For Santa, better than cookies and milk

Like me with my blog posts, my friends are tardy. Tardy with gift-giving, that is, seeing as how we didn't hold our Secret Santa exchange until nearly two weeks after Christmas had passed.


SH generously offered to host the twelve of us at her apartment, and she even made all the food. Above, guacamole and chips; bruschetta; artichoke and spinach dip; pasta with sausage and peas. Let me just say, SH is excellent at fixin' up grub.

She also made mini burgers with red onion, pickle slices, caramelized onions, and homemade chipotle mayo to top 'em with. Plus a huge crock of Swedish meatballs, which I didn't catch a photo of.

For dessert TC had picked up three darling little cakes from Two Little Red Hens: red velvet, chocolate, and cheesecake. The last was softer and fluffier than I liked (I prefer cheesecakes denser), but the other two were pretty good, really heavy on the frosting, which is probably a thumbs-up for many.

Then it was on to the gift exchange. Among the food-related gifts swapped this year were a tabletop burner and hotpot/shabu-shabu kit; a maple-wood cutting board; a fondue set (for me); a giant variety-pack of snack-sized chip bags; a set of scotch glasses along with a nearly empty bottle of Glenlivet; and breast milk from a Cambodian immigrant. A pretty good—if questionable—hoard, if you ask me.

Say what? you're thinking. Breast milk? Cambodian?

Um…you don't want to know, okay?

La ba porridge

I was hanging out at home with my dad when the phone rang. "Okay, yes, mm hmm," I heard him say, and then he hung up. An hour or so later I heard the doorbell. The folks at the Fo Guang Shan temple—a Buddhist organization that my parents sometimes help, but are not affiliated with—had made a delivery of two large containers of vegetarian la ba porridge. They didn't do this only for our household, either, but for a long list of people around the city.

Not knowing anything about the tradition, I consulted The Google and found that la ba porridge is typically eaten on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month on the traditional Chinese calendar. It's not only a date that typically signifies the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebration, but for Buddhists it's the date Sakyamuni, the first Buddha, is believed to have attained enlightenment. (There's a pretty good explanation of the history here.)

Can't say I'm religious, so for me the congee was mostly just congee. I heated up a bowl and found it chunky with ingredients, tasting both hearty and healthy but just a little bland. It's probably something I should eat more of.

It's all in the broth at Pho So 1

If what you do on New Year's Day is any indication of how the rest of the year is going to be, then my 2009 is going to consist of me waking up feeling horrible, going back to sleep, getting up to shower, going back to sleep, waking up again, and then sleeping some more. And then around five pm, finally getting up to eat.

In my defense, after all the New Year's Eve festivities TL and I hadn't gotten home until about five in the morning, and by that time I had lost my voice and was feeling terribly ill. I'd started feeling crappy even while at Ssäm Bar, and by the end of the night I was done for. (It didn't help that we had run around so much in the cold—a cute dress under a thin wool coat and arctic wind just don't mix.) So when JL and LB asked where we wanted to meet for dinner, nothing sounded appealing until TL mentioned a Vietnamese restaurant AS had recently recommended. A giant bowl of hot, steamy pho seemed like just the thing.

We met at Pho So 1 on Mott Street, a below-ground restaurant with a cheery yellow awning and equally cheery service. TL ordered summer rolls and I tried a piece of bánh cuon, which were steamed rice flour crepes filled with a mixture of minced vegetables, shrimp, and meat, served with nuoc cham and pieces of the circular "pork loaf" often found in bánh mì. Unfortunately, I wasn't into the mushy texture and muddled flavor of the dish. It might have been a proper version but for me it was a pass.

The pho, however, was just what I needed. JL, TL, and I each got the house version, and it arrived in a seriously massive bowl brimming with rice noodles, beef balls, and pieces of tendon, rib eye, and flank. The flavor of the broth was great—meaty, clean, and fragrant—and we all agreed it was among the best any of us had ever had. Each sip was wonderfully soothing and felt perfect for my aching throat.

I've heard more good things about Pho So 1 since, and I'm excited to try some of the other things on their menu. If the pho we had is any indicator, the rest is definitely promising.

