Jeremy Blachman's Weblog: 2012

Miracle Fruit?

This is a totally wild article from the Times about a fruit that makes sour foods taste sweet, and this group that puts on food-tasting parties to explore what the fruit can do.  Sounds fascinating, and makes me want to try it.  Like, went to the website and would e-mail them to get on their mailing list if I wasn't worried this is all sort of code for something else and these are actually weird psychotropic drug parties, and also frankly the idea of going to any sort of rooftop party with strangers is something that makes me extremely unexcited generally, so even the idea that it's based around food isn't enough to get me actually interested.  Apparently one can buy these berries, but it's $90 for 30 of them, which seems a little excessive for something that will make food taste funny for an hour. 

(But, re: my post below, once I see what actual food costs when, say, I don't know, planning a wedding, $90 for 30 berries might seem cheap, and, hey, perhaps cheap enough to throw -- without a label -- onto a wedding buffet and completely  rock the tastebud world of all of the guests.  Hey, that's actually kind of a cool idea, no?  Hide tastebud-changing berries on the buffet table and anyone who happens to eat one gets to enjoy the rest of the wedding food in a whole new way.  In fact, since the sit-down meals at most weddings are less-than-thrilling anyway, maybe this would make them better and awesome and the taste-changing berry should be mandatory eating.  Is it scary that I'm really thinking about this as a cool thing to subject wedding guests to?  I think it would be totally awesome, if this berry is actually safe and real and this isn't some hoax being pulled on the New York Times and they're actually talking about eating poison sumac and suffering anaphylactic shock, to have stuff like this at a wedding, make it interesting and different -- maybe not just these berries, but have it be some sort of molecular gastronomy kind of thing, with liquids that taste like solids, and solids that taste like liquids, and savory desserts (mustard flavored ice cream?) and, ooh, I'm a lot more excited than I should be about a paragraph that's totally going to freak out at least one of my most loyal blog readers!)

Top Chef

I love Top Chef.  Just watched the season premiere of Top Chef: Chicago.  I don't think I've missed an episode of Top Chef in all four seasons, and this one's got me hooked again.  They have a formula, it doesn't change, but it totally works.  And somehow, even though you'd think that a competition show about food would be a disaster when there are so many contestants that you can't really get to know any of them all that well, you get only the tiniest of back stories, and, of course, you can't taste the dishes.  And they totally foreshadow everything -- you know as soon as someone is shown saying anything with any confidence at all, they're going to lose, and the person who's worried, nervous, scared is going to win.  But even with all of that, it's such good television, season after season.

I'm going to go out on a completely uninformed limb and say that Dale is going to win.  He wasn't featured much tonight, wasn't in the top four, but he was in a bunch of the clips at the end -- "coming up on this season of Top Chef..." -- and he seemed to be getting the kind of edit that made him seem competent and confident without trying to stir up trouble.  So that's my pick.  Not sure why.

Also, while I'm picking reality show winners, my pick to win American Idol is David Cook, and I swear I would have said that even before his last two stand-out weeks.  He seems smarter than the other contestants, and even though that doesn't have anything to do with how well or poorly he sings, I think it helps make smart song choices.  So he's my pick for American Idol.

And just to prove that I do more than watch TV... I finished reading a terrific novel this afternoon -- "Who Stole The Funny," by actor/singer/director Robby Benson.  It's about a TV director dealing with crazy showrunners, actors, and a liar of an agent.  Maybe you have to be doing this kind of stuff to appreciate it, but I thought it was really funny and a super-quick and enjoyable read.  It will likely end up on my year's 10 best list.

Michael Pollan...

...has a lengthy lead article in this week's New York Times Magazine about how everything we think we know about nutrition is wrong and people should eat food, not nutrients.  It's a cool article.  Pollan's most recent book is "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which made my top 10 list last year. (It also made the New York Times Book Review's list...)

