fwords

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

A couple of nights ago, I went to an event at BLT Market celebrating four new chip flavors being launched by FoodShouldTasteGood: Yellow Corn, Potato and Chive, Lime, and Cinnamon. To help guests get acquainted with the chips, the team at BLT Market came up with a group of complimentary (what else) DIPS...and cocktails. Seeing as I've been on a major Mexican kick lately, I naturally gravitated toward the Yellow Corn chips, which were paired with a mouth-watering mountain of guacamole and Watermelon Basil Margaritas. Ai ai ai, papi! The recipe was so delicious, I felt compelled to share it here. Remember, Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner!

Guacamole

6 ripe avocados
2 lines
3 jalapenos, cleaned and finely diced
1 Tbsp. cilantro, roughly chopped
1/4 cup red onion, finely diced
1 beefsteak tomato, skinned, de-seeded and diced
1/4 cup sour cream (I would, of course, substitute tofu sour cream here or omit)
6 drops of Tabasco sauce
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Skin and remove core from avocados, then chop into rough hunks. Season with lime juice. Add jalapenos, cilantro, red onion, and tomato. Mix lightly. Add sour cream (or soy substitute, if using) and Tabasco. Mix, but keep chunky. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with FoodShouldTasteGood Yellow Corn chips.

Yields: 1 Quart

Jelly Roll: Winner!

As he was the only person who actually competed for the five boxes of Jell-O I was giving away yesterday, Gordon Lightfoot is unanimously pronounced winner!

Gordon, see you when I get home.

As for the rest of you,  I suspect that retelling stories is not the best way to get you all to play. The response decreased with the past two consecutive giveaways. So I will resume haiku and other Suessian forms of competition moving forward. More fun freebies are on the way!

Jelly Roll

It's Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday. To mark the third giveaway on my blog, I thought I'd go for an all-time childhood fave: Jell-O! Five boxes tied up with a bow, in fact. The flavors include strawberry, raspberry, lemon, island pineapple and chocolate pudding. Yum! (I can't even believe I am giving this away.)

For a chance to win these naturally fat-free treats, in the comment section below please retell your favorite Cosby Show episode, as best you can recall (embellishments are fine). (Bill Cosby was a Jell-O brand spokesperson for years, after all!) The funniest retelling wins! Extra points for anyone who includes "Bud."

Happy Jell-O Day!

Fly Me Away

Remember that scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts' character Vivian tries to buy some respectable clothing at a fancy boutique and no one will help her? Then, the following day, the concierge hooks her up with some of his personal connections and she returns to the store looking fabulous and this exchange takes place...

Shop assistant: Hello, can I help you?
Vivian: I was in here yesterday, you wouldn't wait on me.
Shop assistant: Oh.
Vivian: You people work on commission, right?
Shop assistant: Yes.
Vivian: Big mistake. Big. Huge. I have to go shopping now.

I always looooved that scene.

I bring it up because over the weekend, I experienced something like the foodie equivalent to Vivian's  shopping snub: On our drive back from New Hampshire where we had gone indoor skydiving (skyenturenh.com I highly recommend it), we spotted a road sign for a local winery along the highway. Us being us, we decided to get off at the next exit and track down the little vineyard to take in some Massachusetts flavor. It took us about 10 minutes to find it, not being familiar with the back roads but we were pleasantly surprised once we arrived. It was adorable and rustic, abutting a craggly orchard and offering picnic tables around a small pond. Inside, visitors were huddled up to the tasting bar sipping away at blends made from apples and pears. It seemed really cool. After perusing the wares, we sidled up to the cashier to purchase a tasting...and were denied because it was a quarter to closing time.

This was disappointing to us, naturally. But I think it was a bad move on the winery's part for a few reasons.

1. Who turns away any customers during a recession?
2. We still bought two bottles to try at home, but probably would have bought many more if we'd been given the opportunity to taste some.
3. I write about food, and might have found a good reason to write about the vineyard in a future article. Now, that's pretty unlikely.

