Room, Chef Harding Smith’s neighborhood spot in the East End, my order of breakfast gnocchi shared the plate with sautéed spinach, thick-cut strips of the house’s “amazing bacon”* and two poached eggs — all of which was a little too generously doused in a citrus-y hollandaise sauce. Next time I’d probably order the sauce on the side, so as to moderate the application. Still, total decadence for a mere $8.

Working fish market! Uneven, wet and slippery floors! I know I’m giving myself away here, but I thoroughly enjoyed the sights and smells inside the Harbor Fish Market in the Old Port, just one example of a seafood vendor that does brisk wholesale business and is also open to the public.

Maine oysters ($1.19 ea.), steamer clams ($2.69/lb), live lobsters starting at $3.99/lb., and on, and on: I was heartened to discover that seafood isn’t just a New England export, it’s a way of life. On a whim I picked up an 8 oz. container of fresh crabmeat ($10), packaged by Wood’s Seafood of Bucksport, ME. So sweet and succulent, the crabmeat ended up the centerpiece of dinner for three a little later…

Really good, cheap beer: The cost of a pint of pretty much tops out at $4 at (the somewhat misleadingly-named) $3 Dewey’s, which has 36 beers on draft, mostly regional microbrews, including 7-10 seasonally-rotating taps. I was more than pleased with my choice of: Geary’s Summer Ale, Shipyard Export and an Allagash White (a classic). The free popcorn’s not a bad gig, either — buttery, salty and fresh-popped (I saw it), I polished off a couple of baskets’ worth all by myself. (Just don’t look too closely at the flavor-crusted exterior of the popping pan.)

*Being editor-types, my friend and I picked up on the fact that the B.L.T. sandwich description lists “amazing bacon” an ingredient. We were dubious of this so-called “amazing” bacon, that is, until a side of bacon arrived. Four beautifully-cured, thick-cut, not-too-fatty strips of bacon … price? $2. It’s amazing, I’ll vouch for it.

Saturday: Sunny Summer Afternoon at Pier i Cafe Is Bliss (with a View)

Note: This post is part of an ongoing exploration of destinations on the bike-accessible fringes of the city, which began with the epic Manhattan Circumference Scouting Trip.

According to HopStop, which is generally accurate, it would take 35-45 minutes to travel between the West Village and the Pier i Cafe, at W. 70th Street and the Hudson River, via subway, depending on how close you were to a stop for the 1 train.

By bike, it’s a sweet, 20-minute cruise on one of the most enjoyable bike paths I’ve ever encountered: Sun glinting off the river to your left, the buildings of the city rolling by on your right, the path itself flat and smooth, with enough curves and kinks to keep it interesting, and full of activity on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon — without being over crowded.

And then, racing up this long, straight stretch on the backside of Riverside Park South, bam! A sea of iron tables anchored by huge, shady umbrellas; families, friends, couples, dogs, reclining with pitchers of sangria, lunchtime snack food, lemonade; laughing, talking, staring out at the river quietly. Welcome to the Pier i Cafe.

I would never come here by foot. Okay, that’s not true. If I didn’t have a bike, I’d probably make it a destination anyway, but now that I have a bike the only way to get here is on wheels. For me, one hundred percent of Pier i Cafe’s appeal is how perfectly located it is for cyclists going between Central Park and/or the “uppers” — Upper West Side and Upper East Side — and downtown destinations. It’s right in that sweet spot.

And the scenery, but that goes without saying. You pay for it, too, but no more than at other bars in the city with great views, be it the people watching at Employee’s Only or the Empire State Building towering above you at the rooftop Mé Bar.

They’re not as bad as ballpark prices, but a pitcher of beer ends up being $24 (we split a pitcher of Sam Adams Summer Ale), sangria $31. Every once and a while though … totally worth it.

Pier i Cafe, W. 70th Street at Riverside Park, 212.362.4450