DiFara's Pizza

It's possible I wrote about this place last year sometime, but it's not showing up when I search, so I'm thinking maybe I didn't.  Anyway, there's a pizza place on Avenue J and E. 15th Street in Brooklyn -- about halfway between where my parents live in Bergen Beach and where I live in Park Slope, and a block from the Avenue J stop on the Q line.  From the outside it looks like just another pizza place, but it gets a crazy amount of press coverage (one worth-reading blog entry is here, but that's just the tip of the iceberg -- there's a cult following on Chowhound and Slice NY, and there's been mentions in the Times, Village Voice, New York magazine, and tons and tons of other places) because it's just about as good as it gets for gas oven "pizza place" pizza (like, $2.50 a slice and counter service, as opposed to a place like Franny's on Flatbush Avenue, also delicious but a fancy sit-down place, brick oven, and $15 for a personal-sized pizza). 

The owner makes every pizza by hand to-order, so it's all served right out of the oven, a sauce of fresh and canned San Marzano tomatoes, three kinds of cheese (including one awesome salty cheese, fresh grated, that he sprinkles on right as it comes out of the oven), topped with freshly-cut basil and some extra virgin olive oil. 

The criticism tends to be that it's slow and disorganized.  If it's crowded, apparently people can wait up to 2 hours for a slice of pizza.  Which is kind of crazy.  But I've yet to read a criticism about taste.  I went there about a year ago with my mom, for the first time, since I'd started reading about it and wanted to try it.  There was a sign about a special baby artichoke slice, and a special porcini mushroom slice, so we got one of each of those, and then a regular slice too.  They were all pretty excellent, but the toppings, while really good, weighed the pizza down and the regular slice was really what shined.  Somehow we accidentally got there at an off-peak hour, and while there were 3 or 4 people in front of us, it was only about 15 or 20 minutes until the slices were ready.

I went back sometime in May, on a nice day, after a doctor's appointment I had somewhat nearby and the weather was pleasant enough that I figured I'd take a walk and didn't mind a wait if there was one.  Got two regular slices, probably about a 45-minute wait.  Part of the fun (maybe I'm using "fun" loosely) was watching the people who weren't expecting a long wait get frustrated.  There's not much order to the place.  There's a line, and at some point you get acknowledged, and he asks what you want, and you sort of hope he'll remember, and you try to stay noticeable so he doesn't forget and eventually you get your pizza.  A lot of people order whole pies, and so the balance of what becomes a pie for slices and what becomes a whole pie for someone is the tricky part.  He can only fit 2 or 3 pies in the oven at a time, and he takes care of everything by himself -- the slicing and boxing and the cheese grating and the basil cutting -- so it's not a fast process.  And it seems like people who want toppings end up waiting longer.  And so a bunch of people kept getting upset and asking where their pizza was, and why someone who wasn't waiting as long got theirs first... but it seemed like making a fuss didn't help you get served faster.  I was pretty content watching him make the pizzas, and wasn't in a rush, so it was cool, but some people got pretty frustrated.

And then I got my slices and they were pretty amazing.  It's like awesome handmade gelato vs. Edy's Fat Free Frozen Yogurt.  It's sort of the same thing, but one of them is just a lot better.

So I went again yesterday after visiting my grandma in the hospital (she seems to be doing well, incidentally -- she's off IV antibiotics, just coughing a little bit, and I think she'll probably get to go home early next week), having not really eaten lunch and just wanting a slice of pizza to tide me over until dinner, and figuring that 3:30 in the afternoon wouldn't be too busy.  And it wasn't, although I still had to wait about 25 minutes.  The owner's daughter was sort of managing the line, writing down what people wanted, but there was still the pies to be given as whole pies vs. pies for slices issue, and there were some people who it seemed like didn't realize this wasn't just a regular pizza place and were frustrated with the wait.  There were also two people who clearly had been reading message boards and made the trek specifically for this, and took pictures of everything, and of themselves eating the pizza....  It's just really cool to watch this guy, in his 70s, who everyone's pretty much acknowledged is a master at what he does, just making pizza after pizza, and everyone in there being really grateful they get to eat it.  Because it's really good.

I still haven't tried a square slice.  The regular are just too good, and I don't really like all the breadiness of square slices generally.  But maybe next time.