New Year's Eve at Momofuku Ssäm Bar and Milk Bar

Maybe my hands were shaking from excitement when I took these photos.

A month or so before New Year's Eve, I took the liberty of making a dinner reservation for eight at Momofuku Ssäm Bar. I had a specific purpose in mind, and probably at least some of you recognize the above picture for what it is: the whole roasted pork butt served as the feature of their bo ssäm. For those unfamiliar with what that is, it's basically the massive hunk of meat you see above accompanied by white rice, different sauces, a platter of raw oysters, and bibb lettuce, and you're meant to use the pieces of lettuce as wrappers for meaty mouthfuls of the rest. In other words, a pig-fest, straight up.

I made the reservation without knowing who would join me, and then basically did a call-out to friends to see who was down. Luckily we ended up with the full eight (you do need at least six people in order to make a bo ssäm reservation), because I don't know how any fewer can get through this meal.

I didn't realize exactly how much food we'd be getting at first, though. So when the server said that most groups getting the bo ssäm usually also get four or five starters, I thought we were being conservative by only ordering three.

The cult-following pork buns from the Momofuku empire don't actually impress me that much—especially since the price of them is so steep (an order of two costs nine bucks; that's $4.50 per, yo!). People seem to talk about them as one of the greatest inventions ever, but if you look at Peking Duck or the Taiwanese gua bao, it's really nothing that new. What Momofuku does offer, though, is a high-quality variation using good ingredients, and so for that I suggested getting them, especially since others at the table hadn't tried 'em before.

The other two starters we ordered were the honeycrisp apple kimchi, with "burger's smoked jowl, maple labne, arugula" and the satur farm's fried brussels sprouts, with "mint, scallions, fish sauce vinaigrette." I liked the first dish a lot, which was basically pieces of honeycrisp tossed in a kimchi puree and paired with bacon and yogurt. And even though TL usually doesn't like brussel sprouts, he was quite fond of the Momofuku rendition, going back for seconds and even thirds of the stuff.

Then came the bo ssäm:

Glorious, fatty, gigantic, meltingly tender and flavoful pork butt, the meat coming right off the bone. There's about seven pounds of pig on that platter.

Platter of oysters; bibb lettuce. In the bowls: kimchi, kimchi puree, scallion sauce, and sweet pepper paste. You can consume the bo ssäm any way you like, but my favorite method—stolen from TL—was to fold a bit of meat, a bit of rice, a bit of sweet pepper paste, and a whole raw oyster into a lettuce leaf and to eat that in a few bites. In that way the brininess of the oysters playing off the meat was maximized. Who knew those two would work so well together?

We tried mightily, but damn, we just could not get through it all. Our bellies were straining and there was still a pile of meat left on the plate. Even a dare to TC with several hundred dollars at stake didn't result in her polishing it off…not even close.

Everyone knows there's always extra room in the stomach for dessert, though, so after our meal we trooped through the back of Ssäm Bar to the adjoining and newly opened Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar. I shared a piece of the pumpkin blondie pie with TL, which was good but so dense and sweet I only wanted a few bites. I also had a piece of GQ's blueberry cream cookie, which was absolutely delicious—tender and rich and buttery and crisp and full of fruit. If we didn't have several parties to attend afterward, I would have seriously considered getting a whole one for myself. As it was, I'd already gone beyond my limit—I spent the remainder of the night trying to gracefully digest. Lesson learned: eat light on New Year's Eve, not decadent.

Christmas at the Lins'

This is the humble Christmas meal I had with my family: sauteed zucchini, roasted potatoes, cornbread stuffing, popovers, gravy, and a roasted turkey. Not bad for four people, no? We basically had Thanksgiving again.

I couldn't resist making a sandwich out of one of the popovers, which had a nice little hollow in the middle perfect for filling with turkey, stuffing, and gravy. Mmm. And for dessert, there was more pumpkin cake!

A visitor in town, part 1: Thanksgiving, away from home

I'm way late with my Thanksgiving post (surprise, surprise) but I couldn't go without posting about the delicious meal that we had.

