October 5, 2005
the hamentashen compells you
- hamantaschen
[A quick aside: I've become accustomed to spelling it "hamentashen" but there are a whole bunch of different ways. I chose what I thought was easiest. Bwahaha.]
Remember how I said I'd try to not eat wheat because it may possibly put my life into great wheezy danger? Well, just like a crack addict goes back to the dealer for a burst of euphoria (not that I've had crack...), my legs directed me towards the north end of the Union Square Greenmarket where I knew hamentashen lay, waiting in bounteous piles of triangular, poppy seed-filled babies (triangular babies are in; ask your local geneticist). It's not something you see very often.
And what a damn fine hamentashen it was. While smaller and less rich than the ones from Moishe's Bakery (whose hamentashen fill me up to the brim, rendering me unable to frolic, I ate the whole Baker's Bounty one in a single go without a problem; it was practically my dinner), I'd definitely buy this again. It was just really good. No complaints.
My wheat indulgence began earlier in the day after doing my second "off site" lab for Food Production and Management. I started off cutting cauliflower, then going on to slicing peppers and traying lumps of frozen cookie dough (oh, delicious lumps). Traying all the white chocolate chunk cookie lumps left behind wayward orphan white chocolate chunks. Hm. What DOES Robyn do in this situation?
*munch* TIME TO EAT SOME TASTY ORPHANS!
Yes, the first thing I ate today was a chunk of white chocolate. Unlike many other people, I have no qualms against white chocolate; hell, I like ALL chocolate, although by "all" I mean the three major categories: dark, milk, and white. I won't touch plain cacao beans; they taste like something scrapped off the floor of the third level of Hell. In other words, it's not so good. Although I was offered a freshly baked cookie, I hadn't yet decided to go full-throttle with my wheat eating (I ingested a bit of frozen cookie dough stuck to the chocolate chunks, but I decided that the amount was negligible)...until my classmate and I were let out two hours early, giving me a lot of time to partake in one my favorite pasttime.
LEAFBLOWING! I mean. FOODING! Yeah. Oh, but before that, I'll fill you in on some more advice the head chef, David, told me. He could immediately tell (well, after being in my presence for less than 4 hours over the past two weeks) that I didn't believe in myself. I guess it's painfully obvious; I'm doomed. He could also tell that I wasn't much of a kitchen worker, thus leading him to recommend that I try going for some kind of front-of-the-house hotel management position. Now, even though I'm no chef, I'm not a people-person either. I can be pleasant but I'd probably go insane from having to deal with ...uh, humans. He knows that I spend a lot of time on the computer and was probably disappointed when I informed him that I had no experience in hacking (he asked me!).
Oh well. Fooding!
- hummus and stuff
I went to The Hummus Place per the recommendations of several people. It's a small place but it wasn't too crowded when I went around noon. I'm not very familiar with hummus but I ate just about all the food placed in front of my face (that tends to happen), which was a bowl of tahini hummus with a hard boiled egg, drizzled with olive oil, two warm pitas, a plate of pickles and onions, and some hot sauce. My first bite of hummus burst (boy, that sounds painful; "My first bite hemorhagged with deliciousness!") with tahini, which makes sense since it was...tahini hummus. But they must've used really good tahini. The hummus was super-creamy and tahini-filled (yup, that's all I can come up with), which is great for people who like tahini (me), but by the end of my meal as hummus filled my blood vessels, I felt unbalanced eating all that hummus at one meal. Maybe I just don't like it enough. I'd definitely go back to try the other flavors.
I probably shouldn't have eaten the white chocolate beforehand. Oops.
After my meal, I headed to the Greenmarket despite my full stomach. I had a slight urge to try the Otto Gelato Cart at the NW corner of Washington Square Park but I wasn't in the mood for gelato; I was in the mood for WHEAT, and its amber, sugar-filled waves of diet-killing prowess.
- chocolate chip walnut cookie
So besides the hamentashen, I also bought this chocolate chip walnut cooking from Bread Alone. My reasoning is that I've never tried any of their cookies and I generall try a cookie from every vendor (I haven't actually tried all of them, surprisingly considering my level of consumption, which hovers around the "dude, this isn't a contest" mark). The cookie had good flavor but the texture wasn't to my liking. It wasn't a chewy or hard and crispy, but a little too crumbly while not being dry. It's not a bad cookie, just not one I really like.
While Milk and Cookies may not make amazing cookies, they have a freshly baked tasted and texture that I loved. Man, I gotta go back.
I don't remember the last time I ate that much food on a Wednesday before my cooking class; I usually don't have the time to eat anything. Crap. My cooking class wasn't very exciting since we made broths and composed soups, but if you're curious enough...
- look, broth
- look, soup
If I really liked soup, I'd say more about this. Surprisingly perhaps, I liked my group's soup the most out of all the groups. We seemed to have the simplest recipe of chicken broth (we mixed pre-packed chicken broth with water, dry white wine, and simmered it with chicken wings) infused with star anise over roasted root vegetables and roasted squash. Our composed soup was a mix of yellows and oranges while everyone else's had more components. All the soups tasted good but our broth tasted most flavorful. I wasn't surprised that ours was flavorful as much as I was surprised that I thought everyone else's was less so. Hm.
Tomorrow should be a non-wheat day.
Posted by roboppy at 10:47 PM
Comments (6)
You crack me up. I love your silly sense of humor.
I wish we had a restaurant called The Hummus Place nearby. Actually, if we did, my husband would probably move in there because he lives off of hummus. All I have to do to keep him happy is keep hummus and pita in the house.
Oh, and I want to hear more about how you made that broth. Do you have any measurements or proportions? It sounds delicious!
Posted by: Beth - The Zen Foodist at October 7, 2005 5:42 PM [#]
I've never tried a hamantaschen. Come to think of it, I'ev never tried any genuine Jewish baked goodies before. I've had to make them myself, challah included.
I envy your food jaunts. You must be my tour guide when I get to NY, whenever that will be. First stop: Moishe's!
I liked this post, Robyn. It was full of literary color and imagery. Provocative.
PS: I also hated the soups part in culinary school. Broths are boring to make, but they are the structure of classical cuisine.
Thanks very much.
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Yay! I'm so happy you went to the hummus place - thats one beatiful looking bowl of hummus (although i have to agree that its a lot of hummus to eat in one sitting). But oh so warm, soft and tahini-y (is that a word?), its such a comfort food! Ive never tried a hamentashen before but am in the process of looking for one...such baked goods are much harder to find in LA. Thanks again for mailing over the syllabus, I cant wait to get it and finally get credit for the class!
Posted by: Kathy at October 6, 2005 12:52 AM [#]