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 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: Rosemont Market & Bakery, Can I Please Take You Home Now?

It’s probably fair, Rosemont Market & Bakery, to say that you had me at hello.

First (chance) encounter: You were pointed out to me by my friend and host, who is also an infinitely knowledgeable all-things-Portland guide, as we walked past on our way to brunch up the street at The Front Room. We stopped; I had to go inside. I made a quick circle, noting the cheese case, the crates of local blueberries and the New England beer selection. I knew I would be back.

Second (intentional) encounter: Sure enough, I found my way back, all by myself, later that day. I came with the intention (guise?) of picking up a few some things to make a light crab salad with my prized Harbor Fish Market purchase — that sweet, sweet crabmeat from Wood’s Seafood (Bucksport, ME) — while my friend/host/infinitely knowledgeable guide went training for her triathlon. Instead, I fell head-over-heels for the price point and the boutique-ness of the wine nook, fawned some more over the fresh, locally-grown (and so cheap!) produce, and end up accidentally buying dinner:

$6, qt. of homemade gazpacho
$2 French baguette, baked in house
$1.49 head of locally-grown bibb lettuce
$0.99 bunch of fresh chives
+
$12.99 giant bottle of La Vieille Ferme Cotes du Luberon Blanc (nothing fancy, a blend of Rhône varietals, but I’ve seen a 750 ml costs this much in New York, so on principle I had to buy the magnum)

It’s not really cooking, but my friend/guide /host’s exuberant roommate asked me what I did, so here’s the recipe: Doctor up the gazpacho with chopped green onion, fresh crab, a healthy drizzle of olive oil, lemon juice and pepper. Ditto for the salad, except that I substituted a little Goddess Dressing (Kraft) for the olive oil. Serve with sliced, buttered and oven-toasted baguette points that make the kitchen smell oh-so-good. Pour wine heavily.

Third (spontaneous) encounter: Sure, I was thinking about you. But little did I know that I’d be back so soon. And then the roommate said, ”Let’s walk up and get pastries from Rosemont!”It was said exuberantly.

Um, twist my arm. And this is how I discovered the Sandwich of Sunshine. Yes, literally, that’s what it’s called. The description on the (hand-written) index card goes on to read: “Local sun dried tomato goat cheese, Black Kettle Farm romaine, orange melon and a fruit salad of white peaches, watermelon, mango, basil and lemon yogurt” ($5.50). What? (Befuddlement.) No way. (Denial.) Wait a second … (Illumination breaking). Yes, yes, yes! (Discovery.)

Fourth (missed) encounter: I intended to stop by one last time on Sunday afternoon to pick up a souvenir, one of the large, plastic Rosemont-labeled spices (which are actually from some spice place in New Hampshire — the pickled fiddleheads would have meant having to check a bag).

I had been vacillating between the mulling spices, the pickling spices and the multi-colored rainbow sprinkles, because how long would it take me to get through 6 oz. of dried dill? (Which begs the question, why would it take me any less time to get through that giant container of sprinkles?)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it back before Rosemont shuttered for the night. Sigh. This is not the first or the last time that I’ve wished I could pack something large and immoveable into my carry-on.

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.

Tuesday: A Delicious Feast of Tea Eggs, Tea Leaf-Smoked Chicken and More. (aka the “Weber Smoker Trial Run!” Post)

When I go to a meal at someone’s house, generally there’s something that I can do to help. (And if I’m not in or near the kitchen, it’s because I was told to get out.) (And even then I generally linger.)

At this delicious feast, however, there was a very specific moment when I realized that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to improve the efficiency of the cooks, even if I tried. So instead, I kicked back, relaxed (it was held in my honor), tended a skillet here, poked a bird there, and learned a couple things…

… Like, did you know that that most meticulous and technical method of cooking, sous vide, had anything even remotely in common with smoke-cooking foods?

In fact, the proud owner of a shiny, new Weber 2820 Smokey Mountain Cooker/Smoker explained, between the evenly-regulated interior temperature, the bowl of water inside the smoker (which helps regulate the temperature) and the long cooking time, cooking with a smoker is sort of like a hotter-temperature sous vide. Sort of.

(This friend also has a certain tenacity for the highly-technical side of cooking, as opposed to the “throw a bunch of shit in a pot” approach: He’s the author of the occasional blog, Sous Vide or Not Sous Vide?, and carbonates his own water (above), among other beverages).

Which means the chickens — (2) 4-lb. chickens and (1) 7-lb. chicken — cooked away over coals and smoldering loose leaf tea from Chinatown for a good three-to-four hours (the big guy even longer), and still came out as moist as could be, with just the faintest smokey taste.*

Inside, hard-boiled eggs simmered in soy sauce, tea leaves and a concoction of spices for as long as the chickens cooked, sending one of the most delicious fragrances I’ve ever smelled in my life wafting through the apartment.