TL was flying in that afternoon, and CH and MH had invited us to Thanksgiving dinner with several other friends at their house. I had spent the morning and the day before preparing several dishes for the feast—stuffing, creamed corn and spinach, orange-cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream—and I thought we had quite a load to ferry over. But as you can see, others contributed to make the meal simply enormous. Along with what I had made, there was a juicy, flavorful turkey, a green bean casserole with fried onions, potatoes roasted with herbs and whole cloves of garlic, a breadcrumb-topped vegetable dish, mushroom gravy, and a pan of pecan-crusted sweet potato puree that TL couldn't get enough of.

The creamed corn and spinach I made was essentially this creamed succotash recipe with spinach swapped in for lima beans (I couldn't choose between making straight creamed corn or straight creamed spinach, so I combined the two).

I used a bag of Pepperidge Farm herb seasoned stuffing and a bag of their cornbread stuffing as the bread base for my sausage and apple stuffing. To make it, first I browned a pound of Italian sausage in a skillet (I used the Boulder Sausage brand), breaking it up into crumbles. In a different pot, I melted one stick of butter and added in two cups of chopped onion, four cups of diced celery (I used the entire bundle, because I didn't feel like having leftover celery around), and two cups of diced Fuji apples (next time I'll add the apples in a little later, as they cooked too long and became indistinguishable from the celery). After the veggies were cooked, I poured in four cups of organic chicken broth.

Once the broth began simmering, it was time to combine the broth and vegetable mixture with the stuffing croutons. The tricky part, I've found, is doing it evenly. If you pour over all the broth at once, as directions sometimes indicate, some of the croutons turn sodden while others remain dry or stay hard in the center. What I did was ladle the broth/vegetable mixture a few scoops at a time, turning over the moistened areas so that the dry parts got uncovered. By slowly adding it in, I ensured that the stuffing mixture absorbed the broth consistently. As for the sausage crumbles, I added them in as I added the broth and veggies.

Once at the house, the pan went into the oven uncovered to heat and crisp up. At the table the stuffing was well received, with fans even among those usually uninterested or picky with stuffing. I had made a huge pan, and it was more than half gone by the end of the meal.

Here's me plate. Man, I wish I could eat everything on it again right now.

For dessert I baked two pumpkin pies, one classic recipe and one that I decided to jazz up with a layer of orange-cranberry sauce at the bottom of the crust and swirled into the top. The latter got mixed reviews: while some really dug it, others remained steadfast to the classic. I thought the cranberry worked and added a nice tartness to the pie, but in the end I, too, still liked the classic version better.

Mustn't forget there was whipped cream to top our slices, and I daresay the whipped cream was the real winner here. Ever make your own? Super easy: using an electric mixer, beat one cup of very cold heavy cream with one tablespoon of powdered sugar or 1/4 cup granulated sugar until soft peaks form; add in a half teaspoon of vanilla extract at the end. Voila: about two cups of fluffy white crack.

We also tried these chocolate-covered potato chips, a local specialty of Dayton, Ohio. There, Mike-sells is considered to be the best in potato chips and Esther Price the best in chocolate, so this combination is the best of two sweet and salty worlds.

As you can see, the chocolate enrobing the potato chip was quite thick. It was clearly of high quality, but because of the ratio of chocolate to potato chip I could barely taste the 'tater aside from its crunch. It was actually sort of like Krackel, with better chocolate.

I think it could benefit from fleur de sel on top, for extra oomph to the salty-sweet, but that's probably too fancypants.

Bear got in on the clean-up action. She knew what she had been missing.

This year, for the first time ever, I spent Thanksgiving away from my family. At the beginning of the semester I had thought it might be a night I passed alone. Instead, I spent the evening among great company and friends, eating delicious food and sharing in cheer and laughter. With TL's presence providing a little bit of home, I was full of thanks indeed.

