A Meal That Matters Most

The holidays are a time to gather with loved ones and appreciate the time we get to spend together. Whatever it is that you celebrate, or whether you don't celebrate anything at all, the idea of coming together with those you love is a universal theme that transcends age, race, religion, gender, or anything else that is supposed to make us different. I happen to really enjoy the holidays, and for me, that means Christmas.

Christmas is interesting in the fact that the night before is just as important, as the day of. This year I found myself in an interesting position that was a poignant example of the importance of food, particularly in my life. This is my 'Twas The Night Before Christmas story, except it is real, and it doesn't rhyme. To set the mood, we shall begin with a short video interlude of Michael Buble. (Who is this Buble character? How did he become so big, and why am I unable to escape his reach?  Damn you Buble! Your lounge act vocals haunt me like a ghost in the night!!! Everywhere I turn, there you are, crooning! Who croons these days? Can Buble and Josh Groban engage in a cagefight to the death? Please?)

Just a slice of the BEST Pizza!

A typical night in Brooklyn

Best Pizza in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is my favorite slice shop in New York City. It is a special place on so
many levels, including many that people might miss. On a quiet stretch of Havemeyer St. between 7th and 8th, Best is, in my estimation, what is great in food today. You may ask, how could a slice joint in Williamsburg be what is great in food today? First off, I've never been anywhere quite like it. Opened in a small space that formerly housed The Brooklyn Star (after a fire it moved to a new location), and employing a brick oven with turn of the century roots (not the most recent turn), Best Pizza turns out food that is at once simple and amazing. The space is under the stewardship of Frank Pinello, with backing from The Brooklyn Star and Roberta's (both must visits in their own right). In a New York Times article Frank stated that he preferred the term 'pizza man', to the now overused 'pizzaiolo', and in many ways this sums up what I like about Best Pizza. They do it, and they do it well, without all the pretentiousness that is often espoused in culinary circles these days. Frank is a young guy from Bensonhurst, with quite a resume for a 'pizza man'. But that is the beauty of it, because Best Pizza doesn't rest on hype, accolades, or bullshit. The food is what matters, and it delivers every time, a simple pizza shop that overdelivers. Here are the reasons why, in no particular order:

Home Alone.....with a Hanger Steak

Dinner For One

So I find myself home alone on a Friday night in New York City. My girlfriend is away for the weekend, and I am traveling tomorrow, so here I sit. This is a big city, with an endless stream of things that someone could do. I could meet up with friends for dinner and a movie. I could head downtown for a gallery opening. I could travel out to Flushing to have the priceless rush of being a foreigner. Some would say I should party like tomorrow doesn't exist. None of these things appeals to my sensibilities right now. I decide to stay in for the night. I enjoy doing this very much from time to time. I get in a good workout, since this always helps me feel better about everything, alleviating some of the focus off of Ash being gone. The truth is I like when my girlfriend is around, and when she is gone I certainly miss her company. This sentiment can be unpopular in some circles, where the presiding logic seems to be something akin to a goal of hanging out with your significant other as little as possible. I am lost in attempting to understand this line of thinking. After working out there are few things that are as satisfying as a good piece of red meat. Something about it just feels right to me-though I'm sure my vegetarian friends would disagree.

Cheap and Delicious

I head to the my local market and spot a nice pile of hanger steak in the butcher case. Hanger steak is often sold much cheaper than other cuts of red meat. On this particular day I paid one third the price of a strip steak, and half as much as skirt steak. It was cheap, which is funny because there is only hanger on each steer. Delicious and cheap are two words that are rarely paired, yet beautiful together. Hanger steak has a mineral taste that accentuates its beefiness. Here is all you need to know to confirm its worthiness, it used to be called a butcher's steak. Would you like to know why? It's because butchers wouldn't sell them, preferring instead to take them home for their own eating pleasure. This is akin to finding out the contents of Warren Buffet's portfolio. Whatever is in there is probably a pretty safe bet. The same logic applies to butchers and what they are bringing home. I also pick up some spinach. Having a heaping portion of greens with meat seems to cut the heaviness, playing a perfect supporting role. Though it is popular at many steakhouses, I did not feel compelled to make creamed spinach. This decision centered mainly on the fact that creamed spinach is gross.