They didn't know this, of course, but it goes to show that you never know who you are dealing with and that it never hurts to work a little overtime in the name of good customer service. It wasn't past closing time and there were plenty of other customers there who would be lingering over their glasses for a while. But apparently these folks can afford to forfeit sales and possible press.

So "big mistake" is what I say to you, Nashoba Valley Winery. Big. HUGE.

I Like You Crazy

I think I just found the worst site with possibly the worst bunch of food jokes ever known to man:

Here's the link if you feel like killing yourself:

http://www.food-jokes.co.uk/

And here is the only slightly funny one that I found, and by slightly I mean I winced:

Waitress, do you serve crabs?

Sit down, sir—we serve anyone.

Pictures On The Sidewalk

On eater.com today, an alert was posted that Carroll Gardens' neighborhood fave Gowanus Yacht club will open up its al fresco dining space on Friday. The anticipation has been building for a while, as the weather has slowly crept into the high 50s and low 60s in NYC. So I am sure GYC will be mobbed this weekend!

It got me thinking about other outdoor spaces in and around the city that I look forward to kicking back at with a cocktail and/or some nibbles once it turns balmy. So I decided to create a list:

Top 5 Places You Might See fwords This Summer

1. Brook'vin: The new wine bar in Park Slope already has a cult following of locals keeping "office hours" with a plate of Jaegerwurst and a glass of Rioja. And it's bound to get even busier once it opens the backyard patio!

2. Zabloski's: I didn't realize how much I missed this place until I grabbed a beer there with a friend the other night before a Mates of State show. It technically doesn't have an outdoor space, but when the front facade is removed, it's downright windy in there! (A close second in Williamsburg will be Radegast Hall & Biergarten, no doubt.)

3. The Brooklyn Flea: This gigantic flea market in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, is about to take its wares outdoors. Among them are some pretty prime gourmet vendors such as Saxelby Cheesemongers and Waffles & Dinges...kind of a one-stop-nosh, if you ask me.

4. Water Taxi Beach: Never made it here last summer, and so it's on my hit list again. everyone says it's the best fake beach around (albeit, the only one). I figure, you really can't go wrong with a cook who serves PBRs alongside elk burgers and fish tacos.

5. The Pool at SoHo House: This last is only if one of my member friends decides to take pity and invite me. But I am hoping a little love in the form of homemade cookies will open some sesames.

And depending upon who's playing...this might be numero 6.

Tiger Mountain Peasant Song

Keeping Tabs

Where We Ate: Peasant
Where It's At: 194 Elizabeth St # A, New York, NY 10012

What To Expect: The exposed brick walls and distressed-wood tables of the dining room flicker with candlelight, imitating the open-fire cooking and brick-oven-baked pizzas being made in the rear kitchen. Though the black-clad waitress appeared aloof, she was actually quite affable and knowledgeable about the dish preparations and wine menu. Close-quarters made for easy eavesdropping on fashionable gay couples and May-December romances, both of which we were sandwiched between throughout the night. With a 7:30 reservation on a Friday night, we watched the room go from half-empty to roaringly full—a good mix of romantic and bustling.

What They're Serving: All of the pan-Italian menu options are presented in the mother tongue, with minor English translations written in subscript. Appetizers are heavy on seafood such as razor clams with homemade breadcrumbs and olive oil, sardines in a opera-worthy gravy made from pan juices and herbs, or a spicy baby octopus and chili peppers—do NOT mistake them for green beans as I did. :) Whole-roasted fish, lamb and suckling pig with fingerling potatoes tempt you to travel the Italian countryside for your entrees, while desserts like a quince tart and flourless chocolate cake are more like delicious American-immigrant hybrids. Which I can dig.