A Visitor in Town
Day 1: Thanksgiving, away from home
Day 2: Silver Grill Cafe, Red Robin
Day 3: Earl's, Sri Thai, Rio Grande
Day 4: Cafe Bluebird, Celestial Seasonings tour, Sherpa's
Day 5: Nyala Ethiopian Cuisine, Austin's American Grill

Pre-Thanksgiving: Creamed succotash, orange-cranberry sauce

Here are two things I made for a graduate teaching assistant Thanksgiving potluck—which took place two and a half weeks before actual Thanksgiving Day. Now you see how behind I am.

Because I had both corn and lima beans, I took a recipe for creamed corn and a recipe for lima beans in cream and mashed them together to make what I later realized was a creamed succotash. It turned out really well! Here's the recipe:

Take half an onion, minced, and cook it in half a stick of melted butter until it is translucent. Add the kernels from about six or seven ears of corn and a one-pound bag of frozen lima beans. Add half a cup of water, bring to a boil, and then lower heat and allow the vegetable to simmer for about ten or fifteen minutes to cook through. Add a cup of half-and-half (both recipes call for heavy cream, but I decided to lighten things up a little). Simmer over low heat until the lima beans plump up and the corn is tender. Add salt and pepper to taste; I had to add a bit of sugar too as the corn I used was not quite sweet enough on its own, but you may not have to.

This makes quite a large potful, somewhere between 2.5 and 3 quarts, I think.

I also made cranberrry sauce for the first time, following the directions for "Fresh Cranberry Sauce" on the bag of Ocean Spray cranberries I bought. Always one to gild the lily, though, I substituted a cup of orange juice for the cup of water, and cut back the sugar by a third to compensate for the sugar in the orange juice. Unfortunately, while the final result was good it didn't boast much orange flavor. Zest would definitely help next time.

I liked watching the berries pop as they simmered, gradually softening and releasing their juices until the sauce was a deep, rich crimson. Making cranberry sauce is fun.

At SON's house, the table was loaded with food: classics like turkey, stuffing, rolls, and mashed potatoes side by side with greek-style pasta and deviled eggs. Later, there was homemade pecan pie and vanilla ice cream to top it. Altogether a fine preview to the feasting in store later on.

Kimbap and calamari on the Fourth of July

On the Fourth of July (yes I am behind) a bunch of us decided that after three years of talking about it, we would try to catch the fireworks from the Long Island City piers, reportedly one of the best spots available. RT had gone the first year he had moved to New York, and described the view as being amazing. "They look like they're falling on your head," were his words. Year after year we had foregone the piers in favor of something else, but this year, it was time.

We arrived early to stake out a spot, which was unusually good planning on our end as later on the piers were closed to keep from overcrowding. Only with bracelets could we come back in and out.

For food, we picnicked Asian style: with a huge load of kimbap that GQ and JL went to pick up in Flushing beforehand (the above is only some of the spread). We also brought hummus, grapes, crackers, and a giant tub of cut-up watermelon. I don't know where they got it from, but the kimbap was pretty damn good, with the spicy tuna version (bottom) being the best.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't very cooperative that day, and soon after we ate the first clouds started rolling in. As the sky darkened around us and the drops started falling, the eleven of us packed up our food and cuddled up against one another under umbrellas. The rain came and went, never pouring, but never quite stopping, either. If it hadn't been so warm out still, we might never have stuck it out.

Four hours and two games of Mafia later, the fireworks began. And this was our magnificent view:

I shit you not. Unannounced to practically everyone, the fireworks this year had shifted forty blocks south in order to better showcase the New York City skyline. The hundreds of people standing on the piers clearly had no idea; we certainly didn't. And after everyone had waited for so many hours in the rain, let's just say that after our inital shock there was some slight bitterness around.

All was not lost, however. After shuffling through the hoards of people leaving the piers after the show ended, we ducked into Jackson Avenue Steak House for some drinks and a break, where plates of calamari—salty, hot, and crisp; tender and greaseless; and paired with a perfect, chunky, clearly house-made marinara—made practically everyone happy. It wasn't fireworks, but for hungry people on a rainy, frustrating day, it was pretty spectacular.