Ready for a ten minute rest

Infinitely more appropriate than the creamed variety

A simple yet perfect duo

Pan sauce will change your life!

I got home and put on my apron. I like aprons, regardless of what Al Roker recently said in the press. They keep my clothes clean. Al's assertion that it isn't okay for a man to wear an apron does not even warrant a response from me. There are too many snide comments I could make about Mr. Roker, but I prefer not to shoot fish in a barrel. So, it is Friday night in New York, I am home alone, and wearing an apron. I am quite comfortable with this state of affairs. I season aggressively, then cook the hanger steak at high heat in a saute pan. I always encourage people not to be afraid of heat. When you see a professional kitchen in action, what type of flames do you see? The fact that you can see them should give you a hint. The hanger is rather thick so I deeply brown each side, and then finish in the oven for a few minutes. I don't overcook the steak, because that would place of veil of deep regret over the remainder of the evening. I set the steak aside to rest. I place the pan back on a medium heat and toss a minced shallot in the pan. I deglaze the pan with a little sherry, then add beef stock and reduce. I saute the spinach in another pan with olive oil, garlic, and shallot. I season, because salt makes greens taste so much better. I mount the pan sauce with a bit of butter, swirling it off the heat, adding a bit of thyme to finish. If you learn how to make a simple pan sauce it will change your life, it certainly changed mine. I slice the hanger steak against the grain, and plate in a simple fashion. I enjoy it thoroughly. I read The Art Of Living According To Joe Beef: A Cookbook Of Sorts. Definitely one of the finest cookbook/memoirs out there. It makes me want to go to Montreal.

 It officially makes my Top Five Cookbooks Of The Year List. I then realize that I don't have a Top Five Cookbooks Of The Year List, but should probably now come up with one. In no way do I regret my choice to stay home, I rarely do. I resist the temptation to eat a pint of ice cream. I sleep like a hibernating bear.

Beef Stew, Keeping Us Alive For Hundreds of Years

First day

When it is cold out our bodies naturally crave certain things. This is not up for debate. Actually it is up for debate, but because I'm right, it is a waste of time to engage in the process. When it is cold out our bodies naturally thirst for filling food. You know why? To keep ourselves alive. For 99% of human history, staying alive was numero uno on the agenda of things to do. In fact, there really wasn't many other things to worry about. In fact, a good portion of the world lives like this today. So the next time your top priority of the day is to find that flashy new case for your iPhone, try to remember for a second that billions (yes billions) of people are concerned with only one thing, eating enough food and drinking enough water to stay alive another day. If that thought doesn't bring you right out of your self-centered universe, I'm afraid you may have a cold heart. I digress. So people have always eaten filling food in the winter. It helped them stay alive. The other key component of all this is that you have to remember what is growing in the winter. Nothing! Actually that isn't true, but for the most part, the pickings are slim. Root vegetables, meat, dried grains, and pickled and preserved products. Not exactly the bounty that we have in other seasons (or the seasonless cornucopia of modern day supermarkets). If you live in a cold weather climate, these are the type of things that will make your body sing with delight. I'm not a crazy locavore who thinks you should only eat things that come from no further than fifty miles away. This is stupid, and I will delve deeper into the subject at another time. I eat local products whenever I can, and they are wonderful, but I am willing to balance local products with things that are produced in other areas. For instance I love coffee, tea, spices, olive oil, and bananas, and have no inclination to give these things up because some twenty-old from Brooklyn has decided that I should. After all, people have been eating and drinking products from other parts of the world for centuries.