Momofuku Ssam Bar

New York Magazine has an article this week about David Chang, the chef/owner of Momofuku Noodle Bar and the newer Momofuku Ssam Bar, in the East Village.  I've eaten at the Noodle Bar a few times, and it's very good.  Not even necessarily the noodle dishes (which I liked a lot, but I've read mixed reviews from others) but everything else too -- the steamed pork buns, I had a good octopus dish, some other stuff too.  The Ssam Bar was his attempt to introduce Asian-inspired burritos to the city... Berkshire Pork, rice, kimchi, edamame... I tried it right when it opened and wasn't a huge fan, but I think it's just because I'm not a huge burrito fan... too much bulk, I'm not big into the rice and beans stuff.  But at some point in the fall, he introduced a late-night menu at the Ssam Bar, with more creative offerings -- a banh mi terrine, oysters, brussels sprouts with fish sauce.  But the late-night menu didn't start until 10:30, and I hadn't found myself out and hungry at 10:30, and so I hadn't been.  But the New York article mentioned they'd recently changed it so the late-night menu is a dinner menu and starts at 6:00.  So I went with some friends tonight, eager to try it.  And it was really excellent.  Really, really excellent.  The article talks more about this, but Chang isn't into too much choice -- the menu says "we do not serve vegetarian-friendly items" and even the vegetables have some kind of fish or meat going on inside them.  I'd heard good things about the ordinary-sounding "seasonal pickles" so we got them to share, and they were super-cool.  A whole bunch of pickled vegetables (and no meat, actually) -- mushrooms, celery, cauliflower, jicama (I think), carrots, brussels sprouts, parsnip, cabbage (kimchi), some little squares of miscellaneous spicy vegetable, and maybe something else I'm forgetting.  I don't know if I'd want to eat the entire ($9) plate of pickles by myself, but they were excellent.  We also shared an order of steamed pork buns, which were as good as they are down the street at the Noodle Bar.  I got the grilled rice cakes with pork sausage, collard greens, and kimchi.  It was really tasty.  Really, really tasty.  It's not rice cakes like Quaker.  It's rice cakes like gummy cylinders of rice flour.  Like extremely thick and dense noodles.  I've had them before in Chinatown.  I like them.  Most of the other people I was with got ssams (burritos) which were spicy but seemed to go over well.  You can read more of the menu here.  Really good.  And crowded, which the New York article said it wasn't... so maybe the magazine is driving people there... or maybe anything's going to be crowded on Friday at 7:00.

I don't post often enough about food.  I'll try to do more.  Food is good.

Palo Santo

The New York Times reviewed a restaurant today that's in my neighborhood, and I didn't have anything in my refrigerator for lunch, so I decided to try it.  Never noticed it before.  It's on a mostly residential street, in a residential-looking brownstone.  Had the cactus quesadilla, which is less crazy than it sounds.  Cactus roughly equivalent to green pepper, sort of.  It was tasty.  Not sure why I'm sharing, except I thought it was cool that the Times reviewed it and I acted on the review the same day.  They weren't crowded.  I mean, it was lunch, so nothing's crowded around here, but I would have thought that at least a couple more people reading the Times would have the same idea I did.  I'd go back.

Random other notes on the day:
1. Cool that the Mets forced a Game 7.  Thought Wagner was going to blow it at the end, but glad he didn't.
2. Reminder (see post below) that I'll be signing books at Harvard Law School tomorrow night at 8:00 at the Hark Pub.  I stopped by at my publisher's office today and picked up some Anonymous Lawyer promotional materials to bring with me and give out.  A bunch of pencils, a couple of stress balls, and maybe a t-shirt or two.
3. Friday Night Lights is an awesome show, streaming for free on NBC.com.  Ratings have been terrible, but, really, it's good.
4. 30 Rock's second episode was pretty good too.
5. I saw Bill Bryson do a book reading / interview tonight at Symphony Space on the upper west side.  His new book is good.  Book readings are never as awesome as I imagine they'll be.  I don't think it's been the fault of any of the three or four authors I've ever seen do readings.  I think it's just the format.  Books aren't meant to be listened to like that, I don't think.  And the audience Q&A, for anything, is never that enlightening.  Not exactly sorry I went, but it was just sort of blah.  And I'm a huge Bill Bryson fan, and loved the book, so that wasn't it.