Egg Tards

For the Lunar New Year, I wanted to bring in something tasty to share with my coworkers. In previous years, I had made kai kou xiao, or "laughing cookies": round, sesame-encrusted sweets that are so named because the split that appears in the cookie after it is deep-fried has the shape of an open, laughing mouth. However, this year I wanted to do something different, so I opted to bring in a bunch of dan ta, or egg custard tarts.

The night before Lunar New Year's Eve, my brother and I ran around five or six different bakeries in Chinatown, hunting for the best versions before I had to make my way to Amazing 66 for this meal. In one bakery, from which my brother ended up picking up a few dozen, one woman gave me a dan ta made with only egg whites to sample. To my surprise, it tasted just as eggy as its yolkier brethren, which I suppose makes it a good choice for people trying to watch their cholesterol levels (just don't fool yourself into thinking that it's healthy).

Unfortunately I don't remember which bakery I ultimately purchased mine from. What I do remember is that I cleaned out the last ones remaining, so the case you see at the top actually had a tray of tarts sitting in there just moments before. Alas, we are only left with Egg Tards.

These were okay, but I've had better. I generally prefer the crusts that are flaky and in layers, as opposed to the crusts that are more like shortbread cookies. This was certainly the flaky kind, but something about the crust just seemed flavorless. It was also a bit soggy, but as I only sampled one the next day, I assume they would be fine eaten fresh.

I always love dan ta, though, no matter what the crust.

Delicious 66

Two nights before the Lunar New Year, I and eleven other food-loving friends met up at Amazing 66 for an early celebration. This wasn't my first time here, as it was for a number of those in attendance, but I was happy to have the opportunity to try other dishes I hadn't gotten to last time. Everything was pretty delicious overall, so here I'll just go through some highlights.

The above is one of two dishes that I had to order a day in advance. A whole chicken, innards and bones removed, stuffed with sticky rice and then deep fried. It was essentially a giant chicken-shaped mass of rice encased in crispy skin. Soooo over the top.

"Salad prawns with walnut" is definitely the oddest dish ever, but it's always had a special place in my heart. Fried shrimp! Candied walnuts! Melon cubes! Broccoli! Cherry tomatoes! Sweet mayo! It doesn't get much trashier, but I'm not complaining. This version was especially well executed, with giant, practically greaseless fried shrimp that were still crispy under a glaze of sweet mayonnaise.

Half order of the "roast chicken with preserved vegetables." The chicken was juicy and tender, and the saucy, salty-sweet veg on top went really well with it (the magical preserved veg was tasty on a bowl of rice as well).

I originally ordered the full size, but the waiter had looked at me disbelievingly: "You already have the sticky rice chicken—you want TWO whole chickens?"

So I gave in and settled on the half.

"Mixed fried seafood." This was fresh-tasting and well fried. Someone in the kitchen is doing a great job at the fry station.

The "beef short rib in pumpkin" is a showstopper, as the waiter brings the steaming pumpkin over to the table whole, and then proceeds to rapidly slice it open, revealing its meaty innards. This is the other dish I had to order in advance, though I think that might not be necessary anymore. At my previous meal at Amazing 66, I thought this dish had came out a bit cold, but this time there was no such problem. MH did complain that the meat wasn't as tender though. Ah well!

We also ordered e-fu noodles with mushrooms, sauteed pea shoots, an oyster and ginger/scallion casserole, pan-fried noodles with seafood, and a whole steamed flounder. And at the end they brought out orange wedges and bowls of hot red-bean-and-tapioca dessert soup, which made for a perfectly sweet ending.

I think we all ate until capacity that night, and to my awe we ended up with only a few leftovers to pack up. But I'll be back again: there have been murmurs of Peking duck for the future!

Feuerzangenbowle

Feuerzangenbowle, or "Fire Pliers Punch," a hot, German-style mulled red wine beverage consumed around the holidays. This cone of compressed sugar was suspended on a large metal tong (like a giant absinthe spoon) and doused with the rum-fortified punch before being lit on fire. As the sugar melted and dripped down into the wine, the fire slowly extinguished, and so the cone had to be relit several more times before our host blew it out to ladle the hot, sweet, spicy wine into our mugs.