… Then the second cook arrived, and yelled at us for leaving the egg shells on that long. Apparently removing the shells earlier in the process (but after the eggs are boiled, of course), sort of speeds up the process, turning the cooked egg white a dark chocolate brown? True story.

Then I watched her chop the bok choy. Sure, I’ve cooked bok choy a bunch of times. But to separate the leaves from the cores, and the gorgeous, sconce-like symmetry inside the bok choy? I was a little bit in awe. No wonder designers of all sorts cite nature as their muse. You just can’t make this shit up.

The kale lesson was a little more practical: Just treat it like stauncher spinach. (I’ve cooked kale before but followed some ridiculous recipe that made it way too complicated.) All you really have to do really, I learned, is wash, chop and pan-cook, preferably with some sort of fatty protein like bacon or almonds to get in all the crevices. Like with spinach, be prepared for shrinkage.

This was the end result. Fluffy, white rice, with crispy-brown bits on the bottom (yum!), and tea leaf-smoked chicken, to start. Then stuff your bowl with bok choy, kale and topped with a tea egg … and eat.

*For a stronger smoked taste, read your smoker’s manual and opt for the suggested method of lighting, which is probably to use a chimney starter.

Monday: Birthday Dinner Gone Gonzo (aka the “Cheese Three Ways” Post)

There are few things more enjoyable in the world than sharing a meal with close friends, when everyone makes the time in their respectively busy lives to actually be present, and eat and laugh and tell stories and simply enjoy each other’s company.

… Which makes my birthday dinner at Gonzo in the West Village just about perfect.

It wasn’t the original plan: Earlier Monday morning I found out that Brooklyn Bowl — the new, LEED-certified, 16-lane bowling alley in Williamsburg with a full menu by Blue Ribbon (where I was going to have a small fête) — was closed Mondays.

I needed options, stat. My research skills kicked into high gear, and I ended up with a list of options that included everything from all-you-can eat/drink rip tips (which are excellent) and domestic draft beer at Brother Jimmy’s BBQ ($15.95) to a 3-course, $35 prixe fix meal at Sojourn in the Upper East Side that includes a wine pairings.

In the mix, from my friends at winedanddined.com:

Gonzo (W. 13th nr 6th Ave) is offering 2 for 1 pizzas on Monday nights and from 5-7 on Saturdays.

At first, pizza didn’t sound quite right. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It was the perfect renegade birthday dinner — going gonzo at Gonzo. A girl can’t ask for much more on my birthday than a literary pun that’s this sweet.

Plus, the grilled, thin-crust pizzas are unique in the city, a culinary gift from the late chef Vincent Scotto. Oblong, ultra-thin and piled high with premium toppings in complex, sometimes exotic, flavor combinations, they’re certainly unlike any pizza I’d ever had.

I’ll be back to try the pizza with watermelon listed as a topping, but for a first taste we stuck with the classics:

(top) Sausage pizza, topped with ricotta cheese, roasted red pepper puree, romano & bel paese cheeses.

(bottom) Wild mushroom pizza, topped with chanterelle, shiitake & oyster mushrooms, caramelized onions, taleggio, romano & bel paese cheeses.

We also shared a large meat-and-cheese tasting platter ($25), my picks (counter-clockwise from top left): Capicola, Prosciutto di Parma, Cacciatorini with fig & fennel jam; taleggio, pepper pecorino (center), giant basket of grilled bread slices (not pictured). Few things make me happy like a good meat and cheese plate, maybe a glass of prosecco to go with — oh wait, had that, too.

Prosecco was as much a through-line to this lovely meal as was the cherished company and … of course, the cheese.

That thing with a candle up top? Brown sugar cheesecake. It’s a cheesecake purists will appreciate: a slightly different, darker sugar taste (molasses?) comes through, but the flavors aren’t so radically changed as if whole candy bars are thrown in, a la Cheesecake Factory. It’s really, really good. My one critique? With the circular shape, you get less buttery, gram-cracker-y crust.

TIP: The pizzas are definitely larger than our server let on — don’t let them up-sell you. Go with a group and share a mix of the cicchetti, Venetian-style small plates ($7-$11), or maybe a couple of appetizers, plus the pizzas. Two-for-one pizzas makes group dining that much more affordable — and fun.

Sunday: What Took Me So Long? (aka the “Made it to Prune, Finally (and Then Had To Wait Some More” Post)

Prune. I’m not really a fan of the shriveled, deep purple-colored, giant raisin(ish) fruit that also happens to be sort of a gross metaphor for wrinkly, wet skin.

On the other hand, I am unapologetically pro-Prune, the tiny, food-centric restaurant just west of the street grid nexus that is First Avenue and First Street. I first became smitten with Prune back in August, 2007, when the restaurant cameoed on the season 3, “New York” episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Travel Channel show, “No Reservations.” (Admittedly, I am a bit of a Bourdain groupie.)