Freddy Ferrer at Gray's Papaya

On the way back to the subway tonight after going somewhere, I was a little hungry, and walked around a couple of blocks hoping to be inspired before reluctantly settling on a hot dog from Gray's Papaya on 72nd and Broadway.  And in front of me in line was Fernando Ferrer, the guy who lost the mayoral election last year against Bloomberg.  Star sighting of the week.  Cool.  I didn't catch what he ordered though.  Probably a hot dog, since I don't think they have anything else.  But I mean I didn't see if he got sauerkraut, or mustard, or what. 

Tropical Broccoli

I was at a bagel place the other day, and there was a display case full of different salads.  One was called "Tropical Broccoli."  The mere idea of something called "tropical broccoli salad" seems pretty unpleasant to me.  I like broccoli just fine.  But there's nothing tropical about it, and the thought of mixing it with pineapple and coconut and mango and the other kinds of things that the word tropical tends to make you think of... no, that doesn't sound right.  It looked like creamed spinach.  I was going to ask to taste it, but I wouldn't have been able to do that with a straight face, and then it would have seemed rude.  Of course, Google informs me that there is indeed such a thing as tropical broccoli slaw (scroll way down here), but it still sounds pretty unappealing, even if Google wants to claim it exists.

Although maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge, since I had a "lime cornmeal cookie" from a bakery last week that was actually pretty good, even though it sounds like a mistake.

Pizza

Here a Financial Times article about a Brooklyn pizza place that's pretty awesome.  I've been there twice.  Good stuff.

Ronnybrook Yogurt Drinks

If you live in New York City... these Ronnybrook Farms Yogurt Drinks they have at the farmers market are pretty much the most awesome dairy products in the universe.  I went to the farmers market this morning, and got a peach yogurt drink and a strawberry one.  It's whole milk and I'm sure it's not much healthier than a bowl of ice cream, but it's really good.

Easy Mac

I know Macaroni and Cheese is easy to make (and The New York Times even had some recipes last week, in what seemed like some sort of mac and cheese feature section...), but the microwavable stuff is so easy, and I actually like the taste of the powdered cheese.  I'd finished my box of Kraft Easy Mac, and thought this time I'd try the Annie's Organic version.  Don't do that.  It's a bad idea.  It's much more orange and much less tasty.  It's not inedible, but it makes me much less inclined to eat it, because it just wasn't very good.  It also made my plastic bowl much gummier and gooier than the Kraft version.  The slimy goo the microwaving created didn't look too organic to me.  I guess it must be a fairly extraordinary scientific achievement to pull off microwavable mac and cheese, and Kraft's got more scientists working on it.

Happy Halloween

I had some sushi with a friend on Friday night, at a restaurant on the lower east side.  Out the window from where we were sitting, we could see a blackboard on the sidewalk in front of a bakery next door.  It said "Happy Holidays," and in orange, the following items were listed: Pumpkin Custard Pudding, Pumpkin Cupcakes, and Pumpkin Pie.  And there was a picture of a Jack-O-Lantern.  What holiday did they mean?  And how old are these desserts?  Have they been sitting in the case since the end of October, or am I missing some connection between Jack-O-Lanterns and Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Years, or, oh, I don't know, Martin Luther King Day?  My friend and I went inside afterwards to see how the pumpkin stuff looked.  We didn't see anything that looked like what was advertised.  My friend asked the woman behind the counter.  "Sold out," she said.  "But the sign..." my friend asked.  The woman looked confused, and went outside to look at the sign.  "Sold out."  Okay.  Sold out for today, or sold out because the holiday was 3 months ago?  The bakery's named Panya, on 9th Street and 3rd Avenue, if you don't believe me.  Check it out.  Or don't.  I can't vouch for it, other than the sign.  The sushi next door was good though, and pretty reasonable.