Second day

 Forget all that, let's just make it super simple. What is better on a frigid rainy night, a nice garden salad with raspberry vinaigrette or beef stew? If you answered a nice garden salad, you should stop reading this immediately, because clearly there is nothing romantic left in your soul, and your world view is probably lodged in some alternate universe that I can't relate to. I love a good salad, but when compared with the delight that comes from beef stew on a winter evening, I believe there is no comparison. Imagine writing a story about an idyllic scene in winter, a family surrounding a table, a fire blazing in the other room, the family dog cocking his head to the sky hoping for a scrap from the table. What is on the table? If you said a salad, you are a jerk, or you have yet to come to grips with the fact that life is short, and needs to be enjoyed every chance we get. Are you a vegetarian? Then imagine a vegetarian stew with hearty beans, maybe a crusty loaf of bread on the side for dipping. Most meals I eat are vegetarian, so don't think this is just a meat thing (although just about any vegetarian dish becomes ten times better with a bit of bacon or chorizo). You want to know the best part about making a stew? It's cheap. Dirt cheap. Right now I have a huge pot of stew simmering away to tender perfection. You know how much everything in that pot cost? Thirteen dollars. And that is relatively high end products, purchased in New York City. It will produce enough stew to eat for several days. Let me repeat that...... thirteen dollars (the same price as a pack of cigarettes here in NYC, for which I no longer partake), for several days of really delicious food. Here is the inherent beauty of stews and braises....inexpensive products become sublime because of the cooking method. It is brilliant. And here is the biggest kicker of all, stew tastes better a day or two after it is made. It is true. Brilliant! Make it in a crock pot if you want (my Mom did, and her stew was pretty damn good), it bothers me not at all. If you make stew for other people you will feel human connection on a deep level that has spanned the ages. And most importantly, you will enjoy yourself.

Beef Stew (this is not a recipe, but an idea)

1 1/2 lb. Beef Stew Meat (Chuck, Shoulder, something cheap and tough)
1 large onion chopped roughly
1 shallot minced
3 large carrots chopped roughly (one carrot at beginning, two for later)
4 cups of beef/chicken/ or vegetable stock
1 cup sherry/red wine
6 medium yukon gold potatoes (or double for the small variety) chopped roughly
flour for dusting
2 Tbs. Oil
1 tsp. dried thyme (or a few sprigs of fresh)
1 bay leaf
handful of chopped parsley and other herbs on hand
salt
pepper

1. Make sure that the beef is close to room temperature. Heat a dutch oven, or other large pot over medium heat. Liberally salt and pepper the beef. Now lightly coat the meat with flour, banging off any excess. Add the oil to the pan and slowly add half the beef, making sure not to crowd the pan. You are looking for a nice loud sizzle. Cook until well browned on all sides. Remove from the pan and reserve, adding the rest of the beef and repeating the process.
2. Add shallot, onion, and one chopped carrot. Cook until the onion is slightly browning, adjusting heat to insure nothing burns, about five minutes. Add the sherry or wine and deglaze the pan making sure to scrape the pan to get all the fond up from the bottom (the good stuff). Cook until the sherry or wine is cooked off by half.
3. Add the meat back to the pan. Add the potatoes, thyme, bay leaf, and a bit of salt and pepper. Now add the stock until the ingredients are barely covered. Allow everything to come up to temperature. What you want is barely a burble, like the pot is whispering, not yelling. The goal is never to allow the liquid to boil which will toughen the meat. Cover and allow to slowly cook for 1 1/2 hours. Check once or twice to be sure the liquid doesn't boil.
4. Uncover, and add the rest of the carrots (ensuring that all the carrots won't be mush). Continue to cook at a burble for another 1 to 2 hours. It could even take longer. What you are looking for is the meat to be tender, so you have to check and taste at half hour intervals. The sauce will cook down and reduce, so occasionally stir to keep everything moist.
5. When the meat is done, taste the broth. Does it taste good? Salt and pepper to taste. Add the chopped parsley. Serve. It will be better the next day.

Snickerdoodles, John Legend, Brooklyn Decker, and The Legend Of Andy Roddick

I just turned on The Cooking Channel and saw John Legend making cookies with his model girlfriend. What?! John Legend, R&B crooner, confidant of Kanye West, rolling cookies on The Cooking Channel as part of a cookie exchange cocktail party show?