But that was just the beginning. Every time Prune has crossed my radar since, it just gets better and better. You could say: j’ai été lèche-vitrine — French for “I have been window-shopping,” although I prefer the literal translation, which is, “I have been licking [Prune's] windows” — for some years now.

So why did it take me until August 16, 2009, to get inside that door?

Not for fear of price point. Brunch entrees range from $13-$19, with some interesting a la carte items, such as a toasted caraway seed omelette with sour cream, under $10. You’re paying a couple of bucks more than most downtown brunch spots, but then again you’re not going to find a dish like the butter-crumbed eggs with spicy stewed chickpeas, preserved lemons and warm flatbread ($14) anywhere else in the city. Fresh, tomato-y, buttery: this is just an impeccably thought-out dish, a true testament of Gabrielle Hamilton‘s ability to look to the world’s kitchens for inspiration and transform them into her own.

The huevos rancheros— eggs baked in a light sauce of tomatoes, garlic and chilis, finished off with melting cheese and sidled up onto a plate with black beans, a giant hunk of avocado and a handful of homemade tortilla chips ($15) — is a Mexican breakfast that my mother, a dietician, could get behind (and delicious, too). Instead of satiating my curiosity, this first meal at Prune actually stoked my curiosity. I want to find out more.

So what took me so long? Well, no pun intended, Prune is tiny, popular and doesn’t take reservations, which means it always, always has a wait. On this day, my friend and I were told it’d be about 40 minutes — tolerable, in the right circumstances — and in actuality we waited about one hour, 10 minutes. We stopped in for coffee at Simon Sips down the block, and stood around in the summer sun, chatting as women do, which was fine.

But I am rarely in the mood to put my patience to this test for dinner on any given night, let alone brunch on a weekend morning. And even though I gave Prune what I consider to be one of the highest compliments a restaurant can receive (the bit above about “instead of satiating my curiosity…), I can’t think of when I’ll be back.

Sigh. I wish the restaurant didn’t use the tiny bar as designated “seating.” If I could wait it out at the bar, working my way through Prune’s fascinating list of specialty bloody marys ($9/ea.) — the Chicago Matchbox (left), which is made with homemade lemon vodka, has a veritable garden of pickled vegetables, including Brussels sprouts, baby white turnips, caperberries, green beens and radishes – I could promise to be back a lot sooner.

TIP: Might help to try a late lunch-brunch. By about 3 pm, a half-hour before the restaurant stops serving brunch, the wait had all but disappeared.

Thursday: $10 All-You-Can-Eat Craw Bar (aka the “Bondi Road Sauce Conspiracy” Post)

14 oysters (raw, on the half shell)
20 shrimps
5 baked oysters, topped with diced bacon and some sort of Worcestershire sauce
2/3rds of a side of french fries
tap water

—–
$15 (including tax and tip)

If I had to guesstimate the volume of food I ate at Bondi Road‘s unbelievable Thursday “Craw Bar” night in the Lower East Side, that’s the list, more or less — and being an oyster newbie I was one of the lighter eaters.

With a little encouragement — along the lines of, ”Could we get some more shrimp?” and, “Could we put in an order for those baked oysters?” — the kitchen certainly wasn’t stingy on the mains. Each time, the oyster tray came back stacked heavier, and so did the shrimp. (There were five of us making this our dinner, after all.)

Some of my friends were taking advantage of Bondi Road’s (in)famous drink special — $20 all-you-can-drink for 2 hours — and all in all, food and booze flowing, we were poised for success.

But then, there was a hiccup. Intentionally or otherwise, Bondi Road on this night was unbelievably stingy with their sauce. Cocktail sauce, fresh horseradish, ketchup (which never came)  … it became such a joke at the table that we started speculating conspiracy-theory style about the stinginess with the sauce.

Theory no. 1: This was the restaurant’s all-you-can-eat exit strategy: Serve them huge platters of seafood with the puniest portions of sauce imaginable, ignore their requests for more until they are infuriated and leave.

Theory #2: The sauce that’s served with the shrimp (of which we got two tiny, half-filled containers no matter whether there were a dozen shrimp or 20 shrimp in the bowl) is imported from Australia, which justifies the rationing.

(In actuality, we’re pretty sure it was just cocktail sauce whipped with mayonnaise for a creamier texture, dolled out into these disposable condiment cups during prep hours earlier — which only deepens the mystery of why the server couldn’t just grab a couple of extras from the kitchen in less time than it took us to finish the shrimp, reluctantly, anyway …)

The conclusion: Still a killer deal, the quality’s decent (for the price, spectacular). Bring your own sauce — or be prepared to eat some seafood in the buff.

TIP: Go early. The five of us were seated immediately and served quickly at 6:45pm, and the restaurant had a line out the door by the time we left. Plus, the 2-hour drink special makes for an excellent kick-off to a Thursday night out.