We Effing Loved: The Tagliatini with Sea Urchin is like the food version of the Venus de Milo—sensual, creamy orange clouds of sea urchin melt along golden veins of olive oil and garlic as it's swirled around a nest of al dente pasta with each forkful. It looked beautiful, and I am not ashamed to say that, like the venus de Milo, I have caught myself staring at pictures of it for immeasurable gaps of time since our visit. Simple in its execution, yet decadent considering the quality of its ingredients, its a dish I would never prepare at home but feel I could eat every day for the rest of my life...if it weren't already designated for dinner in heaven.

Red Wine, Success!: Winner!

All of the entries for this competition made me LAUGH! Oh my goodness. If I had four bottles of wine to give away, I would. But since I cannot, I can only name the following person winner of the Cabernet.

And that person is...

KT

A truly debaucherous tale of a love affair with wine gone wrong, if ever there was one.

Thank you to everyone who participated. Please try again next week when I raffle off something entirely different and fun!

xoxo
J

Red Wine, Success!

Well, it's Tuesday again and you know what that means...freebie-time! Today I am giving away a bottle of Robert Mondavi Private Selection Cabernet Sauvignon. It's described as displaying "dark cherry, berry and chocolate aromas and flavors characteristic of high-quality California Cabs. With seamless structure, velvety tannins, well-integrated oak and rich fruit character enhanced by the addition of small amounts of Syrah, Merlot and Petite Sirah."

How can you get your wino hands on it? Well first of all, you have to be 21 or over. Then, in the comments section below, just tell me your best or funniest story about wine. The one that I deem to be the best, wins!

(These can be but do not have to be gross-out stories. For instance, a friend of mine recently told me about a trip to a Napa vineyard where he ended up palling around with the winemaker for a few hours. This friend, a vegetarian for yeeears, walked away with a whole chicken that the winemaker had slaughtered earlier that morning...the vintner was convinced it would bring my friend back to the world of carnivores. And maybe he did; my friend said despite his misgivings, the meat was delicious. Crazy story. That's what I'm talking about.)

Oye

Sometimes I get an idea stuck in my head and there's just no going back. For instance, there was no real rhyme or reason behind it, but about a month ago I decided that I wanted to have an intimate Mexican-themed birthday party with margaritas, nachos (both meaty-cheesy versions and meat-free/non-dairy versions) and mariachi music. Thankfully I am surrounded by loving people who don't mind indulging my random fantasies. My sister and her fiance brought sombreros. Friends contributed homemade guacamole and six-packs of Tecate. And Jason naturally came up with three versions of margaritas to make—traditional, blueberry-pomegranate, or blood orange-flavored. The last were a beautiful ruby color and citrusy sweet. They definitely kicked things off Saturday night! Following is the original recipe from Blue Smoke that he adapted. Ole!

Blue Smoke's Blood-Orange Margarita

FOR THE BLOOD-ORANGE PURÉE:
4 blood oranges, peeled, segmented, and seeded
1 Tbsp simple syrup (combine an even ratio of sugar and water in a bottle and shake until sugar is dissolved)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice

FOR THE MARGARITA:
1 lime wedge and coarse salt for rim
Ice
2 oz. puro blanco tequila
1 1/2 oz. fresh lime juice (approximately 21/2 limes)
3/4 oz. orange liqueur
1/2 oz. simple syrup
3/4 oz. blood-orange purée
1 lime wheel (optional)
1 blood-orange wheel (optional)

FOR THE BLOOD-ORANGE PURÉE: In a blender, combine the orange segments, simple syrup, and lemon juice and purée until smooth. (Cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to use; the purée will keep for up to two days.) 

FOR THE MARGARITA: Moisten the edge of a rocks glass with a ¼-inch wedge of lime. Sprinkle a good amount of salt on a plate and press the outside rim of the glass into the salt. Chill glass in freezer for a few minutes. Fill cocktail shaker and glass with ice. Add the tequila, lime juice, orange liqueur, simple syrup, and blood-orange purée to the shaker and

(1)

shake vigorously.

(2)

Strain into glass and

(3)

garnish with orange and lime wheels.

MMMMMM.