If I had to name one favorite food from childhood, the food I can remember eating with total abandon, the clear answer would be watermelon. In family photo albums, there are pictures of me sitting on a stoop or a kitchen counter, at age 2 or 3, happily biting into slices of watermelon bigger than my head. Sometimes there would be watermelon juice dribbling down my chubby little arms. Sometimes I would be in mid-bite, concentrating too hard to look up at the camera. Often would be a huge smile on my face.
You know how childhood favorites can come and go? Not true with me and watermelon. Even today I look forward to summer every year primarily for the ripe watermelon available everywhere, from farmer's markets to my corner bodega.
I woke up on my 30th birthday last week just itching to bake. It was supposed to get up to 90 or 95 degrees that day, but I figured I could squeeze in some quick cookie-baking before my apartment got too warm.
Recently I started baking more with whole wheat flour, as you might have seen in the post on Whole Wheat S’more Cookies. In addition to its healthier aspects, whole wheat flour just gives cookies a nice extra nutty flavor. And if you add bananas and old-fashioned oats to chocolate chip cookies, there’s no reason you can’t have them for breakfast, right?
Taro Sushi may be my favorite sushi restaurant in all of Brooklyn. I had been here for dinner many times before and always order the same appetizer: broiled mackerel with ponzu sauce (first pic above), so crisp and perfect with the slightly tangy sauce. Don't think. Just get it.
The restaurant itself is spacious and serene, but also manages to be a comfortable neighborhood spot. The sushi, while not world-changing, is always reliably fresh and so good. For lunch you can choose between an assortment of sushi roll, noodle, and bento box combos with soup and salad for around $11. If I lived closer I’d come here every other day.
Last Sunday my friend Veronica organized a tour at Industry City Distillery on the western edge of Sunset Park. The area reminded me of both Red Hook and Gowanus, with big warehouse spaces turned into production/artists spaces, and right on the water. Definitely a place I wouldn’t mind spending a Sunday afternoon, especially when vodka-tasting is involved.
Industry City Distillery is unusual in that they use beet sugar to make vodka, which unlike grain and starch, produces no solid waste. Their product launched in April and is already getting a lot of notice in the NY area. (Check out the map of where to buy their vodka, in addition to online.) We toured their facility, which held their fermentation and distillation equipment and the metal shop where they built all their production equipment by hand. They even have a letterpress machine (!) for printing all their labels.
Well, it has been quite a week! Since turning in my edited galley pages for my cookbook, I've been busy testing out new recipes for both Brooklyn Galley and Appetite for China. And celebrating the end of a long project usually means a cocktail somewhere in the mix.
I've been trying out this Rosemary Salty Dog cocktail for the last couple of day. If you've never had a Salty Dog, it's basically a drink with grapefruit juice and vodka or gin in a glass with a salted rim. It was likely concocted in the early 1950s by the same man who came up with the Bloody Mary.
This cocktail just screams summer to me, possibly because of the icy grapefruit flavor, or possibly because "salty dog" word association brings up nice thoughts of saltwater, beaches, and playing with dogs. My brain works in mysterious ways.
Last weekend, it was finally gorgeous out after a month of rainy and chilly weather. Instead of lounging in the park, I spent most of it holed up indoors, editing the unbound galley pages of my cookbook, giving it the final check before it got sent to the printer. I barely left the house, sipped many cups of coffee, and snacked on an embarrassing assortment of sweet and salty junk food. (The telltales signs of an intense period of work.)
Yesterday morning at 11am, I packaged it up and sent it back to my publisher. I sank down on my couch and let the sense of relief sink in.
I got inspired to bake these whole wheat s’more cookies after seeing Moonrise Kingdom on opening weekend and getting all happy-nostalgic for summer camp.
I’m a total sucker for anything set in the 1960s or related to the New England coast, so I was completely sold on the movie after seeing the trailer in May. Set on a New England island around a “Khaki Scout” summer camp, the movie involves two 12-year-olds who make a pact to run away together and the scout troop that searches for them. There’s budding romance, intrigue, quirky art direction that’s a Wes Anderson signature, and a kick-ass soundtrack. The movie kept me grooving for days to this particular Francoise Hardy song that was stuck in my head.
Gotham Bar & Grill is one of those classic New York restaurants where it feels great just to walk into, with its soaring ceilings and polished decor. I had gone there once for dinner last spring and left stuffed and very satisfied (and dreaming of their signature chocolate cake for a week!) So it was great to head back there yesterday for the launch of“Greenmarket to Gotham 2012″, a seasonal lunch that runs for twelve weeks and supports both Greenmarket farms and the Grow to Learn NYC initiative.